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Alexander Evans

Alexander Evans

Diplomat

Aug 16, 2026

Josie CluerMODERATOR
13:57
What do you think is going on in the gap between leadership and the people they're leading? Why is that gap so big?
14:04
Josie, thanks so much, and really, really good to join you, uh, Kate and Robyn on this.
14:09
Look, I mean, there, there's...
14:10
In lots of people survey work, both in the UK and comparatively, there's always been a bit of a delta between senior leadership perspectives and staff perspectives, particularly from junior staff and senior, the exco level staff or, or kind of directors, director generals, assistant secretaries, uh, joint secretaries, depending on your system.
14:31
And that's to be expected, right? Because senior leaders, uh, have more visibility about how organizations are changing, uh, and they are sometimes closer to be able to understand the longer view in terms of investment of money, political direction, uh, capabilities.
14:47
Uh, but I think what is striking about, about this survey is just that the degree of that delta, the scale of that delta.
14:54
And like Robyn, I think a chunk of this is linked to an operating environment where we're dealing with both technology now and technology soon.

10 MINS LATER

Josie CluerMODERATOR
25:00
Any of those, uh, questions you'd like to comment on?
44:09
It wants more regulation, but it also may feel nervous about China having too much control or regulation over AI.
44:18
The good news for Europe, uh, including the UK, is there's plenty of expertise, understanding of, uh, regulation and decisions around AI.
44:29
The bad news is that Europe is not a market maker on this.
44:33
It's a market taker.
44:35
Europe depends largely on the American stack of technology and capability, a-and it may well end up depending also on Chinese capability.
44:44
It certainly already depends on elements of China, rare earths, for example.
44:49
So it's gonna be challenging, but not impossible, to shape the choices about AI.
45:00
There's always this debate about countries saying they want AI sovereignty, but is that realistic?

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