LUKE JOHNSON ENDORSES LAUNCH FOR THE CITY’S BEST-CONNECTED
ARE YOU fed up with receiving endless invitations to “connect” with people you have never met on digitally promiscuous social networking sites?
Then Ndoorse, the new network for high-quality professionals founded by ex-Deloitte strategy consultant Jeremy Weil and JC Rathbone director Kristian Rathbone is perhaps for you.
The only problem is that the City-meets-entrepreneurs network, billed as “an old boys’ club for the twenty-first century”, is so exclusive that you can only become a member through several endorsements from existing members – hence the name.
“People will be turned down,” said a gatekeeper for the invitation-only site, which last night held the first of its real-life networking spin-offs at the Adam Street club, where serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson addressed Ndoorse’s founding ambassadors from firms including Goldman Sachs, Bain, Nomura and KPMG. LinkedIn beware.
COCKTAIL LIST
EVERYONE in the restaurant of the Jumeirah Carlton Hotel is married. “Just not to each other,” says the hotel’s general manager Derek Picot, who has launched a Just Good Friends cocktail menu in tribute to his paparazzi-attracting clientele.
Christine Keeler, a former visitor to the Carlton hotel who first coined the “just good friends” get-out clause, inspired the tequila-based The Keeler, while John Prescott’s companion was the muse for The Tracey Temple. The latest addition, amusingly, is The Werritty, after ex-defence secretary Liam Fox’s good friend Adam. Make of that what you will.
POWER STRUGGLE
LAST year George Osborne topped GQ magazine’s annual listings of the 100 most influential men in Britain; this year the chancellor has slipped to a lowly eight.
So how to explain the sudden fall from grace? Less to do with the stuttering economy, The Capitalist suspects, and more about Osborne calling GQ readers unprintable names at the magazine’s Men of the Year awards in September. Even Daily Mail owner Viscount Rothermere is higher up the pecking order.
MARKET FORCES
THE worshipful companies of launderers, feltmakers, scriveners and gardeners have set out their stalls at the Red Cross Christmas Market at the Guildhall; now they just need the City to come along and start their Christmas shopping.
The market was declared open at last night’s preview evening by the Lady Mayoress and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes (pictured with his wife Emma), ahead of the public day today, open from 10.30am until 8pm. Entry is £5 on the door, which includes a glass of wine to help you spend more freely for the Red Cross charity cause.