Veredus host ‘Women on Board’ interim management networking event
Attended by over 200 professional interim managers, Veredus hosted their annual summer networking event on 23rd July in the delightful setting of the St Stephens Club, Queen Anne’s Gate, London. The theme of the evening was around the recent Lord Davies report on women’s under representation on boards of both large and small companies. Veredus were delighted to welcome two very eminent experts on the subject, whom both gave very passionate speeches on the importance of women’s increased presence on boards.
- Professor Jayne Chase whom has held board roles at a number of high profile companies such as Digital, Oracle, Nortel, Cadence, Siemens, Unisys and Logica
- Frances O’Grady, Deputy General Secretary at the TUC
Sue Freeth, Director of Welfare, at the Royal British Legion (RBL) then gave a very short presentation on the progress the RBL has made in providing coaching and mentoring services for personnel leaving the armed forces and encouraged many of the 200 Interim Managers present to get involved in giving up some of their time to help people leaving the forces adjust into civilian life.
Carly Chynoweth from the Sunday Times was also in attendance on the evening.
Left to right: Jayne Chace-Board level Interim and NED across Private Sector, Clive Sexton-Director IM Veredus, Frances O'Grady-TUC Deputy General, Secretary, Roger Russell-Managing Partner Veredus, Sue Freeth-Director The Royal British Legion
John Laycock, Partner of the Interim Management team at Veredus commented on the evening:’ We were delighted that so many interim managers were able to join us for our annual Summer Networking event to welcome two such high-profile speakers on women and their current under-representation on boards. Clearly there is a long way to go before there is parity in this debate but we were greatly encouraged by both Jayne and Frances’ positive comments that the Davies report has given the current under-representation a much higher profile. We were also thrilled that the Royal British Legion was able to publicise their current work on assisting armed forces leavers return to work, to our interim community who were present, many of whom will now give up some of their time to work with personnel leaving the armed force’.
Clive Sector, Director of the Interim Commercial/Private sector practice at Veredus also commented: ‘As Lord Davies stated in his report which was contributed to by some highly influential women themselves, we cannot wait 70 years to get it right. But it is not just at Board level it is vital that we have gender equality not only at board level, but across all levels be it in the Private, Public or Public/Private interface.
I surveyed many Interim Managers as to whether they would contribute some time to help returning service women/men and all stated they would, which says a lot about the Interim Community, whether it is one hour a year or a week every little helps in today’s world. We look forward to using The Royal British Legion to make this happen’.
Left to right: Jayne Chace-Board level Interim and NED across Private Sector, Frances O'Grady-TUC Deputy General Secretary