Yet the army she represents today is a far cry from the one she joined, most notably in its pivot towards its Future Soldier transformation. As Deputy Chief of the General Staff she will be critical in its aim to become ‘a more lethal, agile, digitised and expeditionary force’, saying: ‘I am excited to be playing my part in leading the Army’s mobilisation to meet today’s threats, and the delivery of our Future Soldier’s bold modernisation agenda.’
Lt Gen Nesmith is mainly responsible for managing the Army’s budget and setting the policy for recruitment and career management. Prior to this role she ran the Army Recruiting and Initial Training Command, where she was responsible for the recruitment and training of more than 35,000 Regular and Reserve officers and soldiers across 280 Army courses each year.
When she was promoted to her current role, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said she brought with her ‘extensive experience and new ideas to drive the Army’s transformation and deal with emerging threats across the world’.
Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine and at a time when Rishi Sunak was unwilling to commit to increasing defence spending to three per cent of GDP, despite pressure from ministers, it will be interesting to see how Lt Gen Nesmith balances the books. It is a challenge not many would relish but no doubt she will tackle it head on in the year ahead.
Also likely to be a key figure in the new year is Jude Terry, who this year became the Navy’s first female Rear Admiral. With an investigation under way into ‘abhorrent’ allegations of sexual assault, misogyny and harassment within the Submarine Service, Rear-Adml Terry will be among those in the spotlight as the Navy attempts to show it will not tolerate such behaviour.
The new king of crypto – but for how long?
By Io Dodds, Technology Writer
Was this the tweet that blew up a multi-billion dollar bank? When Changpeng Zhao, chief executive of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, told his 7.7 million followers in November that he was selling off all assets tied to rival exchange FTX, he triggered a digital bank run that exposed gaping holes in FTX’s finances and helped bring a company once worth $32 billion (£27 billion) crashing down into bankruptcy.
The 45-year-old Canadian would later insist that he had not meant to spook the market, apologising for ‘any turmoil [he] caused’. Nevertheless, FTX’s downfall left Zhao – an outwardly humble and obsessively secretive engineer known to his fans as CZ, who splits his time between London, Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong – as the unchallenged king of cryptocurrency. In 2023, he could either ride the chaos to new levels of power or become its next big casualty.
Zhao was 12 years old and spoke no English when his family fled China for Vancouver in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Born shortly before the one-child policy came into effect in his area, he queued with his mother outside the Canadian embassy for 36 hours to get a visa. Teenage jobs at McDonald’s and a petrol station gave way to a degree in computer science, a globe-trotting career writing stock market trading software, and ultimately, in 2017, founding Binance – a crypto exchange that lets users swap between more than 350 cryptocurrencies as well as traditional ‘fiat’ money.
In its first few months, Zhao gave his employees one simple goal: ‘Do everything to increase our market share, and nothing else.’ Today Binance boasts around 120 million registered users and handles $76 billion in trades every day. Zhao has become a hero in the crypto community, regularly responding to fans and critics directly. He claims to eschew personal luxury and extravagance, owning no houses or cars. When he doesn’t know what to pick at a restaurant within the first few seconds, he simply chooses the third option.
Yet Zhao keeps his actual business murky, refusing to say which country Binance is even headquartered in. US officials are reportedly probing it for money laundering breaches, while investigative reporters have accused it of plotting to deceive regulators and turning a blind eye to cybercrime (Binance denies these claims). The implosion of FTX and the collapse in crypto prices – which slashed Zhao’s net worth from $97 billion to less than $15 billion – will also push legislators across the world to crack down on the industry. Undaunted, Zhao has wasted no time in positioning himself as the responsible face of crypto, declaring that he would start a global trade association and a recovery fund for future crashes.
Other names to watch in tech include Sam Altman, head of the artificial intelligence research firm OpenAI, whose automated painting software is turning the art world upside down, and General Motors boss Mary Barra, who is pivoting the 114-year-old car maker hard into electric vehicles. Her chief rival Elon Musk, having staked much of his fortune on building ‘Twitter 2.0’, has all but burned the old version to the ground through a distinctive personal combination of impulsivity, workaholic despotism and galactic self-confidence. If he succeeds next year it will be partly thanks to Zhao, who invested $500 million in Musk’s buyout and then declared: ‘Don’t ask me about a plan. Never had a plan for Binance. Entrepreneurs don’t plan.’
