Christmas Spotlight: Claire Bodanis

If ever there was a year when we need some festive cheer, it’s 2020. So, for our annual advent calendar of Q&As with the region’s businesspeople, we’ve tried to focus on what brings you joy.

Every day in December, we’ll invite someone into the Christmas spotlight, with 10 quickfire questions…

Next up, it’s Claire Bodanis, Founder/director of Falcon Windsor, and author of Trust me, I’m listed: why the annual report matters and how to do it well

Complete the sentence: “If there’s one thing 2020 has taught me, it’s…”

…that my inner introvert is perhaps even more extroverted than my outer extrovert!

If you could give a one-line shout out to your team, for how they’ve handled this year, what would you say?

On our website, we say that our team is a ‘roster of experienced corporate reporting and communications experts, who also happen to be delightful human beings’. No year could have proved the truth of that statement better than 2020.

Were you guilty of any lockdown splurges?

More champagne than I’d usually buy. However I’d probably have drunk the same quantity overall, just with other people in hotel bars rather than at home with the others on zoom! So perhaps it all balances out in the end.

In fewer than 50 words, summarise three things your business has to look forward to, in 2021.

Being together in person with our colleagues.
Being together in person with our clients.
Being together in person with our wider network.
You get the idea… bring on the vaccine!

Which business do you think has gone above and beyond, this year?

The Cake Hole, Hitchin. The chap who owns it, cake-maker Colin Revels, is an utter genius. He’s made four cakes for us during lockdown – one for the annual Falcon Windsor party (sadly on zoom this year but a riot nonetheless); one for the winner of the competition at the FW party (since no one but me and my family could eat our cake this year!); and one for each of the (zoom) book launch parties that happened at my house this year (Trust me, I’m listed – my book, and The Art of Fairness: The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean, by my author husband, David Bodanis). Colin’s cakes are things of great beauty and great deliciousness!

What’s your oldest Christmas memory?

Making the Christmas tape to send back to the family in the UK. I grew up in Africa and South America, and in the early 80s phoning people across the world was virtually impossible – so we would record a tape to send home in time for Christmas. I can’t remember what was on it now – and I do remember hating having to do it, because our voices always sounded so weird played back to us! – but I’m glad we did it nonetheless.

What’s the one thing you could never be without, on your Christmas dinner plate?

Sprouts. Yes really. I actually love them.

What’s your favourite Christmas tipple, film and tune?

Champagne
The Princess Bride
Hark the Herald Angels Sing

What are you most looking forward to, about Christmas 2020?

Being with my parents and one of my brothers along with his family. (The other is abroad so there was no argument about the bubble!)

And a message to your friends, family, colleagues and peers as they welcome in 2021?

My monthly blog last week (publishes first Wed of the month) was called The power of decency: words to inspire 2021.’It’s about those words I hope we’ll all leave behind in 2020 (lockdown, self-isolation, social distancing being the main ones) and the words I hope we’ll all take with us into 2021. These are ‘the power of decency’. To quote from the blog:

“I don’t usually plug David’s books on this blog, since, while always a brilliant read, they’re not always directly relevant to you lovely readers. But the message of The Art of Fairness, summed up in a glowing Sunday Times review of 15 November, is hugely relevant to everyone. And particularly, I’d argue, to those embarking on the challenge of writing the annual reports of 2020, which must also set out the company’s vision for the future.

That message? That despite so much evidence to the contrary, good guys can succeed without losing their souls. And it isn’t a matter of chance or luck – niceness on its own won’t achieve much – but of highly skilled people sticking to a set of principles based on fairness and decency that enables them to succeed, not just for themselves but for those around them too.

The power of decency, then, are four words that I hope will inspire many companies in their approach to shaping the post-Covid world (and reporting on it too), and ones that I hope will inspire governments and anyone else in a position of power or influence as well.

They certainly inspire me, and I’m glad to have had the chance to share them with you.”