Category: Short term study away

September 07, 2017

This post was submitted by Anna Wadhams, MBA ’18, during the Business & the State: Privatization & Public-Private Partnerships short-term study away program to England.

Before I reflect on my experience with the course, I would like to add some background on what drove me to pursue this program. I came into Business and the State with over ten years of experience in the public and nonprofit sector, specializing in outreach and advocacy in the environmental field. What I thought constituted “public private partnerships” drew from my personal experience working networks of government agencies, nonprofit partners, and corporate sponsors tackling environmental concerns. While I did oversee government contracts as a program manager, I did not have extensive expertise in P3s or compliance. As such, I wanted to know more about the theory behind privatization and how to create a successful P3 contract structure, as government agencies overseeing environmental concerns are continuing to be downsized and services outsourced to the private sector. While at some points I was a bit overwhelmed by the theory behind privatization and P3s, I’m thrilled to say this course and my experience in London has changed my life in ways I could never imagine, and has inspired me to think more broadly about what I wish to accomplish with my career.

Preparation for London      

Leading up to London, the course readings and presentations delved deeply into the theory of privatization, nationalization and P3s. I found the early readings to be quite dense, which may speak more to my lack of familiarity with the theoretical and technical aspects of privatization and nationalization. GW Professor John Forrer’s presentation, while interesting, left me feeling as though I needed take a separate beginners course solely on P3s and contracting in order to grasp the components P3/PFI contracts and how they provide value. While we were fortunate to have Ed Courtemanch from Amtrak present to the group, I wish we could’ve benefitted from his input before we traveled to London so I could compare his overview of rail services in the U.S. to Transport for London.

Getting My Bearings in Blighty

From a logistics standpoint, I found the flow of the week’s activities in London to be well executed. Our tour with Anne-Marie Walker on Sunday was a fantastic opportunity for the class to get to know each other while adjusting to our new surroundings and recovering from jet lag. The lodgings were in a supreme location and our site visits to Winchester and Cambridge were delightful breaks from the city. The theatre was a fantastic extracurricular activity. Group dynamics can make or break an experience like this, and I was fortunate to be in the company of eleven classmates who were open to sharing their unique skills and expertise in an effort to help me fully grasp course content. I believe I came away from this experience learning a great deal about my classmates both personally and professionally. I left each day grateful for the opportunity to participate in this program.

Speaker Impressions in the Wake of the Snap Election

My experience at Parliament was by far the highlight of the trip. It’s an understatement to say that our site visits to London fell at a very unique time in British politics, and I think the recent snap election results should be taken into consideration as we continue learning about the impacts of privatization on both business and society. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party upset resulted in a hung parliament, but the ramifications were much more profound in application to our course. I wish I had more time to analyze Labour’s new manifesto, especially its commitment to nationalize multiple industries-a direct rebuke to previous neoliberal efforts to push privatization and P3s as solutions successful alternatives to previously ‘failing’ industries under state control. While our course readings on U.K. government efforts at reform through privatization were informative, I found listening to Sonia Klein, Strategist for CMS Global and Manzila Pola Uddin, Baroness Uddin, Privy Council (PC) an incredible opportunity to hear how Tory privatization efforts contributed to yet another surprising election result. Admittedly, both Klein and Uddin are Labour representatives, so their interpretations reflect specific political values, but I personally welcomed their contribution. I would especially like to thank the program for scheduling two speakers who are both political change makers and women of color. Their views and personal experiences in politics were welcome, and I’m grateful to GW for providing the platform for both women to add their insight into the human impact of many of these policies and reforms. This was highlighted in the conversation surrounding the Grenfell Towers tragedy, as the devastating fire highlighted longstanding social and political tensions around local councils outsourcing management of their public housing to private contractors through PFIs, and the now tragic impact on residents in estates like Grenfell.

My experience at Tullow Oil was another highlight. Our conversation with Sandy Stash, Executive Vice President - Safety, Operations, Engineering, and External Affairs for ‎Tullow, was engaging and informative. I walked away with a newfound appreciation for her background and work at Tullow. Coming from a background in environmental advocacy and engagement, I appreciated her candor in claiming some of Tullow’s more challenging issues are the “softer issues” including how experts in a technical field like engineering can engage will local constituents in the countries they wish to do business. As someone who has worked with communities impacted by mineral extraction, communication between stakeholders, government and private firms is a continued source of tension, and requires a level of empathy and patience that is hard to maintain. Stash affirmed that this focus on softer issues is especially important as Tullow emphasizes transparency in its payments, contracts and beneficial ownership. Stash also described Tullow’s mitigation process, which is more challenging onshore due to various social factors. Again, I appreciated her forthright reflections on her experience as a woman working as an engineer in the oil industry.

Advocating Nationalization to Business School Students - What Could Go Wrong?

I want to give a special shout out to Cat Hobbs and share how much I enjoyed the overview of her campaign We Own It. Presenting an organization dedicated to nationalizing industries to a group of American business school students was no small feat, but I found Hobbs’s personal story interesting, and her presentation spurred some lively debate I believe the group enjoyed. I particularly liked the informal nature and free flow of group discussion after her presentation. Hobbs comes from an advocacy background like me, and her presentation resonated with me is because I have found myself presenting similar content to representatives from both the public and private sector with varying degrees of success. I thought Hobbs was a good sport and look forward to checking on We Own It’s future efforts.

I’m still processing everything I’ve learned from my experience in London and the course as a whole. I returned to the U.S. with a new realization that I need to continue expanding my scope of reference by visiting other countries and learning more about their approach to cross sector collaboration.

My enduring impression of the study abroad visit to the United Kingdom (U.K.) is stepping into the whirlwind of Brexit, and feeling like our class lucked into this unexpected turn of events. It is rare that we get to step into history. The vote and the reaction to it could be felt everywhere and in all our activities, like an anxious overlay to everything we saw and did. There was a perplexed atmosphere that only deepened over our week there. I met a few pro-Brexiters and far more anti-Brexiters, and it was fascinating to observe the quarrels. I find myself wondering how different the trip would have been if Brexit had failed. Would it have been discussed at all? Would our speakers have touched on “what could have been” in their presentations, or let it be as a foregone conclusion run its course? We will never know.

It was also obvious in many of our sessions that the insecurity fostered by the Brexit vote was a real problem for our hosts, and the disrupted strategies it creates in the short-term (regulations, market uncertainties, political turmoil) are going to cause complications down the road. This sense of uncertainty was equally palpable on the Tube and in the pubs and restaurants, where a generation of Anglo-Europeans share concerns about the possible loss of mobility, upset plans and relationships, and a sense of bewilderment that their country rejected their point of view. I consider the visit to Parliament and House of Lords particularly memorable given the situation, and how the leadership of the Conservatives and Labour parties were imploding in tandem with our time there.

Beyond Brexit, this was also my first time employing the London Underground. My initial expectations of similarities to U.S. systems were lost to the reality that most Londoners rely on the public transportation far more than we do in the U.S. I was told by a new acquaintance that most Londoners could afford no other way to get around.

I was equally amazed at the sprawl of London. Some of my classmates and I were astonished on our trip back from Cambridge that what felt like entering London was in fact 15 miles from Regents Park. I suppose a city as old as London could never easily be retrofitted with highways, but the marked lack of infrastructure when compared to the U.S. was noticeable.

What I Learned in London

The Brexit quarrels colored much of the experience for me, but there were some solid lessons to be drawn from our presenters and speakers. The notion of “good value for money” applied to areas I did not expect in U.K. public sector, such as security and military spending. The embrace of privatization was expected but still a fascinating contrast to the more familiar U.S. approach where privatization is rare because many services and industries began as private entities.

My impression of public private relationships in the U.K. is that after 20 years the approach is accepted for new ventures, but privatization of existing public assets is contentious in some quarters. I felt there was a societal question of what should be public and what private. The rolling stock and infrastructure of the London Underground could be privatized, but not the Underground itself. Perhaps there is too much history and national pride in an asset such as this to hand over to private industry?

Contrast this notion with the gondola we saw in North Greenwich, which was conceived as a privately financed venture with sponsorship in return for branding rights. It plays a role in gentrification projects on both sides of the Thames. I think it an interesting, and in the long-term, probably successful venture that makes good use of public and private capabilities. My impression is the U.K. sees private enterprise in new ventures as an opportunity to capture market efficiencies and private investment, but is less certain with privatizing and handing over existing public assets to private ownership.

Impressions of Our Speakers

I appreciated the diversity of our speakers and their preparedness for our class. There was a lot of material presented in a short period of time, and while many of these points were topical to my team project, we suffered from a lack of context in some areas. I found Sir Devane’s presentation on the British Council’s soft power fascinating. However, the contrasts with Lt. Col. Waite-Robert’s presentation on U.K. military privatization were fascinating. You can outsource hard power but not soft.

My most favorable impressions were on Tuesday when we met with Cat Hobbes and KPMG. There was that contrast of a one-woman movement pressing against privatization, followed by the corporate finesse of KPMG and Dr. Murphy’s team of public-private partnership (P3) experts. I understood from my classmates that they found Ms. Hobbs’ presentation weak, but I thought she did very well driving her point on ownership of her country’s public assets. In many ways her position is the more conservative in the P3 argument (although I wonder if she would see it that way), a fact I think often lost because it rejects profit-driven performance.

Impressions of My Classmates

A week with spent in a small group participating in the same learning experience is a good opportunity to learn about each other. There was a good deal of discussion outside of our visits, particularly in regards to the speakers. The mix of public administration and government contracts experience provided interesting perspectives on the course material. Also of interest was the mix of government employees and private sector students, so when we discussed the rail presentations there were countervailing perspectives on topics such as economic development, utilities oversight and the role of the public sector in pricing.

Many of my classmates preferred the enjoyment of each other’s company instead of mixing. However I preferred making acquaintances with the locals. It provided a great deal of satisfying conversation and a few new contacts in London. The topics of Brexit and the U.S. presidential election were always the first topics discussed but there was also great interest on the part of the Londoners I met with regard to our class and purpose of visit. It all provided excellent perspective on the U.K. and its relationships with the U.S. and Europe, and I believe many of my classmates missed good opportunities to learn local points of view.

Impressions of the Class