Alice Newton-Rex is in her company’s boardroom performing card tricks to her team. Magic is not generally part of her role as chief product officer at money transfer business WorldRemit, and her inexperience shows as she asks a colleague to pick a card at random and look at it, then return it before she nervously shuffles the deck. Amazingly, that card now appears at the top of the pile. No one seems more surprised than Ms Newton-Rex, who has only had a few minutes to practise the routine.
She learnt the trick as part of a leadership training session from Abracademy, an executive education business that claims teaching the art of magic offers valuable workplace lessons in management and team-building.
Ms Newton-Rex was a little sceptical before her team’s session, but thinks the magic was helpful. “This team has grown very rapidly, so having something like this that takes us outside our comfort zone is very useful.”