Finsbury Institute launches first short course on global commercial awareness

“Success is when you stop reading the news as a list of events and start reading it as a set of connected pressures,” said Professor Michael Mainelli. “A headline about a port, a tariff, a chip, or an election should prompt you to ask what it means for your sector, your customers, and your next decision.”

He will be leading Global Commercial Awareness, the first short course run by the Finsbury Institute at City St George’s, University of London, which was designed to help professionals understand the global forces shaping business, markets and strategic decisionmaking.

The five-week blended programme will explore how social, technological, economic and political developments interact to shape organisations and commercial environments.

Professor Mainelli served as Lord Mayor of London in 2023/24 and as part of that role, was Rector of City St George’s. During his tenure, he appointed Professor Katrin Hohl OBE as the inaugural Lord Mayor’s Fellow.

Drawing on his experience across finance, technology, research, management consulting and public life, Professor Mainelli will lead participants through themes including global cities, technological disruption, sustainability, economic and political developments, regulation, geopolitical risk, strategic foresight and scenario analysis.

Reflecting on the experiences that have shaped his approach to commercial awareness, Professor Mainelli said: “Accountancy taught me that numbers are a story someone has chosen to tell, and that you should always ask who chose it and why. Research taught me to distrust conclusions that arrive too quickly.”

He said his year as Lord Mayor offered a different perspective: “You spend twelve months in rooms with ministers, regulators, founders and ambassadors, and you see how trade, politics and finance depend on one another. A decision in one city on Monday becomes a price movement or a policy shift somewhere else by Friday.”

The course will use horizon scanning, systems thinking, case studies, structured discussion and applied project work. Participants will be encouraged to connect developments across sectors and regions and consider their implications for organisations and markets.

Discussing modern work, Professor Mainelli said:

Everything is more connected, so shocks travel further. AI is changing what work is while we are still doing it. And politics has moved back to the centre of commercial life.

The complexity comes from the interaction between forces, not from any single one of them. A tidy forecast about one factor, with all else held equal, is almost useless, because all else is never equal.

The course is aimed at mid-career professionals, including managers, business owners, entrepreneurs and consultants. Participants are encouraged to bring in the real-world problems they are experiencing on the ground. Across two in-person sessions at the Finsbury Institute and three live online sessions, participants will complete 21 hours of learning.

For Professor Mainelli, the aim is to develop a more connected approach to understanding the world of business.

The Finsbury Institute is the City of London’s dedicated policy hub, and this short course is the next step in its expansion into policy, education and business.

Professor Diana Beech, Director of the Finsbury Institute, added:

One of the Finsbury Institute's core goals is to create stronger connections between the worlds of higher education, policy and business. By expanding into executive education, we are creating a new platform for business leaders to engage with big ideas, learn from experienced practitioners and better understand the global context in which decisions are made.

There could be no better person than Professor Mainelli to lead this first programme given his unparalleled insight into the opportunities and challenges facing the City.