Charlotte Maybury
Senior Manager - Prism Cosec
Introduction and what your role is at EQ.
I am a Senior Manager in the Prism Cosec team, which is part of EQ Advisory. I joined the team in April this year, having spent the first 11 years of my career working in-house. I act as company secretary to a portfolio of mainly AIM and main market listed companies. This includes attending Board meetings and advising the Board on corporate governance, managing AGMs, drafting Annual Reports, assisting with market announcements, and monitoring and recording share dealing carried out by directors and senior managers. I was also involved in an IPO in the summer.
What office are you located at and tell us something special about this location?
I am actually a remote worker, so spend the majority of my time working from home in the Oxfordshire countryside. However, as a team we meet at the EQ office in Moorgate, London once a month and I also travel to client meetings which can be anywhere! In the last couple of months I have travelled to London, Bracknell, Kingston-upon-Thames and will shortly be going to Coventry.
One of the great things about working from home is I have been able to build regular exercise into the working week. I completed Couch to 5k in August and am still getting out to go on a morning run before work 2-3 times a week (admittedly this has fallen to once a week last week as the cold rainy days are not so motivating!). It also means I have more time at home for things like cooking the dinner and being here when my children get home from school. EQ has a strong culture of wellbeing and is very supportive of colleagues wanting to keep fit – we all have access to the Vitality Health app and a free health assessment yearly.
What’s happened in your career to this point
I left university with a 1st in Law, with the intention of continuing studying and becoming an academic. However, being a people person, the lonely PhD life was not for me and so I quit after six months, which was one of the hardest decisions I have made to date.
I started my governance career in the NHS after seeing a job advertised that wanted someone who had a law degree. Having no idea what a Company Secretary was I took the role which was somewhat of a baptism of fire, as within only a few weeks of joining I found myself in sole charge of the Company Secretary function (one person – me!). I truly believe this experience made me more resilient and it is when I fell in love with the role. I haven’t looked back!
After the NHS I spent the rest of my pre-EQ career in Financial Services and was afforded some brilliant opportunities. Two things I am most proud of: creating a governance framework for use in an emergency scenario where a bank has gone bust; and delivering the first fully online AGM in Financial Services.
What do you like about EQ
I really like working for EQ. Moving from in-house to professional services means my work is now so varied! I am getting a really broad range of experience: from AGMs and Annual Reports, full suites of Board and Committee meetings, share schemes, mergers & acquisitions, IPOs – lots of things that rarely came my way in-house. I am also learning a lot more about the ‘share ecosystem’ and how all the different teams at EQ support our clients in different ways. And there has to be something in working for an organisation where everyone knows what a company secretary is and does!
What’s your biggest EQ achievement
I obviously have not been at EQ long but, so far, I would call out the IPO that I worked on in the summer which involved a UK listing for a non-UK registered entity. This required liaising with advisors in many different roles, including different jurisdictions, so it felt like a real achievement when the listing was successful.
What you are looking forward to in the future at EQ
I am looking forward to continuing to learn new things, work in new industries and become a more rounded company secretary and governance professional.
Do you have a fun fact or hobby about yourself?
I am two quarters German as I have a German grandparent on each side of my family. I still carry on German traditions in my family, particularly at Christmas, which my children love as it means they get extra gifts and treats! I am proud to share this heritage with them and we visit and are still in contact with my grandfather’s extended family in Germany – we visited them only last year. I am waiting to hear whether I have been successful in obtaining dual citizenship. Embarrassingly I don’t speak any German – perhaps I should join Duolingo as a new hobby!
A big thank you to Charlotte for sharing her thoughts with us.