This is an audio transcript of the Behind the Money podcast episode: ‘An activist tried to take on Pfizer. Then things got messy’

Michela Tindera
Hey there. It’s me, Michela. Before this week’s episode, I want to inform you of an upcoming event that I think you’ll want to know about. This December 3rd and 4th, the FT is hosting its Global Banking Summit in London. And if you attend, you’ll join the CEOs of Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Wells Fargo and more to explore the top global issues dominating banking today. Oh, and I’ll be there too. I’m hosting a live Behind the Money podcast on the 3rd. To find out more about the summit and claim a discount code, check out our show notes and see you there.

It’s Sunday, October 6th. Pharmaceutical business Pfizer is about to host a board off-site in Ireland. And the company’s CEO, Albert Bourla, is getting ready for it. While he’s doing that, he opens his email. Inside of his inbox, he sees a message that’s a bit out of the blue. (Email alert bleeps) It’s from Pfizer’s former chief financial officer Frank D’Amelio, and the email is a bit weird: it’s completely blank. And he looks at the To line of the email, which contains something very unexpected. The blank email was also sent to someone from Starboard Value, a major activist investor.

Oliver Barnes
I mean, if you want corporate drama where, like, life itself is stranger than fiction, this feels like it.

Michela Tindera
That’s the FT’s US pharmaceutical correspondent Oliver Barnes. And he says that Bourla receiving this seemingly fat-fingered email is only the beginning.

Oliver Barnes
What follows is, as one Wall Street dealmaker told me, the worst first week in an activist campaign in the history of Wall Street.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Michela Tindera
I’m Michela Tindera from the Financial Times. Today on Behind the Money, we’re taking you inside a very chaotic activist investor campaign and looking at what it could mean for one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Remember back to the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, everyone’s waiting on tenterhooks for a vaccine, and the US pharma giant Pfizer is on the case.

News clip 1
The FDA has now granted full approval of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine . . . (cuts to other news clips)

News clip 2
. . . Pfizer is shipping out the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine . . . 

Michela Tindera
Oliver says that Covid transforms Pfizer. It takes it from the company that was best known for developing drugs like Viagra and Lipitor and turns it into the stock to invest in.

Oliver Barnes
And it has the almightiest of all almighty bull runs. And its market cap soars to more than $350bn. Record highs, basically.

Michela Tindera
And Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is thrown into the limelight.

Oliver Barnes
Bourla is someone who is praised for delivering the Covid vaccine, effectively taking on the status of like a world leader during the pandemic. I mean, he is held in like incredibly high esteem.

Michela Tindera
He writes a book. President Joe Biden calls him his good friend. But as Covid fades into the rear-view mirror, Pfizer starts to face new challenges. For one, the vaccines become old news, and then the next big thing in pharma kicks off.

Oliver Barnes
There’s pharmas that have weight-loss drugs and are making money out of them, which are two companies: Eli Lilly, the world’s biggest-ever pharma company, and Novo Nordisk, the world’s second-biggest ever pharma company, and then everyone else. So it’s the kind of story of, like, there are these ones doing gangbusters and Pfizer’s a bit of an also-ran at the moment.

Michela Tindera
But even so, Pfizer is sitting on this Covid vaccine windfall and Albert Bourla seems to have a plan to find new ways for the company to grow.

Oliver Barnes
They obviously get all this money from Covid. And partly using that cash and partly using debt, they go and fund $70bn worth of M&A.

Michela Tindera
Most importantly, in March of 2023, Pfizer announces it’s making a $43bn acquisition of a cancer drugmaker called Seagen.

Oliver Barnes
Seagen is in like quite a cool, hot area of drug discovery. But the doubts that investors have about this acquisition — it’s a big acquisition, it’s $43bn — and the consensus among investors about the Seagen acquisition is that Pfizer basically overpaid. To a lot of investors, it doesn’t look like the kind of acquisition that is creating value.

Michela Tindera
And so these factors — the slowing demand for vaccines, the rise of weight-loss drugs and the M&A spree that upset investors — they all play a role in Pfizer share price collapsing.

Oliver Barnes
Basically, all the pandemic gains evaporate and it falls to, like, pre-pandemic levels. And it goes from like a high of nearly $60 a share to now like $29 a share or thereabouts.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Michela Tindera
This makes the company start to look like a prime target for an activist investor.

Maria Heeter
So the goal of activist investing is primarily to make money.

Michela Tindera
That’s Maria Heeter. She covers deals for the FT, and she’s been following the story with Oliver. 

Maria Heeter
Activist investors tend to come into a company stock. They accumulate a position, and then they’ll knock on the door of management, the CEO, the board, and say, we are shareholders in your company. We have a large position. We would like to see the share price go up. And they outline a list of decisions, changes that they think would make that share price go up.

Michela Tindera
And this is where the hedge fund, Starboard Value, comes in.

Maria Heeter
They’re probably best known for, in 2014, replacing the entire board of directors of the parent company of Olive Garden, which is a casual Italian dining restaurant loved by people in the US. They’d outlined a very detailed presentation that sort of went so granular that they criticised Olive Garden for not salting their pasta water adequately.

Michela Tindera
Maria says that investing in tech companies is more of Starboard’s breadsticks and butter. It’s dabbled in pharma before but without much success. And when it spots Pfizer’s cratering share price, it wants another shot at the sector. So earlier this year, Starboard starts quietly building up a $1bn stake in the company.

Oliver Barnes
The ambition of Starboard is to make the stock pop, right? They’ve parked $2bn in it. If the stock goes up 20 per cent, they make $200mn, right?

Michela Tindera
The issue is Oliver says that there’s not much Starboard can do to really pop that share price up any more. Bourla has already taken a lot of the steps that an activist would typically come in and do.

Oliver Barnes
The kind of questions or doubts everyone’s had about Pfizer having activists, like, what levers are there to pull in Pfizer. The typical kind of playbook and tactics of an activist are not really there with Pfizer. So to go through a couple obvious examples, activists often call for divestitures where you go, you’ve got this division, sell it off. Investors will like it. You’ll make money out of it. Pfizer’s basically done all its divestitures.

Then investors might say, we either block or encourage you to do acquisitions. The Seagen acquisition’s closed. They can’t block it. They can’t unwind it. Pfizer has a very high debt level. It spent most of the Covid money. It can’t go and do more acquisitions. So that avenue is kind of closed off, too. And then maybe Starboard can outline a plan of how Pfizer can basically do better in terms of, like, costs. But they’ve done a 5.5 or outlined a $5.5bn cost-cutting drive over the past couple of years, which runs through to 2027. So that’s kind of been done, too.

Michela Tindera
But Oliver and Maria’s sources have told them that Starboard sees Pfizer CEO Bourla and his acquisition spree as the problem.

Oliver Barnes
When you kind of read the tea leaves, it leaves you to one place, right? Maybe Starboard’s target in this is the man himself — the CEO.

Michela Tindera
Now, remember, Starboard doesn’t have loads of experience investing in pharmaceutical companies. And that means it could be a tough sell to come in as an activist and propose big structural changes to Pfizer. So while it’s building up the stake, Starboard also starts building up its campaign’s credibility by recruiting two key people.

Maria Heeter
They were lucky to enlist the help of two of Pfizer’s longest-serving executives who had left the company. That’s Ian Read and Frank D’Amelio. Ian Read was the longtime CEO of Pfizer who actually gave Albert Bourla his job, and Frank D’Amelio was the company’s chief financial officer. Being able to tap the resources of two former longtime pharmaceutical executives gave them a lot of leverage. It’s a sign to the board and to investors and to the management team that something needs to change at Pfizer if two of its longest-serving former executives are unhappy with how the company has performed.

Michela Tindera
These are also two people, Read and D’Amelio, who Albert Bourla really seems to think highly of.

Oliver Barnes
Reading through Albert Bourla’s book Moonshot, which is his kind of reminiscence on what happened during the pandemic, he calls Ian Read a man of strong convictions from whom I learned a lot. And he says of Frank D’Amelio, he’s a long-standing and highly regarded chief financial officer who likes to roll up his sleeves and problem-solves. These are like out-and-out compliments.

Michela Tindera
Now, at this point, as Starboard is building up its stake and getting these former execs involved. The CEO, Albert Bourla, has no idea of Starboard’s plans until he sees that blank email. (Email alert bleeps) So let’s go back to that moment a few weeks ago on Sunday, October 6th.

Oliver Barnes
What I think the biggest jolt for him is when he receives that email is that his former finance chief has turned on him, right?

Michela Tindera
Just moments after the email lands in Bourla’s inbox, Read and D’Amelio realise what happened and start damage control. They both call up Bourla and they urge him to hear Starboard out.

Oliver Barnes
And I’m sorry, for anyone on a human level, that is the most extraordinary gut punch, right? The guy who was your predecessor then turns round a few years later and is, like, the way you’ve run the company is so bad that I’m now working with an activist investor who’s going to call for a shake-up of it.

Michela Tindera
Scale of one to five, five being the worst, how bad is this situation?

Oliver Barnes
Six. (Chuckles) You know what I mean? Like, it’s crazy, isn’t it? Basically their former colleagues have turned on them.

Michela Tindera
But within a few days, a lot unravels. By Wednesday . . . 

Oliver Barnes
Frank D’Amelio and Ian Read put this statement out, basically saying, we’re not backing Starboard. We’re actually backing Albert Bourla, his management and the board. And everyone’s like, what?

Michela Tindera
Yeah, exactly. What?

Oliver Barnes
In Starboard’s telling, an unnamed representative from Pfizer threatened to sue Read and D’Amelio. Starboard says that they offered to cover their legal fees, but they still dropped out of the campaign.

Michela Tindera
So that’s what Starboard says happened. And Read and D’Amelio haven’t made any kind of public statements since they decided to change sides back to Bourla. So it’s tough to say exactly what made them switch. But one thing is clear: this decision really dents Starboard’s chances for a successful campaign. Having two former executives on their side really gave them a lot of firepower. And without it, Starboard could be back to square one.

Coming up, we’ll look at Starboard’s next move and what this could mean for Albert Bourla.

[SWAMP NOTES PODCAST AD PLAYING]

Michela Tindera
So last we heard, these two ex Pfizer executives, Ian Read and Frank D’Amelio, have pulled their support for Starboard and are backing Bourla in his fight. So Maria, if we’re to take stock of this situation right now, walk me through just like how bad is this for Starboard that their plan was revealed early in basically a fat-fingered email.

Maria Heeter
Activists benefit, I think, from surprise and also from preparation. So the company is usually at the back foot. They’re learning about the stake sometimes through a story in the Financial Times, sometimes in a presentation. And the company sort of typically, like, scrambles to respond. In this case, Frank D’Amelio’s fat-fingered email, which was sent to Albert Bourla, gave the company a chance to sort of mount its defences. Now executives at Pfizer have been able to tap advisers like investment bankers or lawyers to strategise on how to sort of stymie Starboard’s involvement.

Michela Tindera
But despite losing Read and D’Amelio’s support, Starboard is still pushing ahead with its campaign. Yesterday, October 22nd, at an activist investor conference in New York, Starboard went ahead and officially presented their plan for Pfizer. So, Oliver, what happened at this meeting?

Oliver Barnes
So basically, all the great and the good of the activist investment world got together at the Pierre Hotel, which is like a plush, old-timey hotel just off Central Park. And the headline act was Jeff Smith, the chief executive and chief investment officer of Starboard. And in his 40-minute or so speech, what Smith outlined was how — in quite acute detail — was how under the tenure of Dr Bourla, Pfizer had failed to deliver on turning many of its experimental drugs into blockbusters, drugs that generate more than $1bn in revenue, and also its R&D spending and spending on M&A had failed to yield revenues and growth in a way that other peers have managed to do. And there was one particularly striking line in the presentation where he calls on management and the board to do something different. He says he thinks it was unlikely that Pfizer would be able to reverse its declining revenues and languishing performance. Effectively, I think he’s basically saying, let’s think about the CEO and whether he should still be in his job.

Michela Tindera
Oliver, you already mentioned that the company’s made a lot of the changes that activists typically try to do to raise the share price. I mean, you know, cost-cutting, divestitures. So what sort of impact is this presentation going to have on the success of this campaign?

Oliver Barnes
What happens next is not ultimately down to Jeff Smith, Starboard, even Albert Bourla. It’s about the 13 other board directors of Pfizer who now are going to be thinking in their private moments about whether Dr Bourla is the guy to carry this company forward and give it a post-pandemic future. And maybe Starboard’s gamble is that them coming out and putting pressure on Pfizer’s management gives some of those board members, if they are discontented with Dr Bourla, the cover to make that known.

Michela Tindera
Now, we mentioned that Starboard hasn’t run loads of activist campaigns on other pharmaceutical companies. How much of a difference does that kind of experience make and just how all this could turn out?

Oliver Barnes
Starboard’s most high-profile campaign in pharma was trying to block Bristol Myers Squibb’s $74bn acquisition of Celgene, but ultimately that case ended up failing and the acquisition happened. They did, however, still make money and there’s a lesson in that, right, which is that maybe the asks that Starboard has for Pfizer don’t come through, but they may still end up making money out of the position, right?

Michela Tindera
Yeah. So it’s like . . . 

Oliver Barnes
If it’s successfully done. 

Michela Tindera
. . . these activists. Yeah, their bottom-line goal is to make money, get a return, get the share price to go up in some way. One would think the way to do that would be to make strategic changes to the company. But if they don’t do that, it can still work out for the activists.

Oliver Barnes
It can still work out, yeah. Like if they get the stock to move in a positive direction, it could still work out. And it’ll be interesting to watch because maybe they see it as, let’s just throw everything at it and like that means it could get even more acrimonious.

Michela Tindera
Right. But why is it that activist campaigns and pharma seemed to just not gel so well together?

Oliver Barnes
So this is maybe one of the issues why, like activism struggles in pharma, right, is because pharma relies on this thing called science. And science is tricky and there’s failures in it and stuff like that. And that’s one of the things the Starboard contends with in its campaign against Pfizer, right? Which is that Pfizer and all these drugmakers work off the basis of making bets on science, putting money towards science, whether that’s through R&D or whether that’s through going and buying biotechs. And, you know, Starboard might have like an eye for the detail, they might have one of the best constructed decks ever and it might be perfectly worded and written, but they don’t determine whether or not a drug works in clinical trials or not.

Michela Tindera
You know, I have to admit, I mean, it’s pretty wild to hear that this guy, Albert Bourla, whose company and vaccines basically helped the world restart during Covid and prevented loads of deaths, is just a few years later being targeted like this. I mean, what have your sources said about this? I mean, it feels a bit like a Shakespearean tragedy.

Oliver Barnes
It is a bit tragic. I mean, there’s one thing getting activists, there’s another thing getting an activist who is collaborating with the guy who hired you. But, you know, the guys managed to make it to the top of one of the world’s biggest drugmakers. He played this huge front foot forward role during the pandemic. The guy likes a fight. He likes strategy. So one would expect that, like, you know, despite the kind of personal dynamics and complications involved in all of this, he is going to rise to whatever kind of challenge Starboard presents him and try and find a route through it. And that route through it might be closing the door on them and saying, we’re not listening to you. That might be trying to find a settlement that like is a compromise between the two parties and draws a line under this quickly. But yeah, it’s not the last we’ve heard from him.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Michela Tindera
Behind the Money is hosted by me, Michela Tindera. Saffeya Ahmed is our producer. Sound design and mixing by Sam Giovinco and Joseph Salcedo. Special thanks to Dan Stewart. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer. Cheryl Brumley is the global head of audio. Original music is by Hannis Brown. Thanks for listening. See you next week.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The Hindu accounting year, Samvat, begins with Diwali every year and the Indian equity markets hold muhurat trading to mark the auspicious occasion.

When is Muhurat trading 2024?

This year Diwali falls on November 1 and hence the one-hour muhurat trading session will be held on the same day to mark the new year, Samvat 2081. 

ALSO READ: Why are gold prices hitting new all-time highs?

The one-hour symbolic session is finalised based on planetary positions and is believed to bring good fortune. This happens when the ritual of Laxmi Pujan is carried out to celebrate prosperity. Investors buy stocks as a token to mark new beginnings and usually don’t make serious investments. 

The tradition of Muhurat trading began on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in 1957. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) picked up the tradition in 1992 when the exchange was founded.

ALSO READ: Slow sales growth in the festive season dampens two-wheeler market sentiment

The session will have various segments, beginning with a 15-minute block deal session when traders commit to buying or selling stocks at a fixed price and report it the exchange. This will be followed by a pre-market session of 15-minute duration.

The main trading session will last for one hour. During this window, call auction will also be held for the transaction of illiquid securitues. The main window will be followed by the closing session when investors are allowed to place orders at the closing price.

Both BSE and NSE are yet to make an official announcement regarding the timings of the session.

This is an audio transcript of the Working It podcast episode: ‘How to network without being inauthentic’

Alison Fragale
Strategic and authentic are not opposites. They can go together. And what I’m hearing in Natasha’s story is I love to run. That’s authentic. And I’m returning from maternity leave. I have to think about re-engaging. And so I’m gonna be strategic in doing that. But again, not in a fake way, doing something I really like.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Isabel Berwick
Hello and welcome to Working It from the Financial Times. I’m Isabel Berwick.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Professional networking can be pretty uncomfortable. Approaching senior colleagues or strangers with an agenda is so transparent. And a lot of us find it a bit daunting. In fact, I used to find it so difficult. But I spent a lot of time at drinks events, not networking at all, but hiding in the ladies bathroom. Bonding with colleagues over genuine shared interests is a different story. It’s a great way to make yourself known to people at all levels and quite possibly boost your career as a result. Lots of workplaces, organised sports teams, choirs or other societies to help colleagues bond. How can we use these extracurricular activities to make connections we might not otherwise make? And how can we socialise naturally but strategically with colleagues? To find out, I’m speaking to Alison Fragale, an organisational behaviour professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Alison, hello.

Alison Fragale
Hello.

Isabel Berwick
Alison’s new book, Likeable Badass, is a science-backed guide to winning respect, power and influence. I’m also speaking to Natasha Wood, head of strategy for the FT’s events business FT Live. Natasha, welcome.

Natasha Wood
Hello. Thank you for having me.

Isabel Berwick
Natasha is gonna tell us how sport helped her meet crucial people at a pivotal moment in her career. Let’s get started. Allison, in your book Likeable Badass, you talk about the relationship between power and status. Could you tell us a bit about how you define those terms and what the relationship is between them?

Alison Fragale
So status is how much other people respect and regard us. So it’s a judgement other people make about us. Power is resources we control like money, authority, the ability to reward and punish. And those are both fundamental human needs. We care about them greatly. Life is better with them than without them. And the relationship between them is that status being highly regarded and respected is a prerequisite or a gateway for being able to have other people give us resources, give us power. So what we often see is that having status ends up making it easier for us to get and hold power.

Isabel Berwick
If you have power but you haven’t bothered to achieve status on the way up, is that gonna be tricky for you at the top?

Alison Fragale
Turns out it’s really problematic. So not only is power harder to get without status, if somehow you do, it’s actually really hard to use it effectively. We don’t really like resources being controlled by people we don’t respect and therefore we don’t treat them very well. They’re often the recipients of a lot of mistreatment. Things like having their judgement questioned, being interrupted, having their ideas ignored, you know, even more kind of aggressive behaviours that sort of communicate. I really don’t think you should have this control. And it turns out it’s a really miserable existence.

Isabel Berwick
I can see exactly what you mean, but I’m really interested in how we can grow our status through internal mechanisms that are not about promotion, things like socialising with colleagues or sport. You know what that can do for your standing. And I was gonna bring in Natasha here because you recently participated in a relay race organised by the FT and our parent company Nikkei. Could you tell us about that and why you did it?

Natasha Wood
Yeah, it’s a great question. First of all, I’m a passionate runner, so when the invitation came around to participate in an ekiden, which is a Japanese form of relay race, it naturally spoke to me. But I had recently returned from maternity leave and I was very conscious of my status or lack thereof because I had not been at work for 10 months. And I thought, oh this will be a great opportunity. It’s sponsored by a board member, John Ridding our CEO was very much instrumental in the FT sponsorship of it. And so it was a fairly calculated play to apply for a place because I knew it would help build those connections and build my profile as I look to re-establish some level of status following a career break.

Isabel Berwick
And how do you feel afterwards?

Natasha Wood
Well, it certainly achieved my aims. I made some connections internally at the FT. We continue to go for running sessions at lunchtime. That means that I’m having those conversations that I wouldn’t necessarily be having thanks to that sporting platform.

Isabel Berwick
Alison, how do you rate Natasha’s approach? Is that a status-building activity?

Alison Fragale
I love it. It’s 10 out of 10. So the two things that I’m hearing there that I really emphasise with people is, one, strategic and authentic are not opposites. They can go together. And what I’m hearing in Natasha’s story is I love to run. That’s authentic. And I’m returning from maternity leave, I have to think about re-engaging and so I’m gonna be strategic in doing that. But again, not in a fake way, doing something I really like. That’s one thing. And the second one is just the power of similarity. So I’m a psychologist and we look across all of psychology. The greatest basis of liking and attraction that psychology has ever documented is similarity. This adage birds of a feather flock together, that’s true. So when you have a shared similarity, it is the beginning of a relationship. It’s easy to build a relationship when someone sees themself in you. And most of the similarities that draws together at work don’t have to be about work at all. So anything. Oh, you have three kids. I have three kids. You spell your name with one L, so do I. All kinds of silly things we see in the research lead people to have a sense of connection. And so when you find those things, it’s very powerful.

Isabel Berwick
In workplaces that are increasingly diverse Alison, what kinds of things are similarities? Because I suppose in the olden days, it used to be white men feeling similar to other white men, didn’t it?

Alison Fragale
Well, there’s no doubt that we can draw similarity from things we can easily observe without even opening our mouth. And that’s why I do a lot of work advocating for women. And I say, when you look different than everyone else around you and you don’t do anything about it, then it’s logical that when people look at you, they simply assume that you are different. But between any two people, I guarantee you if you start to chat, you are gonna find a real genuine similarity. And again, the beauty of the research in psychology is that these similarities can be so trivial. You know, you order the same thing at Starbucks. I do. It truly doesn’t matter as soon as someone has that. Wait, that’s me too. You instantly light up. So the task is for everybody, but particularly if you look different than people around you go searching for those points of connection because they will trump anything that is visible. But if they’re not brought to the surface, then people will simply assume difference.

Isabel Berwick
And Natasha I know you find traditional networking slightly icky, we can call it perhaps. What do you think’s different when you socialise or play sport with colleagues?

Natasha Wood
It’s a great leveller, the sporting world activities that we choose to do that aren’t related to our day jobs. Work status goes out of the window and it’s just about engaging on a very, very personal level. Sport is about performance. It’s about testing your own individual limits and endurance, certainly within the running world. And that is an egalitarian world that makes it very easy to connect with people, regardless of whether the CEO or the latest intern. And making those connections that way, rather than I need something you have it for me means that those connections are a much more positive and likely to endure.

Isabel Berwick
Alison, how does that kind of bonding translate to the professional world? Are there tangible professional benefits we can reap from something like sport?

Alison Fragale
Absolutely. People cannot respect you if they don’t know you exist. So if we’re in sport or any other activity that’s outside of work, it gives people a chance to know we exist, to find some similarities with us and to start to like us a bit and to feel familiar. And familiar things are liked more. And then how can you start to add value to their life, not just in the personal domain, but the professional?

So I was thinking about a woman I met. We were just sitting next to each other working at shared tables at a co-working space that we both belonged to. And I didn’t know her and I struck up a short conversation with her, learned a little bit about what she did, and then connected with her on LinkedIn, because that’s what I do. And then no sooner I was back at my desk at home and an email comes through and it’s about a media that was looking for some people to write articles on different topics. And one of the topics was about mindfulness at work, which was her area. So I looked her up on LinkedIn. I had met her only the afternoon prior and I sent her this and I said, This sounds like it’s up your alley. And she wrote, ended up getting selected, wrote the article, and she’s been a great supporter of mine ever since.

And so it was that initial conversation that was just chit chat. But when I learned something about her, I kept my eyes open. I didn’t go out of my way that day to say, how can I make her life better? But when something crossed my desk and I thought of her, it took the extra minute to say, this could help you. And that was a simple thing the day, the day we met and that was years ago. And ever since then, she’s been very loyal to me and looked for opportunities to try to give back to me as well. So that social piece gives you the information. What’s this person about? And then when you’re going through your day, you can find those opportunities to think about how can I add a little bit of value?

Isabel Berwick
So would you say that achieving status is also about amplifying others? I think in your book you talk about, you know, supporting others. How can we best make that work?

Alison Fragale
Well, people respecting us, it’s not a random judgment. It’s based on two things that we pay attention to. How capable are you? Are you good at what you do? If I give you tasks, can you get them done well? And do you care about people other than yourself? Those are the two things that lead us to respect people. And if you can show up as both, hey, I have interesting knowledge, skills, attributes to share and I’m gonna do that for your benefit. That’s what gets you respect. And so what I help people think about is how can you do that in easy ways? There’s a lot of high effort ways you can do that.

But if you’re gonna build status really broadly, you can’t invest in every relationship extremely deeply. But a quick introduction, chit chatting with somebody while you’re taking a break, you know, in a co-working space to I’m gonna forward you an email that has a lot of value to you that opens up a door. Five minutes of your time can be a really big investment or value to that particular person. So that’s what I encourage people to look for is once you have the relationship, how can I add value to it in a way that allows me to show up as unique?

Isabel Berwick
That’s great advice. So how can we network with the right people without looking like we’re just schmoozing or being self-promoting? How can you be strategic as well as being authentic?

Alison Fragale
The authentic piece comes with meet lots of people, talk to lots of people. You never know where the next great, I call them other promoter or sponsor the person who’s really gonna advocate for you and build your status. You never know where that person is gonna come from. There’s a woman, Rachel Sheerin, I talk about her a lot every time I give a presentation. I wrote about her in the book. I met her in an airport bar, just chatting to the person next to me and turns out we are in the same line of work. And she has opened a tremendous amount of doors for me. So I would say meet people broadly.

Switch from this idea of networking to what Heidi Roizen, who’s a well-known venture capitalist and the subject of a oft-taught business school case. She said it’s not networking, it’s a relationship-driven life. And I think that’s right. I’m building relationships with people, and that’s authentic. And then looking for what do you care about so that I can think about as things cross my desk, the easy ways to add value to you. And that’s the kind of stuff that I’m always trying to think about when I meet people is, OK, who are you and how could I think about something that would make your life better?

One simple one that I offer to everybody is the idea of making an introduction. And when I make that introduction, I’m making two people’s lives better, not just one, if it’s a mutual benefit. And it’s a very easy thing to do. And a lot of those introductions have delivered a lot of value to people and in turn they feel very loyal to me for making them. So that’s one of the things we can start to think about is just meet people, listen to people, and then think about what can I do to add a little bit of value to their life. It’s very authentic, but it’s also strategic because it ends up being reciprocated.

Isabel Berwick
Do you think, Alison, that socialising with our colleagues has become more valuable since the pandemic? Now we’re in a hybrid world. Has that changed?

Alison Fragale
Well, I think it’s changed a little bit, but I was . . . we’ve had smartphones for a while. We’ve been doing things behind screens for a very long time. And so I see it not as like a cliff in the evolution of our social lives, but more just like a continuation of using technology more and more and more. And I think that you can build relationships behind screens, you can build relationships face to face.

I think the bigger impediment is not the technology or the medium you’re in, but more the mentality that you have, which is I want to strike a personal connection, I want to meet people, I want to add value to people. And if you start thinking about life that way, you can find ways to do it, even if you’re, you know, fully asynchronous, even if you’re just doing it by email, you can find ways to be able to add value. So I think it’s shift the mentality and not worry so much about what mode we are in because we can build relationships throughout.

Isabel Berwick
So Natasha, you’re an events expert. How can we best approach, you know, perhaps a real-life event? Because we don’t go to that many, but when we do, they’re quite special.

Natasha Wood
It’s really interesting as I was listening to Allison talk, I was thinking to my day job leading strategy for FT Live, the FT’s events business. And the feedback we so often get from our attendees is, I want to be able to network better. What tools do you have available? What app can I use to connect with other people? And the apps are great, but if we’re at an in-person event, the most valuable connections, the ones that are going to last you into the future, are actually the serendipitous conversations that you’re having whilst you’re waiting for a coffee, whoever’s picking up your badge.

So taking Alison’s advice to heart when you’re at a live event, introduce yourself. The person sitting next to you is probably feeling just as uncomfortable as you are in that environment. So be the one. Find out, do they spell Annabelle with two Ls, but you only spell it with one? Have they run a marathon? Believe me, it’s the age-old joke. If they have, you will know. They’ll tell you within five seconds of starting the conversation. But it’s a great way of knocking down those walls and starting to build relationships and who knows where they can go.

Isabel Berwick
That’s great advice. Alison, What would be your parting advice to listeners?

Alison Fragale
Just be yourself in the most strategic way possible. So start talking about what you love and what you do and have the mentality of How can I make others lives better? If you do that, then you’re gonna do 90% of the work that it takes to build sense.

Isabel Berwick
And Natasha, what’s your advice?

Natasha Wood
Find your passion and pursue it. Coming back to sport, there are so many connections that you can make. It’s a great way to build status because you’re exhibiting all of those leadership skills just by participating the resilience, the teamwork. So double down on your passions. And it’s amazing where those connections will take you.

Isabel Berwick
Thank you.

Natasha Wood
Thank you for having me.

Isabel Berwick
Alison, thanks so much.

Alison Fragale
Thank you for having me.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Isabel Berwick
This episode of Working It was produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval and mixed by Simon Panayi. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa, and Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of Audio. Thanks for listening.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Netflix continued healthy after-market trade in the US on October 19 after rallying to a record high a day earlier on higher-than-expected quarterly results. Gregory K. Peters, Netflix’s co-CEO, mentioned in the earnings call the steady flow of hit titles from countries such as India.

Along with mentioning the country that flaunts a massive regional catalogue, Peters talked about Thailand and South Korea, stressing the “decade-plus investment in those creative communities, working with local storytellers there and making sure that they have the capability to tell their stories in a compelling way.”

Earlier this week, Netflix announced the return of Emmy-award winner comedian Vir Das to the fore with a new untitled special. “This special will be an unapologetic direct shot of happiness to the heart… I’m honoured to be able to showcase Indian comedy on a global stage,” said Das in the official Netflix statement.

ALSO READ: Why Indians love watching ‘true crime’ content?

The streaming giant’s India arm also dropped a trailer for ‘Do Patti’. This debut directorial by Shashanka Chaturvedi reunites Dilwale costars Kajol and Kriti Sanon, with the former in a career-first role as a police inspector. “This being the first time I play a police officer, I can’t wait for my fans to see me in this new avatar,” noted Kajol in a statement.

‘Do Patti’ is slated for an October 25 release, while Das’s special is yet to get an official date for streaming. Other notable titles include Anupam Kher’s ‘Vijay 69’ releasing on November 8, and Raj & DK’s much-awaited action-fantasy series, ‘Rakt Bramhand – The Bloody Kingdom’.

On October 18, Netflix posted a profit of USD 5.40 (Rs 454) per share on revenue of USD 9.8 billion (Rs 82,388 crore) for the quarter, above the market estimates, despite continued subscriber growth. The global streaming giant added just 50.7 lakh subscribers this quarter, as opposed to 87.6 lakh subscribers in the same period last year. Net additions have steadily declined in the financial year.

ALSO READ: There’s reason why India is hyping 6G

Netflix India has not made significant hikes to its plan in quite a while, with its standard subscription receiving a price hike back in January 2022. However, research firm Jefferies recently noted that the streaming platform may increase the price of its select plans in the country by the end of this year.

A communications satellite designed and built by embattled aerospace giant Boeing has broken up in orbit.

The satellite’s operator, Intelsat, has confirmed the “total loss” of iS-33e, which has affected customers in Europe, Africa and parts of the Asia-Pacific region.

Intelsat also says it has taken steps to complete “a comprehensive analysis” of the incident.

Boeing has been facing crises on multiple fronts, with a strike at its commercial plane business and issues with its Starliner spacecraft.

“We are coordinating with the satellite manufacturer, Boeing, and government agencies to analyse data and observations,” Intelsat said.

Boeing did not comment directly on the incident, referring BBC News to Intelsat’s statements.

The US Department of Defense’s space-tracking website, SpaceTrack, also confirmed the incident.

An alert on the platform said the US Space Forces also said it is “currently tracking around 20 associated pieces” of the satellite.

Separately, two astronauts have been stranded at the International Space Station (ISS) after the Boeing Starliner capsule they arrived on in June was deemed unfit to make the return flight.

They are due to travel back to Earth on a spacecraft made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX next year.

Since last month, Boeing has also been dealing with a strike involving more than 30,000 workers at its commercial plane making operation.

Union members are set to vote on the company’s latest offer on Wednesday.

The new offer includes a 35% pay rise over the next four years.

Last week, Boeing announced it was seeking up to $35bn (£27bn) in new funding. It also said it would start laying off 17,000 employees – about 10% of its workforce – from November.

In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and to pay at least $243.6m after breaching a 2021 deferred prosecution deal.

The agreement was in relation to two 737-MAX planes that were lost in nearly-identical accidents that cost 346 lives more than five years ago.