“There was so much riding on it,” recalls Laura Citron of the multi-million pound Let’s Do London campaign to revitalise travel back to the capital. “The tourism sector was on its knees after COVID. It felt like it was everyone’s campaign and it was a weight on my shoulders.”
In May 2022, Citron, CEO of London & Partners, was present in Times Square for a US campaign launch along with the cast of Six, the hit British musical.
That morning news broke that Six had been nominated for eight Tony Awards and a weight was seemingly lifted. A West End transfer onto Broadway for a punk musical about Henry VIII? “It is the perfect blend of traction with innovation which is what London is all about,” says Citron.
It was almost a full circle moment for Citron, who is half French but born and raised in Wimbledon. For her first memories of London involve musicals. First, The Snowman and then being taken out of a Peter and the Wolf production at the Royal Festival Hall after she started crying.
CEO Laura Citron poses with cast members from Broadway musical Six in New York, May 2022. ·Dia Dipasupil via Getty Images
Citron may have had a tinge of emotion this week after she picked up her OBE for services to the London economy. Last year, the city's mayor Sadiq Khan called her “one of the most passionate advocates for London”. Citron simply says: “You can’t sell anything if you don’t love it.”
And she clearly does. “It is fascinating when you see the growth of London, not over the last 40 years but over the last 1,000 years,” she says, “and how London has gone from being a Roman trading city surrounded by countryside and then the Tube in the late 1800s that turned London into what it is today.”
A century later and the birth of Canary Wharf has led to a series of clusters and new districts in London, the centre of the capital spreading from King’s Cross and Shoreditch to Battersea and White City.
London's financial district overlooks Petticoat Lane Market. ·fotoVoyager via Getty Images
With growth also being seen in Stratford, Brent Cross, Wembley and Sutton, with its world-leading centre for cancer drug discovery, Citron says the capital is becoming “a galaxy, a cluster of stars".
Citron’s role heading up London & Partners is to attract tourists and events to the capital, as well as high-growth companies in sectors such as fintech and life sciences, on top of capital and institutional investment needed for building and infrastructure projects.
At the helm since 2017, Citron took up the role after a decade with advertising giant WPP, where she led teams from Sydney to Kenya, India and across the US, with spells living in Moscow.
“Sometimes there is a risk in the UK that we can become quite parochial,” she admits. “WPP helped me to understand how businesses are done differently in different markets and how to run an international organisation from London.
“Whoever owns the client relationship is in charge. The client is always key.”
At London & Partners — which was formed in 2011 after merging with Visit London and other promotional firms — Citron has a team in 15 global cities who are effectively talent scouts, their remit to meet tech companies who are serious about international growth.
“When we meet those businesses we never let go of them,” says Citron. “Sometimes it takes us years [seven in one instance] to set up in London.
London & Partners has grown from 200 to 300 employees in the space of a year under Laura Citron's leadership. ·London & Partners/Peter Kindersley
“We support them on the operational side and help them with the practicalities. It’s then how we help them grow, get a good product market fit, find customers, investors, make a buzz when they land and get the right talent in hiring.
“We want to make sure that if we have spent taxpayer’s money getting a fantastic tech company from San Francisco or Bangalore into London, we want to make sure that all Londoners have a benefit of the jobs they are creating, so we have a team that helps them look for diverse talent.”
Citron, who has described London & Partners as a ‘concierge service for the city’, says that she doesn’t see European hubs such as Paris and Amsterdam as competition for London, which this month was voted the world’s top destination by Tripadvisor after Dubai had held top spot since 2022.
“We don’t tend to think of European cities as our competition, we think of them as partners,” says Citron. “We learn from each other. No one else does the job that I do in the UK and my counterparts are some of the people who give me the best advice.”
A report last October suggested that London continues to be the small business powerhouse, with nearly 60% of SMBs expecting growth in the fourth quarter, despite concerns over how the autumn budget would play out.
Citron puts this down to the capital’s “dynamic economy”, adding that Londoners “tend to be quite optimistic and like to hustle".
Laura Citron grew up in Wimbledon before understanding global leadership and outlook with WPP.
“We spend lots of energy taking fast-growing ambitious companies around the world and turning them into the next big thing,” says Citron.
“But we also recognise that the businesses in our communities and on high streets are the foundation of what makes London a decent place to live. They might not have aspirations to be a global business but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be supporting them to thrive.”
CEO Says: Laura Citron on…
Elizabeth line
It is a game changer for London and completely changed the economic geography of the city, with a much bigger pool of workers who can quickly commute. We still have parts of London that don’t have the public transport infrastructure that you expect of a major city. Three next transport projects will be to extend the Docklands Light Railway to Thamesmead, extend the Bakerloo Line and build a new West London Orbital.
London’s next big thing
We have Walthamstow, Southall and Green Lanes to Brixton. Being able to come to London and explore these different cultures and cuisines is really exciting and something we will see more of. There has been that trend in New York and businesses there wanting to understand the different communities that make up the city.
