Gerald Ashley on Uncertainty & how it impacts our decision-making

On this episode, I'm speaking to Gerald Ashley who specialises in Business Risk and Decision Making. His work concentrates on trying to understand decision making, risk-taking and human behaviour, in the face of uncertainty.

“In the slippery world of Risk, Uncertainty, Change and Complexity –hard and fast rules can be rare, and sometimes a trap.” as he puts it.

Prior to concentrating on decision making analysis, Gerald had a 25-year career in international finance, having worked for Baring Brothers in London and Hong Kong, and the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. He remains involved in finance as an independent non-exec director of the London based fund managers Equitile (www.equitile.com)

Gerald is Managing Director of St. Mawgan & Co (www.stmawgan.com) which he co-founded in 2001, a London based consultancy specialising in risk management, strategy consulting, and behavioural finance modelling in business decision making and risk-taking.

He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Visiting Fellow at Newcastle Business School. His strong interest in financial history has also led him to become an interviewer for an Oral History Project about The City and finance. ( www.centreforfinancialhistory.org/oral-histories/)

You can find Gerald's blog here: www.geraldashley.blog

and his website here: www.geraldashley.com


In our discussion, he refers to a book by Paul Ormerod (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Positive-Linking-Networks-Revolutionise-World/dp/057127921X) and also mentions Frank Knight & Knightian Uncertainty which you can read more about here: http://news.mit.edu/2010/explained-knightian-0602
Gerald has written three books:

Two Speed World - https://www.harriman-house.com/two-speed-world

The Tangled World, a mini e-book that built on Two Speed World - https://www.harriman-house.com/the-tangled-world

Financial Speculation, a markets book about behavioural finance - https://www.harriman-house.com/financial-speculation

You can see Gerald present at Nudgestock, a BeSci festival here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NjSHZe1tRM