‘It’s much harder to be a crook at the top’
Writer sees improvement in business world’s ethics
IT’S MUCH harder to be a crooked businessman than it used to be, according to Tom Bower, the journalist who is best known for uncovering corporate scandals.
Mr Bower, who wrote a highly critical unauthorised biography of Robert Maxwell, said he believed the ethics and integrity of the business world had improved in recent years.
Mr Bower, who was the keynote speaker at The Yorkshire Business Awards organised by Variety, the Children’s Charity, said that modern regulators are far more aware of corporate dishonesty.
Speaking before the awards, he told The Yorkshire Post: “The people I’ve covered in the past like Robert Maxwell.. those people would find it much harder now to become multi- billionaires and great power moguls.”
“It’s much easier to discover a dishonest man now that it was before. So that’s changed a lot, but on the other hand they are not the sort of giants that they were.”
Mr Bower also confirmed he had started work on a biography of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson
Mr Bower said: “I quickly discovered he’s quite a complicated person.
“One of the old girlfriends said, ‘You will find it very difficult to discover the truth, because Alexander Boris Johnson is really three people.
“There’s Alexander, there’s Al and there’s Boris. Often he doesn’t know himself which one he is, So it isn’t easy. I’m still doing the research now.”
Mr Bower found fame as an investigative reporter for the BBC’s Panorama and his other work has included unauthorised biographies of Gordon Brown, Richard Branson, Formula One executive Bernie Ecclestone and the Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn,
The Yorkshire Post is the media partner for the awards lunch, which this year raised at least £120,000 for Variety, the children’s charity.
Awards were presented by the compere Louise Minchin, the BBC Breakfast presenter to leading figures from Yorkshire’s business community.
The Business leader of the year award went to Frank Hester of Leeds-based TPP, the healthcare technology company.
The board of the year trophy went to Croda, the chemicals firm, which is based in East Yorkshire. The SME of the year was Sewtec, the industrial automation specialist and the standout small business award was presented to rradar, the specialist litigation and commercial law firm.
There will be further coverage of the awards in our Business Tuesday supplement.