The Institute of Directors (IoD) is the UK’s biggest membership organisation for business leaders and therefore one of the most influential.
The Government listens to what they and their members say and so when my pal Alex Mitchell invited me to join ‘The IoD 99‘, a new group of ‘young and innovative entrepreneurs’ in December, the answer was of course “Yes!”
My membership has already paid off by having the opportunity to ask a question to the Prime Minister David Cameron as part of an exclusive interview for their Director magazine.
Here’s what I asked, the PM’s reply and my response to his answer. You can also read the full (and excellent) interview online at http://www.director.co.uk/david-cameron-exclusive/
Thanks to Dan Martin for featuring my question to David Cameron in an article on BusinessZone.co.uk at http://www.businesszone.co.uk/topic/business-trends/david-cameron-im-governments-micro-business-minister/59516
What a travesty of response - if Cameron wants to claim he is the micro business Minister, then we don’t need Ministers for any other sector of society. The truth is that the department of BIS contains few Ministers with any business experience and apart from Nick Boles no one with any micro-small experience. Indeed Cameron has no experience of running any business. The SME procurement target makes no distinction on the different sizes of business. A real difference would be to measure procurement by Micro, Small and Medium Businesses. At least that would enable us to know how little procurement from micro businesses takes place.
Thanks to the IoD’s Director magazine for saying the appointment of Anna Soubry, the UK’s first Minister for Small Business was down to me http://www.director.co.uk/news-anna-soubry-first-minister-for-small-business-4-june-2015/ I can’t really take credit for this but the IoD is very influential so who knows, perhaps David Cameron and his aides did take notice…? ;o)