Jo Swinson on building an economy that works for everyone

24 Jul

How can we make the "new economy", just "the economy"?

In our July xChange Paul Skinner, founder of MarketingKind, interviews Jo Swinson, former MP and leader of the Liberal Democrats, author of Equal Power and Director of Partners for a New Economy, to explore this question and more.

If you're interested in how business, politics and civil society can work together to create a fairer, more sustainable future, this conversation offers fresh thinking, practical insights and reasons for optimism.

In this xChange

We discuss Jo's time in politics (including co-founding a cross-party parliamentary group dedicated to wellbeing economics), why she wrote Equal Power and her current role as Director of Partners for a New Economy (a philanthropic collective dedicated to funding initiatives transforming economic thinking and practice).

Jo shares that although the narratives around wellbeing have gone up and down over time, the last OECD conference on wellbeing, for instance, attracted huge numbers of participants and high level government representatives from around the world.

She inspires us with antidotes to polarisation, agency to change gender norms (which are unhelpful for both men and women), and how we might create public demand for significant change.

Why listen?

This isn't just a conversation about economics. It's about the stories we tell, the systems we create and the choices that shape the future.

Whether you're a marketer, business leader, policymaker or changemaker, you'll come away with new perspectives on how we can build an economy that delivers prosperity, wellbeing and opportunity for more people.

Continue the conversation

Paul highlights the crossovers between this discussion and our previous xChanges with Tim Jackson on The Care Economy, Will Hutton on the ‘We society’, Polly Mackenzie on purposeful enterprise and Andy Burnham on devolution to counter the silos of central government.