Take Wm Morrison’s appointment this week of Paul Manduca, the fund-management veteran, as its fifth non-executive director. Ducking her initial brief of suggesting which 100 individuals from outside the Square Mile might make good non-executive fodder, she instead opted to focus on the less controversial issue of how to increase diversity in UK boardrooms.Two years on, and observers argue little has changed. “The DTI [Department of Trade and Industry] had this expression, ‘male, pale, stale’ You know, old, male, white,” she says. We do not have a system that serves such people well even in the absence of a disaster of this scale.”But George W’s re-election put paid to Ms Tyson’s return to Washington, leaving the dean to notch up her fourth year at LBS.In the City, Ms Tyson is best known for her 2003 report into how to break the old boy stranglehold on UK company boards.

“Shouldn’t the US be investing more in its infrastructure? Has the National Guard been too weakened by being moved into the way in Iraq, which is really not their primary responsibility? And what should the US be doing about the problems of the balance of income distribution? These are really poor people and the US does not have adequate,” deep sigh, “health, pensions, education, welfare nets…. “It’s so much more the scale of the tragedy and the public policy it raises,” she says, in her nondescript Yankee accent. As the one-time national economic advisor to President Clinton, she looked a shoo-in for a senior post in a Kerry administration, possibly even Treasury Secretary. Right now, for instance, she would probably be worrying about the policy storm whipped up by Hurricane Katrina and designing an economic recovery programme for an area the size of Britain in America’s Deep South.Unusually, for an economics professor, she doesn’t see the Katrina’s after-effects in macroeconomic terms. No, the petite American brushing crumbs from her jacket is the dean of the London Business School, home to wannabe fat cats from around the globe. Since she also takes on work for our government, sits on the board of two think-tanks, writes a weekly economics column, oh, and stays in touch with her former life in Washington (where she was President Clinton’s most senior female adviser), meals on the run are part and parcel of her average day.
“This summer I decided I was working 150 per cent of my time, so I thought maybe I needed to reduce it to, like, 125 per cent,” she says. Life, for the 58-year-old academic, is a “balancing act” between her full-time day job and her avowed true love: public policy.If the Democrats had won last November, Ms Tyson would have very different demands on her time.

Gossips reckon City earnings forecasts for the group are far too conservative, and suggested brokers will soon have to upgrade their estimates.. Professor Laura Tyson is mid croissant when she opens her office door. In true business-superwoman fashion, she had no time for the healthy breakfast she had promised herself so is grabbing a quick bite between meetings

Only Ms Tyson is not your conventional City executive. The company was quick to dismiss the speculation saying it had “no substance”.Finally, Ideal Shopping rose 12p to 378.5p on talk the home-shopping channel owner has enjoyed strong trading over the summer.

Regal shares fell 18p to 152.5p as some reports questioned the validity of the group’s gas licences in the country. Earlier this week the Ukraine was plunged into political crisis after President Victor Yushchenko, sacked the country’s government in response to allegations of corruption. Tony Alves, at KBC Peel Hunt, argues that the turmoil is unlikely to impact JKX’s operations in the country on a day-to-day basis, however he did warn that the company could be negatively impacted by a delay to the approval of a new gas link to the country’s export pipelines.Regal Petroleum was also hit by concerns about its business in the Ukraine. Fran?s Meunier, analysts at Cazenove, believes Wolfson earnings may need to be upgraded by as much as 20 per cent next year to take account of the new deal.First Calgary gave up 22.5p to 465p on news that the explorer’s latest well in Rourde Yacoub, Algeria, had found non-commercial quantities of oil and gas and had been abandoned.The Ukraine-focused explorer JKX Oil & Gas fell 1.25p to 190p as investors worried about the renewed political tension to beset the former Soviet country. Cazenove and Citigroup came out with bullish comments on Wolfson in the wake of the latest breakthrough for the company.