Philip Beddows - The Silk Road Partnership

Guiding Light Author :  Philip Beddows Published in its original format in Legal Week (Training and Education), 3rd August 2007 During the past year or two, much has been written and spoken about the challenges facing lawyers who seek to pursue a career outside law, particularly those who seek a role on the board of a company. A recent letter to the editor of the Financial Times, written by a Birmingham lawyer in response to an article on how City lawyers could be more welcome on boards, was bold enough to state that City solicitors are simply not ‘businessmen’, and that the same could not be said of solicitors outside the City. I could hear the pencils being sharpened in reply, not as swords, but in written riposte to this inflammatory charge.  But if the Birmingham lawyer is right, the picture he painted in his letter is not always so for City solicitors. It is true that there are many lawyers who maintain close, high-level strategic relationships wit...

Moving on ...to a portfolio life   Author: Philip Beddows , Partner, The Silk Road Partnership   July 2012 An original and shorter version of this article was published in The Boardroom Magazine: September 2007. This more recent contribution to the topic was written in 2012 A personal business / career plan is as important as a business strategy for director-level executives, says Philip Beddows No senior boardroom executive gets through his or her career without having written, implemented and overseen a business plan or corporate strategy. However, I have yet to meet one who has as clearly a defined strategy for their career as they have for their business. Some may say, why should this matter – the only personal strategy a senior person should need is to over-deliver against the shareholders’ expectations on the bottom line? However the rapid pace of Corporate life means that CE...

Succession - beyond planning Author: Philip Beddows Published in The Boardroom Magazine: May 2007 The successor to the top job has more to do than merely move offices, says Philip Beddows Succession is not complete when a senior executive moves into a new boardroom role. The succession planning phase may well be over, but it is important not to fall into the trap of believing that the finish line has been crossed, instead one has to think in terms of arrival at the blocks ready to run the race. But before one gets to that stage, the critical issue is whether the selection has been well made, with a multiplicity of factors all considered and weighed together in order to result in the best possible decision. A talented individual cannot be selected for a role without consideration of factors such as how their selection will impact on the dynamics of the board and whether they are the right person for that role, in that particular organisation, at that particular point ...