George Pitcher was industrial editor of The Observer during the Tory privatisation years. He quit while he was ahead when he was voted National Newspaper Industrial Journalist of the Year in 1991and co-founded Luther Pendragon, a communications consultancy operating at the sharp-end of industry and politics, with broadcast-news journalist Charles Stewart-Smith. Over the past decade, his firm has advised senior executives of companies and institutions facing some of the most high-profile and controversial issues of the age and formed the team that advised the Government's Cabinet Office project on the Millennium Bug. He continues to write regular business columns and commentaries and lives in London with his wife and four children.