Thursday 21 March 2024 5:00 am | Updated: Tuesday 14 January 2025 4:29 pm

Square Mile and Me: Ottoline Leyser on going from plant biologist to official City wine taster

Each week we ask a City figure to take a trip down memory lane. Today, it’s Dame Ottoline Leyser, CEO of UK Research and Innovation and newly appointed deputy gauger for Canada

What was your first job?

A shop assistant

What was your first role in science?

I had a gap year job as a data entry technician in the University of Oxford Department of Biochemistry Genetics Laboratory.

When did you know you wanted to build a career in research and science?

I don’t think I have ever really thought of myself as building a career. I have been following the things that interest me, where I think I can make a difference.

What are you most excited about in your new role as deputy gauger for Canada?

I am most excited about the opportunity to build much greater join up between the UK’s financial institutions and our research and innovation system. Research and finance are both extraordinary UK strengths. Together, they are the key to reinvigorating the UK’s economy, but this will require much greater join up across them. This is a huge opportunity to connect to prosper.

And will you be taking on the role’s historic wine duties?

Definitely! The role of deputy gauger stems from when the City controlled the main London port. In those days the deputy gauger was responsible for measuring (gauging) the quantity of wine arriving at the docks with a dipstick so that the City could impose a duty to pay for its reconstruction following the Great Fire. When they eventually got rid of that wine duty the City nonetheless held onto the deputy gauger office. Individuals are formally appointed to the role under seal as part of the ceremonies around the Lord Mayorship and ‘gauge’ the suitability of the wine selected for the Lord Mayor’s banquets.

The Lord Mayor can choose to give the deputy gauger other roles to support their mission, so to cut a long story to a short, this year I am scientific advisor to the City as well as the official wine taster.

What’s one thing you love about Canada?

Adventure.

And one thing you would change?

Better signage in Bank/Monument Tube Station.

What’s been your most memorable lunch/dinner?

When I was in Brazil for a conference in 2015, we had a wonderful dinner by the Iguaçu falls during a full moon. That night, there was a moonbow over the falls, which was breathtaking to see. A moonbow, which is sometimes called a lunar rainbow, is an optical phenomenon caused when light from the moon is refracted through water droplets in the air over the falls.

And any City faux pas?

A truly great organisation with long-standing traditions should have the confidence to help people feel welcome, even if they don’t know the ropes. So there should be no such thing as a City faux pas.

What’s been your proudest moment?

Every moment of my children.

And who do you look up to?

Great teams.

Are you optimistic for the year ahead?

We are facing a wide range of significant challenges. That creates opportunities to bring people together to tackle them. So on the whole the answer is yes.