By any standards 2024 has been a tumultuous year both in Corporate and Public worlds. With major shifts and changes in the Political Landscape continuing to ripple through the Globe, there are inevitably impacts on the Business World. While we can anticipate some re-orientation and disorientation on some themes and targets such as energy and DEI which have emerged in 2024, Business should continue the focus on the existing underlying Consumer and Governance trends.
There has been considerable success in improving the participation of women on Boards of the FTSE 350 at around 40%. A key aspect of this progression was compliance with targets, facilitated by removing the recruitment blockers and ‘qualification’ barriers to women achieving Non-Executive Director roles. However, in Executive Leadership roles there remains a significant lag, with women in Executive Leadership positions at 35% in the FTSE 350 and only 28% participation of women in the key Executive Committee of the Business. Crucially there is a significant and persistent deficit of women in the pivotal role of CEO, currently only 9% of CEOs in the FTSE 350 are women.
Board Chairs and Directors are committed to the oversight of their organisations in order to achieve effective performance and sustainability. While the challenges of achieving this are various and multiple there is one stand-out challenge which requires the organisation to be aware, agile, change focused and brave. Namely the challenge of Technology-Digital transformation.
AI and The Board, a Take-Over or Liberation?
The search for Board Effectiveness is often an elusive one. It is highly specific to the Company, the sector it is in, the business challenges it faces, the Board Chair and the history of the Board, to mention but a few of the contextual factors impacting on a Board’s performance.
Creating a Dynamic and Adept Board Leading a Resilient and Responsive Business
As Boards scan the strategic horizon there are plenty of threats and dilemmas to be faced. The likelihood of one crisis or another impacting on the business is high, with threats from: pandemics, wars, financial crisis, environmental crisis, political turmoil and technological disruption.
Boards need to continue to think long and hard about how they can ensure that their businesses are resilient and responsive.
How can a Board respond to these challenges? Critically before starting to dapple with the business, some self-reflection may be necessary, evaluating what shape the Board is in to face the future. A number of key areas for evaluation on ‘fit for purpose’ are.
Independent External Board Evaluations every three years became a key element of the 2010 Governance ‘Code’. Since then, there has been a growing development and focus on the Board as an independent entity. The ‘2010 Code’ stimulated an increased depth of Board effectiveness evaluation across the FTSE 350 and allied companies and organisations who now use the ‘Code’ as a benchmark of governance excellence.
We are seeing more and more discussion, debate and concern about the concept of ‘Overboarding’ in the Boardrooms of our Businesses, Enterprises and Organisations. This is essentially a question of capacity, does the individual sitting on the Board have the ability to effectively contribute to the oversight and strategy of the Business- Enterprise.
It is a good question and an emerging one as the Fund managers, Shareholder Advisors and Compliance Index compilers seek to provide data and information to enable informed ‘voting’ choices on the effective make-up of a Board. This data availability has been used to particular effect on the question of climate change readiness, where individual directors have been voted down due to their lack of climate change credentials. It focuses more attention on the make up of the Board.
As a regular contributor on the January ‘Pipeline Top Flight’ flagship Leadership programme for senior female executives targeting at CEO, COO, CFO and other senior leadership roles. I come away with a refreshed sense of what can be accomplished and a determination to support the further achievement of women to the senior levels of our companies, organisations and Boards. It is my annual visible glimpse of the talent pool awaiting to be released on to our Boards.
On the programme we collectively ‘dived’ into the world of Boards, to better understand what Boards need and the role the individual can play. This enables the participants to understand what drive Boards and to target the senior leadership roles which support the Board with more precision.
The drain of talented women from the executive ranks is appalling and hits at the fundamental bedrock of our talent pool of candidates to participate on and run our Boards.
As a regular contributor to the ‘Pipeline Top Flight’ leadership programme, I see a stream of talented women who are fortunate to have been supported by their organisations to get impactful strategic learning and guidance on making it into the top Executive, CEO, COO and CFO roles of our businesses and organisations and to improve their retention in those roles.
We are pleased to announce that Helen Pitcher OBE has been elected as Chair of PCF Management Committee, for a two-year term until October 2023.
We wish her all the best in her new role.
By Helen Pitcher for HR magazine
January is as good a time as any to reassess life and career goals. However, as with nearly all New Year ‘resolutions,’ it is important to ensure it is not a seasonal ‘flash in the pan’.
What is more conducive to effective career planning is a six month rolling review of whether you are achieving your stated goals. This however implies that you have taken time, soundings and articulated your stated goals in the first place! And that you do not review your goals achievement in isolation, but use a trusted mentor, coach or experienced friend to walk through progress and obstacles.
