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Find a sponsor or be prepared to be very brave

Some months ago I was at a charity lunch and had the pleasure of meeting a two accomplished women. One was about to finish her current executive role and was planning to develop a portfolio of non-executive directorships. She was already on a couple of community and not-for-profit boards. The other was an experienced company director. By the time we left the lunch, I realised that the experienced director was clearly a sponsor of the first woman, as she was very busy introducing her to others and arranging for her to meet people.

Six months later, the aspiring non-executive director has been appointed to the boards of three listed companies.

Let it be said, I am delighted for this female director for having been able to achieve her goals so well and so quickly. She is clearly talented and brings a particular skill set that is needed by the boards that she has joined. But I have no doubt that having a sponsor who was proactively putting the aspiring director forward would have helped immensely.

For without a sponsor, you have to go it alone. You have to have lots of coffees, develop a profile, speak with headhunters and generally put yourself forward wherever possible, without at the same time looking desperate! You do have to be prepared to be “out there”. And without a clear sponsor, you need to be brave. You may have to ask others to introduce you to third parties or even recommend you to a particular chairman for a particular board.

Not everyone has a sponsor, but if you can find one, make the most of the opportunity. Having someone open the doors for you, be thinking of you and promoting you without your prompting, or even at your suggestion, is a very powerful tool in the world where personal recommendations mean so much. If appropriate, be brave and ask someone to be your sponsor or champion, if you are confident that they know you and would be pleased to recommend you.

However, just because you don’t have a sponsor doesn’t mean you can’t get the roles you want. It just may take more time and effort. You will have to be prepared to take measures into your own hands. There is no doubt, it does take a certain amount of bravery and confidence. You have to “lean in” and push yourself out. But if you have the right skills and experience, and enough people know about you, the right roles will eventuate.

Coffee count: 391

My Asian pivot …….1000 Green teas

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While it has been a few months since my last blog, it has not been an uneventful period. Being Chairman has been quite consuming, with lots of lessons learnt along the way. Watch out for future blogs
on robust conversations, the board’s role in changing culture and the challenge of leading. It has also been an interesting time as I have come to terms with a new challenge (because life as a woman and mother aspiring to be a non-executive director isn’t challenging enough)!

With the Asian Century well underway, opportunities beckon for all. My incredibly supportive and encouraging husband has taken on a wonderful pan-Asian role, based in Singapore and at the end of 2015, I will relocate to Singapore to join him. Having just marked the week of mourning of the late Lee Kwan Yew, many will be well aware of Singapore’s great success of the last 50 years and the place it has earned itself as one of the wealthiest states in the world. It is a city that pulses with activity and has a key role as a trading and financial hub within Asia.

So while it has been a challenge to develop a portfolio of non-executive directorships in Australia, I have just made that challenge all the more interesting. I will have to develop new networks and I suspect that will involve many more cups of coffee …… or green tea. Recognising the need to be more savvy about the economics, politics, history and culture of the many countries across Asia, I have embarked on the Asialink Future Leaders Program. To date, it has been a fascinating experience, with focuses on China, India and Japan as well as extensive discussion of cultural intelligence and exposure to Asian culture through art.

Armed with at least an initial understanding of Asia, my aim will be to bring my governance experience and revenue focus to the attention of Asian companies seeking to deal with Australia or Australian companies seeking to engage with Asia. Either way, it should be a great learning experience. Watch this space as I try to share the knowledge.

Coffee count: 330

View from the other side – CVs

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There is probably a little bit of irony given that this blog documents my search for a non-executive director portfolio, that many of the coffees I have had since the last post have been to recruit new directors rather than to be recruited myself.

One of the tasks that I have as the new chairman is to ensure that the two vacancies that will now be on our board with the retirement of past directors are filled. A review of the skills of the existing board members together with an understanding of directors’ future intentions have led us to seek to not only fill the existing vacancies but, to use a sporting analogy, develop a “bench” of potential future directors. Being a board made up of volunteers, we need to be as efficient as possible.

We were blessed with responses from quite a number of skilled and experienced applicants and as I sat and reviewed their covering letters and accompanying emails, I had a moment of clarity. A number of times over the past couple of years the advice I have received has been to ensure my CV expresses the value I can bring to a board (see Stalking vs keeping in touch and Morphing executive to non-executive). As I read through these CVs they all told me of the wonderful things they had achieved in their executive roles, the projects and people they had managed and what they had been or been doing for the past 15-30 years.

There was only one CV that addressed the skills that we might be looking for together with their experience. I found myself thinking “Yes, but what will you bring to the board?” or “What value do you add?” I could suddenly understand the perspective of people who have to read multiple CVs. It’s tough enough, but to have to distil for oneself the value someone might bring to the board rather than them spelling it out for me, made the process of reviewing the CVs much more laborious. And given that some CVs stretched to six pages and beyond – it really was work.

It is something I have tried to do before and as simple as it sounds, it’s not that simple, especially for someone who hasn’t sat on a board. Understanding how one’s skills might be utilised around a board table or in a board sub-committee is not easy to imagine if one hasn’t had the experience. Nevertheless, I think it is possible, it just requires a bit of effort and imagination, applying experience from working in meetings in other situations.

So I’m going back to review my CV again. I’ll be ensuring it stays at 1-2 pages and is easy for the reader to know what value and skills I can bring to their board.

Coffee count: 304

A new role

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In June last year, I was appointed to my first board, having sat as an observer for a couple of months before that. At the end of June this year, the directors of that board nominated me to be their Chairman, effective 1 July, taking over from the founding chairman. I have expressed thanks to the directors and appreciation for the confidence they have in me to chair the board at a time when the company looks to move into the next stage of its growth.

Within days of the board meeting, I was on a plane to spend a little over a week touring around Turkey with my oldest son, who was meeting me, having enjoyed the first half of his gap year overseas. While exploring the fascinating landscapes and history of Turkey, I took some time to reflect on the process to date of becoming a non-executive director and the expectations on me as a chairman. These expectations are both set by others and by the “a-type” personality that resides within!

In reflecting on the process to date, on the one hand, I should be pleased to have not only a chairman’s role but also have been appointed to the board of the foundation for an important cultural institution in Sydney. Both these roles provide me with opportunities to try to add value based on my previous executive and not-for-profit experience. They also provide me with challenging issues to consider, decisions on which require rigorous thought. On the other hand, I have now been knocked back for two listed board roles where in each case, it seemed I had the exact experience and skill set the board was looking for, with deep relevant industry experience and apparently glowing references. Both times at least one reason was that I didn’t have listed board experience.

I am persisting with my coffee meetings, but have not found large networking functions a worthwhile proposition. It only brings home the message that there are so many other people seeking the same roles!

So if I am to keep on doing what I’m doing, I can only hope to do the best I can in the roles I have and to gain further experience. While pondering this and stirring one of my many Turkish coffees, it struck me that the characteristics I would need to bring to the new chairman’s role were the same as the characteristics of a good Turkish coffee. Ground, cooked over a flame until just below the boil, Turkish coffee is best served strong and a little sweet. Leading a board through a period of change, particularly after having the same chairman for the past 10 years, is going to require me to at times be strong, to help the board approach things in a different way – more suited to that of an established rather than developing company. My aim is to lead from within, rather than from the front, but that will require ensuring I can bring everyone along. It will take an inner strength to know when to encourage others to adopt a different view or approach to the one from the past as well as to know when I should allow others to lead and direct a course of action. At the same time, as change isn’t always easy for some, even just the change in chairman and the way a meeting is run, so it will need sweetness in the form of recognition and consideration.

And with a new financial year, the coffee meetings need to ramp up again. Perhaps this year will bring another step in the process. After all, I still have 724 to go.

Coffee count: 276

(While it was a delightful experience to travel with my son, I don’t think it’s appropriate to count the coffees and glasses of raki that we shared!)

The box conundrum

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This past week I met with the chairman of a number of listed and unlisted boards and who has over 20 years of board experience. Introduced by a friend of mine who happens to be an executive member of one of those boards, he was aware that I was finding the process of building a portfolio of non-executive directorships harder than expected. This chairman is a willing mentor of women (and men) and has been a mentor in the AICD Chairmen’s Mentoring Program three times.

He told me that most of the people he meets with have been in a role or an industry for many years and have deep experience. Often they have been lawyers or consultants. They fit squarely in a particular box and in order to be attractive for board roles, they need to widen their experience and skill set. However, in my case, the chairman noted, I have had a broad range of experiences that have utilised a broad range of skills and I don’t seem to have a particular box to fit in! The problem with this, the chairman went on to say, is that people don’t know what I am good at. Generalists are not sought out anymore, people with particular skills or industry knowledge are.

Without trying to sound too frustrated, I pointed out to the chairman that rather than having stayed in one role for 25 years, I had chosen to try a few different roles and enhance a range of skills. However, I did feel there was a consistency across all my roles that focused on “top line revenue generation”. In other words, helping a business grow. Not unlike another senior board director I had spoken with, he noted that this was quite an executive trait. “You could be fielding calls from head-hunters for CEO roles,” he said. “I am” I replied. But surely a board needs people who understand the skills required for a business to grow and can ask and challenge the executives? That theory applies after all to industry knowledge, to financial management, to risk, and so on. After all, the 2014 AICD Conference later this month is all about growth.

I have to confess that following the meeting my mood was quite sombre for a while. Too much a generalist, not enough experience in big companies, no specific industry experience… It’s going to keep on being tough. Then I refocused and decided one meeting doesn’t determine my direction or my outcomes. It’s has to be about taking in the information and assimilating it with all the other information and advice. I could assure the chairman that I had spoken to most of the head-hunters in town, I had tried the government approach (admittedly with little successful penetration to date) and I was doing the networking. I am sitting on boards now and I know I am being effective. I also intuitively believe that working in a small or medium size business means one learns a lot more about business than working in one or two areas of a larger business (although I did work for an organisation that had 90,000 employees…).

The chairman did say that so often it is about serendipity and the planets being in alignment. I can’t help but think that the 1000 coffees along the way may assist the circumstances that eventuate in the “fortuitous happenstance”.

Coffee count: 253 coffees

Postscript: Following my last post, it may not surprise anyone that there hasn’t been a rash of offers from head-hunters or recruiters signing up to follow this blog. But I did have a call regarding a CEO role…..

Headhunters – respondents, facilitators or change agents?

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A couple of weeks ago the Australian Financial Review had an article that included an expressed frustration by shareholders of the approach major executive recruitment firms (I’m going to call them “headhunters” for readers’ ease) take to recruiting non-executive directors for boards. The claim was made that headhunters like to play it safe and thus boards end up with the same names put forward, it not being in the headhunters’ interests to try to place someone on an ASX board that has not been on one before.

I have previously discussed in elsewhere in this blog the catch-22 that exists for aspiring non-executive directors in relation to prior experience. It was somehow heartening to read of the same in the pages of the newspaper.

In a best case scenario, a board seeking a new director (whether an ASX100 company or not) would have done a skills matrix of its existing directors, considered their tenures to date and future plans and accordingly, developed a brief for a headhunter to fulfil its succession planning requirements. The existing directors are likely to also apply their minds as to whom they know who might fulfil the requirements. Both groups will cast around amongst the people they know.

Director appointments are going to come either through a headhunter or one’s network. In the case of larger companies, it’s just as likely to be a combination of both, with one’s name needing to be on both lists. So aspirants have to keep meeting with headhunters as well as networking.

Of my 223 coffees to date, 19 of them have been with headhunters and there would be another few to whom I’ve been introduced but who haven’t met with me. They range from the blue-chip international firms to the sole operators. All have been polite and friendly. Only two have met with me a second time (across a two year period). Walking away from most, I’ve had the feeling that I wasn’t going to be on any of their lists any time soon.

I understand that from the headhunters’ perspective, they have a brief from the board or nominations committee and they need to fill it. I also appreciate that they need to earn a living and they do that by providing a service that their clients want. This is most easily achieved by putting forward a round peg for the proffered round hole. However, I’m going to go out on a limb (perhaps not for the first time) and challenge headhunters to consider encouraging their clients to look at whether in fact a not-round peg might also fit in that round hole. After all, Henry Ford’s potential customers thought they wanted faster horses but he gave them a car and Steve Jobs probably wouldn’t have developed the iPad if he had listened to those people saying they wanted a netbook to replace the laptop.

The need for diversity on boards is not just about reworking the gender balance. It’s about bringing fresh ideas and new perspectives to the board table. It’s about bringing people with experience in other industries who have the skills to translate the knowledge learned elsewhere into insights in a complementary or similar industry. Headhunters have a potentially fantastic opportunity to meet a variety of new people and with the real understanding of their clients needs’, persuade their clients to not just recruit more people like themselves, but rather, take the plunge into the area of diversity in a meaningful way.

Surely in this fast changing world, where technology drives so much, where globalisation breaks down international borders more easily and where the younger generation consume so much more than previous generations (both in terms of tangible goods and intangible information), boards and chairmen need people around the table who understand these influences. Today’s experts in social media are unlikely to have had ASX100 board experience. But it doesn’t mean that they lack governance skills and the difference between setting strategy and implementing it. And even if the newest member of the board doesn’t have the same depth of governance experience, then that is why there is a skills matrix so that others cover it and directors can cross-pollinate their experiences.

My hope is that both the headhunters and the boards who speak of diversity open their thinking to looking for aspiring directors who can assimilate current business challenges and synthesise them with an understanding of experiences elsewhere. Such people will bring insight and value to board discussions and deliberations.

And perhaps rather than just responding to standard briefs, headhunters should see themselves as agents of change and help Australian corporate boards become the new model for diversity, good governance and foresight.

Coffee count: 223

Circles of Action and Confirmation

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Those of you who are familiar with Steven Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (a book I read back in the early 1990’s and have revisited a number of times since) may recall his concentric circle model of the Circle of Influence and the Circle of Concern. His theory is that proactive people focus on their circle of influence, which sits inside their circle of concern. It’s a notion that I have often considered, along with the fact that worrying about things in your circle of concern but over which you have no influence is wasted energy (like getting frustrated when you’re stuck in traffic!).

This proactive focus can also be applied to the process of finding board roles. However, I have come to the realisation that the process also has two other circles in play: the circle of action and the circle of confirmation. Regular readers of this blog may recall that it is called “1000 coffees” because someone told me that it would take 1000 coffee meetings to achieve the board portfolio I was after. This resonated with many others and it seems to have some truth. While one has to have coffees with people both within the circle of action and the circle of confirmation, a board role is much more likely to come from the inner circle: the circle of action. Let me explain from my own perspective.

The circle of action consists of people with whom I have worked. It may be people who I have reported to, clients, people I worked alongside or who were part of the same team. They may be people who worked in the same organisation at the same time and while not working directly with me, were aware of the work I was doing. The things these people all have in common is that they have seen me in action: have seen how I work and the product of my work. They can speak first hand of how I operate, how I deal with people and issues. That gives others a degree of comfort if they haven’t worked with me themselves.

The circle of confirmation is a much wider circle. It consists of people whom I have met (and often had coffee with). They may be people who have talked with me at length, interviewed me (in the case of headhunters particularly) but not actually worked with me. They are the people who can confirm that I might be a good sort, don’t seem to have two heads and seem to be able to string some sentences together to make sense.

Until I have enough board roles so that my experience speaks for itself, I believe potential board roles will largely come from the circle of action. They will come from people I have worked with previously taking action, suggesting me to a chairman, a headhunter or a member of a nomination committee as someone who might be able to meet the requirements of the role they are seeking to fill. Their personal experience of me will carry the weight of a recommendation. And when my name comes up on a list, it will help if there are a number of other people who can confirm (and thus are in the circle of confirmation) that they have met me or heard of me and believe I might be able to do the role.

One needs both circles. Understanding the potential role of the people within each circle and to which circle a person belongs helps to bring focus to the process and the outcomes that might be able to be achieved from each of the coffees.

As with all things, there will be exceptions to the rule, but I thought this theory has enough legs to make it worth including in this blog.

Coffee count: 192

Being a Board Observer

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A couple of months ago I noted in a postscript that I had a second interview for a board role. The role was for the board of an unlisted public company. This company has a strong connection with a large listed financial institution, being effectively, a franchisee for two of its branches. As a result, the board of the company has to grapple with the issues many small to medium size businesses have had to deal with, while at the same time, understanding how to grow and develop a banking business.

The company in question has a strong relationship with its “franchisor” (the financial institution), which itself has developed a number of programs to assist the companies that help to develop the network. One of these focuses on Director Education, which includes a Board Observer program, education and development opportunities for directors and induction days for directors and observers.

The company has appointed three new Board Observers to its board. It is the company’s intention to offer the board observers a directorship, but a three month stint as an observer allows the company’s existing board to get to know the observers and work with them around the table. It also allows the observers the opportunity to understand more about the company and the existing directors and understand whether and how they can add value to the board. From discussions with the Chairman, I also understand that there is an expectation that this process will allow for board renewal in a gradual and planned manner, with a smooth handover. Each of the new observers brings different skills and experience to the company. Having signed confidentiality agreements, been included in board meetings, sub-committees as appropriate and director training as observers, once a mutual agreement is reached to become a director, it should be a seamless process.

It strikes me that this is an excellent way to not only conduct due diligence from both the perspective of the board and the prospective candidate, it is also a valuable process for the aspiring director. It seems that the greatest hurdle to becoming a board director is that one isn’t currently on a board. (It could be that one doesn’t have board experience but perhaps eight years on the board of an NFP doesn’t count). It makes me wonder why there are not more companies considering such a process, given that supposedly there is a desire to increase diversity (age, gender, experience). This is a good way to overcome the problem when a board has a great candidate on paper but no one on the board has worked with them before.

I know that there will be those with the answers as to why it can’t happen: potential legal ramifications of who was in the room at the time a decision was made or that it may constrain the usual discussion around the board table. But honestly, if boards want to make it happen, they clearly can. There are some doing it now.

Coffee count: 168

Getting into government

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In at least half of the meetings I’ve had with non-executive directors and almost all the meetings with head hunters, their advice has been to seek a role on a government board. Government boards are regarded as good places to gain experience and make connections. How one achieves that is another thing…

The Federal and NSW Governments both have registers for women seeking board positions. No doubt similar registers exist in the other states. As it’s the obvious place to start, I register and receive automated replies acknowledging such. Given that, as with all things, a personal interaction is usually more helpful, I try to find a way to add a personal element to my submission on the register. It takes a fair bit of research but eventually I have a conversation with the person responsible for maintaining the NSW register, only to be told that it works a little like a matching database and there is no opportunity to have any personal contact. No response to from the person who maintains the Federal Government database…

The search for some personal contact continues. A friend with contacts forwards my CV directly to the NSW Treasurer. I receive a letter from a member of his staff acknowledging it and suggesting that I register on the NSW register. Hello, I’m already on it! Didn’t anyone cross-check??

Finally, one of my coffee meetings elicits the name and number of the person who manages the process of recommending directors for NSW State Owned Corporations (SOCs). He described the multi-layered approach to coming up with a shortlist of names for board vacancies for SOCs, which seems to involve the existing chairman and board, possibly head hunters the board has appointed, the Treasurer and his staff and possibly another Minister and his or her staff. He went on to explain that his role is to manage the process to a point and then from the time of the interviews to a decision being made, the process is out of his hands and the time it takes is variable; it rests with the Ministers, the competing demands on their time and, inevitably, some politics. With the patience obviously gained working in government, he explains that the process is not dissimilar to that of the corporate world – it helps to be known by the people involved in the process.

Looks like getting into government roles will take a few more coffee meetings….

Coffee count: 148

The experience conundrum

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The experience conundrum is two-fold. The first relates to the desire of boards to have non-executive directors with experience. Understandably, companies want their boards to function well and the directors need to know that each of them sitting around the table understands what their role is in terms of governance, oversight and decision-making. However, boards need to continually refresh and the wider community want to improve diversity. How do you find new directors if they need to have experience? Did the first ever director have experience? It’s a little like the sign in the window of one of my local cafés: “Junior waitress wanted. Experience required”!!

Governance experience can be gained from working with not-for-profit organisations such as charities, school boards and sporting organisations. An understanding of governance and the decision-making process can also be gained by executives who report to boards or attend board meetings or board sub-committee meetings. The AICD runs an excellent course that all aspiring non-executive directors are encouraged to attend. If the knowledge gained there is not considered sufficient, then what does that say about the value of the course? And if all of that isn’t enough for a new director, couldn’t a chairman or existing experienced NED take the new NED “under their wing” for a while and mentor and them and pass on their wisdom and learnings from their own experiences?

The other experience conundrum is in relation to industry experience. A chairman putting a new board together told me that I wasn’t appropriate because I didn’t have experience in the particular industry that group operated within. Diversity doesn’t just come from a mix of genders. It comes from a mix of perspectives, which may derive from different genders, different ages and different industries. Very few businesses could say that their industry is so specific that they could not benefit from experience gained in a different industry, tackling similar issues. There are a huge range of industries where focusing on customer/client needs is critical, including retail, manufacturing, services etc. Similarly, there are a range of businesses where understanding capital-intensive assets is vital – it’s not just in mining and resources. Bringing a perspective from a different industry and from different experience will help reduce the risk of “group think” and sometimes lead to thinking about a mature business in a fresh way.

Coffee count: 141

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