Anyone who thought it would be back to business as usual after Boris Johnson’s announcement that all Covid restrictions would end in February was swiftly disabused of the notion. Three days later, Vladimir Putin rolled Russian tanks into Ukraine, sparking the most serious European conflict since the Second World War and roiling markets. Western brands have pulled out of Russia in an unprecedented exodus. Boards face further geopolitical turmoil as China risks secondary sanctions if it supports Putin’s invasion.
“The theme that was already getting stronger before Ukraine was supply chains,” said Paul Drechsler, chairman of the Non-Executive Director Awards’ judging panel. “Now that’s overlaid with geopolitics of a more disruptive order. With what’s going on in Ukraine and China, there’s a lot of thinking for boards to do about investment and sourcing.”
The NED Awards exist to recognise the valuable contribution non-executives can make to companies’ success — and sometimes their survival. In times of uncertainty such as these, it is all the more important to appreciate the guidance they can provide to executives. This year’s winners include BP chairman Helge Lund, who helped shape the energy giant’s decisive move to withdraw from its near-20 per cent stake in the Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft days after the Ukraine crisis began.
The awards, organised by the investment bank Peel Hunt with support from The Sunday Times, are in their 16th year. For the fourth year, Drechsler led a distinguished group of judges, including sponsors and academics from Henley Business School and Cranfield School of Management. New to the panel was Baroness (Eliza) Manningham-Buller, who won last year’s Not-for-profit/Public Service award for her work with the biomedical research foundation Wellcome.
Drechsler hailed the quality of nominations in this year’s awards. He added: “I was keen to see that we got more diversity in the results and I’m delighted that we got some outstanding winners.”
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The process of choosing those winners is rigorous. This year’s began in October. “There’s a short form setting out the rationale for the nomination,” said Steven Fine, chief executive of Peel Hunt. “We then call a member of the board to complete a long form. Those long forms are passed to professors at Henley and Cranfield, who come up with a shortlist of five. Then the sponsors of the various categories interview each candidate to form their own opinion, and present their findings to our 20 judges.”
This was Drechsler’s fourth and final year as chairman. He said: “It’s a privilege to be able to look at the achievements of people who are nominated, and it’s always a pleasure to see people receive the awards on the evening.”
In the business section today we profile this year’s winners.
• Not-for-profit/Public Service Organisation: Wol Kolade, chairman of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation, was commended for bringing “rigour, agility and integrity” to the charity.
• Private/Private Equity Backed: Sir Hossein Yassaie, chairman of the hand tracking and haptics venture Ultraleap, impressed the judges with his commitment to “best-practice governance”.
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• Dame Helen Alexander Ned to Watch: Melrose’s Funmi Adegoke was described as “genuinely embodying what this category stands for”.
• FTSE AIM: Ross Graham, chairman of video games services company Keywords Studios, was recognised for “helping to elevate the governance processes without destroying the entrepreneurial essence” of the business.
• FTSE All-Share: Dr Roch Doliveux, chairman of gene and cell therapy company Oxford Biomedica, was found to have “played a significant role in shaping the company’s strategy over a short period of time”.
• FTSE 100: Helge Lund, chairman of BP, helped guide the board as it decided to pull out of Russia, and was also commended by the judges for his role in BP’s commitment to become a net-zero carbon emitter by 2050.
• Lifetime Achievement: former Glaxo Smith Kline chairman and HamptonAlexander review co-author Sir Philip Hampton was described as “having earned the respect of his peers at every stage of his extraordinary career”.