Surely, the ultimate consigliere (counsellor) would not need to be defended from awkward questions? Yet Barclays Bank CEO John Varley rushes to stop John Studzinski from having to answer a query on whether he had been “kicked upstairs” at HSBC.
The question was framed as it would be if interviewing UK prime minister Tony Blair – one would have to ask him whether he was planning to resign, even if the interview was about, say, education reform. Picking up on this and following on from Mr Varley’s heated defence of him, Mr Studzinski seamlessly shifts the answer into one about government and how helpful it had been with the issues that preoccupied him as chairman of Business Action on Homelessness (BAOH), a role that Mr Varley has just taken over.
