The Boardroom Path

What happens when the world your board was built to govern no longer exists?
In this episode of The Boardroom Path, host Ralph Grayson speaks with Nik Gowing, founder of Think Unthink, former BBC World News presenter and co-author of Thinking the Unthinkable, about why boards are structurally unprepared for the scale and speed of disruption now unfolding. From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the 2026 Iran conflict, Nik draws on decades of frontline reporting and direct engagement with leaders to argue that zombie orthodoxes are blinding boards to existential threats.
With the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2026 ranking geoeconomic confrontation as the number one global risk and UK unemployment reaching a post-pandemic high of 5.2% amid accelerating AI-driven job losses, the conversation could not be more timely. Nik introduces the Pinball Principle — the idea that crises now cascade at speeds no board can control — and calls for heretical thinking, new mind muscle and a fundamental rethink of how often and how deeply boards engage with the realities confronting them.

(00:00) - Welcome to The Boardroom Path

(04:08) - Nik Gowing: From the Berlin Wall to the Boardroom

(05:59) - Are Boards Fundamentally Misreading the World?

(10:51) - AI, Mass Unemployment and a Coming Societal Implosion

(15:09) - The Pinball Principle: No Predictability, No Control

(18:38) - Are Boards Designed to Avoid Uncomfortable Truths?

(21:24) - Why Boards Are Getting Blindsided on Risk

(25:58) - Cyber Attacks, War Gaming and Saturday Morning Crises

(28:47) - Heretics in the Boardroom and Tearing Up the Rule Book

(33:56) - The Adversity We Are Not Prepared For

(37:00) - What Every Chair Should Ask at Their Next Meeting

(40:26) - Embracing Uncertainty: The Positive Way Forward

Nik Gowing: Nik Gowing is the founder and director of Think Unthinkable and co-author of Thinking the Unthinkable: A New Imperative for Leadership in the Digital Age. A former main news presenter for BBC World News (1996–2014), he spent 18 years at ITN as bureau chief in Rome and Warsaw and as Diplomatic Editor for Channel Four News, collecting a BAFTA for his coverage of martial law in Poland. Nik has reported from the front lines of major global crises including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the conflicts in former Yugoslavia and the events of 9/11. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a Visiting Professor at King's College London and a former member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Geo-Economics. He has advised the President of the UN General Assembly on leadership challenges and holds honorary doctorates from Exeter and Bristol universities. Most recently, he moderated high-level plenary sessions at the 2026 Villars Ocean Forum on planetary tipping points.Ralph Grayson: Ralph Grayson is a Partner in the Board Practice at Sainty Hird & Partners, bringing extensive experience in board-level recruitment, assessment, and advisory services. With a deep understanding of the corporate governance landscape, Ralph specialises in guiding senior executives as they transition into impactful boardroom careers. His thoughtful approach, combined with a passion for developing effective leaders, enables him to facilitate insightful conversations that equip aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors with the tools they need to succeed. Through The Boardroom Path, Ralph leverages his extensive professional network and expertise to empower listeners on their journey into the boardroom.
Episode Insights:
Boards are constrained by zombie orthodoxes — inherited assumptions about stability and predictability that no longer reflect reality — and what qualified leaders for their roles may now disqualify them from understanding the scale of disruption ahead.
The Pinball Principle captures how crises now cascade in unpredictable directions at speeds that outpace traditional governance structures, leaving boards feeling powerless but unable to admit it.
Risk and resilience registers are being artificially constrained, with some chief risk officers told to cap the number of risks they report, leaving existential threats outside the boundary fence.
Boards need heretics — people sanctioned to challenge consensus and think beyond established orthodoxies — valued as visionaries rather than treated as problems to be disposed of.
AI-driven disruption threatens a societal implosion, with mass unemployment, mortgage crises and a fundamental breakdown in the social contract happening not in decades but in months.

Action Points:
Build new mind muscle at board level: Challenge every board member to identify at least three assumptions they hold about the business environment that may no longer be valid. Create structured exercises that force directors to confront scenarios they instinctively resist, building the cognitive flexibility Gowing calls new mind muscle.
Tear up the quarterly meeting model: If your board meets once a quarter for two hours, it is operating on a cadence designed for a stable world. Increase the frequency of board engagement, even if virtually, to match the speed at which geopolitical, technological and societal risks are now materialising.
Uncap your risk register: Audit whether your risk and resilience framework is artificially constrained. If your chief risk officer can only list 20 risks, you are choosing blindness over preparedness. Expand the register to include geopolitical, AI-driven and societal risks that sit beyond the traditional boundary fence.
Appoint and protect your heretics: Identify individuals within the board and the C-suite who are willing to voice uncomfortable truths and sanction them to do so. Create a culture where challenging orthodoxy is rewarded, not career-ending, and where scenario planning includes events the organisation considers impossible.
Stress-test for Saturday morning crises: Model your response to a major disruption that lands outside business hours — a cyber attack, a geopolitical shock, a supply chain collapse. If your organisation cannot convene and act within hours, not days, you are not prepared for the speed of the current threat environment.

The Boardroom Path is the essential podcast for aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) navigating the journey from executive leadership to the boardroom. Hosted by Ralph Grayson, partner at Sainty Hird & Partners, each episode offers insightful conversations with industry leaders, seasoned board directors, and governance experts. Our guests share practical strategies, valuable perspectives, and actionable advice on how to effectively transition into board roles, maximise your impact, and build a rewarding NED career. 
Subscribe now, and take your first confident step along The Boardroom Path. Learn more about Sainty Hird & Partners at saintyhird.com.
The Boardroom Path is produced by Story Ninety-Four in Oxford, UK.

What do investors actually look for when they sit down with a board? And has stewardship lost its way in a sea of tick boxes and league tables?
In this episode of The Boardroom Path, host Ralph Grayson speaks with Kimberley Lewis, Head of Active Ownership at Schroders, one of the world's largest global asset managers. Kimberley leads Schroders' global stewardship strategy and works directly with chairs, CEOs and NEDs on governance, climate, human capital and geopolitics.
They explore why quality stewardship should feel like a partnership rather than a compliance exercise and why boards need more courage to explain rather than simply comply. The conversation covers the growing wave of shareholder activism in Europe, with a 44% year-on-year surge in UK companies targeted by activists in 2025, the impact of the US ESG backlash on UK engagement, and why Kimberley believes companies that double down on their principles will ultimately be vindicated.
From board composition and NED stock ownership to the balance between curiosity and technical expertise, this is a practical guide to what good governance looks like from the investor's chair.

(00:00) - Welcome to The Boardroom Path

(03:30) - From Law to Active Ownership: Kimberley's Career Path

(05:01) - What Good Stewardship Really Looks Like

(08:31) - Navigating the US ESG Backlash from London

(13:01) - The Rise of Shareholder Activism in Europe

(15:29) - Influence without Authority: Credibility in the Boardroom

(18:02) - Stewardship in 2026 and the Updated Blueprint

(21:24) - How Boards Handle Risk across Competing Themes

(24:33) - Should NEDs Own Stock?

(28:15) - Diversity, Refreshment and the Red Herring Debate

(32:51) - When Stewardship Becomes Confused with Compliance

(34:40) - The Future Board: Skills, Curiosity and Judgement

Kimberley Lewis: Kimberley Lewis is the Head of Active Ownership at Schroders, one of the world's largest global asset managers. She leads the firm's global stewardship strategy, overseeing how Schroders engages with boards and executive teams across listed and private markets on issues including corporate governance, climate change, human rights, human capital and geopolitics. A former lawyer in the United States, Kimberley pivoted into corporate responsibility roles at AstraZeneca and Pfizer before moving into investment stewardship, initially covering North American companies at a boutique ESG-integrated firm. She holds an MBA from London Business School and is a member of the International Corporate Governance Network.
Ralph Grayson: Ralph Grayson is a Partner in the Board Practice at Sainty Hird & Partners, bringing extensive experience in board-level recruitment, assessment, and advisory services. With a deep understanding of the corporate governance landscape, Ralph specialises in guiding senior executives as they transition into impactful boardroom careers. His thoughtful approach, combined with a passion for developing effective leaders, enables him to facilitate insightful conversations that equip aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors with the tools they need to succeed. Through The Boardroom Path, Ralph leverages his extensive professional network and expertise to empower listeners on their journey into the boardroom.
Resources & Links:
Schroders 2026 Engagement Blueprint
The State of Stewardship Tulchan Report
IA Stewardship Working Group Report
UK Stewardship Code 2026

Episode Insights:
Quality stewardship is a collaborative, research-driven partnership between investors and boards, not a tick-box compliance exercise driven by league tables or voting records.
The US ESG backlash is making stewardship harder but more important: companies are responding in very different ways, and those that double down on their principles are likely to be vindicated in the long run.
Shareholder activism is surging in Europe and the UK, and boards should treat large, long-term shareholders as trusted partners and engage with activist concerns early rather than waiting for a crisis.
The UK corporate governance framework needs more courage in the "explain" of "comply or explain": private conversations reveal boards often know what they should do but fear the headlines.
Assessing true board quality remains one of the biggest unsolved challenges in stewardship: composition metrics and skills matrices are imperfect proxies for the judgement, curiosity and culture that really matter.

Action Points:
Treat your largest shareholders as strategic partners: Proactively reach out to your long-term institutional investors for candid conversations about governance, strategy and risk. These investors often have a broader market perspective and a genuine shared interest in long-term value creation. Use them as a sounding board before challenges escalate into activist campaigns.
Embrace the "explain" in comply or explain: Resist the temptation to default to compliance for an easy life. If a departure from the corporate governance code serves the company's long-term interests, invest the time to articulate a clear, evidence-based rationale. The FRC has explicitly stated that thoughtful, well-reasoned explanation is not weak governance.
Rethink how you assess board composition: Move beyond rigid checklists of skills and experience. Consider whether the board collectively has the intellectual curiosity, risk appetite and constructive challenge needed to navigate complex, overlapping issues such as AI, geopolitics and climate transition. Look at the board holistically rather than applying strict rules to individual metrics.
Align NED incentives with long-term value: Consider whether NED remuneration structures encourage genuine alignment with shareholders. The FRC's updated guidance now permits share-based arrangements for NEDs, provided they are not performance-linked. Explore whether personal shareholdings could strengthen commitment and accountability on your board.
Prepare for and engage with activism constructively: Monitor early signals of activist interest, including rising AGM dissent percentages and new register entries. Engage with activist concerns directly and early, treating them as a source of market intelligence rather than a threat. Companies that listen and adapt before campaigns go public are far better positioned than those that react defensively.

The Boardroom Path is the essential podcast for aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) navigating the journey from executive leadership to the boardroom. Hosted by Ralph Grayson, partner at Sainty Hird & Partners, each episode offers insightful conversations with industry leaders, seasoned board d...

How do you tell whether a board is genuinely effective, rather than simply compliant and well-presented?
In this episode of The Boardroom Path, host Ralph Grayson speaks with James Beasley, Head of Board Advisory (EMEA) at Nasdaq Governance Solutions, about what differentiates high-performing boards and directors from the rest.
They unpack why governance must be pragmatic and strategy-led, why skills matrices should reflect an organisation’s evolving needs, and why many boards still spend too much time on management presentations and not enough time on real discussion and independent challenge. James also explains what makes board evaluations useful, why tailored questions matter, and why boards must follow through with action rather than stopping at reflection.
The conversation lands in the hot zones now dominating board agendas: AI, cyber and geopolitics. That context matters, but the principles do not change. Recent governance research underlines the pressure boards feel to modernise: for example, Nasdaq’s Global Governance Pulse survey found 35% of respondents emphasise AI and machine learning as board composition priorities, alongside cybersecurity and data privacy.

(00:00) - Welcome to The Boardroom Path

(01:58) - What Board Advisory Actually Does

(03:03) - James’s Route Into Governance and Board Effectiveness

(05:51) - Why Governance Must Be Pragmatic and Contextual

(08:05) - Regulation Versus Culture in Board Behaviour

(13:11) - Common Misconceptions About What Boards Do

(17:12) - Why Board Work Feels Broader in a More Complex World

(21:03) - Inside the Global Governance Pulse and Board Priorities

(23:54) - Why Many Evaluations Leave Value on the Table

(27:38) - Skills Matrices, Succession and Refreshing the Board

(32:00) - AI, Geopolitics and Modern Risk Oversight

(39:08) - How Prospective Directors Should Assess a Board Role

James Beasley: James leads board advisory across EMEA and India for Nasdaq, specialising in board evaluations and related governance advisory support to some of the world’s most exciting and dynamic companies. He also serves as a member of the Insights Council for Nasdaq’s Centre for Board Excellence; shaping its strategy, contributing insights and working with other council members to identify and address important board governance matters.
He holds an MSc in Global Governance and Ethics from University College London (UCL), having majored in global business regulation and international political economy. He is also an alumnus of the Sustainability Leadership Programme at Imperial College Business School. James is a regular contributor to governance thought leadership publications and to industry events and has been published by the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung amongst other leading publications. He is a member of the Society for Corporate Governance.
Ralph Grayson: Ralph Grayson is a Partner in the Board Practice at Sainty Hird & Partners, bringing extensive experience in board-level recruitment, assessment, and advisory services. With a deep understanding of the corporate governance landscape, Ralph specialises in guiding senior executives as they transition into impactful boardroom careers. His thoughtful approach, combined with a passion for developing effective leaders, enables him to facilitate insightful conversations that equip aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors with the tools they need to succeed. Through The Boardroom Path, Ralph leverages his extensive professional network and expertise to empower listeners on their journey into the boardroom.
Episode Insights:
Good governance is pragmatic. Boards should avoid one-size-fits-all templates and tailor governance and composition to strategy, business model and context.
Skills matrices work best when they start with forward strategy, not benchmarking peers. Board needs should evolve as strategy evolves.
Many boards over-invest in presentation and under-invest in discussion. Decision quality improves when directors probe, challenge and test assumptions.
Board evaluations create value when they adapt year on year and lead to follow-through actions, not just reflection.
AI and geopolitics raise the bar for board oversight. Boards must upskill and set guardrails without delegating judgement to tools or experts.

Action Points:
Rebalance board time towards discussion: Review agendas and board packs to reduce passive presentation time. Set expectations that key topics must include structured debate and independent challenge. Measure this shift by tracking how much meeting time is spent on decisions and forward-looking risks.
Make your skills matrix strategy-led: Start with the organisation’s three-to-five-year strategic plan, then define the board capabilities required to oversee it. Refresh the matrix annually to reflect acquisitions, divestments, market exits or new growth bets. Use it to guide succession planning rather than generic peer comparison.
Upgrade board evaluations beyond a standard questionnaire: Keep a core framework for continuity, but tailor questions to the year’s real priorities. Combine quantitative feedback with qualitative interviews to surface what directors will not write down. Convert findings into an explicit action plan with owners and deadlines.
Close capability gaps without defaulting to new appointments: For topics like AI, cyber and geopolitics, decide whether the right response is recruitment, structured learning, better management reporting, or all three. Bring in external experts to brief the board, but retain board-level accountability for judgement. Ask management for decision-ready insight rather than general updates.
Treat onboarding as a long runway, not a one-week pack: Tailor onboarding to the role and committee responsibilities. Set up meetings with key leaders and relevant assurance partners (for example internal audit and external audit for audit committee members). Build in follow-ups across the first few months to turn onboarding into continuous development.

The Boardroom Path is the essential podcast for aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) navigating the journey from executive leadership to the boardroom. Hosted by Ralph Grayson, partner at Sainty Hird & Partners, each episode offers insightful conversations with industry leaders, seasoned board directors, and governance experts. Our guests share practical strategies, valuable perspectives, and actionable advice on how to effectively transition into board roles, maximise your impact, and build a rewarding NED career. 
Subscribe now, and take your first confident step along The Boardroom Path. Learn more about Sainty Hird & Partners at saintyhird.com.
The Boardroom Path is produced by Story Ninety-Four in Oxford, UK.

How do you close the gap between the leader you intend to be and the impact you actually have in the boardroom? 
In this episode of The Boardroom Path, host Ralph Grayson speaks with business psychologist and executive coach Harriet Heneghan about what really drives boardroom behaviour, why feedback often fails to create change, and how coaching can help board members, chairs, and senior teams perform at their best under pressure.
Harriet explains why people judge others by behaviour but judge themselves by intention, and how this mismatch fuels misunderstanding, defensiveness, and dysfunctional dynamics at the top. They explore the psychological patterns that block self-awareness, the role of chair leadership in creating better board culture, and practical techniques for reading the room without reverting to executive authority.

(00:00) - Welcome to The Boardroom Path

(04:09) - Coaching Boards vs Coaching Executives

(05:45) - Behaviour Change and Communication as a Skill

(07:23) - Feedback, Self-Awareness, and Personality Profiles

(08:29) - Why Boards Become Dysfunctional

(09:44) - Intention Matching Impact in Leadership

(11:00) - Closing the Gap Between Intent and Impact

(13:02) - Video Playback as Immediate Feedback

(15:22) - The Shift From C-Suite Authority to Boardroom Influence

(17:03) - Psychology Patterns That Block Feedback and Change

(19:02) - The Chair as Conductor and Coach

Harriet Heneghan: Harriet Heneghan is a business psychologist and executive coach at Sainty Hird & Partners. She began her career in Investment Banking at UBS before moving into communications and leadership coaching. Harriet holds an MSc in Occupational Psychology from Birkbeck, University of London and is accredited in Hogan Assessments and EQ-i 2.0 / EQ-i 360. She works with board directors, chairs, and senior leadership teams to strengthen self-awareness, influence, and group dynamics, particularly during periods of transition, complexity, and heightened accountability. Ralph Grayson: Ralph Grayson is a Partner in the Board Practice at Sainty Hird & Partners, bringing extensive experience in board-level recruitment, assessment, and advisory services. With a deep understanding of the corporate governance landscape, Ralph specialises in guiding senior executives as they transition into impactful boardroom careers. His thoughtful approach, combined with a passion for developing effective leaders, enables him to facilitate insightful conversations that equip aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors with the tools they need to succeed. Through The Boardroom Path, Ralph leverages his extensive professional network and expertise to empower listeners on their journey into the boardroom.
Episode Insights:
Boardroom conflict often comes from a gap between intention and impact, and the habit of judging others by behaviour while judging yourself by intention.
Coaching works best when the individual genuinely wants change, not when it is imposed from above.
The chair is a conductor, using questions and structure to bring out better contributions and reduce unhelpful power dynamics.
Psychological safety and assertiveness are linked: effective board members speak up clearly without dominating the room.
Video playback and objective tools like Hogan can accelerate self-awareness by showing leaders how they actually come across.

Action Points:
Separate intention from impact: When feedback stings, pause to ask what behaviour others experienced rather than defending intent. Summarise back what you heard and test it with a second example before deciding what to change. Treat this as data, not a verdict on character.
Build a feedback habit that creates themes: Do not overreact to one-off comments or one awkward meeting. Look for repeating patterns across multiple people and situations. If you can, validate it with structured tools or peer feedback before setting a development goal.
Use coaching questions in the boardroom: Replace quick judgements with questions such as What is driving this, and what outcome do we want? This lowers defensiveness and pulls the conversation back towards decision quality. Chairs can model this to stabilise board dynamics.
Practise assertive contribution: Prepare one or two clear interventions before meetings and deliver them briefly. Watch the room for signals, then stop talking and invite others in. If you feel ignored, follow up one-to-one rather than escalating in-session.
Create space to think before reacting: When the room tips into fight-or-flight, call a short break or pause the decision. Use the time to clarify what is actually being decided and what information is missing. Better pace often produces faster progress.

The Boardroom Path is the essential podcast for aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) navigating the journey from executive leadership to the boardroom. Hosted by Ralph Grayson, partner at Sainty Hird & Partners, each episode offers insightful conversations with industry leaders, seasoned board directors, and governance experts. Our guests share practical strategies, valuable perspectives, and actionable advice on how to effectively transition into board roles, maximise your impact, and build a rewarding NED career. 
Subscribe now, and take your first confident step along The Boardroom Path. Learn more about Sainty Hird & Partners at saintyhird.com.
The Boardroom Path is produced by Story Ninety-Four in Oxford, UK.

Why has founder CEO succession become one of the most stressful and consequential decisions a board can make?
In this episode of The Boardroom Path, host Ralph Grayson speaks with Evgeny Shadchnev, founder of Makers, author of Startup CEO Succession and coach to founder CEOs, about how to navigate leadership transitions when the stakes feel deeply personal and financially critical. Drawing on his own journey from founder CEO to coach, Evgeny explains the crucial shift from building a product to building the company that builds the product, and why behaviours that work in a five‑person team become harmful in a seventy‑person organisation.
Against a backdrop of rising CEO turnover even at high‑performing companies, as boards lean into more proactive succession planning rather than waiting for crisis, Evgeny and Ralph explore how boards can spot early warning signs, support founders through burnout and identity shifts, and create a safe, trusted space for honest conversations. From job specs that look ahead to where the “puck” is going, to the pitfalls of rushed transitions and lateral moves into chair roles, this conversation offers a practical roadmap for founders, investors and aspiring NEDs.
Evgeny Shadchnev: Evgeny Shadchnev is the founder and former CEO of Makers, one of the UK’s leading coding bootcamps, where he helped tackle the tech talent shortage by training complete beginners to become software developers. After leading Makers through its growth and his own CEO succession, he became a certified professional coach specialising in founder CEO transitions, working with entrepreneurs and boards on the personal and organisational challenges of leadership change. He is the author of Startup CEO Succession: A Founder’s Guide to Leadership Transition and hosts the Startup CEO Succession podcast, where he interviews founders, successor CEOs and investors about real‑world succession stories.
Ralph Grayson: Ralph Grayson is a Partner in the Board Practice at Sainty Hird & Partners, bringing extensive experience in board-level recruitment, assessment, and advisory services. With a deep understanding of the corporate governance landscape, Ralph specialises in guiding senior executives as they transition into impactful boardroom careers. His thoughtful approach, combined with a passion for developing effective leaders, enables him to facilitate insightful conversations that equip aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors with the tools they need to succeed. Through The Boardroom Path, Ralph leverages his extensive professional network and expertise to empower listeners on their journey into the boardroom.
Episode Insights:
The founder’s job is to keep the company alive and find product–market fit, while the CEO’s job is to build and lead the organisation that builds the product.
Behaviours that are life‑saving in a five‑person startup, such as having an opinion on everything, often become micromanagement and a blocker once the team scales.
Early, ongoing conversations about the CEO job spec, the company’s future needs and the founder’s preferences reduce the risk of crisis‑driven, rushed transitions.
Trust and informal dialogue between founder, chair and investors are as important as formal board meetings in handling succession with maturity and respect.
Lateral moves (for example, founder to chair or functional role) only work when the founder is genuinely qualified for the role and willing to get out of the new CEO’s way.

Action Points:
Clarify the founder vs CEO job over time: Schedule regular discussions between the founder, chair and board about how the CEO role is evolving over the next two to three years. Map what the company will need from its leader, compare that with the founder’s strengths and preferences, and document a living CEO job spec that is revisited annually rather than only in moments of crisis.
Normalise early succession conversations: Build CEO succession into the board’s “good hygiene” agenda, alongside cash flow and risk. Treat it as an ongoing strategic topic, not a signal of imminent removal, so that founders can talk openly about burnout, changing life priorities and future roles without fear that one conversation will trigger an immediate process.
Invest in trusted relationships on the board: Ensure there is at least one board member – ideally the chair – with whom the founder has a deep, trusted relationship. Encourage informal check‑ins between meetings so concerns about fit, performance or wellbeing surface early and privately, rather than erupting in formal sessions where they are harder to handle constructively.
Design the succession process as a shared project: When a CEO transition becomes likely, treat it as a collaboration between outgoing CEO and board. Co‑create the forward‑looking job description, agree who leads the search, and define how the current CEO will contribute without over‑controlling the process. This shared ownership reduces defensiveness and keeps the company’s long‑term interests at the centre.
Plan the founder’s next chapter deliberately: Support the founder in clarifying what comes after the CEO role before any transition is finalised. Encourage them to take time to rest, reflect and explore options such as coaching, new ventures, advisory roles or different executive positions, rather than grabbing the first opportunity. A clear, attractive “next step” makes it easier for the founder to let go and for the board to communicate a confident story to investors.

The Boardroom Path is the essential podcast for aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) navigating the journey from executive leadership to the boardroom. Hosted by Ralph Grayson, partner at Sainty Hird & Partners, each episode offers insightful conversations with industry leaders, seasoned board directors, and governance experts. Our guests share practical strategies, valuable perspectives, and actionable advice on how to effectively transition into board roles, maximise your impact, and build a rewarding NED career. 
Subscribe now, and take your first confident step along The Boardroom Path.
Learn more about Sainty Hird & Partners at saintyhird.com.
The Boardroom Path is produced by Story Ninety-Four in Oxford, UK.