David Darton is a consultant for a range of private and public clients in business strategy, research strategy and communications, and is part of a consortium providing media training. He also works as Strategy and Research Director for the Equal Opportunities Commission and is writing his first novel, a thriller. His earlier career was centrally concerned with money: as Senior Economist for the Korea Exchange Bank and Korean Ministry of Finance based in Seoul and then as a Founder Director of the strategic business consultancy, the Henley Centre for Forecasting, which subsequently became part of the international marketing group, WPP. More recently he spent ten years as Communications/Strategy Director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

“Such a complicated thing, then, is money. It is our livelihood, the way we pay for our bread and butter; it is the way we create work for other people; it is a measure of success, whether you store it in a bank or spend it on unnecessary things; it is a consolation prize for missing out on your vocation; it can even be an excuse for not following that vocation…. No wonder we get confused. No wonder that so many make money the point of life rather than the means of life. It was not meant to be that way when it was first devised as the universal mechanism of exchange.” (Charles Handy, Chapter Nine, this volume)