Business Gazetteer: Budding leaders learn the ropes in Boston

Published on Sunday 11 January 2009 20:59

FOURTEEN budding business leaders from Scotland are taking the first steps in their "American dream" this morning as they begin their Saltire Fellowships.

The programme – supported by Scottish Enterprise and the International Advisory Board – aims to give the fellows "the skills and entrepreneurial drive to transform Scottish companies into global businesses of scale".

Saltire fellows will receive tuition at Babson College, in Boston, which markets itself as "the world's top-ranked business school for entrepreneurship".

They will also be sent out on placements with both "large blue-chip organisations overseas" and "small high-growth entrepreneurial ventures" in Scotland.

Crawford Gillies, chairman of the organisation behind the fellowships, said: "The Saltire Foundation's ambitious programmes are aiming to create a Scotland where international business success is the norm."

Among those taking part in the initial wave of the programme are Iain McDougall, 39, a programme manager at BSkyB, and Lesley Sutherland, 37, a quality and procurement manger at Biopta.

GOOD DAY

Dundee University

INCOME at Dundee University rose by 9 per cent to 191.4 million in 2007-8. The university's annual report also revealed a surplus of 3.6m, up from 500,000 in 2006-7.

The report added: "The university has set itself the target of achieving a sustainable surplus of 3 per cent of total income by 2012."

BAD DAY

Pound World

A BRANCH of discount store Pound World was forced to shut down after a 99p Store opened opposite it on Poole's high street. In their rush to save a penny, Dorest's shoppers "ripped the best part of 70 per cent" out of Pound World's turnover, according to Jamie Lang, area manager for Red Retail, which owns the chain.

FACT OF THE DAY

4 million

MORE than four million child trust fund accounts have been opened since they were introduced in 2005, according to new figures from the Treasury.

More than three million have been opened by parents, with the rest automatically set-up by HM Revenue and Customs.

The UK government pays 250 into each account when the child is born and then a further 250 at age seven. Parents and relatives can pay in a total of up to 1,200 a year.

KILLER QUOTE

THE spectre of the money printing presses being turned on worries many people who have memories of double-digit inflation and the pain involved in squeezing inflation out of the system. But …failing to consider any possible policy option that might prevent a slip into deflation is irresponsible"

Ben Read, managing economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, saying that quantitative easing should not be dismissed out of hand