How do you recover from failing in public?

In 1991 Gerald Ratner ran the biggest jewellery retailer in the world. Then he made a joke in a keynote speech, calling one of his own products "crap" as a light remark about retail pricing, and the press ran it as the chief executive calling his jewellery rubbish. Sales fell for months. Around £500 million came off the value of the business. He carried on for about eighteen months before he was fired by a chairman he had hired to steady the company.

That is the story most people know. The session, a fireside conversation with host Andy McMenemy, was about the part they don't. Ratner described being "dropped like a stone" by his professional network almost overnight. Old friends from business, media and finance stopped returning calls. What followed was seven years of depression, daytime television and a lost sense of purpose, until his wife's frustration and his own exhaustion pushed him to change.

The rebuild was slow and unglamorous. He stopped denying what had happened and started owning it, including in the speeches he now gives. Cycling became both an outlet and a way to clear his head. In 1997, with no money, he launched a health club by pre-selling memberships before he owned the building, and sold it a few years later for £3.9 million. In 2001 he moved into online jewellery, riding the early wave of cheap search advertising before competition and rising costs eroded that business years later. Asked whether the redemption story feels complete, he said not entirely. He is still criticised on some platforms, and has made his peace with it.

Seven takeaways

1. Own it fast, own it fully.

   Excuses don't rebuild trust. Honesty does. When something breaks on your watch, say so before anyone else does. Half-honest explanations don't work, because people see through them.

2. Recovery takes time, not a soundbite.

   Ratner's comeback took seven years. There is no shortcut through a real crisis and no clever line at a press conference that ends it. Give it the time it needs.

3. You are not your worst moment.

   Separating who you are from what went wrong is what lets a leader keep leading through the fallout, instead of disappearing into it.

4. Stay lean, move fast.

   His biggest wins after the fall came from low overheads and speed, getting there before competitors caught up. Agility beats scale, especially when a market shifts.

5. A crisis shows you who is really there.

   Most professional relationships turn out to be conditional on success. Build real peer support before you need it, because you will not be able to build it afterwards.

6. Bring your team into decisions, not just delivery.

   Involving people in the why builds morale and shared ownership. Top-down mandates don't.

7. No risk, no growth.

   Leaders who avoid all risk avoid all progress. Business is inherently risky, and the point is to know which risks you are taking.