The career of National Football League kicker Brett Maher, one marked by both record-setting successes and public failures, offers useful insights for professionals facing high-pressure situations. In particular Maher employed three core practices: tuning out external criticism, focusing on process over outcomes, and embracing reflection and routine. Leaders under stress can use the same approaches to maintain composure, resilience, and continuous improvement when stakes are high....
In most cases, traffickers spend months or even years building trust and creating emotional and economic bonds with their victims. They use a variety of coercion and control techniques such as emotional abuse, forced criminality, financial abuse, and physical and sexual abuse to entrap their victims. The story of Jeffrey Epstein is just one example of how traffickers use a combination of manipulation, economic dependency and coercion ' rather than physical captivity ' to entrap vulnerable people and slowly erode their autonomy. Many victims don't even realize they're being exploited due to the manipulations of their traffickers. Epstein's crimes have attracted the national spotlight due to the fame and power of his clientele. His case demonstrates the harsh reality that human trafficking is far more common and complex than most people imagine. We are criminologists who research human trafficking. In 2020, we founded the University of South Florida's Trafficking in Persons Risk to Resilience Lab, known as the TIP lab, to study human trafficking in the state of Florida....
The exploratory exercise, which will publish its final report in early 2027, will evaluate the impact on the UK economy rather than identify vulnerabilities at individual firms. The BoE cannot compel participation because it does not regulate private equity or investment funds, but a group of major global asset managers has agreed to take part. Participants include Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital, Blackstone, Carlyle, CVC Credit Partners, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, KKR, and Permira. Together they account for about one third of UK leveraged buyout activity, half of private credit lending to large UK corporates, and 40% of employment in private equity-backed businesses. The test will run in two stages, allowing firms to indicate how they would react to the decisions of others during a crisis. It will examine how investors fund themselves and how shocks could cascade through financing structures for large British businesses. Venture capital and commercial real estate will not be included....
