Question: Eden - the case continues
Gaynor Coley is managing director at the Eden Project, and her financial background was crucial in raising the money which the project needed. I left a safe, pensionable university job to join Eden in early 1997, having met this crew who had no money in the bank, but who were going to build the eighth wonder of the world in a derelict Cornish clay pit. I spent the next three years raising the money: a really exciting period, using all those skills you learn in the City about having a robust business plan, together with skills you may use in fringe theatre, which are about how to get something off the ground when nothing exists. The art of persuasion was putting Tim in front of the right people so he could really get them behind the purpose, but then following that up with the real mechanics of what the business needs which is a robust plan and a bank and a set of stakeholders who are prepared to come with you.
One thing that's really important about this project is teamwork - we had a horticultural director who was superb, we had an education director who could persuade anybody that education really is the route to a better world. To get the finance we had to identify people with a similar purpose to us. So the Millennium Commission wanted to put really landmark architecture into the landscape and it was obvious that there was nothing else in the south west that would meet this brief. The South West Regional Development Agency was there to generate economic activity, well-paid jobs, and a reason for people to come to the south west. So they had a different agenda, and part of our task there was also to say, ‘well, we will fulfil that agenda'. So it was research around what agendas a portfolio of stakeholders had, understanding them and actually making a pitch relevant to that particular stakeholder.
Case questions:
· What motivational skills has the managing director demonstrated in raising the funds that Eden required?
· How transferable do you think they would be to other management situations?