ISSUE 02 MAY 2019
Revolution In The Air Why Britain must lead a brave new digital world Juergen Maier, CEO, Siemens UK
Leading from a Different Front -21st Century Leadership Challenges
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Head in the Clouds - Silicon Valley's David Richards on Big Data 5 Best Business Lunches in London - Impress Without Breaking the Bank Seeking Harmony - How to Resolve Boardroom Disputes
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CONTENTS 4 Viva La Revolution!
36 IR35 The Clock is Ticking
8 Supporting Female Entrepreneurship and British Small Businesses
38 Women in the Boardroom
10 Being a People Person 12 Leading From a Different Front 14 Can You Insure Against Brexit? 16 Head in the Clouds 20 Seeking Harmony 23 3 Ways That Getting Fit Changed My Life
40 Riding High: Peter Wilkinson 42 Keeping Good Counsel 46 Charting Success 48 Why Business is Going Back to University 50 Unlocking Potential for SMEs 52 Swing When You’re Winning
24 The 5 Best Business Lunches in London
54 Digital Technologies
26 Exposing the Weakest Link
56 Recent Appointments
29 In Touch with our Members - Steve Frost
58 Charity Begins Abroad
30 Driving to a Greener Future
60 New Horizons in the Windy City
32 Making the most of Magnificent Malaysia
62 Whatever Floats Your Boat
A note from our editor Welcome to the second edition of In Touch with Business Magazine and thank you all for your positive reaction to our launch issue. Once again, we’ve looked to put together a broad range of insight, news and advice to help you navigate the fast-changing world of business. And that pace of change runs right through this edition. We talk to those at the cutting edge of the new industrial revolution already changing the world of work and examine how to meet the challenges that Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and other amazing advances are throwing up, not just on the shop floor but in the boardroom too. We also look at what’s required from our leaders in this new business world, the emerging importance of the HR director and the role of the ‘ethical’ hacker in protecting us from the menace of cyber-crime. We also have a host of valuable advice and fascinating insight from a wide range of business leaders – and we hope you’ll find something not only of interest, but of genuine use to you.
A word from our CEO In Touch has had a stellar quarter, achieving a Prolific North Tech Award nomination and being named in the Financial Times FT 1000. We are getting amazing feedback from our members, who are loving the new portal and the quality of the content, our magazine included. Add to this, the opening of our new Chicago office and it's clear to see our phenomenal progress. At In Touch, we are constantly looking at how we can evolve in response to technological advances and stay one step ahead, whether that be through robust cybersecurity measures or innovating our use of data. In this issue, we’ve invited two tech industry giants, in Juergen Maier and David Richards, to add their fascinating insight into the future of technology in business. We also have plenty to help those looking to further their portfolio careers, including interviews with successful non-executives and an exploration of the importance of professional development, a key tenet of our ethos at In Touch.
Once again we’re keen to get your thoughts on our efforts, so please get in touch and let us know what you think of this issue, and the topics you’d like to see covered in future editions.
I hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed creating it.
Gerard Henderson Editor
Matthew Roberts CEO In Touch Networks
In Touch With Business is published by In Touch Networks Limited (company number 05715110) and printed by Resource Print Solutions, Leeds. Designed and produced by In Touch Networks who are an organisation for Non-Executive Directors based at 3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, M3 3EB. Edited by Thirty 30 Media Limited, Pleer House, 1 Fennel Street, Manchester, M4 3DU. Reproduction of any material, in whole or in part, is strictly forbidden without the prior consent of the publisher. In Touch With Business and its contributors are committed to upholding the highest ethical standards through their journalism. If you have any corrections or complaints, please contact magazine@intouchnetworks.com.
Viva La Revolution! Change is in the air. The brave new age of digitalisation, where data is king and artificial intelligence plays an ever larger role, is upon us. Failure to embrace the challenge could have dire consequences for individual businesses and UK PLCs. Juergen Maier wants Britain to work smarter. It is his bold rallying cry as he urges the nation not just to join but to lead the industrial revolution that is reshaping the world of work and business. The chief executive of industrial giant Siemens is a vocal champion of change, urging action to ensure the UK isn’t left behind in this brave new ever-changing world. Maier declares: “It is about creating the future.” Leading from the front, he has been a driving force of the ‘Made Smarter’ programme – currently looking to work with 3,000 small and medium sized (SME) manufacturers across the North West of England. The aim is to support and encourage these businesses in the adoption of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, the Internet of Things (IoT) and sensors, 3D printing and robotics. The eventual plan is to roll-out the programme nationally using digitalisation to achieve the productivity gains the UK so badly needs. Maier, a leading supporter of the Northern Powerhouse drive, has also been a key advisor to the Government’s Industrial Strategy team. The UK boss of German engineering giant Siemens headed a government commissioned review on industrial digitalisation that reported UK manufacturing could unlock £455bn over the next decade - if it gets its strategy right. It’s a huge prize. Maier believes that this “fourth industrial revolution” that he talks about could see 175,000
new skilled jobs being created across the country over the next 10 years. To that end he now co-chairs the recently created Made Smarter Commission, alongside Business Secretary Greg Clark. It has brought a host of other UK business bighitters to the table. They include BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Airbus, Jaguar Land Rover, GSK and Nestle as well as the CBI, TUC and Make UK, the new name of the manufacturers’ body the EEF.
Maier, a leading supporter of the Northern Powerhouse drive, has also been a key advisor to the government’s Industrial Strategy team. The commission is tasked with developing the vision for the future of UK manufacturing and driving the digitalisation of the sector, boosting productivity, creating more highly-skilled jobs and enabling more efficient, cleaner production systems, as part of the emerging Industrial Strategy. Maier’s clear message has been that it is vital businesses get all the support they need to “help them on their journey” to begin adopting the new technologies that will help boost their productivity. He is passionate of the need to get more businesses fully involved. His big fear is that the UK will miss out through lack of investment
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and willingness to change – as he believes it did during the third, automation-driven industrial revolution. It is one of the driving forces behind Made Smarter and a message he was eager to share when he attended the launch of another new initiative at BAE Systems’ Academy for Skill and Knowledge in Lancashire. The Access programme is a disruptive leadership in technology programme. Top graduate talent will be nurtured and equipped with the skills they need to be employed as ‘Technical Disruptors’.
Disruption continues at pace Maier welcomes all projects like this. He said “We really need to get a much stronger movement for the future of manufacturing. We all need to get behind the fourth industrial revolution much more and really create the future. “The fourth industrial revolution gives rise to a new opportunity. It is here, it is happening now and it is disrupting at one heck of a pace.” He added: “Disruption can disrupt in a negative sense, displacing lots of jobs, or we can invest in it and get it right and create more jobs and prosperity. It is getting that balance right.” He talks of the need for stronger partnership between industry and government both nationally and locally and of “leadership”. “It means investing in technologies, getting involved in being an early adopter of some of the technologies. It is also about investing in skills, in human capital.
“We have got to help the new start-up companies. Whether they are in manufacturing, AI systems, data analysis platforms or additive manufacturing systems, we have got to create these companies.” Maier says not enough young people are being attracted into manufacturing and that is another big issue that needs addressing. However, he points out that there is also “a huge deficit in our existing workforce, people working in our manufacturing industries today that need to be up-skilled.” Maier wants to see investment in young people and believes that skills are fundamental to the revolution. His message is simply this: “Businesses, quite frankly, have to get out there and invest in their people. There are no short cuts to this.”
Major investments The UK business he leads continues to invest in both its operations and its people. Siemens employs 15,000 people in the UK and is strong across the North of England. In 2018 Siemens UK generated £5bn in revenue. It is a partner at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in Sheffield. Its Congleton plant in Cheshire manufactures electronic variablespeed drives, mainly for export, and is one of its most productive operations worldwide. In Hull, Siemens has made a major investment in an industry-leading operation to manufacture giant offshore wind turbine blades. And in Goole, East Yorkshire, it has plans to establish a new state-ofthe-art factory to manufacture and commission trains. It is a major multimillion pound investment that could create up to 700 skilled engineering and manufacturing roles.
Profile
Juergen Maier
Maier believes the North of England has a leading role to play in forging the new landscape. It can’t, he has said in the past, be done from Whitehall. It is a proposition he puts to his audience: “Are we going to do enough to really get behind the fourth industrial revolution and make it work for the North West?” he asks, and then answers his own question, stating firmly: “I think we can.”
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Juergen Maier moved from Germany to the UK in 1974 when he was just 10 years old. He and his family left the town of Karlsruhe, in south west Germany and made their home in Leeds. Maier was educated in the city, going to a local comprehensive school. He started his career with Siemens UK in 1986 as a graduate trainee after studying production engineering at what is now Nottingham Trent University, on a programme sponsored by the group.
He has held a number of senior positions within Siemens in the UK and Germany including two divisional managing director roles and manufacturing director of its award winning Drives factory in Congleton, Cheshire. He was appointed chief executive of Siemens UK in 2014, prior to that he had been managing director of Siemens Industry since 2008. Maier’s thoughts on business and industry are much sought after and include appearances on the BBC’s
flagship Question Time programme. He has also received widespread acclaim for his work driving the Made Smarter initiative. Speaking in February, Business Secretary Greg Clark said: “Based on Juergen’s work and supported by you (the private sector) we have had a huge response right across the UK from the manufacturing community from companies big and small in every nation of the United Kingdom. We’ve made substantial progress already.”
His message is simply this: “Businesses, quite frankly, have to get out there and invest in their people. There are no short cuts to this.”
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Supporting female Supporting Female entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship British small businesses and
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IW Capital is renowned for its leading expertise in 9
tax-efficient equity equity investment through investment through the the EIS and providing debt EIS and providing funding to SMEs. debt funding to SMEs. Non-executive directors are
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IW Capital are for are looking forlooking investment. Non-Executive They cater for Directors both capital growth and more secure who are interested in income-generating investment investment opportunities; opportunities. to consider on a deal-by-deal basis new portfolio companies who are looking for investment. They cater for both capital growth and more secure income-generating investment opportunities.
Being a People Person It might not be the most high-profile position on the board - but the role of the HR director is crucial when it comes to shaping and defining the culture of a business and driving growth. Getting that culture right is important in a world where companies are increasingly judged on their values, as well as their ability to make money for shareholders.
work in. And for the employer it is about the twin aims of less churn and stronger performance. Cowlishaw says: “It’s about culture and people, that’s what drives a business. Lots of business leaders are now waking up to that fact.”
The role of a modern HR director goes far beyond traditional core issues such as recruitment, training, compliance and industrial relations. A wide range of business skills are required. There is more to the job than box-ticking.
Engagement is important to the role, he adds: “You have got to be able to articulate the business and to engage at the right levels. The HR director who is not prepared to immerse themselves in the intrinsic nature of the business will fail.
Today’s HR director has been described as “the steward” of the company’s culture, monitoring and moving it along to meet the changing requirements of the business landscape.
“You really must have the ability to be strategic. I’ve been in HR for 25 years and if anyone comes into my office there are not many scenarios I haven’t dealt with from a people perspective.
As well as driving forward those values, the job is also about encouraging innovation and looking at long term performance and sustainability.
“But I also know the financial numbers, I know our customer base and I actively engage with our customers. I know our pipeline and I know our strategy and vision.”
As Richard Cowlishaw, group HR director at Clipper Logistics, explains: “Driving change, driving the culture; these are the key aspects for me in my role.”
Amanda Stainton is HR director at Portakabin. With its headquarters in York, the leading modular construction provider employs more than 1,750 people across seven countries.
Clipper is an international business with 4,000 employees based on 46 different sites and its HR department is 50-strong.
She explains: “HR plays a role at a strategic level because people are critical to a business’ success, so the focus has to be on engagement, leadership, learning and culture.”
Cowlishaw has been involved in HR for more than a quarter of a century. “When I first went into HR it was called personnel,” he recalls.
Stainton believes that HR directors also need to be diplomats, as they are often the person in the business that the chief executive or managing director confides in. And like Cowlishaw, she says that having sound commercial sense is important in getting the role right and in making a strong contribution to the board and its business objectives.
Times have changed and he believes that HR directors have to add “strategic value” in the boardroom. He points out that to fulfil their modern role they also need to have a commercial view and a strong understanding of the business they are operating in. There may be many priorities in the boardroom - but the commercial importance of having the right culture is growing. For one thing it can give the company a vital edge when it comes to recruiting and retaining talent – and delivering new business opportunities.
She adds: “Everything we do in the people arena is also about delivering a commercial advantage, listening and coaching, strategic thinking – it’s the ability to join the dots in a holistic way. “It is about creating the right culture for your business to succeed. This is achieved through a myriad of actions and initiatives, but critically by the behaviours of the leaders of the business.”
In a highly competitive marketplace, potential staff may choose an employer, not just on the salary offered, but because the business shares their values and has an environment and culture that they want to
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“There may be many priorities in the boardroom but the commercial importance of having the right culture is growing.”
TOP TIPS Your HR director is vital in creating an atmosphere of trust and transparency, so make sure they are approachable as well as business-minded. Openness and constructive discussion set the tone for your company’s culture.
Matthew Roberts CEO
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Leading From a Different Front In Touch member Brett Sadler is a Leadership Consultant and Futurist working with clients on strategy, engagement and culture change. Here he talks about equipping leaders to meet the challenges and changes of our times. The world we are operating in is very different to the one pre-millennials – which covers most leaders – grew up in. Business in the 20th Century had a certain predictability that was all rather comforting, but the old leadership and organisation models are becoming increasingly at odds with the changing environment we’re now operating in. This makes the old command-andcontrol style of leading look, well, so last century. How can we command when we have workers who are savvier about what’s going on in the markets and in technology than we can ever hope to be? And how can we control if we’re unable to accurately predict where things are going? Traditional organisations typically put a disproportionate load on the leadership team. To make sound decisions, leaders need to know everything but how can they when things are changing day-to-day, hour-by-hour? To answer this, we need to take a look at the 20th Century model of leadership. The process was nice and simple. “Future – Engage – Deliver” provided a neat three-step process we could all understand, and leadership consultants all had their own version. However, that model no longer works and, in hindsight, contained a fundamental flaw even back then.
Firstly, it is leader-centric. The leadership takes on sole responsibility for determining the strategy and taking the organisation where they want it to go, often coming up with a vision, mission and statement of values in the process. Unfortunately, the leadership team will tend to be operating only from one perspective, which can seriously weaken and potentially jeopardise the strategy’s fitness for purpose. And secondly, engagement – used in this context in the sense of getting people’s buy-in and commitment – only happens after all the decisions have been made. I do a lot of strategy and engagement work and have come to appreciate that the old-style process is, and always has been, wrongly sequenced. Engagement should always come first, and I’ll explain a bit more about why that’s so crucial in a minute. The point I’m making here is that, using a leader-(ego)centric approach fails to tap into the full potential of the organisation. In a world where most of the knowledge, insight and understanding is held by the people who are doing the work and are in regular contact with customers, suppliers, trends and technology, that’s likely to be a fatal mistake. That’s why, at a strategic level, we need to put the engagement first and let go of our attachment to always having the answers.
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We need to listen first. As Nelson Mandela said, the leader should always be the last to speak. Otherwise, we pollute the conversation with our own ideas and preclude others, who may be reluctant to put forward something that contradicts what the “boss” thinks, from making a full and meaningful contribution. I like to think of the engagement phase in the same way as getting engaged to be married: it’s about creating mutual understanding and a sense of a shared future together. If we can achieve that in our businesses we’ve hit the sweet spot. When we’ve co-created the strategy everyone’s already bought-in and there’s no longer any need for selling. And the final stage of “deliver” then becomes so much easier and more effective too. But these days the strategy also needs to provide plenty of flexibility and opportunity to respond to changes in the operating environment. It can’t be set in stone. In the 21st Century, strategy needs to be much less about ‘The What’ – that can change – than about what I call the ‘Big How’. That means the values and behaviour, coupled with our overall mission. In other words, setting the cultural framework, or “How we do things around here.” In case you’re wondering, the ‘Little How’ is the detail of process that we definitely shouldn’t be
TOP TIPS The disruptive nature of modern business and the speed of change means your business must be ready to make big decisions at any time. I can’t always be there so I make sure I have a team of directors who are agile and I trust to make the right call, without having to operate in an outmoded chain of command.
Matthew Roberts CEO
“That’s why, at a strategic level, we need to put the engagement first and let go of our attachment to always having the answers. We need to listen first.”
meddling in as leaders. That leads me to one of the crucial skills of a 21st Century leader: tolerance of ambiguity. If we can’t decide ‘The What’, where does that leave us? We won’t be able to know everything that goes on in our organisations and will have to get comfortable with that and allow people to make appropriate decisions. That’s the only way we can gain access to the full creative potential of our people and create a culture in which innovation can thrive. Imagine, instead of trying to figure it all out for yourself, you have access to a super-brain, a massive neural network that can sense what’s going on in the market and respond instantly! That’s what can happen when you fully engage and empower your people. When you can do this, you start to move from ego-centric to
eco-centric leadership. That means you’re leading from what is needed by the organisation as a whole, rather than from your own individual viewpoint. This move from an ego-centric to an eco-centric perspective is the single most important transition to becoming an effective 21st Century leader. So what, in summary, are the key 21st Century leadership traits? I would point to three things. First, empowering and entrusting their teams. Trust is essential for leadership to be effective. In fact, I believe that trust will be the biggest issue for leaders over the next few years, because lack of it is becoming the single biggest inhibitor of growth. If we expect people to trust us we have to trust them first. The best way to win people’s trust is not to tell them to trust you, but to become both trusting and trustworthy.
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Secondly, as we’ve already seen, being comfortable with not knowing everything that’s going on. That requires a change of mindset. If someone outside the business tells us something we don’t know about, our immediate response should be, “That’s great, I didn’t know that!” rather than, “Why wasn’t I told?” And thirdly, the 21st Century leader needs to become a CVO – Chief Visionary Officer – upholding the vision and values of the organisation and calling out both good and bad behaviour. Highlighting the good, showing people what good looks like, is one of the fastest ways of creating culture change. People will only consistently do what’s rewarded, and if you reward good behaviours with public praise, everyone gets the message. As the Ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu put it: “When the leader’s task is done, the people say; we did it ourselves.” 21st Century leadership is not so new after all.
Can You Insure Against Brexit? With Brexit uncertainty growing by the day is it time your business looked at insuring against any potential impact? It has become the great unknown. What Britain’s business landscape will look like post-Brexit – and the impact of the divorce from the EU continues to be of pressing concern to businesses across all sectors. The great uncertainty of it all has had growing numbers of businesses reaching out to their insurance policy providers to see if there is a way to insure against any potential impact. And therein lays the problem, says insurance industry stalwart Nigel Allen. He says: “The potential impact is incredibly difficult to define, by business owners and insurers alike, but of course it has to be in order to develop the policy that’s both meaningful and offers the protection needed.” He cites the import and export business as an example of the challenge. “Trade tariffs will likely change and no doubt cause impact if they do. So will a whole heap of red tape issues,” he says. “How and when that will hit an importer and or exporter is harder to define but it will have an impact. That is not to say that businesses can’t insure against any Brexit impact,” he adds. Allen says: “Several providers now offer that, so they have found a working way around the uncertainty via a highly specific policy cover approach. “That alone is an example in itself
of the impact of Brexit given the cost of the policy which wasn’t a financial concern to any business owner just a few years ago.” Allen adds: “It’s an interesting and emerging area for the insurance sector.”
“The potential impact is incredibly difficult to define, by business owners and insurers alike, but of course it has to be in order to develop the policy that’s both meaningful and offers the protection needed.” In the construction industry experts have been offering firms bespoke Brexit insurance consultations since last summer. The aim has been to advise firms how best to protect themselves from the uncertainty. At the heart of construction’s fears are a negative impact of Brexit on the industry’s pool of EU workers and the financial implications that could have. Speaking last year Mark Herbert, of Construction Insure, told the trade press: “We understand this is a major worry for thousands of UK construction firms.
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“And as the Brexit negotiations have dragged on without much apparent progress we have witnessed a steady increase in enquiries from builders and contractors eager to ensure they are adequately insured for any downturn in their business once Britain leaves the European Union.” Another major insurance firm announced at the end of last year that its management liability product, which covers the costs of defending a business and its senior managers against legal and regulatory actions, would include added protection against Brexit claims. There are other unknowns when it comes to insurance. Allen says: “Pretty much all insurance is underpinned by EU directives, so will they now be under Brexit? “Will they be EU or UK directives and if so what will they look like, what will their scope be? The answer is no one knows.” Amid all the uncertainty Allen says businesses shouldn’t be put off exploring if Brexit Insurance is right for their operation. “The uniqueness of each business in each sector complicates answering the question,” he adds. “As company directors with your own specialist and unique knowledge of your business, only you know if it’s time for Brexit Insurance.”
Head in the Clouds The days of business leaders relying on their gut instinct to deliver success are over, declares Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur David Richards. Today data is king. UK-born tech entrepreneur David Richards is the founder of software group WANdisco - a ‘big data’ specialist working with some of the world’s biggest businesses to transfer live data from servers into the cloud. Richards says that data is the key to future business success. Put simply, companies that harness the power it brings them will succeed; those that don’t won’t. Warming to the theme he says: “You can’t only rely on gut instinct or your experience of what happened before any more. Jeff Bezos didn’t use gut instinct to make Amazon a success. He used data.” Richards adds: “Most boards of directors, CEOs and non-execs simply haven’t used the data assets that their companies have well enough. “You can see evidence of that in the retail sector, where the companies that have used data really well and have taken an approach using AI programmes and machine learning technologies have thrived.” However, others have not been so successful. Richards says: “In some cases executives have been so used to using the knowledge they have acquired over a long period of time they have not trusted the data they were seeing. Other businesses haven’t invested in their IT infrastructure.” Since co-founding his company in the Valley in 2005, David has led WANdisco on a journey of rapid international expansion, and it now has offices in
Sheffield, Belfast, Japan and China. He spearheaded WANdisco to a hugely successful listing on the London Stock Exchange and shortly after a major acquisition which accelerated the development of its first products for the ‘big data’ market. That IPO raised more than $24m and was oversubscribed by more than 300 per cent. Earlier this year the business returned to the markets and raised a further $17.5m though a share subscription. Investors included Merrill Lynch International. The money raised will be used to support relationships with strategic cloud partners and provide growth working capital. In February there was more positive news for Richards and WANdisco as the group announced that it had received ‘Advanced Technology Partner’ status with Amazon Web Services. Today WANdisco is shaping the future of data infrastructure, enabling companies to put all their data to work for the business – all the time, at any scale. Its customer list includes big-hitters in the global business world including Barclays, Bosch, Cisco, Disney, Fujitsu, GE, Honda and IBM. With more than 20 years of executive experience in the software industry, Richards sits on a number of advisory and executive boards of Silicon Valley start-ups.
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A passionate advocate of entrepreneurship, Richards has also established and successfully exited several highly successful technology companies.
about ‘upskilling’ workers – people at executive level also need training in how to use the new technologies at their disposal to ensure business success.
Born in Sheffield in 1970, the son of a steelworker, he and his wife Jane have created a Family Foundation to educate, empower and improve the lives of children.
When it comes to future tech trends, Richards points to research from 2017 that predicted up to 800 million global workers will lose their jobs by 2030 as a result of AI. It is something he believes business leaders and politicians both have to get to grips with.
He also wants to see real change in the education system to make it fit for purpose in the increasingly digital and tech world we live in. It is a subject he speaks passionately about.
He says it was born out of frustration at what he sees as misguided actions by the government and education chiefs in the UK. Why, he asks, is so much focus placed on computer coding – when in future machines using AI will create their own programmes?
He says: “Every sector is going to be affected by AI and machine learning. We really need to retool and reskill the workforce in order to meet the challenges.” Richards believes it is not just
And he has put his money where his mouth is and is prepared to invest in the future with his own cash. The WANdisco chief executive has already donated more than £1m towards improving the way computer skills are taught in UK schools.
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Richards says: “Look at the internet of things, devices and sensors, machine-to-machine learning. All these technologies are going to change forever many of the jobs in the economy.
“It’s both an opportunity and a threat and we need to look at the way education works. Unfortunately that is not happening and that’s what the foundation is going to do. We are going to need different skills. And that’s where the flaw in the system lies. Automation will change the face of the employment landscape. So I’ve decided to do something about it. “Children coming out of the system have skills which are not as relevant as they might be. My aim is to make them employable.” So far 10 schools have been signed up for the programme that focuses on topics such as AI and
machine learning. However, there is still a real sense of frustration in his voice.
importance of bees to the future of the planet, and also to use their activities as a learning tool.
Richards says he recently spoke to a government minister about the workplace revolution and its impact on jobs. “They said they didn’t necessarily believe in the predictions. That really frustrates me,” he explains.
Though a US citizen, Richards, who is a graduate of Huddersfield University, remains a vocal champion for the UK and its digital and tech sector.
“It is putting your head in the sand. It is already happening. Politicians can’t take a long range approach, I can.” Richards is also passionate about bees, with another ambition to make sure every school in the country has its own hive. The aim is to teach children about the
He’s also an advocate of Silicon Valley, predicting its renaissance this year. “We’re going to see a number of flotations this year, as businesses come to the market,” he says. “There are really interesting times ahead.”
“Richards points to research from 2017 that predicted up to 800 million global workers will lose their jobs by 2030 as a result of AI.”
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TOP TIPS I like to make sure potential directorial appointments spend plenty of time with, and get to know, the existing board during the recruitment process to check that the personalities involved gel. Conducting a psychometric profile can also be a great way to ensure anyone you recruit to the board has the right temperament to work with the rest of your team.
Matthew Roberts CEO
Seeking Harmony Disagreement is part and parcel of boardroom life. But what happens when robust debate turns into a full blown dispute? 20
The art of good chairmanship is vital when it comes to refereeing battles in the boardroom. Good boardroom practice and effective leadership from the chair also go a long way towards mitigating the risk of major disputes developing. And it is not all about what happens around the table at the formal meetings, says David Roberts. Talks outside the boardroom can be just as vital when it comes to keeping the peace. Roberts is a seasoned nonexecutive chairman who has built a career on helping companies on their growth journey.
“Regardless of whether they will ever be needed, having clear contracts and agreements in place from day one is paramount.” He says: “A good non-executive chairman will encourage you to concentrate on what is really important. David also believes it is vital for the person in the hot-seat to be both “strong” and to act as a bridge when it comes to resolving boardroom conflict. “Having a good chair that understands and is regularly involved in the business is key,” he explains. “Many issues that are discussed at board are a culmination of events and often a chair will work with parties before the board meeting to mitigate issues. “Often the issues at board are conflicts between the expectations of investors and those of the executive team. “A good chair becomes a ‘bridge’ between these two parties, understanding the frustrations and requirements of both. Usually, a good chair will spot these issues on the horizon and table them rationally and fairly so they can be discussed reasonably.
“Taking issues that become too heated away from the board meeting and handling them at a separate meeting with the intention of coming back to the next meeting with a resolution is often a good way to resolve issues.” Mark Adlestone, chairman of family-owned jewellery group Beaverbrooks, says disagreements are extremely rare in its boardroom. And he agrees with Roberts that what happens outside the boardroom is important in maintaining harmony. The chair’s role should be to “tease out” the reasoning behind people’s views and to ensure communication channels are kept open, he adds. Adlestone says: “The bottom line is that it should always be about communication, understanding where people are coming from. “Continuing to talk outside the boardroom is important. For example, lunches where people can come together and just talk about stuff and thrash things out can really help. “It is all about trying to come to a common agreement, not about forcing issues,” he adds. However, things can become much more difficult when relationships in the boardroom do break down says Christine Hart, Head of Employment at law firm Brabners. When that happens, she says, “Directors are put in the unenviable position of protecting the interests of a number of different parties – from shareholders and employees to long-standing friends. “Regardless of whether they will ever be needed, having clear contracts and agreements in place from day one is paramount.” Serious issues such as director fraud - whether it is board members mismanaging expenses or diverting work away from the business to serve their own purposes - are cases that can usually be dealt with “relatively swiftly” as gross misconduct. However Hart adds: “Performance management issues, on the other hand, are much more difficult waters to navigate. “Shareholder agreements,
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“Often the issues at board are conflicts between the expectations of investors and those of the executive team.” director’s service agreements and employment contracts will go a long way to resolving most problems but there are many nuances to overcome. “For example, the abolition of default retirement at 65 has led to increased board-level hostility towards older non-executives in firms where younger counterparts no longer feel they provide value.” She goes on: “Regardless of potential future disputes, setting out self-employment terms for non-executives at an early stage is a good move. “It is not uncommon for tribunals to overlook the labels imposed by the parties upon the relationship, and instead examine the reality of the relationship on a day-to-day basis. “Businesses may therefore find that an employment relationship is deemed to have been created, providing more standardised employee rights and risks. “As a result, having an agreement in place which establishes roles, responsibilities and expectations can increase the chance of selfemployed status of a non-executive director being maintained.” Hart says if performance management isn’t viable, a settlement agreement is usually the quickest route to all parties moving forward. “The figures involved can vary vastly though which, again, advocates for setting your stall out contractually whenever someone new joins the board,” she explains. “Good policies and agreements will be designed to avoid deadlock in negotiation, dictating when an independent valuer should be called upon, and will support the day-to-day running of the business by setting out voting terms and what happens to the powers of the outgoing party in the interim.”
3 WAYS THAT GETTING FIT CHANGED MY LIFE
BY IN TOUCH CEO, MATTHEW ROBERTS
At the end of 2017, I had just been diagnosed with a benign brain tumour. I was depressed, out-of-shape and struggling to manage the side-effects of copious amounts of medication. Today, I’m in the best shape of my life, I have a thriving business and an amazing team on my side. In the last 6 months, I’ve lost 3-stone and I’m getting close to my goal weight. I’m proud of the big changes I’ve made, both improving my relationship with food – cutting out alcohol and all the foods that had a negative effect on my body and finding a fitness routine that works for me. Here are three ways losing weight has helped my life that I didn’t anticipate:
I’m on my feet more The reason behind this one is simple, because I have more energy I move around more. Whether I’m spending time running after my two young daughters, walking our dog, heading to the gym, doing chores around the house or just generally exploring the world. I’m lighter on my feet and keen to be on them as often as I can. It feels awesome. Given how much my lifestyle has changed since embarking on my weight-loss journey, I feel very confident that by keeping up the hard work and dedication to my new lifestyle, I can keep the weight off and continue to feel as great as I do.
I have a lot more energy in the office When I was overweight, I was tired – a lot. This largely was because of my unhealthy diet, which featured a lot of bread, red meat, alcohol, milk and far too much sugar. I lost my weight by cutting out these 5 things. That’s not to say that I’ll never have these things again, but I’ll be having them in a much more managed and balanced way. Ditching the starchy and sugary carbs and filling my plate with healthy fats, lean proteins and vegetables instead has taken my energy level at work to new heights.
My passion for fitness has been fuelled again Changing my diet and shedding so much of the weight that I once carried really helped reaffirm my love for fitness. The harder I worked on my nutrition, the harder I was able to work in the gym, the more passion I had for running again and I was able to push myself harder with my personal trainer, Chris Ellis. Whilst initially, I felt low-energy after a short session in the gym, I’m now able to challenge myself and my body to see how far I’m able to go.
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The 5 Best Business Lunches in London Business lunches are a great opportunity to escape the constraints of the office, build relationships and get a better handle on colleagues, clients and partners. Not only do breaking bread and business go hand in hand, picking up the tab will always sweeten any deal. Here we look at 5 of the best lunches in London guaranteed to show you mean business, albeit with a side of pleasure.
Corrigan’s Mayfair
Gymkhana
28 Upper Grosvenor Street, London, W1K 7EH
42 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4JH, England
Richard Corrigan’s eponymous restaurant has been a firm favourite with lunching Londoners since its opening in 2008, and its nostalgic charm lies in its crisp white table cloths and classic cooking. The influence of Corrigan’s County Meath upbringing can be seen in his extensive sourcing from over the Irish Sea, but the cooking is pure modern-British. While the business lunch is rather pricey (and the half bottle of wine included might dampen your enthusiasm for an afternoon’s work), the seasonal lunch menu is much more reasonable.
Gymkhana serves deeply flavoursome but refined Indian food, mixing classic dishes you may recognise with more exotic twists on the old standards. Undoubtedly this is the best of Mayfair’s clutch of top-end Indian restaurants. Under the guidance of the Sethi siblings, the restaurant gained a Michelin star in 2014 but, unusually for a restaurant with this accolade, Gymkhana’s portions are more than generous. The a la carte menu is extensive but expensive, so opt for the lunch menu to soak up the Raj-era decor and attentive service.
Seasonal Lunch 2 Courses £28, 3 courses £34
Set Lunch Menu 2 Courses £27.50, 3 courses £32.50
Business Lunch 3 courses £68 24
Mere
The Laughing Gravy
74 Charlotte St, Bloomsbury, London W1T 4QH
154 Blackfriars Road, Southwark, SE1 8EN
While many will know Monica Galetti from her time judging BBC’s Masterchef, she cut her culinary teeth under Michele Roux Jr. at La Gavroche, the first British restaurant to gain 3 Michelin stars. This redoubtable pedigree shines through at Mere, Galetti’s first venture with her sommelier husband. Sitting in the heart of fashionable Fitzrovia, Mere serves up South Pacific-influenced fare pointing to Galetti’s Samoan heritage, though there is more than a nod to her classical French training. A short but adventurous lunch menu is served Monday to Friday, and with a wine list that won’t break the bank, Mere gives you more than most other high-end London restaurants.
One of London’s best-kept secrets, The Laughing Gravy attracts a pre-theatre crowd and also enjoys a healthy lunchtime trade, despite being south of the river. Chef Michael Facey has over 20 years’ experience in modern British cuisine and has worked alongside the likes of John Torode and Mark Hix. With their own community garden next door and Smithfield market just over a mile away, an emphasis on fresh local produce sits alongside a decidedly modern sensibility, backed up by friendly, knowledgeable service.
Express Set Menu 2 courses £24, 3 courses £29
Set Lunch Menu 2 courses £29, 3 courses £35
Twist 42 Crawford Street, London, W1H 1JW If you fancy something a little less formal, Twist’s pan-continental small plates should hit the spot. Though Chef Eduardo Tuccillo was born on the Amalfi coast and describes the fare at Twist as tapas, there are influences from far beyond the southern Mediterranean on display here. Charcoal-grilled Iberico pork appears on the a la carte menu alongside tuna and yuzu tartare, squid ink gnocchi and a fine selection of Mediterranean charcuterie. Daily specials, a relaxed atmosphere and an affordable wine list make this a low-key alternative just a stone’s throw from Marylebone station.
Small plates average £11
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Exposing the Weakest Link Jamie Woodruff steals secrets for a living. He is an expert at getting in where he shouldn’t. However, despite being one of the top hackers in the world, he’s never been prosecuted and isn’t likely to be.
The 24-year-old is an expert ‘ethical hacker’ working with organisations worldwide highlighting the risks of cybercrime and identifying the online weaknesses of their security. It makes him a hero of the digital age. Ethical hackers are also known as ‘white hats’, while criminal hackers are known as ‘black hats’. The terms are said to relate to old Western films which saw the good guys in white and the baddies sporting black, so audiences could readily identify them.
Woodruff says: “When it comes to being hacked it’s not if you get breached, it’s when.’
including global celebrity Kim Kardashian’s website, which he hacked to reveal that it was putting her fans’ data at serious risk.
speak, he is dressed as a decorator, sitting in a vehicle in the car park of a company he has just successfully hacked.
He has also taken part in top level debates across the globe and at conferences on national security.
“I’ve taken all their information,” he explains. Sent to test the business’ cyber security, he found his way into the office by posing as one of the workers renovating it. He wasn’t stopped and was able to do his worst as a result.
Woodruff entered the public eye when he successfully hacked one of the world’s largest social media sites as part of a competition at Bangor University where he was studying computer information systems. Today he is chief security officer at Use IT Computers, a UK-based IT company. As well as specialising in training, penetration testing and recruitment, he is also the safety advisor for the Cyber Smile Foundation, which specialises in online cyber bullying.
He says: “I’m here working on a laptop and no-one is stopping me at all. I’ve been here 30 minutes and have all their data. I’ve even had time to eat a sandwich for lunch.” In past operations he has successfully impersonated a pizza delivery driver, walked into a large financial institution and gained access to its server room.
A leading authority on hacking and cyber security, Woodruff has been described as “the number one ethical hacker in Europe”.
His career as a hacker started at a very early age. He says: “I was nine years old.” And he always wanted to be one of the good guys. “I knew that I didn’t want to hack maliciously,” he says. “I wanted to become this ethical hacker.”
He says: “We spend millions on infrastructure but we completely forget the employees – they’re the weakest link inside any business. You have to train them and you must alert them of the dangers.”
He is much in demand by businesses and has uncovered security holes in numerous high-profile operations,
One of his biggest messages to businesses is centred round the human aspect of hacking. When we
Woodruff offers penetration testing and technical support to businesses which involves web application
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TOP TIPS Boards traditionally pursue preventative approaches regarding cybersecurity but I recommend operating as though your company has already been compromised. Test your reactions and contingency plans so you’re one step ahead of the almost inevitable breach.
Matthew Roberts CEO
“We spend millions on infrastructure but we completely forget the employees – they’re the weakest link inside any business.” testing and vulnerability scanning. This entails reviewing a business’ website and database for any logic based errors, any un-patched updates and any entry points that could lead to a breach of a company’s web security. This helps it to identify weaknesses within its computer systems and highlights the techniques utilised by cyber criminals to steal money and company data. The fact he and others like him are so much in demand highlights the increasing urgency businesses are placing on cyber security. It’s an on-going war against those looking to attack. Woodruff says: “When it comes to being hacked it’s not if you get breached, it’s when. “There’s always that weakness and always that way in. It doesn’t matter if you are a large business
or an SME, be prepared for that breach to happen in two to five years.”
the last line of defence, they can be the first. It is about making them aware of what to look out for.
However, there are things you can do to minimise the risk. Simple things like keeping your software up to date - when security patches come out apply them. Make sure your anti-virus and anti-malware software is running and is always up to date.
“Preparing through IT systems and staff training is the only way you will minimise the potential damage.”
And ensure only the people who should have access to your systems have that access. People leave the business and access is not revoked, that can be a major problem. Woodruff says businesses have to be prepared and minimise the potential damage by having the right systems in place and staff trained to do the “right things” and spot the threats. He says: “Your workers aren’t just 27
Woodruff explains: “Everyone shares their life on social media. That’s wonderful for a hacker. I know where you are going to be at specific times, the coffee shop you visit; your favourite food. “You post a picture; data is in that image. Again I know your whereabouts.” He adds simply: “There’s always a way in.”
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In Touch with Steve Frost Member Profile How has your earlier career shaped your role as a consultant? Having spent over 20 years at global internet giant Cisco, I’d always enjoyed helping our clients and partners get to grips with new and innovative digital technology, both from a business and technical perspective. So, advising comes quite naturally, and my goal has been, and still is, to become a client’s trusted ally, looking at challenges and opportunities from their perspective, not from mine. At Cisco, we had a culture of stretch targets, set a goal, then smash it! We also ‘drank our own champagne’ using the early versions of our own technology, in production, such as internet, voice and video conferencing. That way we felt any pain, and of course gain, ourselves before introducing to live customers. We called this ‘customer advocacy’ and our bonus was geared to a customer satisfaction score. So, now, as an independent consultant, I still carry these experiences and ethos around, helping me continue to improve the value I provide to my own clients. What are the pros and cons of working as a consultant? I love the freedom to think independently and create solutions to client problems, with the whole of the market accessible to me. Working for a corporate is all well and good, but at the end of the day, you will always have a more limited portfolio, and a specific lens to see with, and viewpoints to represent. The personal gratification is also magnified as a consultant, when you’ve successfully acquired a new client, partnership or helped with a new go-to-market strategy. If it has your name on it, and you can see the organisation benefit and even celebrate, that’s fantastic. Less predictable income can be a challenge, as well as not having
the corporate ‘safety net’ and big ‘brand’ business card which opened doors and got me in anywhere.
Like all products and services today, digitisation will play an important role, and we should embrace that.
What advice would you give to professionals looking for their first consulting role?
What role has In Touch played in your career development?
The transition from corporate to consultant is not an easy one. Don’t do it alone, join and leverage personal and professional networks; don’t be afraid to ask for help. Choose roles carefully. Take time to consider what YOU want to get out of it, and it if fits your lifestyle and rewards your work ethic. It’s tempting to look at high daily rates, but ensure the role is a good cultural fit as well, and that you can ‘get on’ with the people day to day, as well as influence strategically. Strong self-belief and a steely determination are needed, and the upfront effort does take time to pay off, so be patient. Building your personal brand, allowing people to get to know the new improved (but still authentic) ‘you’ as well as keeping the likability and trust factors, are all critical. From a practical point of view it’s vital you have a modern ‘flexible/mobile working’ IT and communications setup. And don’t forget to be cybersecurity aware; keep software up to date, use the latest virus and malware protection, automate regular cloud backups, and brush up on GDPR as you’ll no doubt be handling customer information. Finally, always be true to yourself, if you were a success before, you can be in the future – keep the faith in your personal ability. How do you see the future of consulting developing? I believe the core value of a consultant will remain, in terms of a trusted individual providing expert advice in a particular domain to a business. However, the way consultancy is delivered, and additional value added, is ripe for change.
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I mentioned earlier that setting up as a consultant is an individual endeavour, but it’s too important to do alone. Human networks that support you are essential. I’d initially joined In Touch whilst in full time employment, so just ‘kept an eye’ on what was available. But once I’d made the personal commitment to consultancy, I decided to ‘raise the game’ and started engaging with and leveraging the network, rather than sitting on the sidelines. I committed to three years premium membership, as well as the ‘Career Encore’ Consultant and ‘Ahead of the Curve’ NED development programmes. All the modules were online and at convenient times, so could fit around my schedule, and used high quality video conferencing and screen sharing, creating a great interactive experience. This has all paid huge dividends; it really helped me re-define myself. And the quality of the support and coaching has been exceptional, even with follow up sessions which encourage peer reviews and feedback. As well as the knowledge and experience, I’ve also gained an approachable and expert support group, including some of the other delegates, who I can now reach out to anytime for advice and opinions.
“The quality of the support and coaching has been exceptional, even with follow up sessions which encourage peer reviews and feedback.”
Driving to a Greener Future Electric vehicles are being seen as increasingly important in the drive towards the UK becoming a low carbon economy. However, that creates challenges for business car fleets way above the major gaps in the country’s chargepoint infrastructure. Here, we take a look at the wider implications of the drive to go green. The pace of change is there for all to see. 1-in-12 cars sold in the UK are either electric or partially electric, compared with around 1-in-20 just a year ago. The Government has set out its ambition for at least half of new vehicles to be ultra-low emission by 2030 and businesses are being urged to plug into this accelerating journey towards electric vehicles (EVs). However, it has also come under fire for failing to provide clarity on future company car tax (CCT) rates and the effect the new emissions testing cycle will have on company car tax and vehicle excise duty when it is implemented for tax purposes from April 2020. Fleet organisations have been urging the Government to publish CCT rates for 2021 onwards, to help fleets and drivers choose company cars with full insight into their tax costs going forwards. There are other challenges. Last year, a report from HSBC revealed “massive gaps” in the public chargepoint infrastructure in the North West of England. At the moment around 29,000 people must share each point available. The car industry is in a state of flux, with manufacturers attempting to develop hybrid and fully-electric cars for consumers in countries with limited infrastructure to support the new technology. Super-chargers for 100 per cent electric vehicles are severely lacking outside major UK cities, and with a range of 150-300 miles per charge there is not enough certainty that business users can get from A to B without running out of power.
This, compared to the most efficient diesel vehicles that can get anywhere between 700-900 miles per tank, leaves businesses conflicted with saving on costs for running green/efficient vehicles, compared to overall reliability of employees getting to where they need to be. Jenny Pape, tax director at Baldwins, which specialises in accountancy and business advisory services to businesses across the UK, says the tax cost of running conventional company cars has been increasing thanks to HMRC’s regular changes to the applicable rates for benefits in kind. Businesses currently suffer class 1A national insurance at a rate of 13.8 per cent, in addition to paying lease charges, insurances, maintenance costs and, in some instances, fuel, albeit that such costs are deductible for corporation tax purposes. Car benefits assessable to income tax on the individual are calculated by reference to list price and the CO2 emissions of each vehicle, with a premium added to diesel cars, as they are considered more polluting than their petrol counterparts. Pape says: “In previous years, HMRC made greener options more attractive to companies and employees alike, through offering 100 per cent enhanced capital allowances on low-emission vehicles (in the current tax year, those with CO2 emissions below 50g/km) and 0-10 per cent benefit in kind rates for the employees on the same. “However, in 2018/19 and 2019/20 the low emission rates for benefits in kind for the same vehicles have increased to 13 per cent
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and 16 per cent respectively. Presumably this was a bid to tax those shareholders who benefited from 100 per cent corporation tax relief for buying a Tesla or Porsche in their company, without suffering a benefit in kind charge due to the low-emissions.” Pape adds: “The published 2020/21 benefit in kind rates drop right back down to as low as 2 per cent and therefore the government must be anticipating a shift in behaviours of the consumer. “The 100 per cent corporate tax relief for vehicles with CO2 emissions below 50g/km does remain available, and therefore any business considering enhancing their fleet through acquiring low-emission vehicles may find this an attractive solution as the affordable hybrid/ electric market gathers pace in the coming years. “It is very hard to predict if this relief will continue, however it is impossible to guarantee anything other than the fact tax will always be due in some shape or form on company cars for the foreseeable future.” One other thing is guaranteed. The pressure to go carbon neutral will not fade. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham wants to bring its date for achieving carbon neutrality forward by at least a decade to 2038 and he wants emissions-free bus fleet by 2030. Talking about his vision, he said: “We’re determined to challenge the status quo to bring about the changes we need to improve our environment and deliver a revolutionary low-carbon future.”
other thing “ One is guaranteed. The pressure to go carbon neutral will not fade. In the age of the activist investor and increased shareholder scrutiny, going green is not only good for the environment but also your brand. Look at all the areas where your business could choose greener services and products.
Matthew Roberts CEO
“
TOP TIPS
Making the most of M Zoe Brooke is a board-level construction industry specialist and mother-of-two with a passion for foreign travel. Here she gives the lowdown on holidaying in the multicultural melting pot of Malaysia. As a married, mid-forties mum of two teenagers, precision in planning is necessary and in-depth research vital, to ensure that our holidays encapsulate our collective and individual interests and, more importantly, prevents the kids whinging “I’m bored”. Distance is not an obstacle. Our latest trip to Malaysia ticked all the boxes for fun, affordability and luxury.
tallest twin buildings in the world, the impressive Petronas Towers. KL is crammed with multi-storey shopping malls and markets, much to my daughters’ delight. Be sure to check out the Pavilion and Petaling Street Market. Just 20 minutes or so outside the city are the must-see Thean Hou Chinese Temple and the Batu Caves. This was the highlight of my visit.
Big city lights and sacred sights First stop, Kuala Lumpur, one of the fastest growing metropolitan regions in South East Asia and often referred to as KL. There’s a real buzz about the city and as the evening arrives the skyscrapers that dominate the skyline become illuminated, changing the vibe entirely.
Expect to sweat with 272 steps to climb. It is advisable to arrive earlier in the morning, when it’s not as busy; it certainly draws in the crowds. A half-day excursion cost just £40 in a taxi. There’s no charge to enter the temples but donations are welcomed. We stayed at the Park Royal Hotel for two nights in one of the family suites, perfectly located within walking distance of all the action and just an hour away from the airport.
This multi-cultural city has a distinct a blend of nationalities, with Chinese, Burmese and Thai influences evident in the architecture. It is also home to the
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Magnificent Malaysia Discovering Langkawi Excitement builds as you begin your descent into Langkawi. From the air you can see the cluster of islands surrounded by the turquoise waters. Langkawi, known as the Jewel of Kedah, boasts golden powdered shorelines so it’s no wonder it’s the “go to beach resort” for Malaysia’s city slickers. Air Asia offers internal flights costing as little as £12 which is a great incentive to visit. This island is easily explored and an idyllic setting in which to kick back and relax. We stayed in Pantai Cenang, one of the two busier towns on the island. A tourist hot-spot, there’s no shortage of bustling restaurants here. While the island is a place of relaxation, with so many “must-sees” we spent little time at the hotel. No visit to Langkawi is complete without a trip to the stunning skybridge, which is accessed by cable cars. We paid to fast track the queues as we’d arrived the same day as a cruise liner had arrived in port and the expected queue time was 40 minutes, with absolutely no shelter from the sun. The views from the cable car and bridge deck are incredible and well worth the visit. To access the skybridge, there’s a 10-20 minute walk into the forest, down narrow steps. Going down is easy but coming back is a real challenge. 33
Your ascent is complicated by other tourists stopping to catch their breath. If you are wise or have mobility issues, you can pay an additional fee to take the lift. The exploration can continue with a boat trip to Kilim Nature Park or a mangrove safari. If you are really organised, apply for a Thai visa. The island of Krabi, known locally as the home of the Blue Mountains, is just a 40 minute boat ride away. Hotel availability was limited because of the time of year and our late booking. However, there are some great hotels that I’d look to book if returning, including the Dash Resort and Beach Club - a boutique hotel and beach club in Langkawi, and winner of the South East Asia World Luxury Hotel Award 2018. The hotel is contemporary, adorned with modern artwork (think twists on characters such as the Avengers, Batman and Alison in Wonderland). The Mad Tart Patisserie sits in the reception and huge blue bunnies are dotted around the grounds – which also host the coolest beach toilets I’ve ever seen! The hotel has a funky vibe, comparable to Ibiza or Marbella with poolside cabanas, beach beds and upbeat tunes playing throughout the day. And even better, you can visit on a day pass.
Perfect Penang I was reluctant to leave Langkawi and began fretting that I should have extended our stay. I could not have been further off the mark. Our final destination was the resort of Batu Ferringhi, staying at the Hard Rock Hotel and we had certainly saved the best for last. Just a one hour drive from our resort was Penang’s capital, George Town. The city is a Unesco World Heritage site and something of a living museum. Mesmerising street art adorns the old buildings at the heart of the capital, a commission given to the Lithuanian artist Ernest Zachareni by the Penang municipal council. His impressive artwork is now mapped around the central zone. You could spend days indulging in the magic of this place. Just a stroll away from the centre are The Clan and Chew jetties which form part of the heritage trail. The stilted waterfront communities are Chinese settlements that date back more than a century. It was fascinating to witness this remarkable and extraordinary way of life.
We’d barely scratched the surface. There are many more attractions, including Penang Hill, the Reclining Buddha and the most magnificent temple I have ever visited to date, Kek Lok Si.
influences that there is an abundance of flavoursome options served from the many hawker stalls and street food vendors.
The largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, this incredible place of worship sits tiered over the mountainside. A drive by won’t suffice for this visit and I suggest you allow two to three hours to appreciate the temple in all its glory.
There is nothing more satisfying than being served the tastiest dishes from a makeshift kitchen with a tarpaulin roof, confident that you will enjoy every mouthful. The added bonus being that on average a meal for four will cost no more than £10.
I have failed to mention throughout, the one thing that sustained the family during the visit... the food! Malaysia has such a diverse variety of cultural
Malaysia is enchanting and its people authentic and friendly. It has a budget for all pockets and it’s easy to combine pleasure with leisure.
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No visit to Langkawi is complete without a trip to the stunning skybridge.
IR35 The Clock is Ticking
With HMRC widening the reach of IR35, professionals must ensure they aren’t falling foul of the law, but at what cost? The government’s decision to push ahead with the extension of IR35 into the private sector will do “serious harm” to freelancers, businesses that use them and the wider economy, a leading consultants association has warned.
insurance (NI) from workers, as well as making employer national insurance contributions.
IR35 legislation is designed to combat tax avoidance by workers supplying their services to clients via an intermediary, such as a limited company, but who would be an employee if the intermediary was not used.
“The UK’s greatest competitive advantage is its flexible labour market. This proposal will dramatically restrict that flexibility and starve UK businesses of the freelance talent they need to get work done.
Speaking after the consultation was launched, IPSE’s deputy director of policy Andy Chamberlain said: “This is an astonishingly myopic move.
“HMRC has claimed pushing these changes into the public sector generated £550m, but this is at the cost of far-reaching, long-term damage.
IPSE, the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed, which represents contractors, consultants, interims, freelancers and the self-employed, says changes to IR35 will “hamstring” those people and their clients.
“In the NHS, TfL and right across the public sector, the changes led to mass contractor walkouts, causing disruption, staff shortages and even the cancellation of major projects.”
It made the hard-hitting comments after the government launched its consultation on the reforms in March. IR35 rules governing ‘off-payroll’ working will be extended to the private sector from April 2020.
He added: “IPSE, the CBI and numerous other business bodies have already warned about the dire risks of the reforms – and we will do so again in this consultation.
The regime was introduced to the public sector in 2017, and has meant employers are responsible for deciding whether to deduct tax and national
“The government should finally open its ears to the experts and scrap the dangerous reforms to IR35 once and for all.”
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And he adds: “While HMRC’s success in cases of this type has been limited, it has helped to prompt the decision to bring similar reforms into the private sector.”
“IR35 rules governing ‘offpayroll’ working will be extended to the private sector from April 2020.”
Looking at the proposed changes he says they “broadly mirror” those implemented in 2017 in the public sector, “so that if a private sector client determines that an OPW is a deemed employee, the fee-payer will take responsibility for tax, National Insurance contributions (NICs) and the apprenticeship levy.”
Organisations hiring ‘off-payroll’ contractors will be responsible for handling disputes over tax status and ultimately liable for missing tax payments once “IR35” reforms come into play.
The consultation closes at the end of May and the initial results are expected to be published in the next Finance Bill which is due out in the summer. The aim is to finalise the changes later in the year.
Those are just some of the issues to come out of the long-awaited consultation. The reforms are designed to stop workers using an intermediary, such as a limited company, to pay less tax when they should actually be treated as an employee.
Chowdhury adds: “What this means for businesses using OPWs is that further red tape will need to be cut through to determine the status and the additional tax and NICs liability that may be due, otherwise the individual may be challenging them to avoid making payments themselves.
A second consultation into IR35 was opened in March, with people being asked for their views on the reforms and how they will work in the private sector. Sal Chowdhury, associate solicitor in the employment department at Forbes Solicitors, says off-payroll workers often provide services to a client through personal service companies (PSCs).
“In the wake of the recent number of challenges by individuals seeking worker rights for holiday pay for example, it is likely that this will cause businesses a significant headache whereas before OPWs provided a flexible solution to businesses.”
He says: “The nature of the relationship often raises questions as to the employment status of the off payroll worker (OPW) and whether they are genuinely selfemployed, with no employment rights; a statutory worker, entitled to minimum rights such as national minimum wage and holiday pay or an employee with the full complement of rights, including protection from unfair dismissal.”
What all this means to a current consultant or director will depend on their specific circumstances and the nature of their relationship. Chowdhury says this has to be determined on a “case-by-case basis”. Status is determined on a number of factors but a holistic view is taken by the courts and tribunals.
He cites the case of a BBC TV presenter who worked for the broadcaster through a PSC and who received a “significant tax bill” last year, covering several tax years.
And he adds: “Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to spare individuals from being caught out by these rules and therefore it is recommended that individuals take legal advice to understand their own fact-sensitive position with a view to finding a way to avoid this categorisation.”
Chowdhury says: “While she considered herself to be self-employed and had even taken advice on the same, the tax tribunal determined that there was an employer/ employee relationship between the BBC and the OPW presenter, noting in particular the level of control the BBC had over her.”
TOP TIPS It really does pay to keep abreast of legislative changes, whether that be governance, taxation or regulations. Conduct a gap analysis to check whether or not your board has the requisite skills and knowledge to safeguard against compliance failures.
Matthew Roberts CEO
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Women in the Boardroom Sara Prowse has 30 years of board-level retail experience including a role as Chief Executive of Hotter Shoes, the UK’s biggest shoe maker, and senior positions at River Island, Debenhams and Shop Direct. A specialist in transformational change, she is experienced in turnaround, mergers and acquisitions, business re-engineering and IPOs. What is the best part of your role as a Chief Executive? The diversity, shaping the vision and the culture of the organisation, the challenges you have to face, the people you meet. My passion has always been around the product, so that’s something I have always stayed close to. What is the most important thing a CEO can bring to a business? Vision: A business needs clear direction. As the CEO you need to shape that vision and then communicate it in a clear and compelling way that motivates and inspires the team to deliver against it. Passion: This creates energy, pace and excitement. It is infectious, and should be aligned against the vision. Directed passion is extremely valuable. Courage: Particularly in today’s trading climate - courage to change, courage to fail and learn, courage to hold the course, courage to stop and courage to start. Leadership: Lead from the front and be visible in the organisation. Have resilience, be decisive, be prepared for the unknown and take risks but always stay calm. No Ego: It’s about the team not one person. Show empathy and be real. It’s okay to show vulnerability, it makes you relatable and you will connect with people on a level that is genuine. Fun: Work should be fun. As the
CEO, you shape the culture of the organisation. If you take care of the people, you have an engaged happy team, they in turn will take care of the customer and deliver. The rest then takes care of itself. What advice do you have for someone looking to progress their career? Stay true to yourself, focus on what you are good at but take every opportunity to grow and learn. If it doesn’t work out, learn from it and adapt. Don’t let anything put you off your dreams. Take up yoga. It’s helped me physically, mentally and spiritually. Have you ever faced any issues in the workplace due to your gender? I have been lucky in my career to have never faced direct gender bias, but there is often an element of subconscious bias. As a female leader you need to prove your worth to get respect in a male-dominated environment or at the board table. It is sad but true. What advice would you give to young women starting out in business? Working more doesn’t necessarily mean you get more done; it’s a marathon not a sprint. Slow down, be present and most of all, make sure you love what you do. Network physically as well as online. Pick up the phone, network face to face, it’s in the physical world that real connections are made. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
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Sometimes the best learning comes from mistakes. Don’t stress over the small stuff. Listen, listen and listen, and then decide. Have a voice. Don’t be afraid to speak up, ask questions and challenge. Challenge and allow yourself to be challenged, sometimes the best outcome is the most unlikely. Visualise your goals. Manifest what you want to achieve personally and professionally. Your biggest barrier is often you; your mind can get in the way and find barriers, train it to think on the successful pathway. Are there more women coming to the boardroom and what can be done to make sure there are more? There are more men called David and John heading up FTSE 100 companies than women. Corporate Britain is still very male dominated though it’s slightly better in medium and smaller companies. As a female CEO, role modelling is hugely important to me: to support, help and inspire the next generation of female leaders to smash through the glass ceiling. A boardroom that has gender and ethnic balance will be much more successful.
TOP TIPS Have a diverse mindset. Set targets for the number of women on your board and sustain that commitment throughout your organisation. You will reap the rewards as people move up through the company and create your future board.
Matthew Roberts CEO
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Peter Wilkinson: Riding High After more than 30 years of executive level experience at Big 4 firm Deloitte and in real estate with Drivers Jonas, equestrian enthusiast Peter Wilkinson chose a portfolio career to help businesses and organisations overcome the difficult hurdles they might encounter. Having a hobby which takes your mind off the pressures of work is a wonderful thing and for Peter Wilkinson, that release is found in the horses he keeps with his wife Sarah. Wilkinson now operates as an Independent Advisor and NonExecutive Director, advising on the delivery of infrastructure and capital projects for the Public and Private sectors.
Deloitte, but I also spent many years as an equity partner working for medium-sized real estate firm, Drivers Jonas so I understand the nuts and bolts of how to deliver strategy too. They get the best of both worlds. “Often one of the frustrations when working with a big firm is that the people with experience aren’t the ones delivering the work, but by bringing me into their company,
But there is a great analogy between his love of riding and the work he has chosen to do, after a career built at boardroom level in the corporate world. Wilkinson, 52, says: “The horses are hard work and time-consuming but it is great fun and keeps us fit. It’s also a great release from work as when you are riding there is no time to think about anything except what is in front of you and not falling off the horse. “Running a business is like riding and I want to help make sure my clients don’t fall off the horse either. “Sometimes when you are part of a business you can’t see the wood for the trees, and I love being able to give that insight which solves a problem or issue that they have been struggling with. “For me, the benefit to my clients is that people get to tap into my experience and that comes on two levels. “They get my perspective as an equity partner in a Big 4 firm like
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they get a level of experience that they may not be able to afford full-time.” Born in Leeds, the younger of two children, Wilkinson was the first member of his family to go to university. A desire to explore life away from home took him to The University of Salford at 18 and he stayed in the Manchester area after university to build his career.
As an Equity Partner at Drivers Jonas, he delivered large property schemes undertaking PPP procurement, stakeholder management and project management, with clients including the Home Office, Passport Service, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence, The University of Manchester and Henderson Global Investors. In 2010, Drivers Jonas merged its business into Deloitte where he became an equity partner of the real estate team. He had significant leadership responsibility across the UK regional office network comprising capital projects, planning consultancy, valuation, development advisory and real estate consulting. Whilst there, he led the capital assurance on Manchester Airport Group (MAG)’s £1bn infrastructure and transformation programme, worked on the infrastructure and capital project support for the delivery of world class project controls for BAE Systems and supported the Deloitte Corporate Finance teams on many M&A deals where property and building consultancy due diligence was required. Other clients included the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Edinburgh City Council, LDC Private Equity and Equistone Partners Europe. When the time came for a change in career path, Wilkinson was grateful for the help he received from both Deloitte and In Touch. He says: “A portfolio career is something I’ve always thought I wanted to do and after 25-30 years in the corporate world I just felt like it was the right time. “I could have carried on until I was 55 or 60 and retired but I wanted the flexibility to do my own thing whilst having a bit more time to myself. “Deloitte were brilliant with me. They have legacy transition planning in place which helped me in the three to six months before I left, with support and guidance which I really benefited from. “In Touch has been the perfect fit for me and has provided a really useful perspective as things have
developed as well as things like helping me to get my CV in the best possible shape. “I sometimes feel a bit isolated after leaving such a big firm but In Touch still makes me feel connected. “The hardest thing for me was feeling a little bit disconnected. After going from a big team to working for myself, you even miss little things like the office banter but, after six months working from home when I first started, I now rent office space close to home in Holmfirth, so I get that interaction again, which is great.” Wilkinson currently holds two non-executive director board level roles, one for an SME, Decipher Consulting, who provide professional services across the infrastructure and capital projects industry, with a further role acting as an Independent Board Director for Leeds Grand Theatre and Opera House Ltd,
who are currently undertaking a programme of capital projects. He is also undertaking consultancy work and has just supported a potential supplier on the large NNB/EDF £20bn Hinkley Point C, guiding them through the competitive dialogue procurement process. He says: “I’d love to move into more NED roles with larger businesses, maybe even a FTSE 100. “I really enjoy having the ability to do new and different things, which comes with working with a range of clients across different sectors and my role gives me both variety and flexibility. “I am driven by the feeling of wanting to use my experience and apply it to other businesses and organisations. In a business sense, if they need my help, I want to help them achieve their goals successfully…. and if there is a problem, closing the stable door before the horse has bolted.”
“A portfolio career is something I’ve always thought I wanted to do and after 25-30 years in the corporate world I just felt like it was the right time.” 41
Keeping Good Counsel They have been described as ‘superheroes in business suits’ and today the role of a General Counsel (GC) is much more than providing hands-on legal advice. A good GC can play a big part in successful business transformation. General Counsels need to have boardroom-level impact, and they can expect to be measured for their strategic, business and financial value to the company just as any owner-manager or board member would measure themselves. But they also need to be prepared to get their hands dirty. They are increasingly being brought in to help business owners and boards take their organisations to a new level. The key to being a good GC is to deliver ideas, advice and action knowing the context and objectives of the business extremely well. For this, the GC needs to be a team player at all levels of the company. Christopher Agace is a barrister and portfolio GC, providing handson legal and commercial counsel to owner-managers and senior managers of a number of SMEs. He gives a number of examples of the way a GC can play a big role in business transformation and talks about the support portfolio GCs like him can give to senior management teams. Portfolio GCs are brought in by SMEs looking for strategic business or operational legal insight and assistance. He explains: “SMEs are built on diverse relationships, all of which directly or indirectly contribute to the success of the business over time. The role is often to bolster senior management when working with those relationships.”
Agace says: “I have a £15m turnover client who is embarking on trying to persuade a major multi-national business to partner with it on a new product design and launch – I am there to add weight to the management team. “For another client, I am being led by their accountants in re-structuring the ownership of the business to take account of the increasing numbers and generations of the family owners.”
“GCs can also be used to renew or to “innovate” the business-legal process that a company adopts as it moves forward and develops.” Other recent work includes helping an entrepreneurial client complete a small corporate transaction and drafting the investor documentation for a Fintech looking to raise funds. Agace says GCs can also be used to renew or to “innovate” the businesslegal process that a company adopts as it moves forward and develops. He adds: “GCs may be brought in reactively when something has gone wrong or proactively because the owner or board wants close management of business risk or because they are focused elsewhere and need to outsource to a safe pair of hands.”
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Looking at the transformational impact his role can have, he says: “I have a client who has been growing steadily and the business now finds itself being commissioned to undertake work of much higher value, for a more diverse client-base than it conceived of when it started as a sole trader 30 years ago. “My role here is to undertake a fundamental review of its contract processes, from their simple telephone orders through to their full-service on-site engagement with customers. “The object is to produce an upgraded suite of contracts that the business’ teams can use as their standard form and mostly have accepted without negotiation.” Agace says there is more to the project than the legal side of matters. Getting the review right has meant digging into the business to understand its processes as well, gaining an insight into the needs and expectations of its customers. “Capturing the good and learning from the bad,” he adds. Agace says: “When I tell friends and family what I do, it is like telling someone about a new element on the periodic table – you can tell that they think it probably has a purpose, but they have no idea what that purpose is. “But a General Counsel, working with the right management team, really can be a superhero in a business suit.”
TOP TIPS Directors are not superhuman, and there will inevitably be times where you have to call on niche, expert knowledge to help you. A General Counsel can be invaluable in making sure an organisationwide legal overview is in place and could help even the most seasoned board.
Matthew Roberts CEO
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Charting Success David Ivy, In Touch member and founder of the hugely successful email send platform dotMailer, has always harboured a creative streak. Here he explains how art, photography and music turned into a career which allows him to get paid for doing what he loves most – with a No1 hit single along the way. My creative streak started with art primarily, and graphic design. I loved the creative freedom art gave me – but I also relished the precision of graphic design and was also fascinated by programming, something I had been doing since the early ZX Spectrum days. This led to me working with art and design packages on my first 16-bit computer (Atari ST). I was also able to learn about digital music production thanks to Atari including MIDI ports as standard. My sister wasn’t too happy that I borrowed her keyboard for indefinitely long amounts of time but it was all worth it when, still at college, I landed my first commercial record deal for some dance tracks I had written. I decided then to go full-time into music production and after convincing my best friend, who was a DJ, to leave his high-prospect managerial job, we started a dance music studio together. We had a number of releases on independent record labels as well as larger players such as Sony and Beechwood and in this period, had some very interesting people into our successful South London production studio. We even spawned a number one hit in the mainstream charts – a Garage track called ‘Bound 4 Da Reload (Casualty)’ by Oxide and Neutrino. It was all written and produced in our studio by us – the lads literally brought two records in to sample and asked for the Casualty theme
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“We gained a competitive advantage from a place way behind the leaders at the time, by focusing on ‘ease-of-use' and this helped us on our journey to become the UK’s leading Email Send Platform.” to be re-created from the TV series. Next thing we know, it’s being played out everywhere.
Member Q&A
It was a heady time – and a part of my life I revere with great fondness – but as the music scene started to change, I started to pine for the world of graphic design again.
I trained to become a graphic designer originally but always had a very solid computer science/ programming background too. These two decades of experience have shaped my board career by giving me first-hand practical skills.
At that point, the internet had started to really take off thanks to the introduction of the worldwide web and I was getting hooked on the idea of designing websites. The challenges of producing designs and interfaces that worked in these new browser environments was addictive, combining my graphic design and programming skills in a way I could not have comprehended even a few years earlier. After returning to the design workplace and gaining a year of experience at a web design agency, I then started my own web design agency in 1999, along with my two founding partners. We won some solid project work almost right from the start – but we were primarily fascinated by User Interface design (now commonly referred to as UI and UX) and wanted to make things easier, better and more straightforward to use. Technology has always had a habit of ‘getting in the way’ but my passion for design as a hobby really applied to the interfaces we created for our products. We gained a competitive advantage from a place way behind the leaders at the time, by focusing on ‘ease-of-use’ and this helped us on our journey to become the UK’s leading Email Send Platform (ESP), dotMailer (now dotDigital Group PLC, DOTD). Along the way, I also trained in photography to make me a more effective creative director. Having these creative outlets really fed into my work – which was also really my hobby – and it allowed more creative ideas to flourish not just from me, but from the team. The visual skills I brought to the table were really complementary to the programming and sales skills of my two partners and I truly believe we would not have been able to create what we did without this mixed background of interests.
How has your earlier career shaped your roles as a board member?
As well as being the director focusing most on management and strategy, I have worked all the major roles in my industry – creative, technical and relationship/sales – and I find this really helps when talking to others who know I have genuinely ‘been there and done it’ for myself. It also helps me apply solutions more effectively when I have a deep understanding of the problems. What are the pros and cons of working as a non-exec? Consultancy roles always feel solitary and I wanted to feel like an integral part of the organisation again. I feel with NED positions that the input I can offer is far more rewarding when you’re an actual part of the team and the story. The cons are that you have to remember that you are there for the investors as much as the staff and executive team. You don’t ever want to dampen enthusiasm or high levels of motivation when ideas are abundant and excitement is high – but bringing experience and balance to such ideas or discussions, in a positive way, is a requirement of any effective NED. What advice would you give to professionals looking for their first NED role? I would suggest first of all looking at the positions available and asking yourself ‘how would I fit into this organisation?’ Ask yourself what you could offer the company; why it would benefit from having you on its board. Write down those points and then put yourself in the executive team’s position. Ask yourself ‘what do I want to see’ from a candidate and imagine you have 20 NED CVs to read and just 30 minutes to scan them and shortlist candidates.
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Put your strongest points forward quickly – don’t fill up the top-half of your CV with generic details that don’t differentiate you from anyone else. Adopt a newsroom style of ‘headlines first, details later’ – market yourself like a product in a crowded market. How do you see the future of boardroom leadership developing? Currently, boards mainly comprise of expertise in finance, law and HR which are all extremely important in any company. I feel that however, with the fast pace of change in the digital landscape, that perhaps a ‘digital’ representative should also be an essential presence on any board. Hacking, negative social media damage, flawed product roll-outs, app and product testing, increasing levels of digital procurement and the massive growth in B2B sales… such things may be covered at staff or even executive level. But having somebody outside of the core dayto-day teams with that level of deep understanding is I think, essential in this ever-evolving landscape. What role has In Touch played in your career development? A company called Devclever had secured investment for a float on the LSE and was looking for two NEDs as part of their expanded board. In Touch thought that I would be a good match for them both in terms of skills to offer and personality fit. They put my CV forward for consideration, contacted me explaining the role and ascertaining my interest and then in the space of a few days, I met the directors and was offered the position which I was pleased to accept. Without the keen eyes of the In Touch team, we would never have found each other. If In Touch were a dating agency, you’d certainly call this a successful match!
Why Business is Going Back to University Lionel Bunting is Head of Student Recruitment and Outreach at the University of Chichester. Here he looks at the changing relationships between higher education and business.
Students are attracted to the UK from all over the globe and the postgraduate market has also been growing as more people look to stand out in a crowded marketplace and executives return to university to upskill and move further and quicker on the career ladder. Corporate education is growing and responding quickly and appropriately to the needs of business in a fast-paced world and tumultuous marketplace. For the senior management team (SMT), investing in upskilling the workforce is critical but this has to be done quickly.
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Long-term investment in your people is all great but business needs are now, and smarter SMTs are working both angles – longer term training alongside immediate skills development, driven by a strategic plan rather than tactical in focus or reactive. It is mooted that around 85 percent of jobs in 10 years’ time have yet to be created, and many current roles may well become automated. Accenture has reported that the gap in digital skills will cost UK businesses around £141bn of GDP growth in intelligent technologies over the next 10 years. This is not just a UK problem, but it appears to be less of an impact in techfocused and educated South Korea and Japan.
in London, Milan, New York and in several other cities and is seeing renewed interest in faster knowledge acquisition and upskilling. Programmes are offered more intensively with short immersive workshops and weekenders. The University of the Arts in London runs a series of short one to five day courses. Roffey Park specialises in highend leadership and management programmes in the UK and in Asia Pacific, while HEC in Paris has a dedicated executive education provision offering both a range of online, short courses and longer certificated programmes.
The European School of Economics, for instance, runs certificated and non-certificated programmes
Demand is rising for skills in and for courses that deliver on data science, analytics, computing, digital media, video production and design.
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For many years, student numbers at universities have been increasing and despite the downturn in 18 year olds moving up through the education system, there are still more people at university than at any other time.
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Some of the biggest growth has been online through MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) and the mainstream emergence of the Mini-MBAs and MicroMasters, with world leaders Harvard and Stanford participating. The Mini-MBAs are highly condensed executive programmes tailored to business professionals and are usually but not exclusively delivered online. Most of the mini courses are not award bearing but you can often pay more to gain credits, collecting enough to stitch together to create a full Masters/MBA. It’s a different approach and works well for those wanting to study in their own time and at a pace that works for them, rather than following a traditional didactic model of learning. At the University of Chichester Business School, degree apprenticeship programmes have really taken off, with huge demand for the Senior Leader MBA. Large companies are keen to upskill staff while making use of the apprenticeship levy they have been paying and follow a non-traditional learning and delivery approach.
It’s this approach that generates instant value for businesses as participants are not just learning age old theories or working with out of date texts, but also using current texts, up-to-date thinking and building on existing theory. Demand is rising for skills in and for courses that deliver on data science, analytics, computing, digital media, video production and design. There is also demand for specialised courses which blend personal skills and leadership development, rather than catch-all or generic programmes. At the recent #digifest19 event in Birmingham, a huge national event where education and technology come together, digital literacy and digital skills were top of the list as many education providers struggle to get a handle on these. It is clear that there is a lack of understanding of what digital
The gap in digital skills will cost UK businesses around £141bn of GDP growth in intelligent technologies over the next 10 years.
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The programme is less-classroom based than most MBAs, with the emphasis being on intensive learning, thinking and problem solving, then applying this in the workplace.
TOP TIPS Investing in professional development gives you forwardthinking, confident staff who strengthen the company through their knowledge. Be prepared to be flexible about working hours and costs, as this outlay is a long game that will pay dividends.
Matthew Roberts CEO
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literacy is and what digital skills are actually required, but executives and decision makers know they just need them. Clarity in this area is needed and SMTs need to sit down and take a good hard look at their business, audit their existing capabilities and start to futureproof themselves. Bringing young millennials and genZ into the workplace and hoping they will contribute a digital skillset and contemporary thinking hasn’t been working effectively due to aging business systems and processes, whereas investing in the workplace, the workforce and continual upskilling is yielding results. Attracting and retaining talent is challenging and businesses often state that young people are transient, lacking commitment and loyalty, while stating older people lack those elusive digital skills but have a wealth of experience and other valuable skills. Employing highly skilled graduates is a critical part of future-proofing the workforce, but so too is continuing to skill them in the ever-changing digital world.
Unlocking potential for SMEs Everyone loves a challenge, and one route for already successful business people often leads them to a nonexecutive director’s role. We think that becoming a Business Doctor can deliver much more. Here’s why…
For many, targeting a NED position is the next step after years in business. It’s something to cap the CV, a new goal and something to give renewed focus. Whether it’s paid or not, sitting on a board of directors is a position of responsibility and with it comes prestige and respect. Well, unless things go wrong! But let’s focus on the positives and why people look for such challenges. For starters, it’s in the blood. Doing business, giving advice, making positive change and improving systems, processes and organisational thinking helps people. That increases efficiencies and boosts profits. That’s just one of many reasons people are in business.
SMEs are the backbone of the UK economy There are plenty of opportunities out there for individuals looking for such challenges. In the UK, there are over five million private businesses operating.
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However, research from the House of Commons business statistics site shows that only 1% of these private businesses are large (i.e. over 250 employees, or with a turnover of more than £50m). They tend to be the companies that have active boards and, therefore, need directors to assess progress, develop poilices and appoint senior personnel. What this means is that 99% (some 5.6m UK businesses) are described as SMEs. Crucially, although the net number of firms is growing, each year many fail and cease trading. There is an opportunity to support them. How can Business Doctors help? Dig deeper into the available statistics and you’ll find that the number of young entrepreneurs is increasing, especially in the 20-29 age range. What does this mean? Although anyone prepared to start a business should be applauded, younger business people often need a helping hand. That’s not being patronising, it’s the honest truth. Seasoned business professionals have much to offer. Whether that’s been
within industry working for a multinational company, switching between sectors to gain maximum experience, or successfully running an SME – it’s a valuable resource of advice, insight and understanding. Anyone who has been involved with running a business will acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses – grudgingly in some cases. There is usually a core still, but that doesn’t always translate across the many disciplines required to run an evolving business. Perhaps the greatest challenge for entrepreneurs is growing their business and taking things to the next level. With a track record of doing just that, this is where Business Doctors can make a difference. What makes us stand out? We’re not consultants – we’re business people with hands-on expertise. And that’s not limited to specific market sectors; Business Doctors apply core principles that enable people to identify and achieve their goals.
There’s no hard sell. We ask people “why” they are in business and what they want to achieve. Then we help them form a strategy that delivers. Ultimately, we add value. What will Business Doctors offer you? Business Doctors isn’t a random collection of individuals. We are likeminded, high-calibre business people that share the same values and approach to business. Through our partnership with In Touch we meet people who are not only looking for the next challenge, they are ready for it. There’s a shared passion for business and making a real difference. There’s a desire to pass on knowledge gained from working in larger businesses to help SMEs fast-track their own growth. We’re here to make a difference. Our goal is to support the biggest contributors to UK growth – SME business owners. The Business Doctors brand provides a framework that helps align years of experience with the business needs and personal aspirations of entrepreneurs.
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We help you build trust and create conversations that lead to positive outcomes for business owners. Our well-established continuous training and development opportunities will get you started, with classroom, in the field and online webinars to give ongoing support. Then regional and national events ensure that you develop with the Business Doctors team. If wanting to actively help a range of SMEs is the kind of challenge you’re looking for, Business Doctors could be the perfect match for you. To find out more about the opportunities offered by Business Doctors contact Ben Davies on 01744 833778 or email ben@ businessdoctors.co.uk
Swing When Y While networking on the golf course can be a great way to build your business contacts, playing purely for pleasure will reap even bigger rewards. According to recent research, golf reduces levels of anxiety by nearly 50%. A portfolio career should allow time to enjoy a little more rest and relaxation, and what better way to unwind than a round of golf in stunning scenery, followed by a night in a luxurious hotel? Read on to find out the top 5 UK golf courses for R&R:
Ballycastle Golf Club
Ganton Golf Club
Weekday green fee £70
Weekday green fee £80
This course clings to Northern Ireland’s Antrim Coast, only an hour and a half from Belfast along the stunning Causeway Coastal road. Though somewhat overshadowed by its famous neighbour, Royal Portrush, Ballycastle is a gem of a course framed by the ruins of Bonamargy Abbey. With its numerous changes in elevation over a compact 5876 yards, the rugged coastline isn’t the only source of drama. With breathtaking views out to Rathlin Island and beyond to the Mull of Kintyre, there are few more stunning settings for a game of golf.
Lying close to the picturesque village of the same name, Ganton Golf Club enjoys far-reaching views of Ryedale. The club has hosted both the Ryder Cup and Walker Cup and this pedigree is evident on the challenging but hugely enjoyable course. The comfortable club house has a no mobile phones policy, so you can truly unwind and leave the daily grind behind. Only 8 miles from Scarborough, the course has a coastal quality and could be described as an inland links course, with dune-like bunkers scattered along the fairways.
Antrim is one of the main filming locations for Game of Thrones, and the walk from Ballintoy Harbour to the Giant’s Causeway will be familiar to regular viewers. Other famous sights include the precariously positioned Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge and the romantic ruins of Dunluce Castle. Catch the ferry across to Rathlin Island to birdwatch or dive the numerous shipwrecks found there. Back on dry land, relax in the hot tub at Bayview Farm Holiday Cottages in nearby Bushmills, home to the oldest whiskey distillery in the world and a handful of excellent restaurants.
There’s plenty to see in the local area with the Wolds Way long distance walk close at hand (if you haven’t already clocked up enough miles walking the course). RSPB Bempton cliffs boast an abundance of puffins, guillemots and gannets, whilst Scarborough’s victorian grandeur has been revived with the recent regeneration of its north bay and Peasholm Park. Stay at the rustic retreat of Ox Pasture Hall or indulge in some R&R at the Crown Spa Hotel to cap things off.
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You’re Winning
Boat of Garten
Pennard Golf Club
St Enodoc, Cornwall
Weekday green fee £75
Weekday green fee £65
Weekday green fee £85
Situated on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park, Boat of Garten Golf Club is arguably the best and the prettiest inland Scottish course. The sensitively shaped fairways, lined by birch trees, heather and broom maximise the highland landscape to produce a testing yet rewarding course. The idyllic setting is enhanced by the Speyside miniature railway running alongside it and in early spring, snow-capped mountains frame the course, adding further majesty to the scene.
This course is another seaside pick. The interesting and thoughtfully designed course has great sea views, positioned as it is at the tip of the Gower Peninsula. A rugged cliff-top course, it’s earned the title ‘The Links in the Sky’ due to its situation over 200ft above sea level. The undulating course is full of surprises, not least the stunning vista at the 16th hole.
A stunning course which looks out over the Atlantic, St Enodoc must win the prize for the quirkiest course in the UK. The 10th hole winds its way towards the 11th Century St. Enodoc’s Church, where John Betjeman lies buried. His poem ‘Seaside Golf’ is a homage to the St Enodoc course, and it’s easy to understand what inspired the former poet laureate. As you play through huge sand dunes and along an eccentric course, you are kept on your toes until the 18th hole.
A ten minutes drive away is Aviemore, where you can engage in pretty much any outdoor activity you like including mountain biking, abseiling and canoeing. If you want to take it a little easier, the Spey has some of the finest trout and salmon fishing in the world and offers some riverside walking. Aviemore boasts plenty of restaurants and bars and an excellent spa hotel in the Macdonald Highlands Hotel.
Swansea is only 8 miles away, so finding quality hotels and restaurants is no challenge, though the Gower coastline offers plenty of interest away from the bright lights of the city. From the 12th century castle ruins in Pennard, to the water mills of the Gower Heritage Centre, there’s plenty to keep you busy in this stunning area of outstanding natural beauty. A night’s stay at the Oxwich Bay Hotel, situated next to ‘Britain’s Best Beach’ guarantees total relaxation.
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The clubhouse does a superb Cornish cream tea and boasts a beautiful vista of the rugged coastline. The nearby St Enodoc Hotel puts a modern twist on the seaside vibe and has excellent spa facilities, whilst bustling Padstow, with its renowned restaurant scene, is just a ten minute ferry trip across the River Carmel.
Steve Frost on Digital Technologies Steve Frost is a digital technology consultant with a wealth of expertise in computer networking, communications, software and cybersecurity. Having spent over 20 years at internet giant Cisco, he is now spearheading the next wave of transformational digital technologies, focusing on Blockchain. Here he examines the digital technologies that will be transforming business in 2019 and beyond. First, a bit of reflection. Historically, IT was at worst seen as a cost centre, and at best an internal service provider.
This is now accelerating into what’s called the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ driven by a suite of emerging technologies we’ve only just begun to realise the application and impact of.
I really hope that as our thinking moves from IT towards Digital Transformation, that executive leaders recognise its potential as THE business growth engine, and reflect this in their board’s skills composition and strategies.
Here’s just a snapshot: We’ve heard about ‘bots’ taking on routine tasks, but what about higher value skills in the future? I can certainly see AI assisting, signposting and guiding clients prior to engaging with the expert human, as well as machine learning contributing to collective intelligence as mentioned earlier.
Digital takes no prisoners – an organisation can use it to disrupt, or they will be disrupted, and we’ve seen this play out in multiple sectors over the years.
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Computer driven algorithms are already responsible for many decisions made in our personal and business lives, and care needs to be taken to ensure transparency and the avoidance of any unintended ‘machine learned’ discrimination or bias.
The initial use case and genesis of Blockchain was in financial markets to provide a peer to peer currency you’ll have heard of Bitcoin. And while the cryptocurrency markets have been volatile to say the least, new use cases have emerged in finance such as reducing the cost and latency of cross border payments (Ripple/XRP).
Digital twins offer the fascinating potential to replicate real world ‘things’ virtually, and so ‘model’ scenarios to test and provide better outcomes back into the physical world.
Blockchain has now found new applications in almost every sector, from ensuring the quality and integrity of products in the food supply chain, creating digital identities and payment methods in emerging economies, to managing and providing access to health records across multiple stakeholders.
The introduction of 5G mobile networks, with the promise of higher speeds and new services, could open the door to smarter cities, utilising UHD augmented reality to improve the citizen and visitor experience.
A June 2018 McKinsey paper ‘Blockchain Beyond the Hype: What is the strategic business value?’ stated that "10 per cent of global GDP will be stored on Blockchain by 2027" citing a World Economic Forum survey. That should make us all sit up and take notice.
IOT (Internet of Things) devices, with sensors that send telemetry to participate in big data collection and analysis, could send live video over 5G for remote monitoring. 5G will also offer faster and lower latency connectivity for controlling drones and smart vehicles, including semi or fully autonomous transport.
So while all this may sound futuristic at present, remember Amara’s Law has been proven time and time again: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”
Finally, Blockchain. Sometimes referred to as Distributed Ledger Technology, this could have the greatest impact for business, but also is often misunderstood and overhyped.
“Computer driven algorithms are already responsible for many decisions made in our personal and business lives.”
The revolutionary and disruptive nature of Blockchain is that it enables previously untrusted parties to reach consensus and securely transact, sharing data immutably, without the need for a central governing intermediary. This has the potential to empower individuals, increase transparency, reduce corruption, and win back trust. It’s what the internet and worldwide web were originally designed for.
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Recent Appointments Intu appoints a new independent non-executive director Cheryl Millington, the former Chief Digital Officer at Travis Perkins Plc will be joining Intu’s board on May 3, in time for its Annual General Meeting. Millington is set to replace Rakhi Goss-Custard as an independent director and will also be a member of the shopping centre operators Remuneration, Audit and Nomination and Review committees. Her role with Intu is her fourth non-executive appointment as she is also an independent director of Equiniti Group Plc and Atom Bank Plc and former non-executive of National Savings and Investments.
Clarks’ former interim chief exec named as chair British footwear retailer, Clarks, has appointed Stella David as its new chair, replacing former chair Tom O’Neill. O’Neill has been on the footwear retailer's board for 15 years and David’s appointment is effective immediately after his departure at the firm's AGM on May 3. David’s boasts over 30 years of working with consumer goods and was formerly a non-executive director and interim CEO of the shoe brand.
HS2 board strengthened by non-exec appointments Dame Judith Hackitt and Stephen Hughes have been welcomed to the board by Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, as non-executive directors. Hackitt boasts a whole host of non-executive roles, acting as an independent director at organisations such as Made Smarter Commission, Imperial College Court, City & Guilds Group, and High Value Manufacturing Catapult. Hughes is also a credible addition to the board having served as Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council for nearly 10 years, as well as previously holding an executive role at Brent Council.
Persimmon welcomes Glaxo VP to its board Former senior vice president of GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Claire Thomas, will join Persimmon PLC as an independent nonexecutive director on August 1. She will join the York-headquartered company’s board as an independent non-executive director and will also be appointed to their remuneration and nomination committees. Thomas spent over 10 years at GlaxoSmithKline overlooking their global HR function and has over 28 years experience in advising boards, supporting remuneration and nomination committees, succession planning, strategic planning and corporate restructuring. 56
Charity Begins Abroad In Touch has its own in-house charity, In Touch Futures, which supports good causes both in the UK and across the globe. We believe that every child deserves a life free from poverty and struggle and by supporting communities, providing education and creating employment, we can give children a brighter future. The charity’s administration and running costs are funded by our founders and a donation from every new network membership sold goes to the charity, which means every penny of the funds received via donations goes directly to charitable causes. Here we focus on In Touch Futures’ impact in Brazil, looking at three projects which made a far-reaching impact on many communities. THE CAFU FOUNDATION In Touch Futures supported the Fundacao Cafu Project in Capao Redondo, a deprived neighbourhood of Sao Paulo. The last stop on the southern subway line out of the city, the district sits on the periphery of the sprawling metropolitan area with many people living in makeshift housing, lacking basic sanitation and utilities. The area suffers extreme social deprivation, with limited access to education and amenities. The Foundation was created in 2004 by the former Brazilian footballer and double World Cup winner, Cafu, to fight the social inequality suffered by the people of southern Sao Paolo. Today, the foundation services these communities, providing activities which are focused around education and aim to keep young people away from the negative influences of the streets. Through sports and cultural workshops, the foundation reinforces the values and principles of responsible citizenship, community cohesion and respect. In Touch funded the purchase of a brand new Mercedes bus, allowing the foundation to widen its programme of activities to aid disadvantaged youth and communities from even further across Sao Paolo than was previously possible.
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TETO TETO works in 19 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, improving the lives of vulnerable people through community engagement and building infrastructure. In Touch supported TETO in building emergency housing for 5 families in a Campinas favela, each of them working alongside TETO volunteers to construct their own home, giving them greater security and with it, a chance to access employment and education. These projects bring together people from disparate backgrounds to work towards a common aim and raise awareness of the plight of socially disadvantaged communities. Once the houses have been constructed, TETO provides further resources and amenities to support the families, such as community libraries and education centres, ensuring the legacy of the project.
CO-OPERATIVE UNINDO FORCAS This woodworking and crafts cooperative uses old palettes and waste wood to create furniture, with an emphasis on sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Based in the Val de Sol neighbourhood of Barueri, the cooperative is staffed by 22 shareholding, mainly female members. By crafting their products from reclaimed timber, the women are not only creating an income but also safeguarding the environment. In Touch funded a new delivery vehicle to allow the cooperative to travel beyond the local area to sell their goods, increasing their market and profitability. Unindo Forcas has given the community of Val de Sol an opportunity to be able to afford better housing and education and provide employment for future generations.
New Horizons in the Windy City Growth is a core driver and objective for the vast majority of businesses globally. There are various routes to achieving scale, from exploring untouched markets and hiring new talent, to embracing innovative technologies and merging with like-minded companies. These strategic decisions are made by boards and businesses to generate profits, drive growth and encourage expansion. Growth and expansion are at the heart of In Touch. This is evidenced by the numerous accolades we have collected in the last quarter, the wealth of new content and products launched, and our recent expansion to the United States. Just last month we spread our wings to explore uncharted territories and markets by opening up our new US headquarters.
for all international transactions outside of the UK and marks an exciting next step in our journey, which originally started in 2013.
Located in the heart of Chicago, this office is now the central hub
In addition to memberships, our US team will deliver a wide range
Senior business professionals across the States will now be able to access training, content and exclusive roles while employers can recruit independent board members and business leaders from the network free of charge.
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of industry-leading development products, including resume writing and LinkedIn profile development, plus various executive coaching packages. North American companies can also receive support to recruit talent for their boards by connecting with the In Touch business services team. Our transatlantic move is being led by recently appointed President, Naomi Kent, formerly VP of Customer Success at Shareablee,
a New York data analytics firm, and prior to that, Global Head of Client Relations at relationship capital firm BoardEx. Oliver Giles has also relocated to our new Chicago office to manage the US sales team, utilising the wealth of knowledge he accumulated during his time in the UK sales division. As a business, we are passionate about promoting from within and recognised that Oliver's talents would be of huge value to both US clients and the rest of the sales team over there.
Commenting on the Chicago office opening, CEO Matthew Roberts says: “A lot of hard work was put in over the last couple of months to prepare for our US launch, so I was delighted to finally open the doors to our new North American office last month. "To think that In Touch was formed just five years ago and is now a multi-million dollar business with an international office is an amazing achievement. We’ve worked incredibly hard to make this platform a success and the
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fact that we are now recognised as one of the largest global online networks for board-level professionals is a testament to our drive and determination to succeed. "Since day one, we’ve been passionate about transforming the way businesses recruit and people develop and I can’t wait to help thousands of US professionals transition to a new career as a board member with confidence.”
Whatever Floats Your Boat There are many ways to raise capital for future expansion, with a number of avenues including initial public offerings and management buy outs, alongside private equity all up for consideration. Non-executive director Mark Mills weighs up the options available. When it comes to growth plans the first thought in many boardrooms is to take the tried and tested private equity route. And there is certainly a lot of private equity cash about - alongside a growing appetite for management buy outs (MBOs) and buy-ins. Funding has been available for businesses keen to push ahead with deals against a background of historically low interest rates, cheap financing and healthy liquidity in the market. Just take the North of England. Figures from the Centre for Management Buyout Research (CMBOR) show that in 2018 buyout volumes across the private equity market in the region remained strong, with values totalling £2.39bn. Private equity houses talk of a strong MBO pipeline particularly in the mid-market. Serial entrepreneur Mark Mills says private equity can be a good source of funding for businesses and provide an exit route for business owners – but he is keen to highlight there are other roads they can take. Mills is non-executive chairman of Lancashire-based Velocity Composites, which arrived on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 2017 with a £30m valuation. The aerospace business makes advanced carbon fibre and ancillary material kits that are used in aircraft production and that initial float raised more than £14m to help fund growth plans. Mills is no stranger to the stock
exchange and is best-known as the founder and chief executive of AIM-listed cash machine operator Cardpoint, which he ran from 1999 to 2006. From his base in Lytham St Annes, on the Lancashire coast, he now advises companies on growth strategies, and he remains a champion of the city and what it can deliver. Mills says that, as well as access to capital, an IPO offers transparency and strong corporate governance moving forward. He also talks of “long-term sustainability” and the “huge amount of credibility” that being a public company delivers. Mills also stresses companies considering the IPO need a good “growth story”. Mills says an initial public offering (IPO) can work when business owners want some form of exit but don’t want to cash out altogether: “Private equity is often the right solution, especially if you have a business that doesn’t necessarily need multiple layers of capital, it just needs an injection.” However, he points out: “A listing is designed so you can go back to the well for more capital on a number of occasions relatively easily. There is a lot of capital available to listed companies. “Once you have done the hard work on the initial float, you have set the scene. People are primed if you come back at a certain point in time.” Mills says that although a listing will
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expose a business to more public scrutiny, corporate governance is just as important to private equity houses investing in a company. So which route to take? Mills says it is all about looking at the facts and what will work best for the business. And that is where a good non-exec can be worth their weight in gold. He says: “Businesses are not necessarily seeing all the solutions and they can be making decisions without all the facts at their fingertips. “A non-executive director can bring experience of other deals they have done. Normally they have been involved in other forms of transaction. They can look at things objectively, strategically and dispassionately. “They can see what is best for the company and the current shareholders and what is in the interest of customers and suppliers as well. “The interesting thing about being a non-executive is that no-one is going to agree with you all the time and you are not necessarily always going to be correct. But what you have got is probably greater and broader experience. Boards and owners should use that to their advantage. “A strong non-executive voice will lay things out on the table rather than try to impose anything. Ultimately the board or shareholders will decide, you are there to suggest a version of events they may not have previously considered.”
EXECUTIVE COACHING Accelerate your portfolio career by seeking expert support and guidance from an experienced executive coach. Consolidate ideas, gain clarity and create a personal success roadmap Identify new career opportunities that are absolutely right for you Navigate a transition with confidence and ease Do you want to make great strides in your career in 2019? Contact us today. Call us on 0161 804 8074 Email careerdevelopment@intouchnetworks.com
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