The Japan Society

Upcoming Events

ARCHIVED Business, Japan, and the World in Pink: a conversation with Lionel Barber

Thursday 26 November 2020 / 12:00pm
Business, Japan, and the World in Pink: a conversation with Lionel Barber

Date
Thursday 26 November 2020
Time
12.00 noon – 1.00pm (GMT)

9.00pm (JST)
Check the time in your location

Booking Details
Free – Donations Welcome
Registration essential

Book online here

The activities of the Japan Society are made possible thanks to the support of its members. This event is free of charge and open to all. We realise that this is a difficult time for many people. However, if you are planning to attend and do not have a membership subscription as an individual or through your employer, please consider making a donation. You can find details of membership and how to join the Japan Society community here.


For our next webinar, Japan Society chairman Bill Emmott will be joined by Lionel Barber, former editor of the Financial Times, to take stock of 2020, reflect on changes in the media world and explore one of the latest and most prominent UK-Japan business combinations.

The FT saw great change under Lionel Barber’s leadership from 2005-2020 with a transformation of the famous pink broadsheet to a digital-first publication, dependent no longer on advertising but now with one million paid subscribers worldwide. Moreover, 2015 saw the Nikkei company taking over the FT from Pearson in one of the most headline grabbing Japanese acquisitions in recent years, pipping Germany’s Springer at the last minute. How has that change of ownership gone for this quintessentially British publication? What commercial future do the FT and Nikkei foresee together?

Lionel Barber joined the Financial Times in the mid-1980s, having worked previously at the Scotsman, the Sunday Times and as a Laurence Stern fellow at the Washington Post. He worked for the FT in Washington, Brussels and New York, before becoming editor in 2005. During his 14-year-long editorship the FT won many international awards for its journalism and, as editor, he interviewed many of the world’s leaders in business and politics, including: US President Barack Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President of Iran Hassan Rouhani. His new book, a chronicle of his period as editor, The Powerful and the Damned: Private Diaries in Turbulent Times was published by WH Allen in November.

Explore our series of webinars with leading experts in politics, economy and media. More details on upcoming events and past webinar videos HERE