Chairmen Create Value, Sir Anthony Habgood Tells Andrew Lynch
Sticking to the agenda: meet The Sunday Times March 31, 2019 NED AWARDS Sticking to the agenda: meet the stars of the boardroom Chairmen create value, Sir Anthony Habgood tells Andrew Lynch TOM STOCKILL The inevitable question, then, is how the food group Geest, when it still had FTSE 100 much a top chairman can, or should, do. bananas, he has witnessed huge changes Sir Anthony Habgood “I would argue that there was a huge in the boardroom. Habgood cites four amount of benefit in doing Bunzl and main differences: diversity, in particular Whitbread [together],” said Habgood. gender diversity; internationalisation; “You really know what’s going on. Your rationalisation, with bigger boards falling antennae are really well tuned in. In the out of favour (“You never get any dia- past 14 years, I have done 40 man years as logue, no real control over what the man- a non-executive director. I have done agement does”); and professionalisation that reasonably comfortably — and rea- through education and qualifications. sonably successfully. But I don’t think The chairman he most admires, Sir you should do three public companies at Christopher Hogg, a pioneer of this pro- the same time.” fessionalisation, was one of the first busi- One of his key concerns as a chairman ness school graduates to go into industry. is about how best to allocate resources. “I probably talked to Chris the most “We focused Relx on information and when I was first being considered as a analytics, away from print magazines chairman,” said Habgood. “He had views and all sorts of other stuff,” he said.
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