CGPro Network: The Corporate Governance Professionals Network

In celebrating the launch of CGPro’s breakfast events, Network Chair - Anne-Marie Clarke -  explains; 

Alex Couter, Assistant Company Secretary and Rafael Lara, Trainee Company Secretarial Assistant from the National Grid Company Secretariat team, shared their key highlights from the event.

Julian Baddeley, Group Company Secretary, National Grid plc: Linear career paths are rarely commonplace as your career can often be a winding “yellow-brick road”. Varied experiences and saying “yes” to new challenges help career progression and development. Rotational exposures to work cultivate different skillsets. It can be hard finding the right talent and organisations have a role to play in developing future generations of company secretaries. At National Grid this includes a graduate placement role within the Secretariat and involvement in initiatives such as the mentoring scheme at the University of Portsmouth for company secretarial students sponsored internally by Alex Couter (Assistant Company Secretary, National Grid).

Chair key takeaway: Saying “Yes” to new challenges.

Mary Bonsor, Founder, Flex Legal: Flex Legal traineeships help candidates from lower socio-economic backgrounds to find an entry route into the profession. Having varied entry routes improve social mobility, create opportunities and encourage diversity of thought. Most graduates are unaware company secretarial roles exist and building an earlier awareness of the profession is essential.

Chair key takeaway: The importance of the profession supporting social mobility.

Charlotte Maybury, Senior Manager, EQ Prism Cosec emphasised the value of EQ’s advisory service and how junior team members are given rare exposure to diverse types of work when undertaking client-facing responsibilities. For instance, work such as IPOs and liquidations, which are unique events in a corporate lifecycle. The use of skills matrices aligned to the CGI competency framework, help identify and address capability gaps amongst the team. It is important to remain adaptable when faced with new challenges and demonstrate confidence.

Chair key takeaway: The value of junior members getting exposure to a variety of diverse work.

Anne-Marie Clarke, Industry Director, EQ Registration Services highlighted the importance of dedicating resource for horizon scanning, to support everyone to understand legislative and regulatory changes and the implications for their roles and business. Horizon scanning at EQ is used to support colleagues and insights shared with clients through the EQ Bulletin.

Chair key takeaway: Importance of supporting one another with what’s on the horizon.

Laura Higgins, Founder, The CoSec Coach

Coaching helps people overcome professional and personal hurdles. Governance professionals experience a multi-faceted role with a variety of demanding stakeholders. With a coach there is time to slow down, gain deeper insights, and develop strategies as to how to become the best version of yourself. Mentoring, in contrast, provides people with access to expertise and experience.  Both Laura and Anne-Marie are voluntary mentors at the Women’s Chartered Governance Association. They discussed the importance and value for mentors and mentees.

The audience was left with two questions:

1. How much time do we allocate as professionals to seek and attend opportunities for personal and professional development?
2. What would coaching solve for you?

Chair key takeaway: Carving out time for yourself enables you to focus on what you need - wherever you are in your career.