Journal
Notes from the desk.
Occasional writing on cross-border governance, female leadership in boardrooms, and the quieter parts of running regulated financial services groups.
- Female leadership · Career · 4 min
The case for sitting on a smaller board before a larger one
A regulated subsidiary, a private company, an operating charity. The apprenticeship most professional women have not yet been told to seek.
Read - Governance · Cross-border · 5 min
Three jurisdictions, one operating model
What stays constant when you build a private holding group across the UK, the Bahamas, and the UAE.
Read - Audit · Governance · 4 min
On the quiet competence of internal audit
The function that gets the least attention relative to the value it produces, and what good internal audit actually looks like.
Read - Boardroom · Family office · 4 min
Notes on chairing a private board where shareholders and management overlap
Founder-led groups, family-owned holdings, institutionalising partnerships. The separation has to be invented rather than inherited.
Read - Strategy · Governance · 4 min
Why a strong COO is more useful, most of the time, than a charismatic CEO
An unfashionable answer to a question I get at conferences, and the regulated-business case behind it.
Read - Investor relations · Career · 4 min
What I learned about investor relations from listening to private banking clients
Four habits picked up on the desk that I have carried into institutional IR ever since.
Read - Audit · Boardroom · 4 min
On running an audit committee when the auditor is new to the firm
The first year of a new external auditor is harder than most chairs admit. Three things to manage at once.
Read - Female leadership · Boardroom · 4 min
What the FTSE Women Leaders Review still does not say
The 40 percent target has moved the headline number. The pipeline beneath it is the harder problem.
Read - Governance · Compliance · 4 min
Why a regulated firm's incident review is more revealing than its annual report
The honesty differential between the two documents is enormous. Read the incident summary first.
Read - Governance · Strategy · 3 min
On the difference between governance and bureaucracy
Good governance is quieter than bureaucracy. Knowing which one you have built is a useful question to ask.
Read - Boardroom · Governance · 3 min
On succession planning for boards that have not yet had a single change of seat
Long-tenured boards do not know how good they are at changing a member. The risk is bigger than it sounds.
Read - Career · Strategy · 3 min
Why I keep asking new senior hires about their last bad week
An interview question I have been using for seven years, and what the four answers reveal.
Read - Culture · Career · 4 min
Why an Art Business certificate sits next to my CISI diploma
On studying with Christie's Education, and what art markets quietly teach a finance career.
Read - Compliance · Governance · 4 min
On reading rulebooks for what they do not say
The silences in regulatory text are where the supervisor's real expectations live.
Read - Family office · Governance · 3 min
What family offices teach a finance career about discretion
Three years inside a multi-family office, and a working definition of discretion I had not met anywhere else.
Read - Governance · Strategy · 3 min
On the difference between board reporting and management reporting
Two products built from the same data, sometimes confused, and what each is for.
Read - Governance · Boardroom · 3 min
Why I read the appendices first
An inversion in board-paper reading, and what the back of the pack usually contains.
Read - Boardroom · Governance · 3 min
Notes on writing for the board pack
What makes a director read the second page, and how to earn the first.
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