THE BUSINESS CHIEF INTERVIEW
Never stay too long( he stayed 19 years) A former editor of the FT told him, years before it applied,“ Never stay too long”, and then proved he meant it. The man had a ten-year plan and a date, and when September 11 handed him the kind of world crisis that excuses any leader for clinging on, he left as planned with a successor ready.“ In my situation, I can hardly be accused of going too soon.” What he had instead of a date were two numbers agreed with Nikkei: one million paid subscribers and,“ particularly scarily”, £ 50m( US $ 67m) of operating profit. The million came in 2019, a year early. The £ 50m took until 2025, on the back of a 41 % jump to £ 42.2m the year before, and once the second number was in the books, he handed over on 30 June to Jon Slade, his Chief Commercial Officer.“ At the FT it’ s not just a question of leadership, it’ s a question of stewardship,” he says.“ You have inherited this extraordinary organisation which has been made successful by generations of predecessors. You have a duty not to overstay and to leave it in strong shape.” The reason he gave staff for going when he did was that a new phase of disruption was under way,“ with challenges ranging from generative AI to generational change”, and he has been getting to know the first of those personally. John’ s own experiment with AI is learning Japanese, and the machine has taught him something about machines.“ It wants to please you. So quite often it’ ll not correct you, and the whole point is
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