Episode 2 - Mind and Direct Line

Paul Farmer and Paul Geddes join James Ashton to discuss staying in touch with the frontline, respecting the past, picking the right mentor and the importance of leaders’ own wellbeing.


Paul Geddes is the outgoing chief executive of Direct Line, the £5bn insurance group whose brands include Churchill, Privilege and Green Flag.


In a decade at the wheel, Geddes has demerged the business from its former parent company Royal Bank of Scotland, overseen a successful stock market flotation and grown the firm so that today it insures one in six cars on the road and 2.6m homes.


His background is in marketing, starting with Procter & Gamble then as marketing chief for retailers Comet and Argos.


As the chief executive of Mind, the leading mental health charity, Paul Farmer has seen how we feel and the permission to talk about it become a mainstay of the national conversation. Contributions by Mind’s president Stephen Fry to Ruby Wax and the Royal Family mean that mental health has never had a higher profile.


For Farmer, who has run the organisation since 2006, it has led to record income of £48m last year – meaning he can help many more of the one in four people that experience a mental health problem annually.

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