raconteur.

net

INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION BY

#0420

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

03

LEARNING THE CORPORATE ART

OF CREATING CULTURE

Chief executives must empower staff with common values and goals

06

WHO GETS TO THE

TOP OF THE TREE?

As the role of chief executive

changes, so do the candidates

15

GOODBYE TO THE
SAGE ON STAGE

Top online courses now enable

a busy executive to learn at work

A New Book for CEOs & Board Directors

ACCELERATING
PERFORMANCE

17

SHOULD BOSSES
GET POLITICAL?

Do business leaders influence

an election or referendum?

Learn more about what enables

certain companies to drive growth
faster than others on page 4

superaccelerators.com

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

03
Bloomberg / Getty Images

RACONTEUR

THE FUTURE CEO

DISTRIBUTED IN

Unlocking the potential of business Leaders

RACONTEUR

PUBLISHING MANAGER

Matthew Jones
PRODUCTION EDITOR

Benjamin Chiou

As a business leader,
what are you missing?
Whether youre aspiring to take your business to the next level,
struggling to keep up with the fast pace of change or wanting to
develop the leaders in your organisation, discover how the Academy
for Chief Executives can support you.

MANAGING EDITOR

Peter Archer

DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER

Jessica McGreal
DESIGN

Samuele Motta
Grant Chapman
Kellie Jerrard

MARTIN BARROW

Former news editor,

foreign news editor and
business news editor at
The Times, he is now a
freelance writer.

THOMAS BROWN

Consultant, executive
adviser and co-author
of the forthcoming book
Building Digital Culture,
he is the former CIM
marketing director.

TIM STAFFORD

Freelance journalist,
specialising in business
and management, he
was launch editor of
CEB Blogs.

Formerly on the staff of

the Financial Times, she is
now a freelance journalist
specialising in City and
financial features.

PETER CRUSH

NAT SONES

PETER CUNLIFFE

NICK EASEN

Freelance journalistand
consultant, he has worked
fornationaland regional
newspapers,as well as
the Press Association,
writing about business
and finance.

Strategy director at The

Craft Consulting, he
was formerly with the
BBC and editor at Trask
Solutions.

Award-winning
freelance journalist and
broadcaster, he produces
for BBC World News
and writes on business,
economics, science,
technology and travel.

peer to peer learning with other successful business leaders

one to one coaching, mentoring and guidance

www.chiefexecutive.com

Chief executives have much to do, but they should

not neglect empowering their workforce with a set of
common values and goals which will define success

CLARE GASCOIGNE

world class speakers

To enquire about membership and take advantage of our exclusive

oer for Times readers email us at thetimes@chiefexecutive.com

Corporate art of
creating culture

CONTRIBUTORS

Freelance business
journalist, specialising
in human resources and
management issues, he
was deputy editor of
HR magazine.

We believe in improving lives and organisations by unlocking the

potential of every business leader. At our meetings we deliver:

HEAD OF PRODUCTION

Natalia Rosek

Although this publication is funded through advertising and

sponsorship, all editorial is without bias and sponsored features
are clearly labelled. For an upcoming schedule, partnership inquiries or feedback, please call +44 (0)20 8616 7400 or e-mail
info@raconteur.net
Raconteur is a leading publisher of special-interest content
and research. Its publications and articles cover a wide range
of topics, including business, finance, sustainability, healthcare, lifestyle and technology. Raconteur special reports are
published exclusively in The Times and The Sunday Times as well
as online at raconteur.net
The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources the Proprietors believe to be correct.
However, no legal liability can be accepted for any errors. No
part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior
consent of the Publisher. Raconteur Media

BUSINESS

CULTURE

OVERVIEW
NICK EASEN

very chief executive would

like to lead a profitable
business, yet with all the
focus on quarterly results,
shareholder returns and steering
the helm in choppy economic waters, theres less time to chart the
one thing that drives growth corporate culture.
If you look at the best UK employers to work for, a list compiled by
Bloomberg, its awash with companies that have been extremely profitable, from Jaguar Land Rover to
AstraZeneca, Dyson and Harrods.
This suggests that good cultures,
which employees want to work with,
go hand in hand with solid returns.
Yet cultures a soft concept and
hard to define, says Jonathan
Hime, group managing partner at
executive search firm Marlin Hawk.
It evolves from shared attitudes
and vision. Its the glue that binds
a company. Culture is founded on
the values espoused by the CEO and
how employees live these on a dayto-day basis.
Its also one of the hottest topics
of 2016, especially as bosses scratch
their heads over the UKs gaping
productivity gap with the rest of the
G7. Productivity in the UK is poor
and less than in the United States,
France and Germany. Maybe our
corporate culture sucks the economic life out of workers instead of
firing them up?
Culture is tied to a desire to
improve working environments
which, in turn, should increase pro-

FINANCE

HEALTHCARE

LIFESTYLE

ductivity, says John Traphagan,

professor of human dimensions of
organisations at the University of
Texas. Its a set of ideas that exist
in individual minds, which are interpretations of how things should
and shouldnt be done.
There are enough stories out there
of soured cultures. Those of Powa
Technologies and its chief executive
Dan Wagner are legendary, with media reports of employees publicly berated and tasteless staff parties. On
the flip side you have David Dyson,
head of mobile operator Three, with
his monthly presentations to every
staff member, in a
bid to spread the
company word.
Theres an increasing imperative for leaders to
use culture to make
sure employees are
aligned, says Tim
Sullivan, editorial
director of the Harvard Business Review and author of The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office. If staff
are aligned, they execute strategy
more effectively than if they have to
constantly check in to see how to behave in every situation.
If you think top brass dont believe its important, think again.
Some 82 per cent of respondents to
the Global Human Capital Trends
report by Deloitte say culture is a
potential competitive advantage.
In the same survey, only 28 per
cent of business leaders believe
they understand their culture well,

while 19 per cent believe they have

the right culture.
Its the reason why Gareth Rogers, chief executive of Southampton
Football Club, felt a need to reboot
the business two years ago. We
brought all staff members together
and asked them thought-provoking
questions so they could outline what
they wanted their workplace culture
to be, he says.
A series of values were drawn
up and shared with the 206 employees. It has to be an on-going
process, one that
never stops. As a
board we regularly review how we
keep the messages
surrounding
our culture fresh
and visible, explains Mr Rogers,
who won an award
from the Institute
of Directors.
The next wakeup call is the youth
quake
knocking
on the boardroom
door. In the next decade Generations Y and Z will make up a huge
slice of the global workforce. They
expect more. Millennials are not
good at being cogs in a wheel.
They want a feeling of corporate ownership. Real engagement
and empowerment are needed to
keep them. These will have to be
the cornerstones of culture, says
Dustin Seale, who heads up the culture-shaping business at executive
search firm Heidrick & Struggles.
If the company advocates one culture, but leaders dont reflect it and

Culture is tied
to a desire to
improve working
environments
which, in turn,
should increase
productivity

SUSTAINABILITY

TECHNOLOGY

INFOGRAPHICS

Novo Nordisks
chief executive
Lars Rebien
Srensen was
rated as the
best-performing
CEO in the
world by Harvard
Business Review

policies and processes dont reflect

it, theyll leave.
In a world of networking tools and
social media, greater transparency
will be the new norm. This generation
of employees also expect authenticity
and better corporate conduct from
the top. They have the perfect balance of the three Qs: IQ, emotional
quotient and CQ the C stands for
commercial, says Mr Hime.
Award-winning chief executive
Arthur Kay, 25, who founded biobean three years ago, a clean-tech
company that recycles waste coffee grounds into biofuels, is a good
gauge of things to come. His culture
is defined by what hes doing, rather
than anything hes saying.
Hes a new breed of chief executive whos aligning financial success
with a good cause, trying to deliver
a sustainable future. bio-bean now
employs 40 staff in a London office
and the worlds first coffee-recycling
factory in Cambridgeshire.
Culture isnt just something
driven from the centre, but something we deliberately seek to sustain by hiring ambitious people
who share our values. Some of
these are millennials and theyre
more likely to join a business with
an environmental or social purpose than previous generations,
says Mr Kay.
Its not just chief executives attitudes to corporate culture that are
changing, but the wider cultural
landscape in which they operate is
evolving rapidly too.
Share this article online via
Raconteur.net

raconteur.net/future-CEO-2016

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

03
Bloomberg / Getty Images

RACONTEUR

THE FUTURE CEO

DISTRIBUTED IN

Unlocking the potential of business Leaders

RACONTEUR

PUBLISHING MANAGER

Matthew Jones
PRODUCTION EDITOR

Benjamin Chiou

As a business leader,
what are you missing?
Whether youre aspiring to take your business to the next level,
struggling to keep up with the fast pace of change or wanting to
develop the leaders in your organisation, discover how the Academy
for Chief Executives can support you.

MANAGING EDITOR

Peter Archer

DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER

Jessica McGreal
DESIGN

Samuele Motta
Grant Chapman
Kellie Jerrard

MARTIN BARROW

Former news editor,

foreign news editor and
business news editor at
The Times, he is now a
freelance writer.

THOMAS BROWN

Consultant, executive
adviser and co-author
of the forthcoming book
Building Digital Culture,
he is the former CIM
marketing director.

TIM STAFFORD

Freelance journalist,
specialising in business
and management, he
was launch editor of
CEB Blogs.

Formerly on the staff of

the Financial Times, she is
now a freelance journalist
specialising in City and
financial features.

PETER CRUSH

NAT SONES

PETER CUNLIFFE

NICK EASEN

Freelance journalistand
consultant, he has worked
fornationaland regional
newspapers,as well as
the Press Association,
writing about business
and finance.

Strategy director at The

Craft Consulting, he
was formerly with the
BBC and editor at Trask
Solutions.

Award-winning
freelance journalist and
broadcaster, he produces
for BBC World News
and writes on business,
economics, science,
technology and travel.

peer to peer learning with other successful business leaders

one to one coaching, mentoring and guidance

www.chiefexecutive.com

Chief executives have much to do, but they should

not neglect empowering their workforce with a set of
common values and goals which will define success

CLARE GASCOIGNE

world class speakers

To enquire about membership and take advantage of our exclusive

oer for Times readers email us at thetimes@chiefexecutive.com

Corporate art of
creating culture

CONTRIBUTORS

Freelance business
journalist, specialising
in human resources and
management issues, he
was deputy editor of
HR magazine.

We believe in improving lives and organisations by unlocking the

potential of every business leader. At our meetings we deliver:

HEAD OF PRODUCTION

Natalia Rosek

Although this publication is funded through advertising and

sponsorship, all editorial is without bias and sponsored features
are clearly labelled. For an upcoming schedule, partnership inquiries or feedback, please call +44 (0)20 8616 7400 or e-mail
info@raconteur.net
Raconteur is a leading publisher of special-interest content
and research. Its publications and articles cover a wide range
of topics, including business, finance, sustainability, healthcare, lifestyle and technology. Raconteur special reports are
published exclusively in The Times and The Sunday Times as well
as online at raconteur.net
The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources the Proprietors believe to be correct.
However, no legal liability can be accepted for any errors. No
part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior
consent of the Publisher. Raconteur Media

BUSINESS

CULTURE

OVERVIEW
NICK EASEN

very chief executive would

like to lead a profitable
business, yet with all the
focus on quarterly results,
shareholder returns and steering
the helm in choppy economic waters, theres less time to chart the
one thing that drives growth corporate culture.
If you look at the best UK employers to work for, a list compiled by
Bloomberg, its awash with companies that have been extremely profitable, from Jaguar Land Rover to
AstraZeneca, Dyson and Harrods.
This suggests that good cultures,
which employees want to work with,
go hand in hand with solid returns.
Yet cultures a soft concept and
hard to define, says Jonathan
Hime, group managing partner at
executive search firm Marlin Hawk.
It evolves from shared attitudes
and vision. Its the glue that binds
a company. Culture is founded on
the values espoused by the CEO and
how employees live these on a dayto-day basis.
Its also one of the hottest topics
of 2016, especially as bosses scratch
their heads over the UKs gaping
productivity gap with the rest of the
G7. Productivity in the UK is poor
and less than in the United States,
France and Germany. Maybe our
corporate culture sucks the economic life out of workers instead of
firing them up?
Culture is tied to a desire to
improve working environments
which, in turn, should increase pro-

FINANCE

HEALTHCARE

LIFESTYLE

ductivity, says John Traphagan,

professor of human dimensions of
organisations at the University of
Texas. Its a set of ideas that exist
in individual minds, which are interpretations of how things should
and shouldnt be done.
There are enough stories out there
of soured cultures. Those of Powa
Technologies and its chief executive
Dan Wagner are legendary, with media reports of employees publicly berated and tasteless staff parties. On
the flip side you have David Dyson,
head of mobile operator Three, with
his monthly presentations to every
staff member, in a
bid to spread the
company word.
Theres an increasing imperative for leaders to
use culture to make
sure employees are
aligned, says Tim
Sullivan, editorial
director of the Harvard Business Review and author of The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office. If staff
are aligned, they execute strategy
more effectively than if they have to
constantly check in to see how to behave in every situation.
If you think top brass dont believe its important, think again.
Some 82 per cent of respondents to
the Global Human Capital Trends
report by Deloitte say culture is a
potential competitive advantage.
In the same survey, only 28 per
cent of business leaders believe
they understand their culture well,

while 19 per cent believe they have

the right culture.
Its the reason why Gareth Rogers, chief executive of Southampton
Football Club, felt a need to reboot
the business two years ago. We
brought all staff members together
and asked them thought-provoking
questions so they could outline what
they wanted their workplace culture
to be, he says.
A series of values were drawn
up and shared with the 206 employees. It has to be an on-going
process, one that
never stops. As a
board we regularly review how we
keep the messages
surrounding
our culture fresh
and visible, explains Mr Rogers,
who won an award
from the Institute
of Directors.
The next wakeup call is the youth
quake
knocking
on the boardroom
door. In the next decade Generations Y and Z will make up a huge
slice of the global workforce. They
expect more. Millennials are not
good at being cogs in a wheel.
They want a feeling of corporate ownership. Real engagement
and empowerment are needed to
keep them. These will have to be
the cornerstones of culture, says
Dustin Seale, who heads up the culture-shaping business at executive
search firm Heidrick & Struggles.
If the company advocates one culture, but leaders dont reflect it and

Culture is tied
to a desire to
improve working
environments
which, in turn,
should increase
productivity

SUSTAINABILITY

TECHNOLOGY

INFOGRAPHICS

Novo Nordisks
chief executive
Lars Rebien
Srensen was
rated as the
best-performing
CEO in the
world by Harvard
Business Review

policies and processes dont reflect

it, theyll leave.
In a world of networking tools and
social media, greater transparency
will be the new norm. This generation
of employees also expect authenticity
and better corporate conduct from
the top. They have the perfect balance of the three Qs: IQ, emotional
quotient and CQ the C stands for
commercial, says Mr Hime.
Award-winning chief executive
Arthur Kay, 25, who founded biobean three years ago, a clean-tech
company that recycles waste coffee grounds into biofuels, is a good
gauge of things to come. His culture
is defined by what hes doing, rather
than anything hes saying.
Hes a new breed of chief executive whos aligning financial success
with a good cause, trying to deliver
a sustainable future. bio-bean now
employs 40 staff in a London office
and the worlds first coffee-recycling
factory in Cambridgeshire.
Culture isnt just something
driven from the centre, but something we deliberately seek to sustain by hiring ambitious people
who share our values. Some of
these are millennials and theyre
more likely to join a business with
an environmental or social purpose than previous generations,
says Mr Kay.
Its not just chief executives attitudes to corporate culture that are
changing, but the wider cultural
landscape in which they operate is
evolving rapidly too.
Share this article online via
Raconteur.net

raconteur.net/future-CEO-2016

raconteur.net

xx CEO
xx xxxx
RACONTEUR
04
THE FUTURE

01 / 12 / 2016

XXXX
2
RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

05

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

SUPERACCELERATORS WIN THE RACE

SPEED TO SCALE

based on data and empirical

evidence gathered from research
into thousands of teams, studying
FT 500 companies and the firms
experience in placing 4,000
executives every year.
The idea for the book was triggered
by a meeting with four top bank
chief executives or CEOs and the
realisation that each espoused near
identical business strategies. Further
investigation showed the same was
true between rivals in 16 sectors,
from car makers to airlines.

THOMAS BROWN

UKS TOP 10 HOTTEST STARTUPS

Startups.co.uks Startups 100 2016 Index ranked the UKs top startups on factors such
as innovation, employee numbers, funds raised and global ambition

T
01

Dont just run the race,

lift your head up and
look around you
The difference in profit margin
between the top-performing sectors
and the worst was 19 percentage
points, yet the difference between
the best and worst within a sector
was 34 percentage points.
What that shows is that execution
is more important than strategy and
with capital now almost free, the key
to success is leadership talent and the
ability to execute successfully.
We have gone from an age of
strategy to execution. Everyone is
trying to strip out costs, digitise and
flatten hierarchies. Talking to those
bankers landed the idea that its not
where you are going that is important,
but how quickly you get there. Its
about accelerating, says Mr Price.

Appear Here

Growing a startup business can offer compelling rewards, but the journey will involve leadership challenges
which shouldnt be underestimated

Its not just where you are going that is important, but how quickly you get there

n an era when the cost of capital

is close to zero, what sets the best
companies apart from the worst
is the ability of chief executives to
crack the superaccelerator code.
A study of 3,000 leadership teams
by executive search firm Heidrick
& Struggles showed that the topperforming teams delivered 22.8 per
cent more economic benefit than
the laggards.
It also examined the top 23
performing companies in the FT
500 and found they delivered three
times the increase in wealth over
seven years than the rest of the pack,
equivalent to a $337 return for the
best against a $111 for the worst.
The findings are outlined in a new
book Accelerating Performance: How
to Mobilise, Execute and Transform
with Agility, written by Colin Price,
executive vice president and global
managing partner at Heidrick &
Struggles, and Sharon Toye, a partner
in the firms London office.
What sets the top performers
apart from the others, explains Mr
Price, is their ability to build and
change momentum more quickly
than their competitors, in other
words to accelerate performance.
He calls them superaccelerators
and says they have cracked the
code to being both big and agile,
taking a disciplined approach to
acceleration, reducing so-called
time to value, the speed at which a
business goal is reached.
Since so much study of leadership
and management is based on
anecdote or theory, the authors
were keen to make theirs scientific,

Know how to cope with growing pains

He says the ability to think like an

accelerator is down to the mindset
of the CEO and the way it is passed
through the values and culture of
the organisation, in particular the
top ten leaders.
For example, big banks are not
only competing with each other,
they face a major threat from the
fintechs that started life in a garage
on the West Coast of America.
The mindset of those guys is
simplicity, urgency and productive
paranoia. They are not interested
in levels of hierarchy or what the
company policy handbook says. They
want to smash the competition,
says Mr Price.

EIGHT MINDSETS FOR FUTURE CEOs

LAGGARDS

TOP PERFORMERS

I need to know the answer

I need to constantly discover

patterns and connect the dots

These are my resources

My job is to match resources to

opportunities optimally

Its either/or

How do I dissolve the paradox?

I have the power and authority

Working though a traditional hierarchy

takes too much time

I need to know

Doubt is powerful

Its OK to be grumpy

Im on 24/7 and what I do impacts

every second

I dont have enough time to be

a good leader

Creating leadership is my goal

I know myself well

Feedback is a gift

01
Colin Price
Executive vice
president and
global managing
partner
Heidrick &
Struggles Leadership Consulting
02
Accelerating
Perfomance
by Colin Price
and Sharon Toye

The book proposes that there

are eight mindsets which are key to
becoming a future CEO and those
who exhibit the mindsets on the left
are at risk of failure, while those best
described on the right are more likely
to be successful.
In the first, rather than saying I
need to know the answer, the CEO
is constantly seeking to discover
patterns and join the dots in the
world around them.
This ability to make sense of what
is happening and react quickly is
dubbed ripple intelligence by the
books authors.
It requires the CEO to take a topdown view of trends and events causing
ripples in companys environment, and
to give the leadership team the time
to step away from the day-to-day and
think about tomorrow.
In his youth, Mr Price was a fan
of Northern Soul dance music and
attended the famous Wigan Casino
nightclub, renowned for its allnighters where talented dancers
would show off their skills.
He likens good leadership to the
ability to be on the dancefloor and
simultaneously picture the view from
the balcony, saying: You are dancing
away, sweating and grinding, and at
the same time seeing the patterns
from the balcony.
One of Heidrick & Struggles studies
asked people whether they aspired to
be like their boss. The high-performing,
superaccelerating companies scored
highest, the failing companies scored
lowest, reflecting the ability of great
leaders to create connections and
passion that cross hierarchies.
A second mindset that separates
the front runners from the laggards
is the difference between those who
take the these are my resources
approach and those who see their role
as making the best match between
resources and opportunity.

02
There is a tendency in poorly
performing organisations to build rigid
structures and silos that are not only
slow to adapt to change, but foster
a tribal culture where resources are
hoarded rather than shared.
A test of leadership is the ability
of the CEO continually to reallocate
capital, keep people mobile and
rigorously share and reuse resources.
It is a mindset focused on agility rather
than stability.
Another mindset divides leaders
between those who see every problem
as an either/or issue and those who ask
How do I dissolve the paradox?
Instead of seeing problems as
binary or even trying to find some
compromise by splitting the difference,
the superaccelerator CEO sees ways
of reframing the issue and making two
contrasting objectives compatible. For
instance, one way of achieving low cost
and high quality is to invest in reducing
service errors.
Adopting the right mindsets is only
part of the puzzle of what makes a CEO
of the future, but it is an important step.
Mr Price says that although
acceleration is the key to performance,
it is also important not to do everything
at breakneck speed and to know when
to slow down at critical moments.
The message to future CEOs is:
Dont just run the race, lift your head
up and look around you.
For more information please visit
www.heidrick.com

heres something of an allure in being a founding

leader or chief executive of
an entrepreneurial, startup business. Be your own boss and
make your own rules. Build that nest
egg. Create the next unicorn. Avoid
the entrapments of corporate hierarchies. Choose your lifestyle. Change
the world.
And more of us are doing it than ever
before. Accountancy network UHY
Hacker Young found a 51 per cent increase in the number of new UK business registrations in 2014 compared
with 2010, placing the UK second only
to China in growth of new startups.
Its easy to understand why. Technological innovations have opened up
new ventures, product categories and
markets. Funding options are more
plentiful and varied. Government policy and schemes such as StartUp Britain have helped increase support for
entrepreneurs, alongside a wide array
of networks to help new businesses
access advice and expertise. And fastgrowth success stories abound.
Yet in reality, building and scaling
a new business is tough. Overnight
success and sky-high valuations are
the exception, not the norm, and the
challenges for founders and chief executives are many and varied.
For some, the biggest challenge for
a high-growth business can be the
leader itself. Anthony Fletcher, chief
executive of healthy snacks company
Graze, reflects: I wish Id taken more
notice of the different style of CEO
you have to be in a startup business
versus a scale-up business. As we
grew I knew the organisation had to
evolve, but I underestimated the extent and the speed with which I had
to change my style to make this work.
I used to be someone who wanted
to be in the decision-making pro-

Appear Here,
the platform for
short-term retail
space, founded
in 2012, now
has more than
30,000 users and
has grown to a
workforce of 50

cess. I trusted my intelligence and

instincts to add value. Now I realise
youve got to be much more curious
about what people are saying and
whats going on, and why organisationally that is happening. Youve got
to be much better at getting everyone
aligned, ensuring the processes are
right, that the purpose and strategy
are well defined, and these are completely different skills.
Eamon Fitzgerald, UK managing
director of online wine retailer Naked Wines, concurs. You can fall
into the trap of believing your job is
to solve everyones problems and to
make everyones decisions for them.
But you learn over time that the most
effective job you can do, as head of a
fast-growing business, is to help people make decisions and solve problems for themselves. Over time, you
should effectively become redundant
from the day-to-day running of the
business, because youve focused on

I wish Id taken
more notice of
the different style
of CEO you have
to be in a startup
business versus a
scale-up business
bringing great people on board, and
that enables you to focus on ensuring
the strategy and long-term goals for
the business are in check, he says.
Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates, asserts that talent
is both a top challenge and priority.
Those CEOs who get it right, know
how to manage talent, to identify
the right talent are the ones who
are going to succeed over the longer

RANK

COMPANY

DESCRIPTION

FOUNDED

01

LendInvest

Peer-to-peer property lender

May 2013

02

Perkbox

Employee benefits platform

January 2015

03

HECK

Premium sausage brand,

specialising in gluten-free recipes

October 2013

04

Clearabee

On-demand rubbish and recycling

collection

February 2012

05

The iOutlet

Buying and selling used smartphones

February 2012

06

carwow

Car comparison site

February 2014

07

ZeroLight

3D car configurator for virtual

car showrooms

May 2014

08

Frog Bikes

Lightweight, affordable bikes

designed for children

March 2012

09

Appear Here

Platform for booking short-term

retail space

November 2012

10

eve sleep

Creator of the worlds most

comfortable mattress

January 2015

term. Those who dont are going to

have a really hard time, he says.
If the CEO is smart, theyre going
to look to get some diversity around
the table. Diversity of skills, experience, background, ethnicity,
gender and so on. If youve completed some fundraising through
angel investors or venture capital,
turn to those guys for help. Theyll
be well placed to help you to identify where your key gaps are, be it
in finance, people management or
operations, and then they can help
you to find the right expertise to
complement your skillset and leadership style.
Meanwhile James Layfield, founder of co-working hub Central Working, argues that leaders must pay
more attention to the basics of accountability. Defining the roles
and goals of the management team
is one of the biggest challenges facing a growth business, he says.

ADVICE FOR LEADERS FEELING GROWING PAINS

JULIEN CALLEDE

GEORGE BURGESS

AFTAB MALHOTRA

Co-founder and chief operating officer of MADE.com

Founder and chief executive of Gojimo

Co-founder of GrowthEnabler

Anticipation is key. Are your systems, partners

and teams truly ready for growth? Test the
business in your mind. What happens if your
growth expectations are surpassed, if your
business doubles? Will your systems, partners
and organisation be able
to cope? Will you be able
to sustain that level of
growth? Look at your
key people and partners,
and ask If they werent
here tomorrow, would we
survive? Do you have a
plan B?

Youve got to be really clear, whether fundraising

or recruiting talent, about expectations and how
long it takes to build successful startups. Its easy to
read stories about Facebook, Airbnb and Uber and
envision overnight success, but in reality all of those
companies had years in
their infancies of testing,
iterating and struggling.
We tend to forget that
and its not mentioned a
lot. Beyond all the hype,
its important to recognise
that startups are a longterm commitment.

We talk about ambidextrous leadership. Think of

it as a pendulum. On one side is flexibility, which is
what startups are all about making friends with
uncertainty, agility, creativity, scrum. The other side
is all about efficiency standardisation, certainty,
productivity, process.
CEOs of the future need to
recognise that as you grow
and scale, the pendulum
keeps moving and you need
to be able to adapt to both.
Embracing this bipolar
nature of ambidextrous
leadership is key.

Its essential to have real clarity and

accountability for each management
role, but this quite fundamental stuff
is often overlooked because of the
passion of the people involved and because they dont think about systematising their management or understand why they need to. Instead, the
focus is simply on trying to explode
out of the starting blocks and grow the
business as quickly as possible, without these fundamentals in place. But
when management lacks clarity, the
trickle-down impact on the people below them can be enormous.
For MADE.com, the six-year-old
designer and retailer of furniture
and homewares, the challenges of
scaling the business were particularly acute when the pace of success overtook expectations. When
youre scaling a business, you have
to ask if your operation and organisation is ready for growth. Between
October 2011 and January 2012, we
increased our monthly revenues
fourfold. Thats great from a sales
perspective, but we were growing
too fast and the operations couldnt
keep pace. Our delivery companies
couldnt keep up and our customer support team became strained,
says Julien Callede, co-founder and
chief operating officer. Unmanaged
growth is a bigger risk to a business,
than slow growth. It can cause you
to hit a wall and die.
Style. Focus. Talent. Accountability. Pace. Tackling these themes
head-on will ensure future chief
executives are best positioned for
success and that theyre managing
the growth of their business, rather
than it managing them.
Share this article online via
raconteur.net

raconteur.net

xx CEO
xx xxxx
RACONTEUR
04
THE FUTURE

01 / 12 / 2016

XXXX
2
RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

05

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

SUPERACCELERATORS WIN THE RACE

SPEED TO SCALE

based on data and empirical

evidence gathered from research
into thousands of teams, studying
FT 500 companies and the firms
experience in placing 4,000
executives every year.
The idea for the book was triggered
by a meeting with four top bank
chief executives or CEOs and the
realisation that each espoused near
identical business strategies. Further
investigation showed the same was
true between rivals in 16 sectors,
from car makers to airlines.

THOMAS BROWN

UKS TOP 10 HOTTEST STARTUPS

Startups.co.uks Startups 100 2016 Index ranked the UKs top startups on factors such
as innovation, employee numbers, funds raised and global ambition

T
01

Dont just run the race,

lift your head up and
look around you
The difference in profit margin
between the top-performing sectors
and the worst was 19 percentage
points, yet the difference between
the best and worst within a sector
was 34 percentage points.
What that shows is that execution
is more important than strategy and
with capital now almost free, the key
to success is leadership talent and the
ability to execute successfully.
We have gone from an age of
strategy to execution. Everyone is
trying to strip out costs, digitise and
flatten hierarchies. Talking to those
bankers landed the idea that its not
where you are going that is important,
but how quickly you get there. Its
about accelerating, says Mr Price.

Appear Here

Growing a startup business can offer compelling rewards, but the journey will involve leadership challenges
which shouldnt be underestimated

Its not just where you are going that is important, but how quickly you get there

n an era when the cost of capital

is close to zero, what sets the best
companies apart from the worst
is the ability of chief executives to
crack the superaccelerator code.
A study of 3,000 leadership teams
by executive search firm Heidrick
& Struggles showed that the topperforming teams delivered 22.8 per
cent more economic benefit than
the laggards.
It also examined the top 23
performing companies in the FT
500 and found they delivered three
times the increase in wealth over
seven years than the rest of the pack,
equivalent to a $337 return for the
best against a $111 for the worst.
The findings are outlined in a new
book Accelerating Performance: How
to Mobilise, Execute and Transform
with Agility, written by Colin Price,
executive vice president and global
managing partner at Heidrick &
Struggles, and Sharon Toye, a partner
in the firms London office.
What sets the top performers
apart from the others, explains Mr
Price, is their ability to build and
change momentum more quickly
than their competitors, in other
words to accelerate performance.
He calls them superaccelerators
and says they have cracked the
code to being both big and agile,
taking a disciplined approach to
acceleration, reducing so-called
time to value, the speed at which a
business goal is reached.
Since so much study of leadership
and management is based on
anecdote or theory, the authors
were keen to make theirs scientific,

Know how to cope with growing pains

He says the ability to think like an

accelerator is down to the mindset
of the CEO and the way it is passed
through the values and culture of
the organisation, in particular the
top ten leaders.
For example, big banks are not
only competing with each other,
they face a major threat from the
fintechs that started life in a garage
on the West Coast of America.
The mindset of those guys is
simplicity, urgency and productive
paranoia. They are not interested
in levels of hierarchy or what the
company policy handbook says. They
want to smash the competition,
says Mr Price.

EIGHT MINDSETS FOR FUTURE CEOs

LAGGARDS

TOP PERFORMERS

I need to know the answer

I need to constantly discover

patterns and connect the dots

These are my resources

My job is to match resources to

opportunities optimally

Its either/or

How do I dissolve the paradox?

I have the power and authority

Working though a traditional hierarchy

takes too much time

I need to know

Doubt is powerful

Its OK to be grumpy

Im on 24/7 and what I do impacts

every second

I dont have enough time to be

a good leader

Creating leadership is my goal

I know myself well

Feedback is a gift

01
Colin Price
Executive vice
president and
global managing
partner
Heidrick &
Struggles Leadership Consulting
02
Accelerating
Perfomance
by Colin Price
and Sharon Toye

The book proposes that there

are eight mindsets which are key to
becoming a future CEO and those
who exhibit the mindsets on the left
are at risk of failure, while those best
described on the right are more likely
to be successful.
In the first, rather than saying I
need to know the answer, the CEO
is constantly seeking to discover
patterns and join the dots in the
world around them.
This ability to make sense of what
is happening and react quickly is
dubbed ripple intelligence by the
books authors.
It requires the CEO to take a topdown view of trends and events causing
ripples in companys environment, and
to give the leadership team the time
to step away from the day-to-day and
think about tomorrow.
In his youth, Mr Price was a fan
of Northern Soul dance music and
attended the famous Wigan Casino
nightclub, renowned for its allnighters where talented dancers
would show off their skills.
He likens good leadership to the
ability to be on the dancefloor and
simultaneously picture the view from
the balcony, saying: You are dancing
away, sweating and grinding, and at
the same time seeing the patterns
from the balcony.
One of Heidrick & Struggles studies
asked people whether they aspired to
be like their boss. The high-performing,
superaccelerating companies scored
highest, the failing companies scored
lowest, reflecting the ability of great
leaders to create connections and
passion that cross hierarchies.
A second mindset that separates
the front runners from the laggards
is the difference between those who
take the these are my resources
approach and those who see their role
as making the best match between
resources and opportunity.

02
There is a tendency in poorly
performing organisations to build rigid
structures and silos that are not only
slow to adapt to change, but foster
a tribal culture where resources are
hoarded rather than shared.
A test of leadership is the ability
of the CEO continually to reallocate
capital, keep people mobile and
rigorously share and reuse resources.
It is a mindset focused on agility rather
than stability.
Another mindset divides leaders
between those who see every problem
as an either/or issue and those who ask
How do I dissolve the paradox?
Instead of seeing problems as
binary or even trying to find some
compromise by splitting the difference,
the superaccelerator CEO sees ways
of reframing the issue and making two
contrasting objectives compatible. For
instance, one way of achieving low cost
and high quality is to invest in reducing
service errors.
Adopting the right mindsets is only
part of the puzzle of what makes a CEO
of the future, but it is an important step.
Mr Price says that although
acceleration is the key to performance,
it is also important not to do everything
at breakneck speed and to know when
to slow down at critical moments.
The message to future CEOs is:
Dont just run the race, lift your head
up and look around you.
For more information please visit
www.heidrick.com

heres something of an allure in being a founding

leader or chief executive of
an entrepreneurial, startup business. Be your own boss and
make your own rules. Build that nest
egg. Create the next unicorn. Avoid
the entrapments of corporate hierarchies. Choose your lifestyle. Change
the world.
And more of us are doing it than ever
before. Accountancy network UHY
Hacker Young found a 51 per cent increase in the number of new UK business registrations in 2014 compared
with 2010, placing the UK second only
to China in growth of new startups.
Its easy to understand why. Technological innovations have opened up
new ventures, product categories and
markets. Funding options are more
plentiful and varied. Government policy and schemes such as StartUp Britain have helped increase support for
entrepreneurs, alongside a wide array
of networks to help new businesses
access advice and expertise. And fastgrowth success stories abound.
Yet in reality, building and scaling
a new business is tough. Overnight
success and sky-high valuations are
the exception, not the norm, and the
challenges for founders and chief executives are many and varied.
For some, the biggest challenge for
a high-growth business can be the
leader itself. Anthony Fletcher, chief
executive of healthy snacks company
Graze, reflects: I wish Id taken more
notice of the different style of CEO
you have to be in a startup business
versus a scale-up business. As we
grew I knew the organisation had to
evolve, but I underestimated the extent and the speed with which I had
to change my style to make this work.
I used to be someone who wanted
to be in the decision-making pro-

Appear Here,
the platform for
short-term retail
space, founded
in 2012, now
has more than
30,000 users and
has grown to a
workforce of 50

cess. I trusted my intelligence and

instincts to add value. Now I realise
youve got to be much more curious
about what people are saying and
whats going on, and why organisationally that is happening. Youve got
to be much better at getting everyone
aligned, ensuring the processes are
right, that the purpose and strategy
are well defined, and these are completely different skills.
Eamon Fitzgerald, UK managing
director of online wine retailer Naked Wines, concurs. You can fall
into the trap of believing your job is
to solve everyones problems and to
make everyones decisions for them.
But you learn over time that the most
effective job you can do, as head of a
fast-growing business, is to help people make decisions and solve problems for themselves. Over time, you
should effectively become redundant
from the day-to-day running of the
business, because youve focused on

I wish Id taken
more notice of
the different style
of CEO you have
to be in a startup
business versus a
scale-up business
bringing great people on board, and
that enables you to focus on ensuring
the strategy and long-term goals for
the business are in check, he says.
Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates, asserts that talent
is both a top challenge and priority.
Those CEOs who get it right, know
how to manage talent, to identify
the right talent are the ones who
are going to succeed over the longer

RANK

COMPANY

DESCRIPTION

FOUNDED

01

LendInvest

Peer-to-peer property lender

May 2013

02

Perkbox

Employee benefits platform

January 2015

03

HECK

Premium sausage brand,

specialising in gluten-free recipes

October 2013

04

Clearabee

On-demand rubbish and recycling

collection

February 2012

05

The iOutlet

Buying and selling used smartphones

February 2012

06

carwow

Car comparison site

February 2014

07

ZeroLight

3D car configurator for virtual

car showrooms

May 2014

08

Frog Bikes

Lightweight, affordable bikes

designed for children

March 2012

09

Appear Here

Platform for booking short-term

retail space

November 2012

10

eve sleep

Creator of the worlds most

comfortable mattress

January 2015

term. Those who dont are going to

have a really hard time, he says.
If the CEO is smart, theyre going
to look to get some diversity around
the table. Diversity of skills, experience, background, ethnicity,
gender and so on. If youve completed some fundraising through
angel investors or venture capital,
turn to those guys for help. Theyll
be well placed to help you to identify where your key gaps are, be it
in finance, people management or
operations, and then they can help
you to find the right expertise to
complement your skillset and leadership style.
Meanwhile James Layfield, founder of co-working hub Central Working, argues that leaders must pay
more attention to the basics of accountability. Defining the roles
and goals of the management team
is one of the biggest challenges facing a growth business, he says.

ADVICE FOR LEADERS FEELING GROWING PAINS

JULIEN CALLEDE

GEORGE BURGESS

AFTAB MALHOTRA

Co-founder and chief operating officer of MADE.com

Founder and chief executive of Gojimo

Co-founder of GrowthEnabler

Anticipation is key. Are your systems, partners

and teams truly ready for growth? Test the
business in your mind. What happens if your
growth expectations are surpassed, if your
business doubles? Will your systems, partners
and organisation be able
to cope? Will you be able
to sustain that level of
growth? Look at your
key people and partners,
and ask If they werent
here tomorrow, would we
survive? Do you have a
plan B?

Youve got to be really clear, whether fundraising

or recruiting talent, about expectations and how
long it takes to build successful startups. Its easy to
read stories about Facebook, Airbnb and Uber and
envision overnight success, but in reality all of those
companies had years in
their infancies of testing,
iterating and struggling.
We tend to forget that
and its not mentioned a
lot. Beyond all the hype,
its important to recognise
that startups are a longterm commitment.

We talk about ambidextrous leadership. Think of

it as a pendulum. On one side is flexibility, which is
what startups are all about making friends with
uncertainty, agility, creativity, scrum. The other side
is all about efficiency standardisation, certainty,
productivity, process.
CEOs of the future need to
recognise that as you grow
and scale, the pendulum
keeps moving and you need
to be able to adapt to both.
Embracing this bipolar
nature of ambidextrous
leadership is key.

Its essential to have real clarity and

accountability for each management
role, but this quite fundamental stuff
is often overlooked because of the
passion of the people involved and because they dont think about systematising their management or understand why they need to. Instead, the
focus is simply on trying to explode
out of the starting blocks and grow the
business as quickly as possible, without these fundamentals in place. But
when management lacks clarity, the
trickle-down impact on the people below them can be enormous.
For MADE.com, the six-year-old
designer and retailer of furniture
and homewares, the challenges of
scaling the business were particularly acute when the pace of success overtook expectations. When
youre scaling a business, you have
to ask if your operation and organisation is ready for growth. Between
October 2011 and January 2012, we
increased our monthly revenues
fourfold. Thats great from a sales
perspective, but we were growing
too fast and the operations couldnt
keep pace. Our delivery companies
couldnt keep up and our customer support team became strained,
says Julien Callede, co-founder and
chief operating officer. Unmanaged
growth is a bigger risk to a business,
than slow growth. It can cause you
to hit a wall and die.
Style. Focus. Talent. Accountability. Pace. Tackling these themes
head-on will ensure future chief
executives are best positioned for
success and that theyre managing
the growth of their business, rather
than it managing them.
Share this article online via
raconteur.net

MBA

PREPARE FOR THE BOARD

EXPERIENCE THE BOARD
DEMONSTRATE YOU CAN PERFORM

THE DIRECTORS
MBA WORKING
WITH, FOR AND
ON THE BOARDS
The next generation of MBA born from over
30 years of experience
Find out more about this unique programme
and map your route to the board at

Westminster.ac.uk/mba

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01 / 12 / 2016

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01 / 12 / 2016

Who gets to
the top of the
tree and how?
Theres no one guaranteed route or
fast track to the top, but as the role
of the chief executive changes,
so do the candidates

ROUTE TO CEO

usiness and hierarchies

might change, but as Matthias Kipping, author of the
just-published book Defining
Management, notes theres always
someone who needs to be at the top,
explaining perhaps why the chief executives role is just as coveted as ever.
However, with the challenges chief
executives face arguably at their
greatest, is the route up the corporate tree changing too? Do aspiring
chief executives really need to climb
all the branches from the bottom
up, or can those in adjacent trees
more easily swing across and from a
younger age?
Discounting small business entrepreneurs, who are chief executives by
default, evidence does indicate the
changing nature of the role, to be more
social media-driven and brand-ambassadorial in nature, is widening the
scope of those who can apply.
Executive search firm Heidrick &
Struggles found the proportion of
European chief executives with a

Nowadays if
youre a CEO
with a traditional
outlook, youll be
left behind
marketing background grew from 15
per cent to 21 per cent between 2011
and 2015. Dave Lewis, Tescos chief
executive, was Unilevers marketer
responsible for Doves Real Beauty
campaign, while Sainsburys chief
executive Mike Coupe is former Tesco
marketing director.
While age has stayed more static
half of all chief executives globally are
in their 50s, according to Capital IQ
the UK now has more chief executives
aged under 40 than Italy, Germany
and France.
CEOs are a broad bunch, but theres
an appreciation they no longer need
to serve their time like they used
to, says Brenda Trenowden, former
managing director of Lloyds Banking Group. Nowadays, being at one

CAREER PATHS FOR FTSE 100s*

SURVEY TAKEN BETWEEN APRIL 2015 AND MARCH 2016

*Numbers do not add to 100 due to overlapping of some answers
Joined from a senior role in the same industry

66%

Promoted from within

30%

Worked at a former FTSE company

22%

Spent their career with the same company

6%

Source: Robert Half 2016

company all your life could work

against you. They need broader experience. They have to be better communicators, more attuned to different
groups, grasp technology better and
be more agile.
Michael Barrington Hibbert, founder and chief executive of headhunters
Barrington Hibbert Associates, says:
The net is being cast wider. International experience is much more highly regarded due to the global nature of
the role, as is having a deep appreciation of different cultures and speaking more than one language. Being a
CEO now is like being a politician
the skills are changing.
And its this more consultative, listening aspect to the role that Ms Trenowden argues could spell the biggest change of all by opening up the
chief executive role to more women.
Ms Trenowden is also global chairwoman of the 30% Club, which campaigns for more executive diversity.
Currently only 4 per cent of Fortune
500 companies have female chief
executives and there are just seven
in FTSE 100 firms. But shes clear
the evolving chief executive role will
showcase female talent. Theres
no single CEO profile anymore, but
building teams, collaborating and listening to more voices are leadership
traits that will make women more visible, she says.
Its a view Angela Middleton, chief
executive of Middleton Murray, one
of the largest apprenticeship and
training providers in the UK, supports. She says: CEOs arent managers; they are leaders and strategists.
While the role encompasses many
things, if you cant put a team togeth-

21%

of European
chief executives
have a
marketing
background
Source:
Heidrick &
Struggles 2015

50%

of FTSE 100
chief executives
have a finance,
accounting
or financial
services
background
Source:
Robert Half 2016

er, CEOs are in trouble. Its the most

crucial task.
But does this mean the route to the
top really is open to all? Its not yet
quite so simple, says Mr Barrington
Hibbert. CEO choice is down to what
strategy needs pursuing at that particular time. It can favour wanting
a steady hand just as much as new
blood, he says.
Shareholder approval still depends
on track record. The transformation
Tidjane Thiam did as CEO at Prudential is what got him his current CEO
job at Credit Suisse. By comparison,
Microsoft has never recruited a CEO
from the outside.
One chief executive who knows
what its like to reach the top for
the specific skills the organisation wanted at that time is Stephen
Robertson, chief executive of the
Big Issue Foundation. He began his
career selling records at Our Price,
but switched to the charity sector,
to apply his retail nous there, eventually growing Shelters charity
shop portfolio.
Mr Robertson says hard financial
success got him noticed by a headhunter. It was all about what Id
demonstrated, he reflects. Commerciality mattered. Yes, a CEO is
about relationship building, but its
hard to demonstrate this at interview, so financial background has
sway. Hirers want to remove the
speculative element that taking on a
CEO can be.
Its perhaps not surprising that a
head for figures is still a trait most chief
executives share. According to 2016
research by recruitment firm Robert
Half, more than 50 per cent of FTSE

100 heads have a finance, accounting

or financial services background and
25 per cent are ex-accountants.
Even when chief executives appear
to be left-field choices, there are often
clear reasons theyve been picked.
Russell Longmuir is chief executive of
the British Quality Foundation (BQF).
On paper he typifies the opening up of
the chief executive role. Hes ex-consultancy KPMG and IBM and
wasnt an internal candidate being
groomed for the role.
But he says: My background is professional services and BQF is effectively a business-to-business services
organisation. When I went for the job,
there were other people with specific
ISO-compliance and head of quality
backgrounds, but at the point I joined,
the strategy for BQF was service to

01
Michael Barrington
Hibbert, founder
and chief executive
of headhunters
Barrington Hibbert
Associates, says
the net is being
cast wider for the
modern CEO role
02
Alison Brittain,
chief executive
of Costa owner
Whitbread,
made the jump
from Lloyds
Banking Group
to the leisure
and hospitality
company in 2011

02

01
PETER CRUSH

THE FUTURE CEO

Whitbread

THE FUTURE CEO

Barrington Hibbert Associates

06

members, which my background has

been all about.
Its worth noting that even those with
a pedigree of chief executive-ships
behind them are still nervous about
their suitability. When it comes to
FTSE 250-level roles, Mr Barrington
Hibbert still argues holding an MBA
from a respected business school matters, while getting a chief operating
officer role something he calls the
CEO-designate is also a good bet.
Ms Trenowden agrees. She says:
For any aspiring CEOs, especially
females, being in line of sight is as
much the route to the top as anything else and that means getting
on to exec boards, then moving up
from there.
She contends that Alison Brittain,
chief executive at Whitbread, made

the seemingly impossible jump

from banking precisely because of
her retail banking expertise, but
also her boardroom presence over a
20-year period.
But, if anything has changed, perhaps its that meritocracy is better
applied and that potential chief executives will be given a shot, just as
long as they dont want it too fast. I
joined as a consultant, was noticed,
got given training and then moved
up, and got noticed some more, says
Oliver Harris, chief executive of resource solutions at Robert Walters, of
his 16-year route to the top.
Being brutally honest, I didnt
think Id be CEO, but moving up to
team-leader roles, MD roles and executive roles gradually gave me responsibility. Im a firm believer that
the role is changing. Nowadays if
youre a CEO with a traditional outlook, youll be left behind.
Arguably diversity of thinking will
be the skillset current and future
chief executives will need more than
anything. Its a skillset that implies
age, gender and old-school networks
will become less important.
Once youre a CEO, you cant bluff
it, says Mr Robertson. Some see this
as a need for experience, but I have a
more positive view. Younger people
want to make a difference and from an
earlier age. To me, that they are bothered is a good thing. Being bothered
will come to define the best CEOs of
the future.
Share this article online via
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PROFILE OF A CAREER CEO

Mark Goldring, chief executive
at Oxfam, could be considered a
career chief executive. This is
his third post, having previously
been chief executive at Mencap
and VSO.
But, despite his enviable
experience, he admits he was
convinced hed be next for
the chop at every round of
interviewing for Oxfam. I always
felt someone would expose what
I didnt know or that theyd find
someone better, he says.
What he was confident about
though was his track record
proving hed coped with chief
executive jobs with an ever-larger
scope each time, even though for

both Mencap and Oxfam he was

an external candidate.
At VSO, I was already there. I
joined as a volunteer. At the time
it was more important I knew
about the detailed operational
side rather than being a leader,
he says. For the next two CEO
jobs though, Ive been appointed
for being able to deliver a vision.
Moving to Mencap was
toughest for me. I knew little
about disability, but I was using my
running-an-organisation skills. The
learning curve was phenomenal.
Charities do tend to recruit
more outside CEOs, perhaps
because they have a greater sense
of fairness and transparency,

07

and look harder at peoples skills

more closely. But the role of the
CEO is definitely changing. Its
about delivering a purpose and
continually reinventing to remain
relevant. A CEO is the custodian
of the vision, vitality and health
of a business.

MBA

PREPARE FOR THE BOARD

EXPERIENCE THE BOARD
DEMONSTRATE YOU CAN PERFORM

THE DIRECTORS
MBA WORKING
WITH, FOR AND
ON THE BOARDS
The next generation of MBA born from over
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Find out more about this unique programme
and map your route to the board at

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Who gets to
the top of the
tree and how?
Theres no one guaranteed route or
fast track to the top, but as the role
of the chief executive changes,
so do the candidates

ROUTE TO CEO

usiness and hierarchies

might change, but as Matthias Kipping, author of the
just-published book Defining
Management, notes theres always
someone who needs to be at the top,
explaining perhaps why the chief executives role is just as coveted as ever.
However, with the challenges chief
executives face arguably at their
greatest, is the route up the corporate tree changing too? Do aspiring
chief executives really need to climb
all the branches from the bottom
up, or can those in adjacent trees
more easily swing across and from a
younger age?
Discounting small business entrepreneurs, who are chief executives by
default, evidence does indicate the
changing nature of the role, to be more
social media-driven and brand-ambassadorial in nature, is widening the
scope of those who can apply.
Executive search firm Heidrick &
Struggles found the proportion of
European chief executives with a

Nowadays if
youre a CEO
with a traditional
outlook, youll be
left behind
marketing background grew from 15
per cent to 21 per cent between 2011
and 2015. Dave Lewis, Tescos chief
executive, was Unilevers marketer
responsible for Doves Real Beauty
campaign, while Sainsburys chief
executive Mike Coupe is former Tesco
marketing director.
While age has stayed more static
half of all chief executives globally are
in their 50s, according to Capital IQ
the UK now has more chief executives
aged under 40 than Italy, Germany
and France.
CEOs are a broad bunch, but theres
an appreciation they no longer need
to serve their time like they used
to, says Brenda Trenowden, former
managing director of Lloyds Banking Group. Nowadays, being at one

CAREER PATHS FOR FTSE 100s*

SURVEY TAKEN BETWEEN APRIL 2015 AND MARCH 2016

*Numbers do not add to 100 due to overlapping of some answers
Joined from a senior role in the same industry

66%

Promoted from within

30%

Worked at a former FTSE company

22%

Spent their career with the same company

6%

Source: Robert Half 2016

company all your life could work

against you. They need broader experience. They have to be better communicators, more attuned to different
groups, grasp technology better and
be more agile.
Michael Barrington Hibbert, founder and chief executive of headhunters
Barrington Hibbert Associates, says:
The net is being cast wider. International experience is much more highly regarded due to the global nature of
the role, as is having a deep appreciation of different cultures and speaking more than one language. Being a
CEO now is like being a politician
the skills are changing.
And its this more consultative, listening aspect to the role that Ms Trenowden argues could spell the biggest change of all by opening up the
chief executive role to more women.
Ms Trenowden is also global chairwoman of the 30% Club, which campaigns for more executive diversity.
Currently only 4 per cent of Fortune
500 companies have female chief
executives and there are just seven
in FTSE 100 firms. But shes clear
the evolving chief executive role will
showcase female talent. Theres
no single CEO profile anymore, but
building teams, collaborating and listening to more voices are leadership
traits that will make women more visible, she says.
Its a view Angela Middleton, chief
executive of Middleton Murray, one
of the largest apprenticeship and
training providers in the UK, supports. She says: CEOs arent managers; they are leaders and strategists.
While the role encompasses many
things, if you cant put a team togeth-

21%

of European
chief executives
have a
marketing
background
Source:
Heidrick &
Struggles 2015

50%

of FTSE 100
chief executives
have a finance,
accounting
or financial
services
background
Source:
Robert Half 2016

er, CEOs are in trouble. Its the most

crucial task.
But does this mean the route to the
top really is open to all? Its not yet
quite so simple, says Mr Barrington
Hibbert. CEO choice is down to what
strategy needs pursuing at that particular time. It can favour wanting
a steady hand just as much as new
blood, he says.
Shareholder approval still depends
on track record. The transformation
Tidjane Thiam did as CEO at Prudential is what got him his current CEO
job at Credit Suisse. By comparison,
Microsoft has never recruited a CEO
from the outside.
One chief executive who knows
what its like to reach the top for
the specific skills the organisation wanted at that time is Stephen
Robertson, chief executive of the
Big Issue Foundation. He began his
career selling records at Our Price,
but switched to the charity sector,
to apply his retail nous there, eventually growing Shelters charity
shop portfolio.
Mr Robertson says hard financial
success got him noticed by a headhunter. It was all about what Id
demonstrated, he reflects. Commerciality mattered. Yes, a CEO is
about relationship building, but its
hard to demonstrate this at interview, so financial background has
sway. Hirers want to remove the
speculative element that taking on a
CEO can be.
Its perhaps not surprising that a
head for figures is still a trait most chief
executives share. According to 2016
research by recruitment firm Robert
Half, more than 50 per cent of FTSE

100 heads have a finance, accounting

or financial services background and
25 per cent are ex-accountants.
Even when chief executives appear
to be left-field choices, there are often
clear reasons theyve been picked.
Russell Longmuir is chief executive of
the British Quality Foundation (BQF).
On paper he typifies the opening up of
the chief executive role. Hes ex-consultancy KPMG and IBM and
wasnt an internal candidate being
groomed for the role.
But he says: My background is professional services and BQF is effectively a business-to-business services
organisation. When I went for the job,
there were other people with specific
ISO-compliance and head of quality
backgrounds, but at the point I joined,
the strategy for BQF was service to

01
Michael Barrington
Hibbert, founder
and chief executive
of headhunters
Barrington Hibbert
Associates, says
the net is being
cast wider for the
modern CEO role
02
Alison Brittain,
chief executive
of Costa owner
Whitbread,
made the jump
from Lloyds
Banking Group
to the leisure
and hospitality
company in 2011

02

01
PETER CRUSH

THE FUTURE CEO

Whitbread

THE FUTURE CEO

Barrington Hibbert Associates

06

members, which my background has

been all about.
Its worth noting that even those with
a pedigree of chief executive-ships
behind them are still nervous about
their suitability. When it comes to
FTSE 250-level roles, Mr Barrington
Hibbert still argues holding an MBA
from a respected business school matters, while getting a chief operating
officer role something he calls the
CEO-designate is also a good bet.
Ms Trenowden agrees. She says:
For any aspiring CEOs, especially
females, being in line of sight is as
much the route to the top as anything else and that means getting
on to exec boards, then moving up
from there.
She contends that Alison Brittain,
chief executive at Whitbread, made

the seemingly impossible jump

from banking precisely because of
her retail banking expertise, but
also her boardroom presence over a
20-year period.
But, if anything has changed, perhaps its that meritocracy is better
applied and that potential chief executives will be given a shot, just as
long as they dont want it too fast. I
joined as a consultant, was noticed,
got given training and then moved
up, and got noticed some more, says
Oliver Harris, chief executive of resource solutions at Robert Walters, of
his 16-year route to the top.
Being brutally honest, I didnt
think Id be CEO, but moving up to
team-leader roles, MD roles and executive roles gradually gave me responsibility. Im a firm believer that
the role is changing. Nowadays if
youre a CEO with a traditional outlook, youll be left behind.
Arguably diversity of thinking will
be the skillset current and future
chief executives will need more than
anything. Its a skillset that implies
age, gender and old-school networks
will become less important.
Once youre a CEO, you cant bluff
it, says Mr Robertson. Some see this
as a need for experience, but I have a
more positive view. Younger people
want to make a difference and from an
earlier age. To me, that they are bothered is a good thing. Being bothered
will come to define the best CEOs of
the future.
Share this article online via
raconteur.net

PROFILE OF A CAREER CEO

Mark Goldring, chief executive
at Oxfam, could be considered a
career chief executive. This is
his third post, having previously
been chief executive at Mencap
and VSO.
But, despite his enviable
experience, he admits he was
convinced hed be next for
the chop at every round of
interviewing for Oxfam. I always
felt someone would expose what
I didnt know or that theyd find
someone better, he says.
What he was confident about
though was his track record
proving hed coped with chief
executive jobs with an ever-larger
scope each time, even though for

both Mencap and Oxfam he was

an external candidate.
At VSO, I was already there. I
joined as a volunteer. At the time
it was more important I knew
about the detailed operational
side rather than being a leader,
he says. For the next two CEO
jobs though, Ive been appointed
for being able to deliver a vision.
Moving to Mencap was
toughest for me. I knew little
about disability, but I was using my
running-an-organisation skills. The
learning curve was phenomenal.
Charities do tend to recruit
more outside CEOs, perhaps
because they have a greater sense
of fairness and transparency,

07

and look harder at peoples skills

more closely. But the role of the
CEO is definitely changing. Its
about delivering a purpose and
continually reinventing to remain
relevant. A CEO is the custodian
of the vision, vitality and health
of a business.

2
08

raconteur.net

XXXXFUTURE CEO
THE

xx
xxxx
01 / xx
12 / 2016

RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

09

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

NEW APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

WILL MAKE CEOs MORE SUCCESSFUL
Business chiefs who change how they lead stand a greater chance of future success. The enormous global and organisational
shifts they face demand it, says Graeme Codrington, co-founder of TomorrowToday

Skipper at the helm

steers to victory
Sailing a yacht in stormy seas can teach a captain of industry
how to navigate turbulent economic conditions on dry land

LEADERSHIP
PETER CUNLIFFE

Chief executives must ask themselves

if they are adapting adequately to a
world where the unexpected is the
new normal.
Secondly, and of equal importance,
leaders need to know that very soon
their organisation will not resemble
what it looks like today.
One of the biggest indicators that
the future chief executive will need
to be different is the emergence
of different business models and
different types of competitor. In our
teams work helping organisations
tackle the challenges created by
disruptive change, weve engaged

with businesses from the Pacific

Islands to the Middle East, from the
Americas to Europe and everywhere
in-between, and have seen the global
nature of these contextual shifts.
Companies such as Amazon,
Alibaba, Uber, Tesla and Airbnb are
not just disrupting markets, but
actively experimenting with different
approaches to organisational design
and leadership. These disruptor
companies are changing the rules
of the game in multiple industries.
Some older established companies
are responding, if slowly. Ford and
GM, for example, are not just dealing
with new automotive technologies,
but adapting their organisations
to attract Silicon Valleys best and
brightest digital talent because they
realise they need fundamentally to
shift business model.
Chief executives need especially
to understand generational change.
Todays young people are not simply
younger versions of us. They have
a different set of expectations
and approaches for the world of
work. Established and traditional
leadership styles are proving
ineffective, even damaging. Leaders
cannot just wait for these young
people to grow up or they will shed
talented young people.

Thirdly, chief executives must

understand the new, personal
requirements of leadership that
result from these changes. The
future bosses will require extensive
skills for leading in this world of a
new context, multiple viewpoints
and ever-present diversity.

Chief executives must ask

themselves if they are adapting
adequately to a world where the
unexpected is the new normal
They need to be able to evaluate
outlooks, business models and
metrics with a nimbleness and
flexibility not seen in any previous
era. The paradoxical demands on
leadership will be pronounced
understanding the inner and outer
requirements, the big picture and the
detail, the personal and the collective,
the specific and the systemic, the
need to be involved and the need to
step back, the need to direct and the
need to allow self-organisation.
They must then present a
compelling purpose that inspires their

To download a handbook on how to develop

the key skills future-fit leaders need, visit
http://bit.ly/CEOhandbook, e-mail
ceohandbook@tomorrowtodayglobal.com
or phone +44 208 123 5725

ailing a yacht through

100mph winds and waves
the size of houses may seem
a world away from boardroom meetings, strategy planning
and takeover negotiations.
Yet, studying how skippers and
crews cope with the toughest conditions mother nature can throw
at them, from doldrums to maelstroms, may provide one of the
most useful insights into leadership and teamwork.
Millions of words have been written about the theory of leadership,
but it still remains more of an art
than a science.
Trying to study leadership under
laboratory-like conditions is nigh on
impossible, but the Clipper Round
the World Yacht Race offers an almost unique opportunity to understand the dynamics between leaders
and their teams.
Devised by celebrated yachtsman
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston and this
year celebrating the 20th anniversary of the first race, the year-long
Clipper event involves a fleet of 12
identical competing boats, each
led by a professional skipper with
crews of mixed abilities and experience. About 4,000 people have taken part, some circumnavigating the
globe, others joining for individual
city-to-city legs.
Some have been keen sailors, many
novices, and their motivations have
varied from hoping to finish on the
winners podium to seeking onboard romance.

01
Mission Performance, a leadership and training consultancy that
works with Clipper to help prepare
skippers and crews, claims it offers
countless similarities with the world
of business.
Given that the boats are the same,
the consultants say performance
hinges on teamwork, leadership,
strategy and faultless execution,
and within that the role of skipper
and the skippers ability to build,
coach and motivate a team is crucial. It is a metaphor that would feel
familiar to any chief executive.
In a study called The Challenge of
Leading: Insights from the Clipper
Round the World Yacht Race, Trudi
West, a faculty member and consultant at Ashridge Business School
in Hertfordshire, concluded that

the challenges of life at sea were

surprisingly close to those encountered in a hard and tumultuous
business climate.
What separated the teams, she
found, was the leadership of the
skippers and their ability to shape
their crews of rookies and older
hands, developing a balance of
alignment, capability and autonomy to produce winning behaviours.
Three years on, Ms West says she
has since discussed it widely while
working with leaders, senior managers and young talent, and the lessons learnt still remain relevant to
real life.
Many factors play out in everyday leadership that make it as
challenging as sailing around the
world, she says.

W Steve Christo/Getty Images

team. Dean van Leeuwen, author of

Quest: Competitive Advantage and the
Art of Leadership in the 21st Century,
correctly predicted both Brexit
and Donald Trumps presidential
election using the quest leadership
framework. The most successful
chief executives of the future will
be those on quests that promise to
deliver meaningful benefits and make
the impossible possible.
So, how do leaders become
future fit? Most importantly, they
must first abandon conventional
methodology surrounding their own
development and education.
As we have learnt in our work
on
leadership
development
programmes with multiple business
schools and some of the worlds
most
well-known
companies,
including Credit Suisse, Nestl and
John Lewis, there needs to be a
radical revision in how leaders learn.
In addition to developing insights
around the changing context and
organisation design, leaders must
learn to face adaptive challenges.
Leadership development needs to
move beyond content to engaging
with these challenges.
One powerful method that our
team at TomorrowToday Global uses is
to put participants in an environment
with unclear structure and outcomes
that we call adaptive exercises. These
simulate the emotions and mental
states leaders face when dealing
with uncertainty and ambiguity, and
force them to confront their own
responses. The exercises can cause
stress, anxiety and even anger, all of
which are debriefed to help leaders
learn a new skillset.
Participants repeatedly describe
the exercises as the most impactful
learning experiences they have
had. They also demonstrate the
importance of working with
completely new and experiential
ways to develop future-fit leaders.
Leaders have to know what to
do when the unexpected happens,
when the world has changed and
when they face myriad outlooks
and approaches, especially when no
one else knows how to react. Their
smart new approach determines
their very survival.

Jack Taylor/Stringer/Getty Images

he way chief executives lead

today is not how they must act
tomorrow. The requirements
of the job are changing, as are
the expectations of their staff,
for three key reasons context,
organisational change and personal
demands. Chief executives will have
to meet these challenges if they are
to succeed as leaders.
First of all, chief executives
must understand their leadership is
context specific and that context is
changing dramatically.
Just as a marathon runner might
not be successful in a triathlon, so
too a leader who is successful in
one environment may struggle in a
different one. In business it is often the
marketplace that shifts quickly, creating
new contexts. When the context
changes, leaders who do not adapt find
themselves qualified to succeed in a
world that no longer exists.
Recent political and economic
upheavals show clearly that the future
is not what it used to be. The world is
experiencing deep structural change,
and this requires different leadership
skills and new leaders. In our coauthored book, Leading in a Changing
World, Keith Coats describes futurefit leaders as those who have the
ability to know what to do when they
dont know what to do.
Adaptive
challenges
are
becoming more frequent and
pronounced. These occur when the
issues being faced are unlike anything
previously experienced, and require
learning, unlearning and relearning.
The need-to-fix mentality of most
leaders will not be adequate for an
adaptive context.
Leaders and teams who arent
learners at heart get into trouble
when facing adaptive challenges in a
context that is constantly changing.

02
01
The Clipper
Round the World
Yacht Race offers
an opportunity
to understand
dynamics between
leaders and
their teams
02
Skipper Olivier
Cardin celebrates
his win with the
LMAX Exchange
Clipper team
in July

LESSONS LEARNT AT SEA FOR DRY LAND

COMMON IDENTITY

TRAINING

AUTONOMY

Creating a common identity and

intent is vital on a boat and in a
business. The Ashridge Business
School Challenge of Leading: Insights
from the Clipper Round the World
Yacht Race study calls this alignment,
managing multiple expectations
while creating a sense of shared goals
and responsibilities. It is equivalent
to setting a business strategy and
getting disparate staff to buy into a
corporate vision and values. Its about
how to encourage,
create beacons,
inspire and support
people who have
different needs.

Training and development are

important at sea and on dry land,
both for leaders and crew. They
must have the capability to develop
the skills and processes needed
to meet challenges, to learn and
work together passed on through
crystal-clear communication.
Daniel Smith, a former skipper in
the Clipper race, says: What I tried
to do was regularly spend
time with the team, to find a
five-minute break
to see how we
were getting on
and how they
were feeling.

Giving employees or crew autonomy

is important for success, but too
little can be frustrating, while too
much can be overwhelming. It relies
on a two-way trust between leader
and team. Former Clipper race
winning skipper Brendan Hall says:
I had to know they would race the
boat just as hard as when I was up
on deck supervising as when I
was down below navigating or
asleep. Only by
giving them that
real responsibility
and sharing
it would that
happen.

Among her key findings were the

importance of managing expectations, communication, integrating new members, focusing on the
broad needs of the group, sustaining
enthusiasm, taking time to rest and
step back from daily pressures, and
building trust.
There are strong parallels between a skipper and a new chief
executive on dry land, both seeking
to create a common identity and
purpose, developing the necessary
skills to meet the challenges ahead
and delegating power to the crew to
make most efficient use of all available talents.
Winning skipper Brendan Hall,
was just 28 when he led the Spirit of
Australia boat to victory in 2010 and
is now a leadership consultant and
the author of Team Spirit, based on
his experiences.
He recollects: It was about getting
the teamwork and personal element
right, and that which would support
a high-performance campaign over
ten months.
His first task was to develop a
common purpose, what businesses would call a mission statement,
to rally round, summed up as: To
do all we can to win the race and
feel fulfilled.
Once he was comfortable his crew
were technically competent, he gave
them responsibility to sail the boat
so he could spend time on strategy
and navigation, referring to it as devolved power, but not abdication.
His approach was tested when the
skipper of a rival yacht was injured
and Mr Hall was winched over to
the other boat, leaving his crew to
steer themselves across the North
Pacific to port.

The challenges
of life at sea
were surprisingly
close to those
encountered
in a hard and
tumultuous
business climate
Aside from the winching, it is not
unlike a chief executive leading a
takeover and then devoting their attention to the newly acquired business, confident their lieutenants can
keep the mother ship on course.
Daniel Smith, 33, who skippered
the Derry-Londonderry-Doire to
the runner-up spot this year, says:
I worked hard on building a strong
core to the team because I knew if
I could get a good core that would
cascade on to the others who we
used to help train new crew as they
joined the boat.
They had their fair share of difficulties including bad weather, broken generators and sail damage,
but he adds: The way we dealt with
difficulties was to see them as challenges rather than problems.
Ms West hopes to do further research on the subject, concluding:
Im now realising its a great model
for change. Its a really useful model
to help people move through change
and transition.
Share this article online via
raconteur.net

2
08

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XXXXFUTURE CEO
THE

xx
xxxx
01 / xx
12 / 2016

RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

09

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

NEW APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

WILL MAKE CEOs MORE SUCCESSFUL
Business chiefs who change how they lead stand a greater chance of future success. The enormous global and organisational
shifts they face demand it, says Graeme Codrington, co-founder of TomorrowToday

Skipper at the helm

steers to victory
Sailing a yacht in stormy seas can teach a captain of industry
how to navigate turbulent economic conditions on dry land

LEADERSHIP
PETER CUNLIFFE

Chief executives must ask themselves

if they are adapting adequately to a
world where the unexpected is the
new normal.
Secondly, and of equal importance,
leaders need to know that very soon
their organisation will not resemble
what it looks like today.
One of the biggest indicators that
the future chief executive will need
to be different is the emergence
of different business models and
different types of competitor. In our
teams work helping organisations
tackle the challenges created by
disruptive change, weve engaged

with businesses from the Pacific

Islands to the Middle East, from the
Americas to Europe and everywhere
in-between, and have seen the global
nature of these contextual shifts.
Companies such as Amazon,
Alibaba, Uber, Tesla and Airbnb are
not just disrupting markets, but
actively experimenting with different
approaches to organisational design
and leadership. These disruptor
companies are changing the rules
of the game in multiple industries.
Some older established companies
are responding, if slowly. Ford and
GM, for example, are not just dealing
with new automotive technologies,
but adapting their organisations
to attract Silicon Valleys best and
brightest digital talent because they
realise they need fundamentally to
shift business model.
Chief executives need especially
to understand generational change.
Todays young people are not simply
younger versions of us. They have
a different set of expectations
and approaches for the world of
work. Established and traditional
leadership styles are proving
ineffective, even damaging. Leaders
cannot just wait for these young
people to grow up or they will shed
talented young people.

Thirdly, chief executives must

understand the new, personal
requirements of leadership that
result from these changes. The
future bosses will require extensive
skills for leading in this world of a
new context, multiple viewpoints
and ever-present diversity.

Chief executives must ask

themselves if they are adapting
adequately to a world where the
unexpected is the new normal
They need to be able to evaluate
outlooks, business models and
metrics with a nimbleness and
flexibility not seen in any previous
era. The paradoxical demands on
leadership will be pronounced
understanding the inner and outer
requirements, the big picture and the
detail, the personal and the collective,
the specific and the systemic, the
need to be involved and the need to
step back, the need to direct and the
need to allow self-organisation.
They must then present a
compelling purpose that inspires their

To download a handbook on how to develop

the key skills future-fit leaders need, visit
http://bit.ly/CEOhandbook, e-mail
ceohandbook@tomorrowtodayglobal.com
or phone +44 208 123 5725

ailing a yacht through

100mph winds and waves
the size of houses may seem
a world away from boardroom meetings, strategy planning
and takeover negotiations.
Yet, studying how skippers and
crews cope with the toughest conditions mother nature can throw
at them, from doldrums to maelstroms, may provide one of the
most useful insights into leadership and teamwork.
Millions of words have been written about the theory of leadership,
but it still remains more of an art
than a science.
Trying to study leadership under
laboratory-like conditions is nigh on
impossible, but the Clipper Round
the World Yacht Race offers an almost unique opportunity to understand the dynamics between leaders
and their teams.
Devised by celebrated yachtsman
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston and this
year celebrating the 20th anniversary of the first race, the year-long
Clipper event involves a fleet of 12
identical competing boats, each
led by a professional skipper with
crews of mixed abilities and experience. About 4,000 people have taken part, some circumnavigating the
globe, others joining for individual
city-to-city legs.
Some have been keen sailors, many
novices, and their motivations have
varied from hoping to finish on the
winners podium to seeking onboard romance.

01
Mission Performance, a leadership and training consultancy that
works with Clipper to help prepare
skippers and crews, claims it offers
countless similarities with the world
of business.
Given that the boats are the same,
the consultants say performance
hinges on teamwork, leadership,
strategy and faultless execution,
and within that the role of skipper
and the skippers ability to build,
coach and motivate a team is crucial. It is a metaphor that would feel
familiar to any chief executive.
In a study called The Challenge of
Leading: Insights from the Clipper
Round the World Yacht Race, Trudi
West, a faculty member and consultant at Ashridge Business School
in Hertfordshire, concluded that

the challenges of life at sea were

surprisingly close to those encountered in a hard and tumultuous
business climate.
What separated the teams, she
found, was the leadership of the
skippers and their ability to shape
their crews of rookies and older
hands, developing a balance of
alignment, capability and autonomy to produce winning behaviours.
Three years on, Ms West says she
has since discussed it widely while
working with leaders, senior managers and young talent, and the lessons learnt still remain relevant to
real life.
Many factors play out in everyday leadership that make it as
challenging as sailing around the
world, she says.

W Steve Christo/Getty Images

team. Dean van Leeuwen, author of

Quest: Competitive Advantage and the
Art of Leadership in the 21st Century,
correctly predicted both Brexit
and Donald Trumps presidential
election using the quest leadership
framework. The most successful
chief executives of the future will
be those on quests that promise to
deliver meaningful benefits and make
the impossible possible.
So, how do leaders become
future fit? Most importantly, they
must first abandon conventional
methodology surrounding their own
development and education.
As we have learnt in our work
on
leadership
development
programmes with multiple business
schools and some of the worlds
most
well-known
companies,
including Credit Suisse, Nestl and
John Lewis, there needs to be a
radical revision in how leaders learn.
In addition to developing insights
around the changing context and
organisation design, leaders must
learn to face adaptive challenges.
Leadership development needs to
move beyond content to engaging
with these challenges.
One powerful method that our
team at TomorrowToday Global uses is
to put participants in an environment
with unclear structure and outcomes
that we call adaptive exercises. These
simulate the emotions and mental
states leaders face when dealing
with uncertainty and ambiguity, and
force them to confront their own
responses. The exercises can cause
stress, anxiety and even anger, all of
which are debriefed to help leaders
learn a new skillset.
Participants repeatedly describe
the exercises as the most impactful
learning experiences they have
had. They also demonstrate the
importance of working with
completely new and experiential
ways to develop future-fit leaders.
Leaders have to know what to
do when the unexpected happens,
when the world has changed and
when they face myriad outlooks
and approaches, especially when no
one else knows how to react. Their
smart new approach determines
their very survival.

Jack Taylor/Stringer/Getty Images

he way chief executives lead

today is not how they must act
tomorrow. The requirements
of the job are changing, as are
the expectations of their staff,
for three key reasons context,
organisational change and personal
demands. Chief executives will have
to meet these challenges if they are
to succeed as leaders.
First of all, chief executives
must understand their leadership is
context specific and that context is
changing dramatically.
Just as a marathon runner might
not be successful in a triathlon, so
too a leader who is successful in
one environment may struggle in a
different one. In business it is often the
marketplace that shifts quickly, creating
new contexts. When the context
changes, leaders who do not adapt find
themselves qualified to succeed in a
world that no longer exists.
Recent political and economic
upheavals show clearly that the future
is not what it used to be. The world is
experiencing deep structural change,
and this requires different leadership
skills and new leaders. In our coauthored book, Leading in a Changing
World, Keith Coats describes futurefit leaders as those who have the
ability to know what to do when they
dont know what to do.
Adaptive
challenges
are
becoming more frequent and
pronounced. These occur when the
issues being faced are unlike anything
previously experienced, and require
learning, unlearning and relearning.
The need-to-fix mentality of most
leaders will not be adequate for an
adaptive context.
Leaders and teams who arent
learners at heart get into trouble
when facing adaptive challenges in a
context that is constantly changing.

02
01
The Clipper
Round the World
Yacht Race offers
an opportunity
to understand
dynamics between
leaders and
their teams
02
Skipper Olivier
Cardin celebrates
his win with the
LMAX Exchange
Clipper team
in July

LESSONS LEARNT AT SEA FOR DRY LAND

COMMON IDENTITY

TRAINING

AUTONOMY

Creating a common identity and

intent is vital on a boat and in a
business. The Ashridge Business
School Challenge of Leading: Insights
from the Clipper Round the World
Yacht Race study calls this alignment,
managing multiple expectations
while creating a sense of shared goals
and responsibilities. It is equivalent
to setting a business strategy and
getting disparate staff to buy into a
corporate vision and values. Its about
how to encourage,
create beacons,
inspire and support
people who have
different needs.

Training and development are

important at sea and on dry land,
both for leaders and crew. They
must have the capability to develop
the skills and processes needed
to meet challenges, to learn and
work together passed on through
crystal-clear communication.
Daniel Smith, a former skipper in
the Clipper race, says: What I tried
to do was regularly spend
time with the team, to find a
five-minute break
to see how we
were getting on
and how they
were feeling.

Giving employees or crew autonomy

is important for success, but too
little can be frustrating, while too
much can be overwhelming. It relies
on a two-way trust between leader
and team. Former Clipper race
winning skipper Brendan Hall says:
I had to know they would race the
boat just as hard as when I was up
on deck supervising as when I
was down below navigating or
asleep. Only by
giving them that
real responsibility
and sharing
it would that
happen.

Among her key findings were the

importance of managing expectations, communication, integrating new members, focusing on the
broad needs of the group, sustaining
enthusiasm, taking time to rest and
step back from daily pressures, and
building trust.
There are strong parallels between a skipper and a new chief
executive on dry land, both seeking
to create a common identity and
purpose, developing the necessary
skills to meet the challenges ahead
and delegating power to the crew to
make most efficient use of all available talents.
Winning skipper Brendan Hall,
was just 28 when he led the Spirit of
Australia boat to victory in 2010 and
is now a leadership consultant and
the author of Team Spirit, based on
his experiences.
He recollects: It was about getting
the teamwork and personal element
right, and that which would support
a high-performance campaign over
ten months.
His first task was to develop a
common purpose, what businesses would call a mission statement,
to rally round, summed up as: To
do all we can to win the race and
feel fulfilled.
Once he was comfortable his crew
were technically competent, he gave
them responsibility to sail the boat
so he could spend time on strategy
and navigation, referring to it as devolved power, but not abdication.
His approach was tested when the
skipper of a rival yacht was injured
and Mr Hall was winched over to
the other boat, leaving his crew to
steer themselves across the North
Pacific to port.

The challenges
of life at sea
were surprisingly
close to those
encountered
in a hard and
tumultuous
business climate
Aside from the winching, it is not
unlike a chief executive leading a
takeover and then devoting their attention to the newly acquired business, confident their lieutenants can
keep the mother ship on course.
Daniel Smith, 33, who skippered
the Derry-Londonderry-Doire to
the runner-up spot this year, says:
I worked hard on building a strong
core to the team because I knew if
I could get a good core that would
cascade on to the others who we
used to help train new crew as they
joined the boat.
They had their fair share of difficulties including bad weather, broken generators and sail damage,
but he adds: The way we dealt with
difficulties was to see them as challenges rather than problems.
Ms West hopes to do further research on the subject, concluding:
Im now realising its a great model
for change. Its a really useful model
to help people move through change
and transition.
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raconteur.net

THE FUTURE CEO

01 / 12 / 2016

RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

TOP STRATEGIC PRIORITIES FOR CEOs OVER THE NEXT TWO YEARS
CEOs were asked to choose their top five priorities for 2016 and 2017

lated
e
IT r

ate
or
rp
o
C

24%

16%

Cost
managem e
nt

13%

imp Produ
rov ct
em
ent

24%

11%

Fin

10%

W
or
k

an
cia
l

y
lit nt
ua e
Q ovem
pr
im

TOP 5 REGIONS WITH GREATEST

POTENTIAL AND DECREASING FOCUS

Customer experience
management

34%

Data science/big data

34%
30%

9%

Cloud-based business

29%

Business analytics

29%

Digital products and services

29%

Digital and IT

Leadership

Technology

Employee
engagement

Innovation

Strategy and
planning

Visioning

Agility

Trend analysis and

foresight

Continuous
learning

26%

Digital workplace
Internet of things/
sensor networks

s
tionent
era
Op rovem
imp

Cus
tom
er

37%

Smart/intelligent processes

10%

27%

31%

CEOs were asked what the next important

skill is that most do not possess today

Digital marketing

fo
rc
e

Profit t
em e n
improv

NEXT IMPORTANT SKILLS FOR

CEOs IN MODERN BUSINESS

TOP TECHNOLOGY-RELATED CAPITABILITY INVESTMENTS FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS

25%
20%

M-commerce

Source: Gartner 2016

TOP THREATS FOR CEOs

Growth

54%

9%

cy
Eff icieunctivity
od
and pr

Percentage of CEOs who named the following as business threats to future growth

10

Gartner 2016

Top 5 regions with decreasing focus

Top 5 regions with greatest potential

India
China
United States
Australia
Western Europe

38%
34%
33%
25%
25%

Russia
Middle East
Japan
North Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa

38%
34%
33%
25%
25%
Source: KPMG 2016

74%

Geopolitical uncertainty

73%

Exchange rate volatility

72%

Availability of key skills

Government response to
fiscal deficit and debt burden

71%
69%

Increasing tax burden

65%

Social instability

61%

Cyber threats
Shift in consumer
spending and behaviours

60%
55%

Lack of trust in business

Climate change and
environmental damage

CONFIDENCE IN ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS GROWTH PROSPECTS

Business growth prospects

79%

Over-regulation

50%

Global economic growth prospects

Source: PwC 2016

50%

Source: Gartner 2016

WHAT FORMS OF M&A OR OTHER SIGNFICANT DEALS DO YOU EXPECT TO UNDERTAKE IN THE NEXT THREE YEARS?
40%

50%

47%

45%

41%

40%

Creating partnerships or
collaborative arrangements
with other firms

Changing the capital

structure through equity

Changing the capital

structure with debt/financing

Buying businesses,
assets or capabilities

Selling businesses,
assets or capabilities

30%

20%

10%
2012

2013

2014

2015

2016
PwC 2016

Source: KPMG 2016

11

raconteur.net

THE FUTURE CEO

01 / 12 / 2016

RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

TOP STRATEGIC PRIORITIES FOR CEOs OVER THE NEXT TWO YEARS
CEOs were asked to choose their top five priorities for 2016 and 2017

lated
e
IT r

ate
or
rp
o
C

24%

16%

Cost
managem e
nt

13%

imp Produ
rov ct
em
ent

24%

11%

Fin

10%

W
or
k

an
cia
l

y
lit nt
ua e
Q ovem
pr
im

TOP 5 REGIONS WITH GREATEST

POTENTIAL AND DECREASING FOCUS

Customer experience
management

34%

Data science/big data

34%
30%

9%

Cloud-based business

29%

Business analytics

29%

Digital products and services

29%

Digital and IT

Leadership

Technology

Employee
engagement

Innovation

Strategy and
planning

Visioning

Agility

Trend analysis and

foresight

Continuous
learning

26%

Digital workplace
Internet of things/
sensor networks

s
tionent
era
Op rovem
imp

Cus
tom
er

37%

Smart/intelligent processes

10%

27%

31%

CEOs were asked what the next important

skill is that most do not possess today

Digital marketing

fo
rc
e

Profit t
em e n
improv

NEXT IMPORTANT SKILLS FOR

CEOs IN MODERN BUSINESS

TOP TECHNOLOGY-RELATED CAPITABILITY INVESTMENTS FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS

25%
20%

M-commerce

Source: Gartner 2016

TOP THREATS FOR CEOs

Growth

54%

9%

cy
Eff icieunctivity
od
and pr

Percentage of CEOs who named the following as business threats to future growth

10

Gartner 2016

Top 5 regions with decreasing focus

Top 5 regions with greatest potential

India
China
United States
Australia
Western Europe

38%
34%
33%
25%
25%

Russia
Middle East
Japan
North Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa

38%
34%
33%
25%
25%
Source: KPMG 2016

74%

Geopolitical uncertainty

73%

Exchange rate volatility

72%

Availability of key skills

Government response to
fiscal deficit and debt burden

71%
69%

Increasing tax burden

65%

Social instability

61%

Cyber threats
Shift in consumer
spending and behaviours

60%
55%

Lack of trust in business

Climate change and
environmental damage

CONFIDENCE IN ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS GROWTH PROSPECTS

Business growth prospects

79%

Over-regulation

50%

Global economic growth prospects

Source: PwC 2016

50%

Source: Gartner 2016

WHAT FORMS OF M&A OR OTHER SIGNFICANT DEALS DO YOU EXPECT TO UNDERTAKE IN THE NEXT THREE YEARS?
40%

50%

47%

45%

41%

40%

Creating partnerships or
collaborative arrangements
with other firms

Changing the capital

structure through equity

Changing the capital

structure with debt/financing

Buying businesses,
assets or capabilities

Selling businesses,
assets or capabilities

30%

20%

10%
2012

2013

2014

2015

2016
PwC 2016

Source: KPMG 2016

11

raconteur.net

THE FUTURE CEO

01 / 12 / 2016

RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

Together you can be

stronger and succeed

PARTNERSHIPS

t a time when many politicians and their backers

seem to encourage a less
open outlook and more
focus on what happens within a
nations borders than without, companies are doing the exact opposite.
They are looking to collaborate with
a wider range of partners than ever
and dont mind where these firms
hail from as long as they provide the
right service.
The reality is that more and more
people have decided they dont want
to own everything themselves, says
Shamus Rae, partner and head of innovation and investments at KPMG,
a big-four professional services firm.
It started 15 or 20 years ago, he
says, when companies started outsourcing and has continued since
then. It was a case of asking then

You can use

partnerships to
take advantage
of fast-moving
opportunities
and now Are other organisations
more capable of providing services
at the right quality than we are?
But not only do far more specialist
suppliers now use technology to do
something better than any conventional corporate behemoth could,
its also about talent and where talent wants to go, says Mr Rae.
So ten years ago, talent would go
into investment banking, into the
professions and so on, and that still
does go on but, actually after 2008,
investment banking talent especial-

ly has been going elsewhere and going into startups, he says.

The quality of the people in small
organisations has gone up dramatically because the new generation
dont feel they have to have a job for
life; they want to go do something
more interesting, more entrepreneurial. So, to access that talent, and
because companies are now more
used to dealing with third parties in
crucial parts of their business, they
are now very comfortable working
with other organisations.
In a global KPMG survey of almost 1,300 chief executives, the
most common response they gave
when asked how they plan to drive
shareholder value for the next three
years, was that they would pursue
collaborative growth external
partnerships or collaboration with
other firms.
The reasons for pursuing these
kinds of partnerships go deeper
than a need to come up with new

WHATEVER YOU
WANT TO DO
WITH YOUR CLOUD,

Kaesler Media / Shutterstock

Collaboration between companies can be of

mutual benefit as long as the partnership is
open to robust communication

TIM STAFFORD

ideas, however. Analysis from McKinsey, a consultancy, concludes

that, compared to the Industrial
Revolution, change is happening
ten times faster and at 300 times
the scale or roughly 3,000 times
the impact.
So management teams need a way
to respond to that change quickly,
to test new ideas, fail cheaply and
quickly back the most promising.
They also need to be able to do this
without alienating or confusing employees by giving them a seemingly

ABOVE
KPMG entered into
a partnership this
year with with
IBM Watson

well-defined job role only to rewrite

it six months later.
As Michael Beygelman, co-founder and chief executive of Joberate,
that provides data on job-seeking
activity, says: Having previously
been the global RPO [recruitment
process outsourcing] president at
the Adecco Group, I learnt that most
large corporations dont have the
infrastructure for agile innovation.
He says they struggle with unknown and unquantified risk, longer
development cycles, no desire to pay

THE #1 MANAGED CLOUD COMPANY

Certied in AWS, Microsoft Azure, OpenStack and VMware

CHANCES ARE, WEVE

ALREADY DONE IT.

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016
Lukas Davidziuk / Shutterstock

12

for R&D out of operating profits and

a lack of talent that has the necessary entrepreneurial skills.
And those that use partnerships
are certainly seeing the benefits.
Kanya King, chief executive of the
MOBO (music of black origin) Organisation that runs the MOBO
Awards, says: People constantly
express surprise at how small the
core team at MOBO actually is. We
would be hard pressed to achieve
what we do with the MOBO Awards
and our other ventures without reciprocal partnerships.
Similarly, chief executive and
founder of property website Zoopla,
Alex Chesterman, says: There is so
much we want to do and we simply
cannot do it all ourselves. Partnerships with firms such as Trussle and
Landbay help Zoopla differentiate
our proposition and stay ahead of
our competition, he says.
This is all good news, but management teams must have a clear
strategy first. Peter Cheese, chief
executive of the CIPD, the UK body
for human resources professionals,
advises businesses to understand
what are the distinctive capabilities or competencies that you need
really to try and build within your
own workforce.

CASE STUDY: COSTCO AND C2FO

Back in 2011, Costco, the

worlds third largest retailer,
found many of its suppliers
were struggling to secure loans
after the 2008 financial crisis.
At the same time, thanks to
rock-bottom interest rates
another 2008 hangover
Costco earned minimal
interest on any cash it had. Step
forward C2FO, a startup that
brings together suppliers with
pre-approved invoices wanting
to borrow cash at lower rates
than the banks offered, with
buyers like Costco sitting on
unproductive cash.
This dynamic discounting
was not something Costco
could have provided for
suppliers without C2FO. Joe
Grachek, vice president,
merchandise accounting

Once you know that you can

concentrate on hiring and retaining people with the skills to
keep a business excelling at these
core activities. Then you can use
partnerships to take advantage of
fast-moving opportunities. A good
partnership will also benefit the
often smaller niche suppliers as
well. They get a predictable revenue stream, and a way to test and
learn with constant feedback from
a customer.
KPMGs Mr Rae cautions that companies should also understand what
their partners longer-term plans
are. Will there be some point in the
future when that partner could turn
into a competitor or are they already? If so, its important for managers to understand what intellectual property and other information
they want to share, and what they
want to keep confidential.

controller at Costco, is
happy with the five-year
partnership. Were spending
about three clerical and
one managerial resource to
run this programme on an
ongoing basis, and considering
the volumes that are going
through it, its a pretty cheap
date, he says.
Hes a big advocate for
working with a partner that
shares the same values and
understands his goals. They
were really motivated for the
right reasons, he says. We
were more a first adopter
for these guys. A lot of our
experience in business helped
them shape their product
that they could take to other
customers and, at the same
time, they could customise
their programme to fit
Costcos needs.
Finally, Mr Grachek
appreciates being able to
bring C2FO on board so
quickly. His advice when
working with a partner: Dont
paralyse your business by
having everything run through
committee. Let your smart
people make decisions.

Mr Rae cites an example of this

co-opetition as KPMGs partnership with IBM Watson. IBM recently launched a product to help
companies check whether they are
complying with certain regulation
and that competes directly with
some of KPMGs services. The trick
is to be candid about that clash and
then work round it. We absolutely
had that conversation, he says.
All in all, partnerships provide
a great way to keep up in a world
thats changing fast and provide
much benefit to both parties. But,
like good international relations, it
helps to know what you want from
the partnership before you start
and set out the terms of engagement early.
Share this article online via
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TOP DEVELOPMENT PLANS TO DRIVE SHAREHOLDER VALUE FOR THE NEXT THREE YEARS

PERCENTAGE OF GLOBAL CEOs WHO AGREED WITH THE FOLLOWING

3,000+ cloud experts accessible 24x7x365

Managing customer clouds in 150+ countries

Learn more at Rackspace.co.uk

58%

COLLABORATIVE
GROWTH
external partnerships
or collaboration with
other firms

THE FUTURE CEO

55%

ORGANIC
GROWTH
new lines of
business, geographic
expansion

55%

INORGANIC
GROWTH
M&A or
joint ventures
Source: KPMG 2016

Usanda dias
ex endusandit
faccusapero
tem. Xerspitis
ratendi blab in
natur, solesequae
consecu
ptiatas

13

raconteur.net

THE FUTURE CEO

01 / 12 / 2016

RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

Together you can be

stronger and succeed

PARTNERSHIPS

t a time when many politicians and their backers

seem to encourage a less
open outlook and more
focus on what happens within a
nations borders than without, companies are doing the exact opposite.
They are looking to collaborate with
a wider range of partners than ever
and dont mind where these firms
hail from as long as they provide the
right service.
The reality is that more and more
people have decided they dont want
to own everything themselves, says
Shamus Rae, partner and head of innovation and investments at KPMG,
a big-four professional services firm.
It started 15 or 20 years ago, he
says, when companies started outsourcing and has continued since
then. It was a case of asking then

You can use

partnerships to
take advantage
of fast-moving
opportunities
and now Are other organisations
more capable of providing services
at the right quality than we are?
But not only do far more specialist
suppliers now use technology to do
something better than any conventional corporate behemoth could,
its also about talent and where talent wants to go, says Mr Rae.
So ten years ago, talent would go
into investment banking, into the
professions and so on, and that still
does go on but, actually after 2008,
investment banking talent especial-

ly has been going elsewhere and going into startups, he says.

The quality of the people in small
organisations has gone up dramatically because the new generation
dont feel they have to have a job for
life; they want to go do something
more interesting, more entrepreneurial. So, to access that talent, and
because companies are now more
used to dealing with third parties in
crucial parts of their business, they
are now very comfortable working
with other organisations.
In a global KPMG survey of almost 1,300 chief executives, the
most common response they gave
when asked how they plan to drive
shareholder value for the next three
years, was that they would pursue
collaborative growth external
partnerships or collaboration with
other firms.
The reasons for pursuing these
kinds of partnerships go deeper
than a need to come up with new

WHATEVER YOU
WANT TO DO
WITH YOUR CLOUD,

Kaesler Media / Shutterstock

Collaboration between companies can be of

mutual benefit as long as the partnership is
open to robust communication

TIM STAFFORD

ideas, however. Analysis from McKinsey, a consultancy, concludes

that, compared to the Industrial
Revolution, change is happening
ten times faster and at 300 times
the scale or roughly 3,000 times
the impact.
So management teams need a way
to respond to that change quickly,
to test new ideas, fail cheaply and
quickly back the most promising.
They also need to be able to do this
without alienating or confusing employees by giving them a seemingly

ABOVE
KPMG entered into
a partnership this
year with with
IBM Watson

well-defined job role only to rewrite

it six months later.
As Michael Beygelman, co-founder and chief executive of Joberate,
that provides data on job-seeking
activity, says: Having previously
been the global RPO [recruitment
process outsourcing] president at
the Adecco Group, I learnt that most
large corporations dont have the
infrastructure for agile innovation.
He says they struggle with unknown and unquantified risk, longer
development cycles, no desire to pay

THE #1 MANAGED CLOUD COMPANY

Certied in AWS, Microsoft Azure, OpenStack and VMware

CHANCES ARE, WEVE

ALREADY DONE IT.

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016
Lukas Davidziuk / Shutterstock

12

for R&D out of operating profits and

a lack of talent that has the necessary entrepreneurial skills.
And those that use partnerships
are certainly seeing the benefits.
Kanya King, chief executive of the
MOBO (music of black origin) Organisation that runs the MOBO
Awards, says: People constantly
express surprise at how small the
core team at MOBO actually is. We
would be hard pressed to achieve
what we do with the MOBO Awards
and our other ventures without reciprocal partnerships.
Similarly, chief executive and
founder of property website Zoopla,
Alex Chesterman, says: There is so
much we want to do and we simply
cannot do it all ourselves. Partnerships with firms such as Trussle and
Landbay help Zoopla differentiate
our proposition and stay ahead of
our competition, he says.
This is all good news, but management teams must have a clear
strategy first. Peter Cheese, chief
executive of the CIPD, the UK body
for human resources professionals,
advises businesses to understand
what are the distinctive capabilities or competencies that you need
really to try and build within your
own workforce.

CASE STUDY: COSTCO AND C2FO

Back in 2011, Costco, the

worlds third largest retailer,
found many of its suppliers
were struggling to secure loans
after the 2008 financial crisis.
At the same time, thanks to
rock-bottom interest rates
another 2008 hangover
Costco earned minimal
interest on any cash it had. Step
forward C2FO, a startup that
brings together suppliers with
pre-approved invoices wanting
to borrow cash at lower rates
than the banks offered, with
buyers like Costco sitting on
unproductive cash.
This dynamic discounting
was not something Costco
could have provided for
suppliers without C2FO. Joe
Grachek, vice president,
merchandise accounting

Once you know that you can

concentrate on hiring and retaining people with the skills to
keep a business excelling at these
core activities. Then you can use
partnerships to take advantage of
fast-moving opportunities. A good
partnership will also benefit the
often smaller niche suppliers as
well. They get a predictable revenue stream, and a way to test and
learn with constant feedback from
a customer.
KPMGs Mr Rae cautions that companies should also understand what
their partners longer-term plans
are. Will there be some point in the
future when that partner could turn
into a competitor or are they already? If so, its important for managers to understand what intellectual property and other information
they want to share, and what they
want to keep confidential.

controller at Costco, is
happy with the five-year
partnership. Were spending
about three clerical and
one managerial resource to
run this programme on an
ongoing basis, and considering
the volumes that are going
through it, its a pretty cheap
date, he says.
Hes a big advocate for
working with a partner that
shares the same values and
understands his goals. They
were really motivated for the
right reasons, he says. We
were more a first adopter
for these guys. A lot of our
experience in business helped
them shape their product
that they could take to other
customers and, at the same
time, they could customise
their programme to fit
Costcos needs.
Finally, Mr Grachek
appreciates being able to
bring C2FO on board so
quickly. His advice when
working with a partner: Dont
paralyse your business by
having everything run through
committee. Let your smart
people make decisions.

Mr Rae cites an example of this

co-opetition as KPMGs partnership with IBM Watson. IBM recently launched a product to help
companies check whether they are
complying with certain regulation
and that competes directly with
some of KPMGs services. The trick
is to be candid about that clash and
then work round it. We absolutely
had that conversation, he says.
All in all, partnerships provide
a great way to keep up in a world
thats changing fast and provide
much benefit to both parties. But,
like good international relations, it
helps to know what you want from
the partnership before you start
and set out the terms of engagement early.
Share this article online via
raconteur.net

TOP DEVELOPMENT PLANS TO DRIVE SHAREHOLDER VALUE FOR THE NEXT THREE YEARS

PERCENTAGE OF GLOBAL CEOs WHO AGREED WITH THE FOLLOWING

3,000+ cloud experts accessible 24x7x365

Managing customer clouds in 150+ countries

Learn more at Rackspace.co.uk

58%

COLLABORATIVE
GROWTH
external partnerships
or collaboration with
other firms

THE FUTURE CEO

55%

ORGANIC
GROWTH
new lines of
business, geographic
expansion

55%

INORGANIC
GROWTH
M&A or
joint ventures
Source: KPMG 2016

Usanda dias
ex endusandit
faccusapero
tem. Xerspitis
ratendi blab in
natur, solesequae
consecu
ptiatas

13

raconteur.net

xx CEO
xx xxxx
RACONTEUR
14
THE FUTURE

01 / 12 / 2016

XXXX
2
RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

15

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

LEARNING HOW
TO LEAD IN
AN AGE OF
DISRUPTION

MOST IMPORTANT BUSINESS OBJECTIVES OF

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

EUROPEAN SURVEY OF CEOs AND SENIOR EXECUTIVES

Improving
operating efficiency
Becoming
more innovative

Dealing with change

and restructuring

Li Kim Goh/Getty Images

experience through a virtual environment

that is collaborative, engaging and tailored
to the busy executive

university to be launched since the

Open University was formed more
than 50 years ago.
The real issue for todays
managers is clearly focused on
people. Its about developing worldclass talent, attracting and retaining
it and at the heart of this leadership
challenge is education.
The explosion of data, as well as
complex and disruptive technologies
in a rapidly changing globalised
environment,
certainly requires
nimble chief executives. Many of
todays leaders were trained in an
analogue world, yet they now have to
steer the corporate ship and innovate
in digital waters.
In this new era, leadership is one
of the most difficult capabilities
to perfect. So its not surprising
that post-graduate education is
the X-factor and the currency
for
success,
says
Matthew
Cooper, director of postgraduate
programmes at Arden University.
The big issue is whether higher
education is necessary for success
at the top of business. Many cite
Jamie Oliver, Lord Alan Sugar
or Sir Richard Branson as proof
that leading profitable business
empires isnt dependent on a

86%

Investing in high-growth
opportunities

Arden University creates a student

e are living in an age

of disruption Trump,
Brexit, climate change
and the rapid evolution of digital
technologies. To navigate this shifting
and volatile environment takes a new
set of skills that the corporate world
is only beginning to grasp.
Leading change is one of the
greatest challenges for CEOs today,
says Dr Philip Hallam, vice chancellor
of Arden University. Business
environments across the world are
now interconnected at the speed of
thought. The one certainty about the
future is that the pace of change will
only quicken.
Bosses across the globe are
increasingly
recognising
that
leadership skills and management
education are critical if their
businesses are to navigate todays
complex and fast-paced global
marketplace. Corporations also have
to see beyond the horizon if theyre
to prevent their business models
from being out-innovated.
Every chief executive is trying to
figure out how to gain competitive
advantage in the face of disruptive
market conditions, explains Dr
Hallam, who heads up the first
dedicated online and blended

89%

piece of paper. Of course theyre

right. A degree or postgraduate
qualification isnt inherently linked to
boardroom stardom.
However, the argument becomes
null and void when you ask whether
gaining a degree helps executives to
get ahead in business and rise up to
become corporate leaders. The fact
is it can and it does, says Mr Cooper.
A study by Forbes magazine found
that pay was 50 per cent higher for
those who have completed an MBA,
rising to more than 80 per cent more
for MBA graduates after five years.
Those with a Masters degree have
been shown to earn 18 per cent more
than their colleagues who are only
educated to undergraduate level.
Ive been in touch with over
300 Arden University MBA alumni
for feedback on their learning
experience.
Some
achieved
promotion, others started a business
and became their own CEO. For quite
a number, new skills meant a pay rise.
One MBA graduate contacted me
to say he has achieved a significant
salary increase and is now able to
work as an adviser to his companys
vice president, says Mr Cooper.
The issue is that many universities and
colleges across the UK arent adapting
their business-focused education
quickly enough to meet the changing
needs of global commerce. Take for
instance cyber security, which is a
growing issue. There is now a shortage
of skills in this area of expertise from
the chief executive downwards.
It is predicted there will be a
shortfall of 1.5 million workers
worldwide in this sector by 2020,
according to the governments Global

Its about developing world-class

talent, attracting and retaining it
and at the heart of this leadership
challenge is education

Information Security Workforce Study.

This comes at a time when Whitehall
is investing 2 billion in this sector.
This is no longer just an issue for
the IT department, but for the world
workforce. Cyber skills need to reach
into every profession, according to
chancellor Philip Hammond.
In response to this announcement,
Arden University, which operates
campuses in Ealing and Tower Hill in
London, created an MSc in IT security
management to assist and bridge this
skills gap.
It is imperative that business
leaders upskill themselves and their
workforce in data analytics and other
emerging fields, says Dr Hallam.
Ardens educational approach is
cutting edge and, combined with
our bespoke online virtual learning
environment, creates a powerful set
of tools for students to engage with
and learn from.
Arden, which has supported more
than 50,000 students over 25 years,
now uses interactive student forums,
real-time webinars and peer-to-peer
study groups that span continents
and cultures in terms of the students
taking part.
Particularly with our MBA
programme,
this
environment
provides an ideal setting for
developing the business leaders of
the future who are able to compete
and understand business issues on a
global stage, says Mr Cooper.
While technology is proving to
be a game-changer in industry
after industry, this is also true for
education.
Establishments
like
Arden also capitalise on this too. Our
courses help utilise the growing array
and performance of devices from
smartphones to tablets. It is clear to
see why digital learning has had such
an impact on MBA and postgraduate
study, he says.
Traditional
online
learning
programmes have sought to replicate
the traditional talk and chalk
classroom environment. Current
innovations in education create a

84%

of Arden students
found the distance
learning schedule
works efficiently
for them

70%

said their career

had improved as
a direct result of
their studies

Online says goodbye

to sage on the stage
High-calibre online courses now enable a busy executive
to learn at their own pace and garner quality content
that applies to current situations

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION
CLARE GASCOIGNE

90%

work alongside
studying

Source: Arden
Student Survey 2015

student experience through a virtual

environment that is collaborative,
engaging and tailored to the person
who is trying to learn.
It is called the flipped classroom
model, where students are in control
of the pace of learning. They can
also navigate learning materials on
the go and access information in
bite-sized pieces on their tablets or
devices, wherever they are, as well
as take part in regular face-to-face
sessions when needed.
Mr Cooper concludes: In this
on-the-go digital age, it helps if
resources can be accessed in formats
adapted to suit the needs of the busy
executive, including videos, journal
articles, case studies, podcasts and
presentations. These can be viewed
at their own convenience. Its about
meeting the education needs of the
21st-century business person with
21st-century resources.
For more information please visit
arden.ac.uk/upskill or call
0808 231 1119

wo weeks ago, Oxford

University joined a revolution. It launched its
first Massive Open Online Course or MOOC a six-week
course on understanding economic development.
It signals a trend that has changed
the face of executive education.
Driven by new technology, but also
by demand for different access to
learning, the revolution is as much
about how, rather than what, the future C-suite learns.
For the fast-rising superstars in a
company, what are the chances you
can hit the pause button on your
life and spend 100,000 to go off
for a year or two to study full time
for a qualification? asks Dr Anant
Agarwal, chief executive of edX, a
provider of MOOCs founded by Harvard University and MIT in 2012,
and which is Oxford Universitys
new partner. That model has been
replaced by just-in-time learning:
bite-sized chunks of information
that can be learnt quickly.

Online courses have been around

for years, but often suffered by association with the kind of learning that
gave education a bad name, poorly
developed distance learning courses,
heir to the dubious correspondence
course of the early-20th century. But
this is a different kind of fish altogether, developed by world-class academics working at institutions, such

These are courses

that offer academic
rigour combined
with real-life
experience
as Harvard and Oxford, that need no
introduction. These are courses that
offer academic rigour combined with
real-life experience.
This is about the top providers in
the world designing learning and
work experiences that are very specific to top managers, says Professor Maury Peiperl, pro-vice-chan-

NON-FINANCIAL METRICS USED TO

QUANTIFY RETURN ON
EXECUTIVE EDUCATION
European survey of CEOs and senior executives
Source: University of St. Gallen 2016

cellor and director of the Cranfield

School of Management.
Technology, in the form of online
and virtual classrooms, has allowed individuals to study whenever and wherever they like. This
is a game-changer, says Rick Levin, chief executive at Coursera, a
MOOC provider. Its the ability for
the learner to acquire materials at
his or her own pace you can watch
a module online as many times as
you like.
It may also change the way students engage. A study at Oxford, run
by Dr Kate McClune, found an online chatroom meant students were
more willing to engage and disagree than in traditional tutorials.
Dr Levin adds: Online also makes
it possible for a much deeper layer
of an organisation to benefit from
high-quality
materials;
online
learning can be scaled. So, for example, a corporate learning programme can offer an online lecture
or class that can be attended by 100
people from around the world, all at
the same time.
The MBA, once seen as the top
business qualification, is increasingly something for younger people,

ABOVE
Oxford University
has teamed up
with edX to offer
its first Massive
Open Online
Course or MOOC

Becoming more
international/global

70%
58%
89%
Source: University of St. Gallen 2016

those in their 30s, who are still several notches below chief executive.
Moreover, some critics argue it has
limited relevance for chief executives; only 30 per cent of incoming
chief executives globally in 2015
held the qualification, according to
research from PwC.
Theres no substitute for experience, says Marco Amitrano, head of
consulting at PwC. An MBA does offer a grounding, but chief executives
living in a VUCA [volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity]
world need more. They need agility
in their skillset.
For many chief executives its less
about a qualification, but about their
level of preparedness for the job. Executive education is as much about
mentoring or coaching as it is about
imparting information or the latest
research. It may be about role-playing, for example, what it means to
be the public face of a company or
how to deal with the press. It may be
about learning the soft skills of negotiating or managing teams.
Its about helping them go somewhere they havent been, but will
have to go, says Professor Peiperl.
The short, sharp course, akin to a
YouTube video, is only one part of
how technology has changed executive education. In the digital world,
no one is bound by geography.
The main benefit of digital is the
range of contact points it creates between individuals, says Claire Hewitt, head of learning design, executive
education, at Henley Business School.
Its as much about how it connects us
with others as how an individual uses
it to consume learning.
So, for example, each cohort of students will have a digital platform to
talk to each other and to their tutors.
That means the face-to-face bit can
be really focused and really made
to count, adds Ms Hewitt. We
shouldnt underestimate the power
of face-to-face classroom sessions;
all our clients claim this is a key element of a blended programme.
Peer-to-peer
communication,
which continues after a course
has finished with well-maintained

alumni programmes, is a recognisable benefit of executive education. What matters is the mix of
experience of the 40 people on that
course, says Mr Amitrano. Regular
networking events and reunions are
part of the draw. Its always a great
pleasure to meet my fellows. I like to
interact with them and ask them for
advice, as one alumni at the London Business School puts it.
New thinking and research now
comes not only from a newsletter,
but via faculty-led webinars as well.
Part of what you pay for in executive education is the curation of
a programme. The great advantage of the digital age is that you
can access a vast amount from the
top thinkers around the world,
but you need to know where and
how. With a mind-boggling quantity of information out there, the
skill of an academic is often to cut
through the noise and ensure an
individual learns what is relevant
to his or her needs.
People really want a customised
and focused approach. Its no longer
about the sage on the stage, its
about the guide by your side, says
Professor Peiperl.
Its also about drawing together
all the strands of an individuals
experience combined with the academic discipline and applying it to a
current problem. Most programmes
offer a mix of modules on which
the whole group will work, but also
modules designed for the individual student; the point is to apply the
learning to issues within his or her
own company.
This is all about how you apply
the learning in your own business,
says Ms Hewitt. At CEO level peoples time is so precious; a course
has to be properly bite-sized, properly structured.
Whatever combination of short
course, lecture, online, distance or
face-to-face you choose, somewhere
there is a course that suits you.
Share this article online via
raconteur.net

83%

77%

74%

72%

Executive performance
on the job

Retention of
executives

Employer brand
strength

Satisfaction of
executives

raconteur.net

xx CEO
xx xxxx
RACONTEUR
14
THE FUTURE

01 / 12 / 2016

XXXX
2
RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

15

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

LEARNING HOW
TO LEAD IN
AN AGE OF
DISRUPTION

MOST IMPORTANT BUSINESS OBJECTIVES OF

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

EUROPEAN SURVEY OF CEOs AND SENIOR EXECUTIVES

Improving
operating efficiency
Becoming
more innovative

Dealing with change

and restructuring

Li Kim Goh/Getty Images

experience through a virtual environment

that is collaborative, engaging and tailored
to the busy executive

university to be launched since the

Open University was formed more
than 50 years ago.
The real issue for todays
managers is clearly focused on
people. Its about developing worldclass talent, attracting and retaining
it and at the heart of this leadership
challenge is education.
The explosion of data, as well as
complex and disruptive technologies
in a rapidly changing globalised
environment,
certainly requires
nimble chief executives. Many of
todays leaders were trained in an
analogue world, yet they now have to
steer the corporate ship and innovate
in digital waters.
In this new era, leadership is one
of the most difficult capabilities
to perfect. So its not surprising
that post-graduate education is
the X-factor and the currency
for
success,
says
Matthew
Cooper, director of postgraduate
programmes at Arden University.
The big issue is whether higher
education is necessary for success
at the top of business. Many cite
Jamie Oliver, Lord Alan Sugar
or Sir Richard Branson as proof
that leading profitable business
empires isnt dependent on a

86%

Investing in high-growth
opportunities

Arden University creates a student

e are living in an age

of disruption Trump,
Brexit, climate change
and the rapid evolution of digital
technologies. To navigate this shifting
and volatile environment takes a new
set of skills that the corporate world
is only beginning to grasp.
Leading change is one of the
greatest challenges for CEOs today,
says Dr Philip Hallam, vice chancellor
of Arden University. Business
environments across the world are
now interconnected at the speed of
thought. The one certainty about the
future is that the pace of change will
only quicken.
Bosses across the globe are
increasingly
recognising
that
leadership skills and management
education are critical if their
businesses are to navigate todays
complex and fast-paced global
marketplace. Corporations also have
to see beyond the horizon if theyre
to prevent their business models
from being out-innovated.
Every chief executive is trying to
figure out how to gain competitive
advantage in the face of disruptive
market conditions, explains Dr
Hallam, who heads up the first
dedicated online and blended

89%

piece of paper. Of course theyre

right. A degree or postgraduate
qualification isnt inherently linked to
boardroom stardom.
However, the argument becomes
null and void when you ask whether
gaining a degree helps executives to
get ahead in business and rise up to
become corporate leaders. The fact
is it can and it does, says Mr Cooper.
A study by Forbes magazine found
that pay was 50 per cent higher for
those who have completed an MBA,
rising to more than 80 per cent more
for MBA graduates after five years.
Those with a Masters degree have
been shown to earn 18 per cent more
than their colleagues who are only
educated to undergraduate level.
Ive been in touch with over
300 Arden University MBA alumni
for feedback on their learning
experience.
Some
achieved
promotion, others started a business
and became their own CEO. For quite
a number, new skills meant a pay rise.
One MBA graduate contacted me
to say he has achieved a significant
salary increase and is now able to
work as an adviser to his companys
vice president, says Mr Cooper.
The issue is that many universities and
colleges across the UK arent adapting
their business-focused education
quickly enough to meet the changing
needs of global commerce. Take for
instance cyber security, which is a
growing issue. There is now a shortage
of skills in this area of expertise from
the chief executive downwards.
It is predicted there will be a
shortfall of 1.5 million workers
worldwide in this sector by 2020,
according to the governments Global

Its about developing world-class

talent, attracting and retaining it
and at the heart of this leadership
challenge is education

Information Security Workforce Study.

This comes at a time when Whitehall
is investing 2 billion in this sector.
This is no longer just an issue for
the IT department, but for the world
workforce. Cyber skills need to reach
into every profession, according to
chancellor Philip Hammond.
In response to this announcement,
Arden University, which operates
campuses in Ealing and Tower Hill in
London, created an MSc in IT security
management to assist and bridge this
skills gap.
It is imperative that business
leaders upskill themselves and their
workforce in data analytics and other
emerging fields, says Dr Hallam.
Ardens educational approach is
cutting edge and, combined with
our bespoke online virtual learning
environment, creates a powerful set
of tools for students to engage with
and learn from.
Arden, which has supported more
than 50,000 students over 25 years,
now uses interactive student forums,
real-time webinars and peer-to-peer
study groups that span continents
and cultures in terms of the students
taking part.
Particularly with our MBA
programme,
this
environment
provides an ideal setting for
developing the business leaders of
the future who are able to compete
and understand business issues on a
global stage, says Mr Cooper.
While technology is proving to
be a game-changer in industry
after industry, this is also true for
education.
Establishments
like
Arden also capitalise on this too. Our
courses help utilise the growing array
and performance of devices from
smartphones to tablets. It is clear to
see why digital learning has had such
an impact on MBA and postgraduate
study, he says.
Traditional
online
learning
programmes have sought to replicate
the traditional talk and chalk
classroom environment. Current
innovations in education create a

84%

of Arden students
found the distance
learning schedule
works efficiently
for them

70%

said their career

had improved as
a direct result of
their studies

Online says goodbye

to sage on the stage
High-calibre online courses now enable a busy executive
to learn at their own pace and garner quality content
that applies to current situations

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION
CLARE GASCOIGNE

90%

work alongside
studying

Source: Arden
Student Survey 2015

student experience through a virtual

environment that is collaborative,
engaging and tailored to the person
who is trying to learn.
It is called the flipped classroom
model, where students are in control
of the pace of learning. They can
also navigate learning materials on
the go and access information in
bite-sized pieces on their tablets or
devices, wherever they are, as well
as take part in regular face-to-face
sessions when needed.
Mr Cooper concludes: In this
on-the-go digital age, it helps if
resources can be accessed in formats
adapted to suit the needs of the busy
executive, including videos, journal
articles, case studies, podcasts and
presentations. These can be viewed
at their own convenience. Its about
meeting the education needs of the
21st-century business person with
21st-century resources.
For more information please visit
arden.ac.uk/upskill or call
0808 231 1119

wo weeks ago, Oxford

University joined a revolution. It launched its
first Massive Open Online Course or MOOC a six-week
course on understanding economic development.
It signals a trend that has changed
the face of executive education.
Driven by new technology, but also
by demand for different access to
learning, the revolution is as much
about how, rather than what, the future C-suite learns.
For the fast-rising superstars in a
company, what are the chances you
can hit the pause button on your
life and spend 100,000 to go off
for a year or two to study full time
for a qualification? asks Dr Anant
Agarwal, chief executive of edX, a
provider of MOOCs founded by Harvard University and MIT in 2012,
and which is Oxford Universitys
new partner. That model has been
replaced by just-in-time learning:
bite-sized chunks of information
that can be learnt quickly.

Online courses have been around

for years, but often suffered by association with the kind of learning that
gave education a bad name, poorly
developed distance learning courses,
heir to the dubious correspondence
course of the early-20th century. But
this is a different kind of fish altogether, developed by world-class academics working at institutions, such

These are courses

that offer academic
rigour combined
with real-life
experience
as Harvard and Oxford, that need no
introduction. These are courses that
offer academic rigour combined with
real-life experience.
This is about the top providers in
the world designing learning and
work experiences that are very specific to top managers, says Professor Maury Peiperl, pro-vice-chan-

NON-FINANCIAL METRICS USED TO

QUANTIFY RETURN ON
EXECUTIVE EDUCATION
European survey of CEOs and senior executives
Source: University of St. Gallen 2016

cellor and director of the Cranfield

School of Management.
Technology, in the form of online
and virtual classrooms, has allowed individuals to study whenever and wherever they like. This
is a game-changer, says Rick Levin, chief executive at Coursera, a
MOOC provider. Its the ability for
the learner to acquire materials at
his or her own pace you can watch
a module online as many times as
you like.
It may also change the way students engage. A study at Oxford, run
by Dr Kate McClune, found an online chatroom meant students were
more willing to engage and disagree than in traditional tutorials.
Dr Levin adds: Online also makes
it possible for a much deeper layer
of an organisation to benefit from
high-quality
materials;
online
learning can be scaled. So, for example, a corporate learning programme can offer an online lecture
or class that can be attended by 100
people from around the world, all at
the same time.
The MBA, once seen as the top
business qualification, is increasingly something for younger people,

ABOVE
Oxford University
has teamed up
with edX to offer
its first Massive
Open Online
Course or MOOC

Becoming more
international/global

70%
58%
89%
Source: University of St. Gallen 2016

those in their 30s, who are still several notches below chief executive.
Moreover, some critics argue it has
limited relevance for chief executives; only 30 per cent of incoming
chief executives globally in 2015
held the qualification, according to
research from PwC.
Theres no substitute for experience, says Marco Amitrano, head of
consulting at PwC. An MBA does offer a grounding, but chief executives
living in a VUCA [volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity]
world need more. They need agility
in their skillset.
For many chief executives its less
about a qualification, but about their
level of preparedness for the job. Executive education is as much about
mentoring or coaching as it is about
imparting information or the latest
research. It may be about role-playing, for example, what it means to
be the public face of a company or
how to deal with the press. It may be
about learning the soft skills of negotiating or managing teams.
Its about helping them go somewhere they havent been, but will
have to go, says Professor Peiperl.
The short, sharp course, akin to a
YouTube video, is only one part of
how technology has changed executive education. In the digital world,
no one is bound by geography.
The main benefit of digital is the
range of contact points it creates between individuals, says Claire Hewitt, head of learning design, executive
education, at Henley Business School.
Its as much about how it connects us
with others as how an individual uses
it to consume learning.
So, for example, each cohort of students will have a digital platform to
talk to each other and to their tutors.
That means the face-to-face bit can
be really focused and really made
to count, adds Ms Hewitt. We
shouldnt underestimate the power
of face-to-face classroom sessions;
all our clients claim this is a key element of a blended programme.
Peer-to-peer
communication,
which continues after a course
has finished with well-maintained

alumni programmes, is a recognisable benefit of executive education. What matters is the mix of
experience of the 40 people on that
course, says Mr Amitrano. Regular
networking events and reunions are
part of the draw. Its always a great
pleasure to meet my fellows. I like to
interact with them and ask them for
advice, as one alumni at the London Business School puts it.
New thinking and research now
comes not only from a newsletter,
but via faculty-led webinars as well.
Part of what you pay for in executive education is the curation of
a programme. The great advantage of the digital age is that you
can access a vast amount from the
top thinkers around the world,
but you need to know where and
how. With a mind-boggling quantity of information out there, the
skill of an academic is often to cut
through the noise and ensure an
individual learns what is relevant
to his or her needs.
People really want a customised
and focused approach. Its no longer
about the sage on the stage, its
about the guide by your side, says
Professor Peiperl.
Its also about drawing together
all the strands of an individuals
experience combined with the academic discipline and applying it to a
current problem. Most programmes
offer a mix of modules on which
the whole group will work, but also
modules designed for the individual student; the point is to apply the
learning to issues within his or her
own company.
This is all about how you apply
the learning in your own business,
says Ms Hewitt. At CEO level peoples time is so precious; a course
has to be properly bite-sized, properly structured.
Whatever combination of short
course, lecture, online, distance or
face-to-face you choose, somewhere
there is a course that suits you.
Share this article online via
raconteur.net

83%

77%

74%

72%

Executive performance
on the job

Retention of
executives

Employer brand
strength

Satisfaction of
executives

raconteur.net
raconteur.net

16
THE FUTURE
xx CEO
xx xxxx
RACONTEUR

01 / 12 / 2016

RACONTEUR
XXXX
2

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

17

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

ASPIRING
CEOs COMMIT
TO LIFELONG
LEARNING

POLITICAL INFLUENCE

Those who want to reach the top quickly are

blending their professional lives with a keen
and consistent approach to academia

BLENDED LEARNING
Jol McConnell joined IEs prestigious Global MBA programme in 2006
when the blended approach was in its
infancy. He has since taken advantage
of the schools training methodology
and global nature to complete many
of its other programmes.
My intake travelled both east and
west, making stops in Dubai, Mum-

bai and Shanghai, as well as Moscow,

New York and Mexico City, says Mr
McConnell, who is now IEs director
for Europe and Central Asia. IE attracts students from 90 countries.
These trips allow Mr McConnell
and his colleagues to apply the management theory and leadership approaches they were learning in very
different cultural, political and business contexts. Its a highly valuable
experience for the aspiring global
leader, he says.
Between these residential modules,
IE uses technology such as videoconferencing and blackboard software
to continue discussions in real time as
students return and apply learnings to
their respective contexts.
After graduating from the
18-month MBA programme, Mr
McConnell was hired to manage
IEs endowments, scholarships programmes, lending agreements and
various funding partnerships, including its long-standing relationship with
the Fulbright Foundation.

Mixing IEs academic expertise and

blended approach with premium
market insights will deliver a new
era of executive leaders who
understand the fast-moving nature
of business today
This is when the blended approach really came in handy, allowing him to complete IEs Masters degree in finance,
executive development programme
in luxury management and three of
the three to five-day programmes offered by its executive education area.
As Mr McConnell progressed
through IE, leading its Asia-Pacific
team and then its Europe team, he
completed a certificate programme
at Cambridge Judge Business School
and is now pursuing a postgraduate
degree at the University of Oxfords
Sad Business School.

My career has demonstrated lifelong learning in practice, he says.

And throughout this Ive been able
to apply my programmes of study to
the day-to-day requirements of the
leadership roles Ive held.
REINVENTING LEADERS
Businesses today operate in an increasingly complex and competitive
environment. With new technologies
and digital innovations causing major upheaval, companies are being
forced regularly to evaluate their
commercial models and transform
the ways they do business.
To survive and succeed among
these evolving business realities,
companies need access to leaders
who are able to reinvent themselves
and adapt their approaches to leadership. The best way to gain this access is to nurture the talent currently
available to them.
In part, this is achieved by supplementing employees professional
activities with consistent exposure
to degree programmes and targeted
training courses. Many top organisations are working with leading business schools on programmes designed
for staff members they consider to be
high-potential future leaders.
To differentiate itself in the hunt
for the most globally competitive
leadership talent, IE sought to expand
its capabilities beyond mastering
an effective mix of technology and
management training. Two years ago,
it partnered with the Financial Times
to develop a custom programme that
includes real-time market insights
from leading business journalists, and
the latest research from statisticians
and experts in pedagogy.
The joint venture between IE and
the FT resulted in the Corporate
Learning Alliance (CLA), offering custom executive training that can be
delivered in five different languages
and either entirely onsite or using the
blended methodology.
The CLA partners with other
world-renowned business schools, in-

cluding Yale School of Management,

Imperial College London and Renmin
Business School in China, to design
and deliver tailored programmes.
Mr McConnell believes this type
of learning, mixing IEs academic expertise and blended approach with
premium market insights, will deliver
a new era of executive leaders who
understand the fast-moving nature
of business today.
Companies need tangible results
from their investments in executive
training and education, he says.
IEs tailored programmes meet the
changing needs of executives and
draw on extensive local and international expertise provided by both
our academics and our global academic partners.
Chief executives require a diverse
range of skills, from creativity to execution and the ability to organise
and motivate people. Reaching the
top is best achieved by delivering
consistently high results, enabled
through constant access to quality
information.
Complementing professional activities with formal training is a fasttrack approach to reaching the leadership position which future chief
executives aspire to. By focusing
energy on scenarios far broader than
their current job description, professionals can continually develop the
business acumen and wide skillsets
that leaders need.
Combining battlefield experience with insights from experts and
highly qualified colleagues, as part of
the continuous learning process, is
particularly important, says Mr McConnell. And while the ideal case
is that your organisation has developed a custom programme to address their specific leadership needs,
you can create your own learning
opportunities by taking advantage of
top-quality degree programmes and
executive courses.
For more information please visit
www.ie.edu/business-school

US employees between 1999

and 2014 gave three times
more of their political campaign
contributions to candidates
supported by their firms chief
executive than others
Source:
Arizona State/Bocconi/
Lugano universities 2016

Bloomberg / Getty Images

leadership is not as easy as it used to be.

hat do Tim Martin and

Tim Cook have in common? On the face of it,
not a lot. Mr Martin
runs a chain of pubs in the UK, Mr
Cook is chief executive of Apple, the
worlds biggest company by stock
market value. One Tim has made his
fortune selling a product that has
been in existence for centuries, the
other Tim has made an even bigger
fortune creating technologies that
have revolutionised the way we live
and work.
And yet Mr Martin and Mr Cook are
also both known for wearing their
politics on their sleeve. Mr Martin,
founder and chairman of J D Wetherspoon, was one of the most visible
campaigners for the UK to leave the
European Union during the referendum earlier this year. Mr Cook hosted a private fundraiser for Hillary
Clinton in California. As we now
know, Mr Martin found himself on
the winning side, whereas Mr Cook
saw his efforts come to nothing, with
a heavy defeat for the Democrats.
Mr Martin and Mr Cook are part of
a growing trend in global business
for senior executives to play a more
active and visible role in political
campaigns, whether through direct
backing for a presidential candidate or campaigning for or against a
particular policy, such as the sugar
tax or environmental levies. Many
believe it was the combined efforts
of big corporations that swung the
Scottish referendum against independence from the UK.
But is it right for a chairman of chief
executive to seek to influence a democratic process? Perhaps more to the
point, is it effective in persuading
employees to vote with them? And
even if a chief executive succeeds,
such as Mr Martin did with Brexit,
what is the risk of alienating customers who disagree with your views?
There is compelling, recent evidence that a chief executives politics
can sway how employees think about
elections. A 2016 study by academics
at Arizona State, Bocconi and Lugano universities showed a strong correlation among campaign contributions made by the chief and his or her
employees as well as voter turnout.

01

Should bosses enter

the political arena?
Business leaders who get involved in politics by
endorsing candidates or campaigns can, rightly or wrongly,
influence their employees

The study of 2,000 companies

over US elections from 1999 to 2014
found that employees direct approximately three times more of their
campaign contributions to political
candidates supported by their firms
chief executive than to otherwise
similar candidates. The study also
showed that employees were likely
to change political allegiance to folBloomberg / Getty Images

Progressing into the realms of executive

n a fast-evolving business landscape, ambitious professionals

are realising that being good at
their jobs is not necessarily enough
to get them to the top. Business
conditions are changing quicker
than ever and the concept of leadership continues to develop. The
key to fast progression is committing to lifelong learning.
The thought of busy professionals
undertaking a degree programme on
top of their usual workload may be
daunting to many. But todays flexible working environments are opening the door to a new generation of
employees who want to develop their
ability to lead.
Business schools around the
world compete for the opportunity to educate the leaders of tomorrow. And in todays digital age,
teaching senior leaders how to develop their organisations and people requires a thorough embrace of
modern technology.
IE Business School is leveraging
its early commitment to blended
learning, which combines technology-based education with traditional
classroom methods, to allow current professionals to develop their
leadership attributes alongside
business commitments.
The Madrid-based graduate school
works with institutions such as the
Ivy League Brown University, Booth
School of Business at the University
of Chicago, Pritzker School of Law at
Northwestern University and Singapore Management University to offer
its programmes to striving leaders
who dont want to step out of work.

3x

MARTIN BARROW

01
Tim Martin of J
D Wetherspoon,
pictured with
Boris Johnson,
was a very public
campaigner for
Britain to leave
the EU

02

02
Tim Cook of Apple
hosted a private
fundraiser for
Hillary Clinton
as part of her
election campaign

low the lead of a new chief executive.

These findings are rooted in a US
context, but given the scale and scope
of the research there is no obvious
reason to think that it would be significantly different in Europe, particularly given the global convergence of
political and business trends. Perhaps
we shouldnt be surprised, for many
employees do look to senior managers
to provide leadership and guidance
on significant issues.
David Palmer-Jones, chief executive of environmental services firm
SUEZ, was a leading voice within
the waste management industry
ahead of the EU referendum, stating
in public and to his staff that he felt
a vote to leave could have a negative
impact on the sector.
Mr Palmer-Jones says: As chief
executive I consider it my responsibility to explain, to our employees
and stakeholders, the dynamics of
our sector and how policy decisions,
taken by politicians at all levels, influence our long-term investment
decisions. Indeed, in my conversations with employees, Im constantly
asked about the implications of political decisions, macro-economics and
the impact this has on the business.
Some may argue that there is noth-

As chief executive
I consider it my
responsibility to
explain how policy
decisions taken by
politicians influence
our long-term
investment decisions
ing new in employers using their influence to sway voters with a direct
or indirect interest in their organisation. What have changed, beyond
doubt, are the rules of corporate governance which have raised the bar
on the degree of transparency that is
required. Deals done in smoke-filled
rooms over beer and sandwiches are
no longer acceptable.
So, it is less about the message
and more to do with the way that
message is conveyed. It is about disseminating the same information to
all employees, as well as to a wider
group of stakeholders, including
investors and suppliers, and maybe
communities closely linked to the

organisation. Modern communication channels make it possible for

a chief executive to keep all stakeholders informed.
There must be no reason why any
communication with employees
should cause a company embarrassment if it finds its way into the media. It is also important for an organisation to provide a forum for those
employees and stakeholders who
hold different views about the outcome of an election or referendum.
Mr Palmer-Jones says: For me,
transparency and communication
are essential, but it is also important
that in sharing these views, we do
not then cross a line by persuading
or, worse, coercing employees to
vote a certain way.
A chief executives ability to influence a workforce will depend, to a
large degree, on the relationship they
have with employees. Progressive
managers maintain regular dialogue
with the workforce and their world
view is well understood. If an organisations approach to internal communications is effective, it should not
come as a surprise when a chief executive or chairman indicates that they
believe candidate X or party Y has the
policies most likely to benefit the business. It becomes much more intrusive
when a management characterised by
its reluctance to engage with the workforce suddenly issues a heavy-handed
statement in the run-up to an election.
Tom Buchanan, managing partner
of CNC, the corporate communications firm which advised a number
of chief executives ahead of the referendum, says: It is entirely appropriate that a chief executive points
out the likely effect of any candidates agenda on their firms ability
to succeed in business. The problem
comes when they choose to express
personal opinions on issues beyond
this. Employees and customers may
see this as overstepping a line and
will react against it.
The outlook is for a further blurring of the lines between the public
and private sectors, which is likely
to place chief executives in roles that
will test their judgment over issues
which were once the concern of politicians. With businesses running
schools and prisons, for example,
it seems inevitable that executives
will be questioned over education
policy and the criminal justice system. Their views will influence the
people who work for them and will
become part of the mainstream political discourse.
Share this article online via
raconteur.net

raconteur.net
raconteur.net

16
THE FUTURE
xx CEO
xx xxxx
RACONTEUR

01 / 12 / 2016

RACONTEUR
XXXX
2

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

17

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

ASPIRING
CEOs COMMIT
TO LIFELONG
LEARNING

POLITICAL INFLUENCE

Those who want to reach the top quickly are

blending their professional lives with a keen
and consistent approach to academia

BLENDED LEARNING
Jol McConnell joined IEs prestigious Global MBA programme in 2006
when the blended approach was in its
infancy. He has since taken advantage
of the schools training methodology
and global nature to complete many
of its other programmes.
My intake travelled both east and
west, making stops in Dubai, Mum-

bai and Shanghai, as well as Moscow,

New York and Mexico City, says Mr
McConnell, who is now IEs director
for Europe and Central Asia. IE attracts students from 90 countries.
These trips allow Mr McConnell
and his colleagues to apply the management theory and leadership approaches they were learning in very
different cultural, political and business contexts. Its a highly valuable
experience for the aspiring global
leader, he says.
Between these residential modules,
IE uses technology such as videoconferencing and blackboard software
to continue discussions in real time as
students return and apply learnings to
their respective contexts.
After graduating from the
18-month MBA programme, Mr
McConnell was hired to manage
IEs endowments, scholarships programmes, lending agreements and
various funding partnerships, including its long-standing relationship with
the Fulbright Foundation.

Mixing IEs academic expertise and

blended approach with premium
market insights will deliver a new
era of executive leaders who
understand the fast-moving nature
of business today
This is when the blended approach really came in handy, allowing him to complete IEs Masters degree in finance,
executive development programme
in luxury management and three of
the three to five-day programmes offered by its executive education area.
As Mr McConnell progressed
through IE, leading its Asia-Pacific
team and then its Europe team, he
completed a certificate programme
at Cambridge Judge Business School
and is now pursuing a postgraduate
degree at the University of Oxfords
Sad Business School.

My career has demonstrated lifelong learning in practice, he says.

And throughout this Ive been able
to apply my programmes of study to
the day-to-day requirements of the
leadership roles Ive held.
REINVENTING LEADERS
Businesses today operate in an increasingly complex and competitive
environment. With new technologies
and digital innovations causing major upheaval, companies are being
forced regularly to evaluate their
commercial models and transform
the ways they do business.
To survive and succeed among
these evolving business realities,
companies need access to leaders
who are able to reinvent themselves
and adapt their approaches to leadership. The best way to gain this access is to nurture the talent currently
available to them.
In part, this is achieved by supplementing employees professional
activities with consistent exposure
to degree programmes and targeted
training courses. Many top organisations are working with leading business schools on programmes designed
for staff members they consider to be
high-potential future leaders.
To differentiate itself in the hunt
for the most globally competitive
leadership talent, IE sought to expand
its capabilities beyond mastering
an effective mix of technology and
management training. Two years ago,
it partnered with the Financial Times
to develop a custom programme that
includes real-time market insights
from leading business journalists, and
the latest research from statisticians
and experts in pedagogy.
The joint venture between IE and
the FT resulted in the Corporate
Learning Alliance (CLA), offering custom executive training that can be
delivered in five different languages
and either entirely onsite or using the
blended methodology.
The CLA partners with other
world-renowned business schools, in-

cluding Yale School of Management,

Imperial College London and Renmin
Business School in China, to design
and deliver tailored programmes.
Mr McConnell believes this type
of learning, mixing IEs academic expertise and blended approach with
premium market insights, will deliver
a new era of executive leaders who
understand the fast-moving nature
of business today.
Companies need tangible results
from their investments in executive
training and education, he says.
IEs tailored programmes meet the
changing needs of executives and
draw on extensive local and international expertise provided by both
our academics and our global academic partners.
Chief executives require a diverse
range of skills, from creativity to execution and the ability to organise
and motivate people. Reaching the
top is best achieved by delivering
consistently high results, enabled
through constant access to quality
information.
Complementing professional activities with formal training is a fasttrack approach to reaching the leadership position which future chief
executives aspire to. By focusing
energy on scenarios far broader than
their current job description, professionals can continually develop the
business acumen and wide skillsets
that leaders need.
Combining battlefield experience with insights from experts and
highly qualified colleagues, as part of
the continuous learning process, is
particularly important, says Mr McConnell. And while the ideal case
is that your organisation has developed a custom programme to address their specific leadership needs,
you can create your own learning
opportunities by taking advantage of
top-quality degree programmes and
executive courses.
For more information please visit
www.ie.edu/business-school

US employees between 1999

and 2014 gave three times
more of their political campaign
contributions to candidates
supported by their firms chief
executive than others
Source:
Arizona State/Bocconi/
Lugano universities 2016

Bloomberg / Getty Images

leadership is not as easy as it used to be.

hat do Tim Martin and

Tim Cook have in common? On the face of it,
not a lot. Mr Martin
runs a chain of pubs in the UK, Mr
Cook is chief executive of Apple, the
worlds biggest company by stock
market value. One Tim has made his
fortune selling a product that has
been in existence for centuries, the
other Tim has made an even bigger
fortune creating technologies that
have revolutionised the way we live
and work.
And yet Mr Martin and Mr Cook are
also both known for wearing their
politics on their sleeve. Mr Martin,
founder and chairman of J D Wetherspoon, was one of the most visible
campaigners for the UK to leave the
European Union during the referendum earlier this year. Mr Cook hosted a private fundraiser for Hillary
Clinton in California. As we now
know, Mr Martin found himself on
the winning side, whereas Mr Cook
saw his efforts come to nothing, with
a heavy defeat for the Democrats.
Mr Martin and Mr Cook are part of
a growing trend in global business
for senior executives to play a more
active and visible role in political
campaigns, whether through direct
backing for a presidential candidate or campaigning for or against a
particular policy, such as the sugar
tax or environmental levies. Many
believe it was the combined efforts
of big corporations that swung the
Scottish referendum against independence from the UK.
But is it right for a chairman of chief
executive to seek to influence a democratic process? Perhaps more to the
point, is it effective in persuading
employees to vote with them? And
even if a chief executive succeeds,
such as Mr Martin did with Brexit,
what is the risk of alienating customers who disagree with your views?
There is compelling, recent evidence that a chief executives politics
can sway how employees think about
elections. A 2016 study by academics
at Arizona State, Bocconi and Lugano universities showed a strong correlation among campaign contributions made by the chief and his or her
employees as well as voter turnout.

01

Should bosses enter

the political arena?
Business leaders who get involved in politics by
endorsing candidates or campaigns can, rightly or wrongly,
influence their employees

The study of 2,000 companies

over US elections from 1999 to 2014
found that employees direct approximately three times more of their
campaign contributions to political
candidates supported by their firms
chief executive than to otherwise
similar candidates. The study also
showed that employees were likely
to change political allegiance to folBloomberg / Getty Images

Progressing into the realms of executive

n a fast-evolving business landscape, ambitious professionals

are realising that being good at
their jobs is not necessarily enough
to get them to the top. Business
conditions are changing quicker
than ever and the concept of leadership continues to develop. The
key to fast progression is committing to lifelong learning.
The thought of busy professionals
undertaking a degree programme on
top of their usual workload may be
daunting to many. But todays flexible working environments are opening the door to a new generation of
employees who want to develop their
ability to lead.
Business schools around the
world compete for the opportunity to educate the leaders of tomorrow. And in todays digital age,
teaching senior leaders how to develop their organisations and people requires a thorough embrace of
modern technology.
IE Business School is leveraging
its early commitment to blended
learning, which combines technology-based education with traditional
classroom methods, to allow current professionals to develop their
leadership attributes alongside
business commitments.
The Madrid-based graduate school
works with institutions such as the
Ivy League Brown University, Booth
School of Business at the University
of Chicago, Pritzker School of Law at
Northwestern University and Singapore Management University to offer
its programmes to striving leaders
who dont want to step out of work.

3x

MARTIN BARROW

01
Tim Martin of J
D Wetherspoon,
pictured with
Boris Johnson,
was a very public
campaigner for
Britain to leave
the EU

02

02
Tim Cook of Apple
hosted a private
fundraiser for
Hillary Clinton
as part of her
election campaign

low the lead of a new chief executive.

These findings are rooted in a US
context, but given the scale and scope
of the research there is no obvious
reason to think that it would be significantly different in Europe, particularly given the global convergence of
political and business trends. Perhaps
we shouldnt be surprised, for many
employees do look to senior managers
to provide leadership and guidance
on significant issues.
David Palmer-Jones, chief executive of environmental services firm
SUEZ, was a leading voice within
the waste management industry
ahead of the EU referendum, stating
in public and to his staff that he felt
a vote to leave could have a negative
impact on the sector.
Mr Palmer-Jones says: As chief
executive I consider it my responsibility to explain, to our employees
and stakeholders, the dynamics of
our sector and how policy decisions,
taken by politicians at all levels, influence our long-term investment
decisions. Indeed, in my conversations with employees, Im constantly
asked about the implications of political decisions, macro-economics and
the impact this has on the business.
Some may argue that there is noth-

As chief executive
I consider it my
responsibility to
explain how policy
decisions taken by
politicians influence
our long-term
investment decisions
ing new in employers using their influence to sway voters with a direct
or indirect interest in their organisation. What have changed, beyond
doubt, are the rules of corporate governance which have raised the bar
on the degree of transparency that is
required. Deals done in smoke-filled
rooms over beer and sandwiches are
no longer acceptable.
So, it is less about the message
and more to do with the way that
message is conveyed. It is about disseminating the same information to
all employees, as well as to a wider
group of stakeholders, including
investors and suppliers, and maybe
communities closely linked to the

organisation. Modern communication channels make it possible for

a chief executive to keep all stakeholders informed.
There must be no reason why any
communication with employees
should cause a company embarrassment if it finds its way into the media. It is also important for an organisation to provide a forum for those
employees and stakeholders who
hold different views about the outcome of an election or referendum.
Mr Palmer-Jones says: For me,
transparency and communication
are essential, but it is also important
that in sharing these views, we do
not then cross a line by persuading
or, worse, coercing employees to
vote a certain way.
A chief executives ability to influence a workforce will depend, to a
large degree, on the relationship they
have with employees. Progressive
managers maintain regular dialogue
with the workforce and their world
view is well understood. If an organisations approach to internal communications is effective, it should not
come as a surprise when a chief executive or chairman indicates that they
believe candidate X or party Y has the
policies most likely to benefit the business. It becomes much more intrusive
when a management characterised by
its reluctance to engage with the workforce suddenly issues a heavy-handed
statement in the run-up to an election.
Tom Buchanan, managing partner
of CNC, the corporate communications firm which advised a number
of chief executives ahead of the referendum, says: It is entirely appropriate that a chief executive points
out the likely effect of any candidates agenda on their firms ability
to succeed in business. The problem
comes when they choose to express
personal opinions on issues beyond
this. Employees and customers may
see this as overstepping a line and
will react against it.
The outlook is for a further blurring of the lines between the public
and private sectors, which is likely
to place chief executives in roles that
will test their judgment over issues
which were once the concern of politicians. With businesses running
schools and prisons, for example,
it seems inevitable that executives
will be questioned over education
policy and the criminal justice system. Their views will influence the
people who work for them and will
become part of the mainstream political discourse.
Share this article online via
raconteur.net

18
THE FUTURE CEO
raconteur.net

XXXX
2
raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

RACONTEUR

COMMERCIAL
FEATURE
COMMERCIAL
FEATURE
OPINION

CHIEF EXECUTIVES
LEARN TO INNOVATE
BY THINKING LIKE
DESIGNERS

he ubiquity of internet access has

changed the rules of business.
The world wide web not only gave
people a low-cost way to connect, but
it accelerated the pace of innovation,
and led to the advent of smartphones
and social networks.
Suddenly, customers could provide
immediate feedback on products and
services, and seamlessly share their
opinions with their friends. Meanwhile,
the sleek operating systems consumers enjoyed on their mobile devices
exploded their expectations around
user experience.
This trend has shifted control to
consumers, creating a challenging
new business environment. Looking
for ways to respond, chief executives
are finding that they can take a designers approach to new product creation
and adapt it to their job of leading
change across an organisation.
Over the last 40 years, design
has evolved from being the domain
of a few talented individuals to a
well-established team process. It is
now an essential part of business
transformation, with companies
embracing design thinking to navigate todays disruptions.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Following the economic crash of
2007/8, American conglomerate GE
needed to refocus its industrial businesses. Despite evolving into a formidable software company, it was vulner-

COLUMN

Bringing diversity
into boardrooms
The future chief executive should
challenge boardrooms, bring
about cultural change, break bad
habits and put inclusivity at the
top of the agenda
MARGOT JAMES

able to encroaching digital players and

missing out on growth opportunities.
GE chief executive Jeff Immelt set
out a vision for the company to become a digital industrial organisation
that could take on Silicon Valley and
keep innovating. I am not most afraid
of our biggest competitors, he said. I
am afraid of the guy in his garage coming up with an idea that could potentially wipe out one of our businesses.
To deliver on this vision, GE chief
marketing officer Beth Comstock engaged design and strategy firm frog to
support the organisations transformation into a digital company.
frog built digital tools to support
the wider dissemination of design and
digital product development at GE,
and fostered a new culture by training
GEs employees on human-centred design. The company created a reusable
system for designing software which
increased GEs speed of development,
reduced costs and improved cohesion
across the organisation.
GE is one of the most remarkable
examples of a large established company taking hold of change rather than
becoming a victim of it, says Harry
West, chief executive at frog. The
leadership at GE recognised that design had a vital role to play in its business transformation.
DISRUPTING THROUGH DESIGN
GEs strategy demonstrates how future chief executives will utilise the

power of design to transform businesses and disrupt industries proactively, rather than just respond to
developments in the market.
Like designers, todays business
leaders have to lead into the unknown. They dont know the answer
ahead of time innovation is unpredictable so a company cannot define and control change in the same
way it does other business processes.
The designers toolkit can help.
Designers gain inspiration by immersing themselves in users experiences. They progress iteratively,
learning, designing, prototyping,
testing and refining, until they get
the new customer experience right.
This is a process that can be applied
more broadly to an organisation going through change.
Design thinking provides a way for
a leader to engage in the innovation
process, says Mr West. It helps companies pay closer attention to customers and anticipate the future by
constantly testing and refining ideas
until the market is ready.
Ultimately, leaders who think
like designers are better at motivating their organisation to innovate. It
enables CEOs to move forward with
confidence, even though they cannot
know exactly where theyre going. Its
a way of leading change.
For more information please visit
www.frogdesign.com

Minister for small business, consumers and

corporate responsibility

Diversity
in
the boardroom matters. From workers
on the shop floor to
the customers who
keep firms in business, now is the time
for diversity and inclusivity to be properly
embraced so that business
represents not only the interests
of those at the top.
A chief executive is a leader, a
trendsetter, somebody who is ahead
of the curve and leads their business by example. I believe the future
chief executive is somebody who
recognises the huge opportunity we
have right now.
It is simply wrong for the news of
a woman or a black man or woman
being appointed as a chief executive in the future to still be viewed
as an anomaly who is defined by
their uniqueness and not their
business acumen.
I have high hopes that the future
boardroom will be as diverse as our
country, whatever the sector.
As I have seen in the work Baroness
Mc Gr e gor - S m it h
has been carrying
out on understanding why people from
BME (black and minority ethnic) backgrounds are less
likely to progress
in work than their
white counterparts,
it is her gender and
ethnicity that still
makes the headlines. I want us to
build a society where talented people
are celebrated for their ability rather
than the colour of their skin, their
gender or sexuality.
In todays workplace, we are missing crucial voices and perspectives
as so many people are still being
held back. The future chief executive needs to challenge boardrooms
to bring about cultural change and
break bad habits and put inclusivity
at the top of the agenda.
There has been progress in the past
five years. The number of women on
the boards of the FTSE 100 top UK
quoted companies has more than
doubled to nearly 27 per cent.

In addition, the important work of Sir

Philip
Hampton
and Dame Helen
Alexander
aims
to increase the
number of women
on listed company
boards to 33 per cent
by 2020.
I recently spoke at the
launch of the Parker Review
on increasing ethnic diversity in
the boardroom, which highlighted
the need for change. While 14 per
cent of our population identifies as
black and minority ethnic, only 1.5
per cent of directors in FTSE 100
boardrooms are UK citizens from
a minority background. More than
half of the FTSE 100 boards are exclusively white.
If business is to be the best it
can going forward in this time of
change, the future boardroom must
reflect modern Britain. Companies
do better if they make the best use
of the talent available.
The prime minister has talked about
building an economy that works for
everyone a message with inclusivity at its heart. This
is the governments
mission. It is my departments mission.
And it should be
the mission of the
future chief executive.
People want to
believe that if they
work hard, they
too can make it to
the top, whatever
their background.
Leaders need to be representative
of the people who work for them,
and of the customers and communities they serve. Thats why diversity is central to the more inclusive
economy the government wants
to create.
The future chief executive and
board need to reflect an inclusive
culture in which differences are
embraced rather than treated as
obstacles for individuals to have
to overcome.
Todays leaders must act now
if they are to instil the
business and social case
for change.

I have high hopes

that the future
boardroom will be
as diverse as our
country, whatever
the sector

18
THE FUTURE CEO
raconteur.net

XXXX
2
raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

RACONTEUR

RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

01 / 12 / 2016

THE FUTURE CEO

19

COMMERCIAL
FEATURE
COMMERCIAL
FEATURE

I have high hopes

that the future
boardroom will be
as diverse as our
country, whatever
the sector

TEST
Return to
your users
for feedback

EMPATHISE
Conduct research
to develop an
understanding of
your users

ND

In addition, the important work of Sir

Philip
Hampton
and Dame Helen
Alexander
aims
to increase the
number of women
on listed company
boards to 33 per cent
by 2020.
I recently spoke at the
launch of the Parker Review
on increasing ethnic diversity in
the boardroom, which highlighted
the need for change. While 14 per
cent of our population identifies as
black and minority ethnic, only 1.5
per cent of directors in FTSE 100
boardrooms are UK citizens from
a minority background. More than
half of the FTSE 100 boards are exclusively white.
If business is to be the best it
can going forward in this time of
change, the future boardroom must
reflect modern Britain. Companies
do better if they make the best use
of the talent available.
The prime minister has talked about
building an economy that works for
everyone a message with inclusivity at its heart. This
is the governments
mission. It is my departments mission.
And it should be
the mission of the
future chief executive.
People want to
believe that if they
work hard, they
too can make it to
the top, whatever
their background.
Leaders need to be representative
of the people who work for them,
and of the customers and communities they serve. Thats why diversity is central to the more inclusive
economy the government wants
to create.
The future chief executive and
board need to reflect an inclusive
culture in which differences are
embraced rather than treated as
obstacles for individuals to have
to overcome.
Todays leaders must act now
if they are to instil the
business and social case
for change.

PL

E MP
AT
HI

STA

Diversity
in
the boardroom matters. From workers
on the shop floor to
the customers who
keep firms in business, now is the time
for diversity and inclusivity to be properly
embraced so that business
represents not only the interests
of those at the top.
A chief executive is a leader, a
trendsetter, somebody who is ahead
of the curve and leads their business by example. I believe the future
chief executive is somebody who
recognises the huge opportunity we
have right now.
It is simply wrong for the news of
a woman or a black man or woman
being appointed as a chief executive in the future to still be viewed
as an anomaly who is defined by
their uniqueness and not their
business acumen.
I have high hopes that the future
boardroom will be as diverse as our
country, whatever the sector.
As I have seen in the work Baroness
Mc Gr e gor - S m it h
has been carrying
out on understanding why people from
BME (black and minority ethnic) backgrounds are less
likely to progress
in work than their
white counterparts,
it is her gender and
ethnicity that still
makes the headlines. I want us to
build a society where talented people
are celebrated for their ability rather
than the colour of their skin, their
gender or sexuality.
In todays workplace, we are missing crucial voices and perspectives
as so many people are still being
held back. The future chief executive needs to challenge boardrooms
to bring about cultural change and
break bad habits and put inclusivity
at the top of the agenda.
There has been progress in the past
five years. The number of women on
the boards of the FTSE 100 top UK
quoted companies has more than
doubled to nearly 27 per cent.

IM

NT
ME

ER

For more information please visit

www.frogdesign.com

Minister for small business, consumers and

corporate responsibility

IMPLEMENT
Put the vision
into effect

DE FI N E

DISRUPTING THROUGH DESIGN

GEs strategy demonstrates how future chief executives will utilise the

power of design to transform businesses and disrupt industries proactively, rather than just respond to
developments in the market.
Like designers, todays business
leaders have to lead into the unknown. They dont know the answer
ahead of time innovation is unpredictable so a company cannot define and control change in the same
way it does other business processes.
The designers toolkit can help.
Designers gain inspiration by immersing themselves in users experiences. They progress iteratively,
learning, designing, prototyping,
testing and refining, until they get
the new customer experience right.
This is a process that can be applied
more broadly to an organisation going through change.
Design thinking provides a way for
a leader to engage in the innovation
process, says Mr West. It helps companies pay closer attention to customers and anticipate the future by
constantly testing and refining ideas
until the market is ready.
Ultimately, leaders who think
like designers are better at motivating their organisation to innovate. It
enables CEOs to move forward with
confidence, even though they cannot
know exactly where theyre going. Its
a way of leading change.

hen Thomas J. Watson Jr. told IBM staff

in the 1970s that
good design is good
business, he started a debate that
still rages today.
Design thinking has had failures,
but most stem from misunderstanding it as pure creative or pure
mechanics. It is both: escalating
design principles outside product
to empower anyone creating ideas
to create for customer needs first,
solve complex challenges, drive
value and, perhaps above all, create
and mobilise a flexible culture fit for
addressing todays digitally transforming world.
How chief executives and the rest
of the C-Suite can best put design
thinking to work depends on a wider application of it as, to paraphrase
IBMs Maria Morais, a focus on
forms, relationships and behaviour.
Leaders need, however, to structure
and focus it in order to use its principles to drive specific, but still strategic, change.
Every kind of organisation has its
own approach to design thinking,
but they share ideas, models, intent
and a need for buy-in from topdown leadership and bottom-up
cultural change.
Design thinking is inherently innovative, and driving innovation
culture to create better products,
services, experiences and solve
wider challenges is the first and
most immediate must-have activity most organisations and leaders associate with it. But a startup
mindset, with consumer empathy,
fail to succeed, prototyping and
user-centric thinking coming together, is even more useful when
unpacked and distributed across
the business.
Also design thinking is implicitly progressive, focused on shaping
everything around it to purpose.
This makes it a natural partner

DESIGN THINKING FRAMEWORK

ND

able to encroaching digital players and

missing out on growth opportunities.
GE chief executive Jeff Immelt set
out a vision for the company to become a digital industrial organisation
that could take on Silicon Valley and
keep innovating. I am not most afraid
of our biggest competitors, he said. I
am afraid of the guy in his garage coming up with an idea that could potentially wipe out one of our businesses.
To deliver on this vision, GE chief
marketing officer Beth Comstock engaged design and strategy firm frog to
support the organisations transformation into a digital company.
frog built digital tools to support
the wider dissemination of design and
digital product development at GE,
and fostered a new culture by training
GEs employees on human-centred design. The company created a reusable
system for designing software which
increased GEs speed of development,
reduced costs and improved cohesion
across the organisation.
GE is one of the most remarkable
examples of a large established company taking hold of change rather than
becoming a victim of it, says Harry
West, chief executive at frog. The
leadership at GE recognised that design had a vital role to play in its business transformation.

DESIGN THINKING
NAT SONES

LI
S

MARGOT JAMES

Chief executives who want to drive change should consider putting design thinking to work across the
entire organisation, and challenge ideas of leadership and power within their business

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Following the economic crash of
2007/8, American conglomerate GE
needed to refocus its industrial businesses. Despite evolving into a formidable software company, it was vulner-

The future chief executive should

challenge boardrooms, bring
about cultural change, break bad
habits and put inclusivity at the
top of the agenda

Good design is still good for business

he ubiquity of internet access has

changed the rules of business.
The world wide web not only gave
people a low-cost way to connect, but
it accelerated the pace of innovation,
and led to the advent of smartphones
and social networks.
Suddenly, customers could provide
immediate feedback on products and
services, and seamlessly share their
opinions with their friends. Meanwhile,
the sleek operating systems consumers enjoyed on their mobile devices
exploded their expectations around
user experience.
This trend has shifted control to
consumers, creating a challenging
new business environment. Looking
for ways to respond, chief executives
are finding that they can take a designers approach to new product creation
and adapt it to their job of leading
change across an organisation.
Over the last 40 years, design
has evolved from being the domain
of a few talented individuals to a
well-established team process. It is
now an essential part of business
transformation, with companies
embracing design thinking to navigate todays disruptions.

Bringing diversity
into boardrooms

TEST

CHIEF EXECUTIVES
LEARN TO INNOVATE
BY THINKING LIKE
DESIGNERS

COLUMN

MAT
ER
IA

OPINION

PR

OT
OT
YP

PROTOTYPE
Build real, tactile
representations
for a range of
your ideas

I DE

DEFINE
Combine all your
research and observe
where your users
problems exist

E
AT
IDEATE
Generate a
range of crazy,
creative ideas

EXPLORE

Source: Nielsen Norman Group

for lean programmes, where the emphasis is on the removal of unnecessary action to optimise productivity.
And design thinking is critical in shaping the entire
organisation for the future of digital transformation.
Its critical to ensuring optimum
flow of data into analytics processes to inform decisions and
empower actions; to continually
ensuring people and users are kept
at the centre of workflow and interactions; to balanced technology
distribution, cloud architecture
for example; to cross-functional
working that ensures unified brand
and business action; to the simplification of products, services and
user interfaces; and to the creation
of smoother, straight-through pro-

cesses and the structure of digital

ecosystems around an organisation.
Design-led companies, such as Apple, Coca-Cola, IBM, Nike and P&G,
outperform the market. For companies such as Airbnb, Path, Netflix,
design thinking means analysing
problems from a human, aesthetic
and holistic point of view, and helps
improve product while radically rejuvenating the structure and performance of the organisation.
Most of these organisations are
typified by the energy of their
customer engagement and digital
transformation strategies, product
design programme, and startup,
design-prototype-test,
fail-fast
and learn mindsets. But theyre
also typified by a different kind
of leadership.

Most major organisations still

have complex leadership structures
filled with complex titles. Todays
naturally design-thinking businesses tend to have flatter, simpler
power structures because its simpler, keeps the business from being
top-heavy, keeps leaders closer to
the workflow and creative, innovative process, people and customers
that are the core of value, and enables responsiveness.
Flatter power structures are, in
every way, more fit for purpose in a
rapid, ambiguous, evolving digital
context where constant design and
redesign is business critical.
Assuming, however, that you as
a chief executive cannot simply
change the way the leadership structures around you work, you still

WHAT DESIGN MEANS IN DIFFERENT SECTORS

RETAIL

BANKING

MANUFACTURING

HEALTHCARE

Emphasis is on experience design,

blending physical, digital and
cognitive interactions. Customer
journey, multichannel strategy
and supply
chain must be
designed into
each other
seamlessly.

Major banks, surrounded by flexible

digital players and intermediates
like PayPal, are driving design
thinking to customer experiences
through real-time data and
predictive personal
products, and
inside the business
to smooth out
processes and
innovate.

Using smart data, bringing product and

supply into the same process creates
more variants faster. Products are
becoming data streams and physical or
digital things. The internet of things is
enabling manufacturers
to design more
extended relationships
with users, for instance
in connected cars
and thermostats.

Redesigning care experiences

improves patient outcomes and
makes care centres more efficient.
Driving data across silos of care
ensures consistent treatment
through clinical
experiences that
make patients part
of care.

Design-led
companies,
such as Apple,
Coca-Cola, IBM,
Nike and P&G,
outperform
the market
have to make the decisions that will
future-proof and drive the business
forward in a more effectively designed, shaped and innovative way.
To do this in a way that will drive design-centred thinking depends on
three things.
Attracting
disruptive,
design-minded leaders changes the
C-suite to drive relevance. Only 6
per cent of organisations around the
world currently have chief digital officers. Fewer have chief data officers.
Also lagging behind are leaders for
customers, innovation, value, vision, even disruption or experiences.
While you have a C-Suite, begin to fill
it with non-traditional roles that will
drive design thinking to the centre of
decision-making.
Also build design-centric traits.
Its incumbent on chief executives
looking to make this change happen to learn the lessons of leaders
such as Elon Musk, Satya Nadella
and Jeff Bezos. They act as catalysts
for creativity and communicate big
ideas simply; believe in innovation,
failure and prototyping; work to
solve big challenges and are optimistic about them; are not afraid to
break models to create new things;
and know they are part of the design not above it.
Thirdly, create design-obsessed
culture. Ultimately, everything
comes back to driving behaviours,
actions and relationships to create
new forms of engagement, experiences and innovation. Driving
design culture, promoting and inspiring it with real belief and passion, as well as promoting change
across the business means the
organisation becomes a single,
shaped and aimed unit with belief
in itself.
This drive, to bring together the
principles of design around the
entire organisation to ensure constant forward progress, innovation
and competitiveness the mobilisation and weaponisation of
culture is perhaps, in a digital
business context, the most vital
leadership role a modern chief executive must perform.
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20

THE FUTURE CEO

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01 / 12 / 2016

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