SUPPORTING A VIBRANT CITY COMMUNITY
Destination City & lively community
I believe the city should continue to be a vibrant blend of commercial, cultural and residential. We need to make sure the needs of all residents are met, and as well as those who come to the City for work during the week. Additionally, we need to recognise the opportunity of the City as a destination.
I am a strong supporter of the City's 'Destination City' programme. It sets out a vision for the Square Mile to become a world-leading leisure destination for UK and global visitors, workers, and residents to enjoy.
Launched in 2022, it outlines a package of measures designed to boost the vibrancy of the Square Mile, drive forward its recovery from the pandemic and increase its attractiveness to talent.
The CIty has incredible history and with the new Museum of London and Destination City program there is a huge opportunity for the City really be the destination and exceptional place to live and work.
While we are building the City for future generations, we must consider the residents and existing business. Considerate development is highly important - we must make sure residents are heard and disruption is kept minimum and safety at maximum.
Centre for innovation, technology and finance
The City’s success and importance as the world's centre for innovation and new technologies is fundamental. The City has the opportunity to be in centre of the innovation in FinTech, Cybersecurity, IT and finance innovations, the best place in the world to scale a business and take solutions from IP creation through to widespread adoption.
The City experienced a strong rebound from the pandemic. 29,000 jobs were added to the City between 2021 and 2022, which of 16,000 were in computer programming and consultancy.
Financial and professional services produced £294bn in economic output, contributed nearly £100bn in taxes, exported over £150bn and generated nearly £2bn in FDI for the UK economy!
We need to continue the promotion, and help to bring together the best minds from across the world to identify the challenges and create the solutions that can unlock the UK’s financial innovation potential. We can do this by keeping the doors of opportunity open to individuals irrespective of their background.
Our BIDs (Business Improvement District), Culture Mile & Fleet Street Quarter, are driving great agenda to engage the local business, there is great opportunity for BIDs to drive interests of residents, and we need to foster the relationship with between BIDs and residents.
As a dual, Finnish-British citizen myself, I believe the power of the City has for centuries been its openness to foreign trades and working with people from different cultures and countries.
Today, the City is home to one of the youngest, most highly skilled and international workforces across the country. There are 615,000 workers in the City of London, or 1 in every 52 GB workers. City jobs have grown over 13% since pre-pandemic 2019 to 2022, with nearly 73,000 more jobs than in 2019.
Education and charities
From fostering educational opportunities to supporting healthcare and community development.
I am passionate about enabling young people through education and been serving as the Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of Leigh Stationers Academy and Primary Academy since 2022.
The City of London Corporation and its Family of Schools are committed to delivering world-class education based on a broad and balanced approach to develop the whole child and create a lifelong love of learning. We must continue investing on education and children who choose our schools.
I am a trustee of the Thomas Wall Trust, a charitable foundation that focuses on awards grants for individuals for education and training that will increase their chances of employment, and grants for small charities that support this work. Foundation focuses on those, who have, regardless of reason, fallen on hard times and need a helping hand to get back up. The Foundation supports for example many HM Prisons linked charities to help ex-offenders get back to employment.
I am a long serving volunteer of St John Ambulance and currently hold a national leadership position as National Operational Cycling Lead and oversee the emergency response cycling nationally for St John Ambulance in England. I was awarded MStJ for my services to humanity and cycle response by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2019.
Additionally I serve as a trustee for Stationers' Charity Fund 1961 that awards grants for wide ranging causes, mostly related to the City of London (such as St Paul’s, St Brides, City Police widows fund, Royal Marines) and civic appeals including Lord Mayor’s appeal.
Heritage & living history
I'm ardent about the City, its history, traditions as well as the charitable impact of the Livery Companies. I became Freeman of the City in 2009 and have been closely involved with livery companies ever since. I am a liveryman and a Court Assistant of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers in the City of London.
Passionate about the heritage and history of livery companies and their fascinating traditions, and the charitable impact the livery makes to education and charities each year.
The findings from Pan Livery Impact report 2022 show that the Livery movement provides a range of philanthropic support to deserving causes – both from the careful management of historic assets and from the time and funds provided by its current membership.
Aggregate giving by the Livery is now £75m – up 4.4% on 2020.
Liverymen provide over 143,000 hours per annum in pro bono voluntary support to the charitable sector. Of this, more than 1,000 School Governors and charity trustees, appointed by their Livery Companies, dedicate over 45,000 hours of support per annum.
City itself has incredible assets under its care from the Guildhall Galleries (including the City of London Heritage Gallery, Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London Police Museum and London’s Roman Amphitheatre) to Monument and Tower Bridge; and from the Billingsgate Roman House and Baths to Keats House.
This incredible, combined portfolio gives City significant advantage and potential as destination, but also something we should be very proud of and celebrate!