Thank you all, 2021 here we come.

Just as it has been a challenging year for so many of us personally, it has of course also been challenging for a large number of businesses, Birchwood Knight included. CEOs often hit the pause button on hiring new people when the economy suffers a shock, and that was certainly the case earlier this year. As we cut our cloth accordingly, we had to take some tough decisions, and none bigger than saying goodbye to some brilliant colleagues.  

But thanks to the support of so many of you – friends, colleagues, clients, candidates – we have kept moving forward. We have taken the opportunity to get the business match fit for 2021 and beyond. We’ve invested in making our processes and customer experience for clients and candidates even better than before. We’ve challenged ourselves to do something meaningful to address the lack of diversity in corporate affairs, and we’ve started to build back our team with two exciting new hires in Kate Dyer and Chloe Downes. We also welcomed Lauren Tarbit back from maternity leave.

In July we published a report based on interviews with 30 corporate affairs leaders, ‘If only I’d known that then…’. It opened up lots of interesting conversations with business leaders on everything from the importance of engaging with employees in times of uncertainty and what to do with money received from government support schemes when profits hold up, through to how to influence government policy when Covid and Brexit dominate the agenda. Whatever else this year has shown us, I believe the importance and value of a good corporate affairs team to organisations, their leaders, shareholders, employees and society has become clearer than ever.

To everyone who has supported us this year, in so many different ways, thank you.