Give me Inspiration! The Paradigm Shift with Gillian Tett - 21st November 2023

What do academics actually do? What motivates them to get out of bed each morning and to deliver what is - or in many cases what isn’t - expected of them?
For a student setting out, the life of senior academics may seem very mysterious, particularly as many may end up taking on responsibilities and activities far removed from where an individual started. The trajectory from student to senior academic is rarely a straight line, with twists, setbacks, time out and/or opportunities (taken or declined) all to be combined with a personal life.
This series of conversations aims to explore the individual paths of some eminent academics who have made it to the top in their own particular ways. How have they found their own solutions to ‘life’, what tips do they wish they’d been given earlier on, and what might they view, retrospectively, with most pleasure or regret?
Gillian Tett is Chair of the Editorial Board and Editor-at-large for the US at the Financial Times and Provost of Kings College, Cambridge. She is an award-winning financial journalist and author. An Anthropologist by training, Gillian has written among other books, ‘Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life’ and ‘Fool’s Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe’. She speaks with Athene Donald about how her career has developed and the role that anthropologists can play in helping organisations of all types understand their audiences and avoid tunnel-vision, as well as providing insights into what can be learned and applied from exploring the cultures and views of others to our own work and life.