Enter the Boardroom with Nurole

Nurole

Enter the Boardroom lifts the veil on the secretive world of boards, giving you the information you need to get more board roles and become better board members. Join Nurole CEO Oliver Cummings as he sits down with the extraordinary people shaping today's and tomorrow's boardrooms. 

  1. 6 DAYS AGO

    139. Fiona Hathorn: How and why to get board roles: mastering applications, transitioning to paid roles and building a plural career

    Fiona Hathorn is CEO and co-founder of Women on Boards UK, now known as WB Directors and recently acquired by Nurole. Listen to the conversation to hear about: What motivated Fiona to help more women get board roles (1:40); One woman’s success story that illustrates how to get board roles (5:32); The benefits of taking on external board positions as an executive (8:15); The biggest misconception CEOs and CHROs have about board positions (16:02); The most common challenges faced by board members today (18:35); Why culture is such a challenge for boards and what to do about it (21:24); Key advice for those at the start of their board journeys (25:24); The most common mistakes people make when applying for board positions (28:40); How to transition from pro bono to paid board roles (30:02), and ⚡the Lightning round ⚡(33:17) Host: Oliver Cummings Producer: Will Felton Music: Kate Mac Audio: Nick Kold Email: podcast@nurole.com Web: https://www.nurole.com/nurole-podcast-enter-the-boardroom

    42 min

  2. 3 SEPT

    138. Steve Rigby: Risk & acquisitions - the growth story of the Rigby family business from £0 to £4bn annual revenues

    Steve Rigby is Co-CEO of Rigby Group, one of the UK's largest family businesses and in the top 500 largest family companies in the world. Listen to the conversation to hear about: Three key career moments that have shaped Steve’s boardroom thinking (2:02) NED lessons from the retail sector and financial crisis (5:01) How to survive a potential future of inflation, rising prices and crashing assets (9:29) Steve’s playbook for growing and selling businesses (11:51) Lessons on internationalisation (13:40) The best markets to aim for (15:29) The one big inflection point per decade of Steve’s career (17:43) Return on net assets as a north star metric (21:50) Steve’s risk-effort-reward-fun framework (23:33) Why Steve has shifted from a scientific to intuitive assessment of risk (27:03) Key lessons from 50+ acquisitions (30:59) When Steve mistakenly overruled advisors (33:17) How boards help navigate family in family businesses (35:23) ⚡The lightning round ⚡(37:58)  Host: Oliver Cummings Producer: Will Felton Music: Kate Mac Audio: Nick Kold Email: podcast@nurole.com Web: https://www.nurole.com/nurole-podcast-enter-the-boardroom

    42 min

  3. 27 AUG

    137. Baroness Dido Harding: NHS Test & Trace & the TalkTalk Cyber Attack — Board Leadership in the Public Eye

    Baroness Dido Harding is a former Chair of NHS Improvement, Executive Chair of NHS Test & Trace, NED at the Bank of England, and CEO of TalkTalk Telecom Group plc.  In this conversation, we cover:  • How Dido handled Ofcom scrutiny after taking on her first CEO role at TalkTalk (01:50)  • Lessons learned from the TalkTalk cyber attack (08:21)  • The value of functional experts on boards (24:23)  • Governance lessons from leading NHS Test & Trace (26:56)  • ⚡ Lightning Round ⚡ (33:18) Host: Oliver Cummings Producer: Will Felton Music: Kate Mac Audio: Nick Kold Email: podcast@nurole.com Web: https://www.nurole.com/nurole-podcast-enter-the-boardroom

    37 min

  4. 20 AUG

    136. Jock Lennox: How to be a listed Chair and get the most from audit committees

    Jock Lennox is Senior Independent Director and Audit Committee Chair at Barratt Developments plc, and Chair of Johnson Service Group plc and Clarion Housing Group. Listen to his thoughts on: the three most definitive experiences in your board career (2:01); approaching uncertainty in the boardroom (6:59); shifting boardroom thinking to focus on what’s possible rather than a binary sense of right and wrong (10:21); how to challenge the executive as a board member (11:47); the best way to harness cognitive diversity (14:40); where boards add the most value (16:51); getting the most from strategy days (20:19); what separates good audit committees from bad ones (24:42); how audit committees can assess and influence culture (32:21); getting past people telling you what you want to hear (37:28); when Jock has misjudged an individual — and what he learned (40:50); and the ⚡Lightning Round⚡ (43:54). Host: Oliver Cummings Producer: Will Felton Music: Kate Mac Audio: Nick Kold Email: podcast@nurole.com Web: https://www.nurole.com/nurole-podcast-enter-the-boardroom

    48 min

  5. 13 AUG

    135. Dr. Margaret Heffernan (2/2): How boards make the best decisions: agendas, wilful blindness and super chickens

    Dr. Margaret Heffernan is author of seven books, including Wilful Blindness, Uncharted and Embracing Uncertainty. A former CEO of InfoMation Corp, ZineZone Corp, and iCast Corp, she was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2024. In this episode, we discuss: Balancing rigidity with flexibility in board meetings (1:35) What great board agendas look like (6:47) When ice -breakers help, and when they don’t (8:35) Helpful versus unhelpful challenge (10:58) Wilful blindness - and why smart people suffer from it (13:32) How to mitigate wilful blindness (16:36) Collaboration versus competition - lessons from The Human Genome Project (18:39) The super-chicken problem, and what should boards can learn from it (21:32) And the ⚡Lightning Round⚡(24:06)  Host: Oliver Cummings Producer: Will Felton Music: Kate Mac Audio: Nick Kold Email: podcast@nurole.com Web: https://www.nurole.com/nurole-podcast-enter-the-boardroom

    33 min

  6. 6 AUG

    134. Dr. Margaret Heffernan (1/2): How boards make the best decisions: cooling-off periods, embracing uncertainty and deep hanging out

    Dr. Margaret Heffernan is author of seven books, including Wilful Blindness, Uncharted and Embracing Uncertainty. A former CEO of InfoMation Corp, ZineZone Corp, and iCast Corp, she was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2024. In this episode, we discuss: What uncertainty does to board decision-making (2:47) Practical ways boards can mitigate it (6:25) Squaring “take your time” with decisiveness (11:10) What a robust boardroom decision process looks like (14:36) Being agile without flip-flopping (18:13) When and how to use cooling-off periods (21:22) What deep hanging out means in practice (22:37) Absorbing context beyond datapoints (25:38) The value of unstructured time in the boardroom (27:54) An example of reaching the right answer without an agenda (32:10) Host: Oliver Cummings Producer: Will Felton Music: Kate Mac Audio: Nick Kold Email: podcast@nurole.com Web: https://www.nurole.com/nurole-podcast-enter-the-boardroom

    36 min

  7. 30 JUL

    133. Peter Clark: 200 years’ growth - inside the Clarks’ family business

    Peter Clark is a NED at Clarks. Tune in to hear his thoughts on: What makes a great i-NED on a family board? (2:15) What should you look for when recruiting NEDs in a family business? (5:27) What questions do you ask when interviewing a NED candidate? (8:07) What mistakes have you made when hiring NEDs in the past? (11:18) How has Clarks remained a family business for 7 generations? (13:39) What is a family council? (16:01) What discussions do you have on the council? (18:39) How do you navigate a professional relationship with a family member? (21:22) How do you select family members to join the council? (22:28) Where do you think you have added the most value as a NED? (26:42) Why did you bring outside investment into Clarks? (28:10) How did the relationship between the Clarks family and the business evolve post investment? (32:28) What advice would you give to other family businesses looking at external investment as an option? (34:03) And ⚡ The Lightning Round ⚡ (39:19) Host: Oliver Cummings Producer: Will Felton Music: Kate Mac Audio: Nick Kold Email: podcast@nurole.com Web: https://www.nurole.com/nurole-podcast-enter-the-boardroom

    43 min

  8. 23 JUL

    132. Carl-Peter Forster: Forget Governance. Great Boards Focus on Strategy, People, and Execution.

    Carl-Peter Forster is Chair of Vesuvius plc and Keller Group plc. Tune in to hear his thoughts on: What experiences from your executive career have shaped your non-executive career? (2:09) How would you counsel a new CEO coming into a business looking to set up their own team? (7:06) What lessons did you learn from the General Motors crisis? (10:12) What did you learn from your time at Tata Motors? (13:56) How do you advise a headstrong founder? (17:11) How do you navigate different business cultures? (21:16) What's been the most difficult board conversation you’ve had as a CEO? (22:36) What frameworks best help a new NED navigate an industrial company? (26:57) How useful is spending money on R&D? (31:05) What risks should boards be most alert to in the defence industry? (35:47) And the ⚡Lightning Round⚡ (40:48) Host: Oliver Cummings Producer: Will Felton Music: Kate Mac Audio: Nick Kold Email: podcast@nurole.com Web: https://www.nurole.com/nurole-podcast-enter-the-boardroom

    44 min
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4.9
out of 5
59 Ratings

About

Enter the Boardroom lifts the veil on the secretive world of boards, giving you the information you need to get more board roles and become better board members. Join Nurole CEO Oliver Cummings as he sits down with the extraordinary people shaping today's and tomorrow's boardrooms. 

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