LEADING talks to leaders at the top of a wide range of organisations to discover how they learnt to lead, the big decisions they’ve taken and the advice they offer to others.

From the worlds of business, charity, the arts, sport, technology and healthcare, CEOs share their take on leading vital causes, famous brand names, multi-million-pound enterprises and fast-growing start-ups. The podcast is presented by the journalist James Ashton.

Tony Danker joins James Ashton as he is about to take on one of the biggest jobs in British business: director-general of the CBI, the leading business lobby group that speaks on behalf of 190,000 firms employing nearly seven million people.

Danker spent three years building from scratch Be the Business, an organisation designed to drive up the UK’s poor productivity record that has so far put 5,000 SME leaders through its programmes.

Earlier in his career, he was international director and then chief strategy officer at Guardian News & Media and a government policy advisor.

In this episode, he discusses hopes that the Covid-19 pandemic could actually kickstart productivity, why he wanted to become the voice of UK business at such a “grave moment”, the importance of coaching others and why the consulting firm McKinsey – where Danker spent a decade - is such an effective CEO training ground.

James Ashton’s book The Nine Type of Leader (bit.ly/NINEbook) is available to order now.

Find out more about this series @leadingpod or at leadingpod.com