Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Interviewing for the new CE of the new company to promote Liverpool

I was very pleased and quite proud if I am honest, to be asked to join the interview panel for the new Chair and then this week, interviews for the new Chief Executive of the new Liverpool company which will be formed from the three companies currently charged with developing and promoting Liverpool.

Liverpool Vision, Business Liverpool and Liverpool Land Development Company will be merged into one new company, name as yet unknown, but we did bounce around the suggestion that it could possibly be OneLiverpool.

In a nutshell its job is to sell Liverpool nationally and internationally to attract investment, jobs, so as to enhance regeneration and prosperity.

The interview panel consisted of Cllr Warren Bradley, Cllr Mike Storey, Colin Hilton the Cheif Exec of Liverpool City Council, Liverpool Vision Chair Sir Joe Dwyer, Bernice Law from the NWDA, currently advising the Capital of Culture company, Mike Parker, the new Chair of the new company (and Group Chief Executive of BNFL) and me.

It was meant to have been Cllr Malcolm Kennedy but he could not make it so he suggested me. It probably helped a bit that as an HR professional I interview people all the time and am very fully trained.

I wont say anything about the interviews themselves or the candidates, but it was a very interesting experience and I was given full opportunity to contribute to both the interviewing and the decision making. Sometimes cross-party working can be very difficult and uncomfortable but it was all very professional just as it should be.

I look forward to seeing how the successful candidates take the new company forward and to how Liverpool benefits from their work.

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