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Well, it was a very structured succession planning process, which every good company tries to have in
place. And the process was accelerated when Majorie informed me and the Board that she
was considering leaving at the end of the year. So obviously that focused our minds.
We moved forward and we came out happy to report a unanimous conclusion that John was
the right man for the job. We looked at John's business record as a builder and
as a contributor to Pearson s strategy. He's done a remarkable job in our international
business over the past decade or so, in taking a relatively small operation, building in
to something that's quite large and now makes up a quarter of our businesses in total. We
were particularly impressed by his efforts in the emerging markets, places like China
and Brazil and South Africa, where Pearson has very significant businesses. In China,
for example, where only a few years ago we had just a handful of people, John has built
that in to an organisation of 6,000 people, primarily teaching English in a very interesting
Chinese market. In Brazil he's built a great school business. In South Africa we
have a mix of businesses, including a university, the first one that we've owned. So he's done
just a great job of building in new markets. And in doing that he s incorporated some of
our fundamental strategic initiatives, like the switch from analogue to digital technology
and services, so he's really taken a lot of the very good things we had in places like
North America and applied them intelligently in new markets. I think the fundamental
direction of strategy is pretty clear to us, and John's appointment is not a challenge
to our strategy. One of John s great strengths is he s a good manager and he can execute
and implement strategies that we've all agreed on, we think, very effectively.