Oct 2017: “Towards 2020: Developing Leaders with Purpose, Power and Presence” (Petroleum Development Oman).

by | Nov 1, 2017 | Events, News

On 31st October 2017, House of Beaufort was delighted to deliver an interactive leadership seminar, for the Finance Directorate, Petroleum Development Oman within the context of its mission to become a world-class entity by 2020.

Our seminar provided a confidential forum for questions and answers that were posed to distinguished Omani luminaries, while also giving delegates the opportunity to participate in stimulating break-out group discussions. These were centred around themes that reflected the panel discussion and proved very popular with the delegates!

Working in collaboration with the FD People Capability Division, Dr Susan Laverick (House of Beaufort) was pleased to steer a discussion around topics that we have previously addressed at global conferences from New York to London.

These included: –

  • The impact of issues of self-belief and confidence on career development;
  • Specific strategies that they had implemented to deal with career obstacles;
  • The importance of career mentors or sponsors; and
  • The impact of the “double burden”, as identified in the 2014 McKinsey Report “GCC Women in Leadership”

The distinguished panel included:

  • His Excellency, Tahir Bin Salim Abdullah Al Amri – Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board of Governors of the Central Bank of Oman
  • Her Highness, Sayyida Basma Al Said, founder of the Whispers of Serenity Clinic for Mental Health and national icon for mental health reform in the Sultanate
  • Mme Lubna Kharusi, CEO of the DIRA Group

House of Beaufort was very proud to be involved in this event and welcomed the opportunity to share our experience with a leading Omani corporation and, above all, our conviction that the cultivation of confidence and soft-skills lies at the very core of a leadership culture.

Sep 2017: “Diversity: The art of thinking independently, together.” Malcolm Stevenson Forbes.

by | Sep 5, 2017 | Events, News

Today, we are celebrating our culturally diverse and highly talented Advisory Board, and the three members who enable us to pursue the art of thinking independently together. Each one of our Board members is a significant influencer in their field. 
We are delighted to welcome Soledad Leal Campos of Geneva to the House of Beaufort Advisory Board. Soledad brings a wealth of experience, from her high-profile background as a Geneva-based senior international trade, investment and development specialist, to her desire to promote dialogue and understanding amongst nations.

As a role model to younger women across the world who are seeking to build their careers in international affairs, Soledad is an inspiring global citizen who exemplifies the philosophy that drives our consultancy – identifying, supporting and nurturing talent, across the cultural spectrum.

Soledad joins Professor Kimberly Eddleston and Neil Huband as board members.
As Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, USA), Kimberley’s internationally acclaimed research into the careers of women entrepreneurs and managers, across the globe, has been recognised by several prestigious international awards, including the Family Firm Institute and the Diana International Conference on Women’s Entrepreneurship.
Neil Huband’s pedigree in communications has spanned a career in journalism and broadcasting, a senior role at Shandwick Consultants where he supported teams across the globe and more recently, as an independent consultant on media relations. Neil’s understanding of the power of communication to shape perceptions and business outcomes has made him one of the most experienced media gurus in the UK today.
The House of Beaufort looks forward to working with each member of our board as we build our global presence as a boutique consultancy committed to gender and cultural diversity. By thinking independently, together, we can help build more powerful business development programs and establish resilient female talent pipelines across the world.

Jul 2017: Open Letter re: “BBC gender pay gap revealed: two-thirds of top earners are men” The Daily Telegraph.

by | Jul 19, 2017 | Articles, News

The Daily Telegraph recently published an article entitled ”BBC Gender Pay Gap Revealed: Two Thirds of Top Earners are Men”.

House of Beaufort Director, Dr Susan Laverick, responded with the following open letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph and other media outlets.

By April 2018, all UK companies, with 250 or more employees, will be legally required to publish their gender pay gaps. Many, like the BBC, will have done their best to ensure diversity across the corporation, but will have failed to achieve parity. Today’s article “BBC Gender Pay Gap Revealed” reminds us that impassioned arguments about experience and expertise versus parity of pay will continue to obscure a vital aspect of workplace discrimination.

As a woman helping other women to manage their careers more robustly, I pounced on the comment from a BBC journalist who noted that women need to “get serious”, “stick together”, because “if you don’t ask, you don’t get”. This puts the onus on women to push the gender pay gap their way.  Just ask.

Yet many women first need to learn how to ask.  Framing a conversation for a salary rise or promotion just doesn’t come naturally to some.  We have discovered this to be the case with the dozens of talented women with whom we have worked across the financial services industries, the law and other corporations. Learning how to initiate, manage difficult conversations and articulate worth is a service that all employers could offer their female workers.  So that come annual review time, they feel more confident about their value. In post-Brexit Britain, corporations must surely support all of their talent if the difficult times ahead are to be safely navigated.

 

Dr. Susan Laverick
Director, House of Beaufort Limited

Jun 2017: Beaufort and The Lords – A Tale of Two Houses.

Jun 2017: Beaufort and The Lords – A Tale of Two Houses.

by | Jun 27, 2017 | Events, News

When a boutique coaching consultancy for women met western democracy’s most patriarchal political chamber, the impulse to discuss gender inclusion strategies with hereditary male peers was compelling.

Despite the 1958 Life Peerages Act that introduced women into the House of Lords, the UK parliamentary website (January 2017) indicates that glass ceilings are as impenetrable as the limestone from which Westminster itself was hewn: men comprise 74.3 percent and women 25.7 percent of the House, with a mean age of  69.

Yet, this aside, the Lords is a venerable institution and is served by some exceptionally talented peers and peeresses.  As the second chamber of the UK Parliament, it complements the work of the Commons. The Lords, (and Ladies) serve a vital task in “making and shaping laws, and challenging and checking the work of government”.

So, swallowing our gender diversity questions, we demurely concentrated on the business in hand: enjoying a tour of the Lords that culminated in a most civilised champagne soirée with our sponsors, Lord Grocott of Telford and Lady Val Corbett (widow of Labour Peer, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, a tireless advocate for penal reform, animal welfare and the anonymity of rape victims).  Lady Val’s devotion to Prisoner Rehabilitation via the Corbett Award deserves, in our opinion, its own peerage.

Bruce, Lord Grocott shared with us his twin passions:  first, his commitment to abolishing by-elections where hereditary members of the House of Lords vote for hereditary replacements when incumbents die; and secondly, the architectural heritage of the Palace of Westminster.  This included the brilliant mastermind behind its neo-Gothic lines, Augustus Pugin.

After gliding like peeresses through oak-panelled halls with their mullioned windows, admiring the intricately carved bookcases that lined stone walls, crammed with leather and gold embossed books, glimpsing the ornately appointed debating chamber and the dazzling golden wonder of the queen’s robing room, we repaired to the peer’s end of the Terrace for perfectly chilled House of Lord’s champagne.
Here, we showed our appreciation by dutifully observing the strict etiquette of the Terrace by not sitting on “peers only” chairs!
The evening’s finale involved a delicious meal at the exclusive Barry Room brasserie.  After charming the waiters, we were served perfectly chilled prosecco and treated like countesses.  Well, all I can say is that one hears much about too much “warm prosecco” in the House, but this deficiency was not in evidence in the Barry Room!

It was a memorable visit and one that we were most grateful to Lord Grocott and Lady Val Corbett for engineering.

 

May 2017: Aide-de-Camp or NATO spouse?

May 2017: Aide-de-Camp or NATO spouse?

by | May 26, 2017 | Articles, News

The recent NATO meeting in Brussels offered some spectacular examples of how gender culture stereotypes remain embedded in our society- whether manifested by the playground bully’s bionic handshake, his predilection for shoving lesser beings out of his way, or in the assumed rivalry between the women who are representing their countries. The sartorial choices of Melania Trump vs Mme Brigitte Macron supposedly provided evidence of the latter. I am sure you will have glimpsed the article in The Daily Telegraph (25 May, 2017) in which it was solemnly noted that, “if there was ever going to be another First Lady to out glam Melania Trump, Brigitte Macron was the woman for the mission”.

Yet within this mis-en-scène was some something far more perplexing for consultants such as ourselves, dedicated, amongst other things, to dismantling assumptions about the way men and women behave in corporate contexts. This concerned the astonishing lack of interest shown by the media regarding the the only man in the line-up of “NATO spouses” (and heaven save us from such nomenclature).

I refer, of course, to Gauthier Destenay, husband of Luxembourg’s openly gay PM, Xavier Bettes. As I was drafting this blog, one article popped up in my in-box, via Gala.fr, in which it was noted that M. Destenay valiantly participated in all activities, including the Magritte Gallery visit and a soirée hosted by HM Queen Mathilde at the Laeken Palace. We know little about Gauthier other than he is a Belgian architect who married the Luxembourg PM in 2015.

Now call me a kill joy, but rather than focusing on the supposed fashion rivalry between Mmes Trump and Macron, (one ostentatiously changed her outfit for the palace reception, the other did not), I could only think of the insightful, articles that might have been written about Gauthier Destenay.

What, for example, is it like, being the first gentleman of Luxembourg ?

What are his interests and passions?

How does he integrate, blend and bond when he is the sole man amongst women at such an event? Does he grit his teeth, smiling and nodding, through all the formalities, or does he genuinely enjoy them? Does he network? Can he bring his professional interests into the political arena?

To me, it was a lost opportunity for the media to acknowledge a lovely case of diversity in the world of diplomacy and politics.

And now it is confession time: when I spotted this photograph, my eye was instinctively drawn to the handsome man at the Magritte Gallery hovering in attendance to the First Ladies. And guess what? I assumed he was an aide-de-camp… never imagining that he was a political husband.