Podcast Summary: Ed Simpson talks to Client Legal Director, David Bolt about Governance.
What does good governance look like and, as an SME, where do you start?
Ed Simpson Profile: https://thelegaldirector.co.uk/team/ed-simpson/
David Bolt Profile: https://thelegaldirector.co.uk/team/david-bolt/
In this episode...
Episode introduction: In this episode of TLD Talks, Ed Simpson, CEO of The Legal Director, talks with Client Legal Director David Bolt about good governance for SMEs.
Today’s guest:
David is a lawyer with more than 20 years’ experience in business law. He has worked for large international law firms and has significant in-house experience, particularly in highly regulated environments. He is now a TLD Client Legal Director.
Main topics:
- What corporate governance is and why it’s important. (1’47)
- What are the risks of not having good governance? (02’28)
- Examples of companies that have suffered catastrophic issues as a result of poor governance. (3’18)
- The benefits of good governance. (4’05)
- What governance means for SMEs in particular. (5’22)
- How SMEs can get governance right. (6’45)
- How expectations of governance are increasing, especially in terms of things like modern slavery, emissions, data. (08’30)
- How many tenders now have large sections on how businesses comply with various areas, for example employment regulations and data. (09’37)
- Why you must be able to back up, with documentation, what you say you do. (10’40)
- Why governance is relevant to your business insurance and how good or bad governance can affect the value of your business when negotiating contracts and sales, and further on – the eventual sale of a company, investment, or flotation. (11’16)
- Why having clear plans for reporting and effective board meetings is an important part of good governance. (14’12)
- Making sure the board understand what its role is and how it can discharge its responsibilities properly, and that people understand reporting. (15’43)
- Things you might see that indicate poor governance within a business. (16’37)
- Why good governance starts at the top. (18’40)
- David’s experience of the importance of accountability when working for a listed organisation. (20’20)
- Ed’s thoughts on tick box compliance and regulations being more principles-based now. (21’12)
- Why it’s important for the right things to happen at the right level. (23’27)
- Ed on how a business could improve their governance structures – seeing a strategy, business plan and risk register. (24’26)
- The importance of having a conversation about governance at board level and understanding the risks to your particular business or sector. (25’45)
- Discussing the policies and procedures in place in your business; what’s documented and how robustly? (27’02)
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