Inside the boardroom - the view from the very top

Ben Mathews FCIS, Group Company Secretary of HSBC Holdings plc - and shortly to become Group Company Secretary of BP p.l.c. - spoke this week to the Leadership Development Programme for Company Secretaries in central London. In front of a packed room Ben, undoubtedly one of the UK's top company secretaries, talked about his career journey, and the lessons he had learnt on the way.

Ben made clear that the company secretary position offered a fantastic range and breadth of opportunities. At the heart of the role lay the importance of building relationships, managing personalities, understanding the company's stakeholders, and their needs, and generally keeping the plates spinning.

Ben made the telling point that companies didn't look after themselves, and that this was one of the principal roles of the company secretary. As the 'keeper of the company's secret's', the company secretary had the responsibility to protect the organisation's history, as well as create the assets which the company could leverage to add value.

Ben felt that the company secretary should seek to find their voice, and learn how and when to use it. They should be a sea of calm inside the organisation, particularly when navigating through conflict situations. Often the company secretary was the only person bringing the whole thing together, and with senior colleagues often just wanting someone to talk to, the company secretary's position at the centre of the business nexus made them an ideal confidante. In these conversations, and in all their work, the company secretary needed to be humble, and respectful.

Ben stressed the importance of never taking anything for granted - 'assume nothing' - and of constantly reassuring stakeholders, both inside and outside the boardroom. Particularly critical was building the trust relationship with the board chair and the (non) executives.

He was a firm believer in surrounding himself with the best possible people. Company secretaries were never too young nor too old to learn, and one of the things they had to learn was the ability to say no, and occasionally put themselves first to maintain some form of work life balance. In an exchange of views with dinner guests, Ben said that he did not expect his staff to answer emails at the weekends, although sometimes issues were urgent, and occasional weekend working at such a senior position in such a large institution was inevitable and unavoidable.

Ben believed in the concept of the company secretary being the Chief Governance Officer. While building governance capability in the organisation, he or she could not be expected to have oversight of the governance of the whole organisation - the company secretary's emphasis needed to be on the organisation's corporate governance. Throughout, they needed to be able to espouse the significance of the 'governance true north', doing the right thing for the entity.

Company secretaries needed to be able to challenge with courage - Ben recounted the anecdote of how he had been firm with a Finance Director, and how the relationship between them had matured as a consequence. Company secretaries also needed to be agile, while being realistic, and understanding the boundaries within which they operated.

In terms of key activities, Ben talked about the importance of working with the Chair to formulate the board's agendas, and reviewing the effectiveness of meetings once they were over.

In response to the question about how Ben had managed to make the transition from working in two senior extractive industry sector roles into the top job inside a bank, Ben expressed the view that boards generally had common expectations about the advice they were seeking, and that offering professional advice was based on using governance skills, knowledge and experience to ask the right questions, and then provide the solutions.

In closing, Ben advised his audience not to underestimate the scope of the role, and encouraged guests to value the qualification and appreciate its importance.

Our guest speaker at the next networking dinner will be Luke Thomas FCIS. Luke was formerly Company Secretary at William Hill, a FTSE100 company, and is now Company Secretary at Softcat plc, a technology services company.

If you would like to know more about the Leadership Development Programme and the networking dinners, including to attend the next dinner to hear Luke speak, please contact Seamus Gillen at [email protected] and +44 (0) 7739 088208.