Tech / Board View | Kate Swann

27 Feb

One of the first female FTSE CEOs, Kate Swann led WHSmith and SSP, and now Chairs Moonpig PLC, Beijer Ref, IVC Evidensia, Parques Reunidos and Alzheimer’s Research UK. Here she shares her insights on working with CEOs and founders across growth and public boards.

She shares her insights on helping CEOs and founders achieve growth, hire well and build a great culture - and what it takes to lead your board through a successful IPO.

What excites you most about Chairing a company?

I love to see businesses grow and perform. It's extremely fulfilling to help them do that. For me, it’s not about the networking or the lunches - fundamentally it’s about helping businesses grow and maximise their potential.

With a long career across lots of businesses, I’ve fallen into many traps myself. It’s great to share that with others, it would be a shame for all of my experience to die with me!

As a Chair, you get to have a special relationship with the CEO with the ability to discuss, engage and work things through - for me, that’s valuable and worthwhile.

How do you work with your founders and CEOs?

One of the things I’ve learned is that as they're all different, there’s no standard formula. As a Chair you’ll do the best job if you can figure out what your CEO needs to run the business. Part of the skill is to work out what they're good at and what bothers them. You have to ask: what does the business need to do and where can I help you in that process?

As Chair you’re there to support and stretch founders and CEOs. It could be that a strategy may have been appropriate last year, but is it still appropriate when you’re a £20bn vs £20m company? You can help them spot issues before they happen so they’re not on the back foot. As Chair, I can do the best job helping them bounce stuff around, sharing experience and giving reassurance when things are difficult.

If it’s founder-led we may work out when the business has changed enough to start running things differently. Maintaining culture is a hugely important challenge for many founders. They will often talk about having been employee #4, but when you have 30,000 employees you have to let go a bit. If culture is what happens when your hands are not on the wheel, founders worry that if they don’t make every hire, the culture will be lost. I can show them if you hire a strong leadership team who share your values, then founders can let go of the wheel with confidence.

How does Chairing a tech board compare with a listed PLC?

With a private or growth company you can get more involved, there’s less governance and you’re more actively helping the business to develop. On a FTSE board, there’s a tighter framework for the board and more governance.

Chairing a growth company board is a bit like seeing a child grow-up, going from baby, to toddler, to school age, teen and then adult - that’s satisfying. You’re working with founders where there are usually many transitions to be made and helping them work these through is really satisfying.

I think more listed-company boards could learn from that fast-growth approach, they can get bogged down in the process and forget the wider context - and the need for speed. If you can apply an action-oriented approach to a public company, in my experience, you’ll perform better.

The holy grail would be to take the best of one type of board and use it to benefit the other - more board members should do that.

Any advice on Chairing well?

Learning to listen well and involve all of the board in discussions - meaning you’ll get the most out of experience around the table - is critical.

You also need to know when to scale something up - or not. As Chair, it’s important to know whether to let an issue slide or if it needs closer inspection - you have to pick and choose. Developing a good relationship with the executive team will allow you to look at things in different ways. It means that when something isn’t working quite right, you can have an open and honest conversation and bring a different view. If you’re logical and have a low ego, you can facilitate a good discussion in a constructive way.

Do female Chairs have an edge?

I think many women have less ego which can be helpful as a Chair. I have zero interest in antler-clashing with the CEO. One of my CEOs says I get the best out of him when I mother him - and a bit of cajoling perhaps! Having been a working mum and having experienced many types of businesses has been really helpful - I’ve gained a decent sized tool set in terms of the different styles that I can flex.

What’s your advice to a CEO and board planning an IPO?

I’ve been through a number of IPOs. It’s really good to have done it once, it’s a tremendously useful learning curve.

I’d start with advice to the CEO: the public markets can be quite a shock and work differently. If you IPO with plans and numbers, you need to be sure you can deliver. The markets won't appreciate missed promises - you end up with zero reputation. If you make commitments, you’re expected to deliver on them - if you don’t, it’s very hard to build back trust and respect.

Then, for the boards - a public board can be quite different to a private board. Getting a breadth of skills can be super useful - from listed to growth. Ideally you’ll have a group of people who don’t look just like you - but tick all the boxes with the right traits and experience for the public markets. They should hold similar values and fundamentally be interested in business - with no room for showboating. Try to get as diverse a board as possible in terms of experience. Don't underestimate the sheer amount of grunt-work a board needs to put in for an IPO - the amount of documentation required is enormous, you need to find a way for it not to cripple the business and have everyone sucked into that.

Another important thing is not to be afraid to ask awkward questions. Before an IPO you may be sat in meetings with 20 bankers, all discussing the listing plans, it can be quite intimidating. As a board member, you have to understand what’s going on - if you don't agree with something, or don’t understand - ask them to run it past you again. You have to be a bit brave, but it’s your name on the documentation, so you have to make sure it sits right with you.

Finally, as tempting as it is to think of the IPO as the end: it’s not the end, it’s the start of something else! You need to look past the listing itself to be successful. A successful IPO is when you’ve delivered the first three years of good numbers.

Rachel Ingram