Big Boss Interview

Chancellor John Healey's first Budget has won cautious approval from business. Leading figures say it was a relief, but warn that relief is not the same as ambition. In this Big Boss Interview Budget special, AO founder John Roberts, venture capitalist and founder of Passion Capital and NFG Ventures Eileen Burbidge and Rigby Group chief executive Steve Rigby agreed the chancellor had little room t...

As France grapples with political instability, rising public discontent and student protests, Renault CEO François Provost says Europe is facing a moment of reckoning. In this edition of The Big Boss Interview, Theo Leggett speaks to the head of one of Europe's largest carmakers about the economic, industrial and political pressures reshaping the continent. Provost warns that European vehicle prod...

Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than the safeguards around it, and industry self-regulation is "not sufficient any longer". That is according to Brad Smith, president of Microsoft. Speaking to Will Bain on BBC's Big Boss Interview, Mr Smith said the world should worry more about AI safety than about any previous generation of digital technology in his 33 years in the industry. Microsof...

Negative perceptions of London’s stock market influenced companies’ decisions about where to list, according to Dame Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange. Speaking on Big Boss Interview, she acknowledges that companies had delayed or considered listing elsewhere because of the narrative surrounding London, but says that reflected the mood three or four years ago. “Markets do...

Britain is "walking into a second significant energy crisis", the boss of the country's largest electricity generator has warned. Simone Rossi, chief executive of EDF in the UK, told the BBC's Business Editor Simon Jack on the Big Boss Interview that household bills are forecast to rise by around 20% in January. Customers still owe more than £5bn from the last crisis, four years ago. Gas is drivin...

The boss of Aviva, Britain's biggest insurer, has warned that some homes being built today could eventually become impossible to insure because of flood risk. Speaking to Sean Farrington, Dame Amanda Blanc said Britain is continuing to build homes in areas exposed to flooding, despite the growing threat from climate change. Aviva estimates 6.3 million UK homes are already at risk of flooding, a fi...

The chief executive of Britain’s biggest listed technology company has questioned the government’s push to build more data centres, arguing that the UK does not have the scale to become a truly sovereign AI nation. Steve Hare, chief executive of Sage, says Britain should be realistic about where it can compete. He argues that data centres themselves are simply infrastructure and do not give the UK...

Sir Jim Ratcliffe says he has lost confidence in Britain and can see no circumstances in the near future in which he would return and reinvest his wealth in the UK. Ratcliffe, one of Britain’s wealthiest businessmen and founder of one of its biggest industrial companies, is now a tax resident of Monaco. He argues that high and frequently changing taxes, energy policy and a lack of long-term politi...

The executive chair of Paul Smith says working from home “just doesn’t work” for young people and has urged the government to stay out of decisions over where employees work. Ewan Venters argues that younger workers risk missing the informal learning and mentoring that comes from being around more experienced colleagues. He traces his own career back to joining Sainsbury’s at sixteen and learning...

Artificial intelligence will help cure cancer within our lifetimes, according to Rene Haas, chief executive of Arm, the Cambridge-based company whose chip designs sit inside almost every smartphone on Earth. There are more than 350 billion chips using Arm technology have shipped worldwide. Haas says health is the "killer app" for the technology. Drugs can take 20 years to develop and around 95% of...

(Episode 52) The chief executive of the world's largest water company has said Veolia would consider running Britain's water infrastructure if it were taken into public ownership, opening the door to a model in which the state owns the assets but private companies operate them. Asked whether that could mean "nationalise the assets, and Veolia comes in to manage them," Estelle Brachlianoff said: "I...

(Episode 51) Who should control Britain's biggest water company? Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, says he "completely agrees" with the Prime Minister that the industry, and Thames Water, needs greater public control. But he draws a clear distinction between stronger public accountability and public ownership, arguing that nationalisation or special administration could delay inve...

(Episode 50) etoro customers are "definitely moving away from crypto," according to the company's founder and chief executive, Yoni Assia. After more than a decade at the forefront of digital assets, Assia says customers are increasingly shifting towards mainstream investing and cash savings, as etoro expands beyond its trading platform into broader financial services. The company, which manages a...

(Episode 49) Andria Vidler, the CEO of Allwyn UK - the operator of the National Lottery - has warned the British public risks losing it, unless it innovates. Allwyn took over the running of the National Lottery from Camelot in 2024, and it had pledged to double the amount if gives to good causes from 33 million pounds to 60 million pounds. But Vidler told Felicity Hannah that its future is at stak...

The Halifax brand is being retired after more than 180 years — and Charlie Nunn says artificial intelligence is the reason why. The chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group told the Big Boss Interview that the way customers discover financial products has fundamentally changed. Increasingly, people are asking AI tools and large language models to find the best mortgage or savings account, making mu...

AI and drone warfare will force a “complete reimagining” of how conflict risk is calculated and insured, the chief executive of Lloyd’s of London has warned, because traditional assumptions about how wars escalate may no longer hold. Patrick Tiernan, who runs the 337-year-old insurance marketplace, told the Big Boss Interview that autonomous weapons and AI-driven decision-making could remove the w...

Britain should stop taxing workers and start taxing robots, according to the chief executive of one of the country's biggest recruitment firms, who says the UK's tax system is pointing in entirely the wrong direction at the worst possible moment. James Reed, CEO of Reed Recruitment, told the Big Boss Interview that the government is taxing employers who hire young people "to pick up beer glasses i...

Mondelēz International, the company behind Cadbury, Oreo, Toblerone and Ritz, has warned that future European investment could bypass the UK if regulatory instability persists. Chief executive Dirk Van de Put says the UK is the company’s second-biggest market globally and contributes more than £2.3 billion to the economy each year, supporting 12,000 jobs and spending £1.3 billion with more than 1,...

The next great wave of demand for artificial intelligence chips could come not from chatbots, but from humanoid robots caring for ageing populations. That is the prediction of Wendell Huang, chief financial officer of TSMC, the Taiwanese company that manufactures the world’s most advanced semiconductors. As countries grapple with rapidly ageing societies, Huang sees robot carers and autonomous veh...

Debenhams was once one of the biggest names on the British high street. Founded in 1778, it collapsed into administration before being rescued in 2024 and rebuilt as a digital-only marketplace. Now, under chief executive Dan Finley, Debenhams Group is back to growth after reporting a £350 million loss in the year to February 2025. Finley argues the business is now one of the biggest turnarounds in...

Jackie Jantos, CEO of Hinge, says the cost of living is reshaping dating habits, with daytime meet-ups becoming more common and traditional drinks dates becoming less popular as younger people look for cheaper ways to meet in person. She argues that AI should help users express themselves rather than speak on their behalf, rejecting suggestions that AI is making online dating less authentic. Hinge...

David Thomas, the outgoing chief executive of Barratt Redrow, says bricklaying robots are already being deployed on commercial building sites and predicts a revolution in how homes are built over the next decade. Factory-built timber frames, off-site manufacturing and “brick-simulation” cladding are beginning to reshape the construction industry, reducing the amount of labour required on site and...

Lord Wolfson, Chief Executive of Next and a Conservative peer, warns Britain is facing a crisis in entry-level employment. Applicants for every shop vacancy at Next have almost doubled from 10 to 19 in just two years — a trend he describes as “indicative of just how big the crisis is in youth unemployment.” Across retail and the wider economy, he says there has been “a dramatic fall in entry-level...

Amazon's UK boss has called for work experience to be made mandatory for everyone aged sixteen and over, describing it as "the most transformative thing" he has seen for young people entering the workforce. John Boumphrey argues that the education system is not producing work-ready school leavers and that the blame should fall on the system rather than on young people themselves. The cost of livin...

Eben Upton, founder and chief executive of Raspberry Pi, joins the Big Boss Interview to discuss artificial intelligence, British manufacturing, semiconductors and why he believes there is a growing tendency to overestimate what AI tools can currently do. AI tools are “genuinely incredible”, Upton says, and he uses them regularly himself. But he warns against assuming they remove the need for huma...