Voxpop

What would you like new Business Secretary Peter Mandelson to do for your company?

Be an inspiring and confident leader; bring in people from outside Government to advise him, people who have real experience of running successful businesses. Look for role models who have faced adversity and survived and thrived. Use their experiences to inform his policies and actions. Capitalise on British creativity and innovative thinking to find ways of doing things differently. Design could be the new powerhouse of the economy.

Lin Dickens, Managing director, Aricot Vert

Cometh the hour, cometh Peter Mandelson. Right now he is exactly the kind of influential entrepreneurial political leader we need. He believes that design and innovation are driving the knowledge economy forward, can ignite business growth and propel the transformation of public services. If he can use his power to put design centre stage, every business in the country will feel the benefits.

Julian Grice, Managing director, The Team