Passionate leaders on the old road lead us to the new - Nick Freer
Some stand-out names have helped me chart tech and more through another year, writes Nick Freer
A year ago almost to the day, I wrote a piece titled “What will the new road of 2024 hold for us all?”, with the ‘new road’ bit coming from a quote I often think about at this time of the year: “And yet, this New Road will some day be the Old Road too, with ghosts on it and memories”. Poignant words from a clever man, namely Inveraray-born author and newspaper editor Neil Munro, with the line coming from his historical novel The New Road, published in 1914.
As we approach the end of 2024, as an agency we have spent another year advising companies around media relations (the ‘day job’), while continuing to write or contribute curated comment pieces for this column every week.
Regular contributions from Jeremy Grant, a former international FT correspondent now based in the capital, have focused on Scotland’s nascent offshore wind sector, with Grant establishing himself as one of the foremost UK commentators on an industry considered integral to the nation’s future economy.
In April, one of Jeremy’s stories made the front page of this newspaper, “China plans base in Scotland to build massive wind turbines”, a keen analysis not only of a development that would mark a European first, but also a discourse on Beijing’s involvement in UK energy infrastructure.
My own writing, as it has largely done through the years in this column, continues to chart the progress of the tech startup scene in this country. If there is a style to the writing, perhaps “observational” would be the best descriptor, with the derivation down to the CEOs, founders, and other tech ecosystem players we engage with every week.
It would be amiss here not to mention Mark Logan’s recent resignation as chief entrepreneurial adviser to the Scottish Government, four years on from the publication of the Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review (STER in common parlance) he authored. The body of work and level of achievement is there for all to see, and I guess you might call that a legacy. But as I’m sure Mark would attest to, no one is a prophet in one’s own country, and knowing Mark he was never looking to be a prophet.
What’s clear to this ageing hack is the notion that it’s a no-brainer to want to have top-end industry executives championing and helping to guide the industry sectors that will be crucial to the success of our future economy in this country. Oh yeah, and they should have passion too, don’t forget the passion. Here is Mark Logan writing for The Scotsman last year, an opinion piece headlined “Scotland can be a Start-up Nation”, do have a read if you need reminded of this guy’s passion for Scottish tech.
I’m not sure Mark ever got around to having a ‘mic drop’ moment when he stepped down as Scotland’s chief entrepreneur, but in reality many of the initiatives spun out of his STER report progressed at pace in 2024 - Techscaler, the Scottish Government’s tech startup support programme, and Ana Stewart’s Pathways Forwards among them - and, as we all must do, they now look ahead to a new road in 2025.
Nick Freer is the founding director of corporate PR agency the Freer Consultancy