 The topic, the focus would be on board rooms, the final frontier for PR professionals, how to learn a non-executive director. This topic, let's welcome Ms. Prazana Badwail, CEO at Kazan PR. Hello, thank you. Just a moment, Prazana. Give me a moment. All right, that's that. Welcome, the stage is all yours. Brilliant. Okay, so my name is Prazana and I'm based in London, and I would love to speak to you about a very exciting opportunity that I think we as communication professionals have. And that is entering the boardroom. If you look at the history of public relations, we were always putting a little bit of a box because we had the gatekeeper, the journalist who would decide whether or not our content would go into the newspaper or the TV. Things are completely different now for PR people where we could actually communicate directly to the target audience. And that brings itself a whole new sense of opportunities and threats for organizations, which means that for the first time in our industry, what the skill sets that we have is actually incredibly useful at board level, because the energy and the ability to horizon scan and understand where the opportunities and threats are and also to build reputation and reputational resilience and how damaging crisis is, means that you need to have PR people at the table. And that's where our opportunity is. So, you know, what first of all, people talk about a non executive director roles they talk about the term Ned, and, and you know, my first Ned was about 10 years ago. I've been sitting on boards for quite a long time and I've never quite understood what do I, what was I meant to do was I meant to bring a network to the table was I meant to just stress test what the CEO was doing. And I often questioned my values and so I went to the number of best practice courses. And I did a lot of research with Ned's and this is what I wanted to share with you over the next sort of 1520 minutes. So, first of all, why, why be a non executive director why does it benefit us. Number one, it benefits us because when you get on a board. The first is that you learn about a different organization, and you learn about often a different sector, you meet different people and you tap into totally different networks. You have a different opportunity for your professional growth. You also learn a lot more because the work that you do on the board is very different in nature to often people's day to day jobs, as an ex is typically somebody who's executive executive is very day to day you've got your KPIs you've got your deliverables you've got to you've got to implement whatever the strategy is, but being on the board is very different is very much about understanding what the strengths and opportunities are the organization and the threats. It's about it's about really ensuring that the strategy is sound for the organization. Now, how do you get a net role. So it's very much contingent on your network. Often, you know, a lot of people weren't born ready into good networks such as myself. So, but nowadays you can rely on social media to build networks, you don't have to physically go to all these networking events. And actually, the best people to have in your network in order to get the net role is other people who are already on boards. The reason why is because they are often the people who understand and, and they know when there's opportunities. And so, if you're looking for a net role, getting to know people who are already on boards will actually put you with an ear to the grapevine about what vacancies are available vacancies are always advertised. And even it's very much word of mouth. It's not the right way in my opinion, but the reality is that that is the case. So getting to know people, you know, who already are on boards, I think would be very, very critical. The other thing is don't wait to be politely asked, you know, you should make a beeline for organizations that you're interested in becoming part of and being on being as a net. Whenever, you know, there was a particular charity I was very interested in. I, you know, I reached out to members of their board and their senior leadership I inquired whether there's any board vacancies. I followed them on social media subscribe to the company newsletters. And, you know, and I reached out to a lot and you know rejection is very common in every board position you get often is, you know, a reflection of maybe 10 or 100 rejections. Or not to feel disillusioned. The other thing is to really, you know, think about yourself almost like a product about how can you market yourself as as a professional to the board. And when I started thinking about that I became a lot more sort of successful in getting on the board so I struggled a lot initially. And really, what you need is two areas to do well in getting on boards as well as adding value. One is emotional intelligence, and the other is self awareness. They're really the twin drivers of success when you're building a portfolio career and navigating the Now, what you know what I used to do is I used to look at the existing people who are on the board. I would understand the board composition, I would look to see the organization strategy and I would see whether or not there was a gap between the organization strategy and its vision mission values, and the composition of skill sets and experience on the board. And when you do that little exercise that really helps you to understand. There are skills to get that you can plug in and that becomes a much more informed us instead of just saying, I'd like to be on the board. You know, I think it's much more impressive to say, I've analyzed the vision mission values I've analyzed your strategy. I've analyzed the board can visit a composition that you have in my opinion is that you need these skill sets which I possess as a comms person, because of these aspects of your strategy that you need to roll out. So you're taking that approach, almost marketing yourself like a product, and really understanding your target audience and what their pain points are I think are very critical. The other thing is really is you've not only got to understand the organization strategy but you also have to understand the board micro culture. And that's really important because, you know, boards tend to be, you know, highly politicized and making that, you know, emotional intelligence, and adapting and understanding how the board dynamic works, who are the people who carry sort of relational capital that you need to really win over. Now, there are a number of hiring platforms available when you're interested to become a non executive director. And you know and so and there are numbers of headhunters and it's really researching finding out the ones for your industry. And, you know, you should really obviously know a lot more about what the requirements are to be a Ned and what the world of Ned's look like. So, you know, number one there are so many different types if you want to go into a charity that they often call it a trustee. If you want to be on the board of schools they often call it governors. You know, if you're an investing Ned so you're basically there because you are an association of yours has invested in the company. And, and so there's lots of different terminology used for Ned's and Ned's itself obviously is an acronym for non executive director. But why do organizations have Ned's. The key because they, you know, is the job is twofold one is to monitor executive activity, which is quite hard because you've got to kind of have a good relationship with the senior management team but at the same time you've got to kind of stress test them stress test they're thinking the delivery, you know, and, and then the second area, other than monitoring executive activity is really to shape strategy and that's a really interesting part. And when you are monitoring executive activity you've got to constructively challenge assumptions and, and that's really important to constructively because you can't just, you know, call them out and alienate everybody. So that's where the emotional intelligence comes in. How do you really navigate the, you know, being on the board doing your duty as as as a Ned to constructively challenge but not alienate. And that's really where you learn, you know, and you have skills that PR people do about you know how to choose your language how to choose your tone the timing of when you ask how you ask how you call people out. And that's very much within our skillset as PR people. The other is really to facilitate change and you know and often you know when you think of the CEO when you think of the senior management team. They're often like firefighting they're dealing with short term issues. And they don't have the time to really think about the big picture stuff and that's where a board's value comes in. The board doesn't do day to day stuff. They really think about well actually what's happening now it's happening with competitors what's happening geopolitically what's happening with the economy, what's happening in terms of technological change, how are values shifting, you know what is happening with Gen Z compared to millennials compared to Gen X, how's that going to impact our workforce. I'm really thinking about all of those different areas and that kind of thinking is very much reserved for the board. And that's why it's a wonderful opportunity for people like, you know, such as yourself such as myself who work in communications, who have our day jobs but want to exercise that strategic thinking. And really building that emotional intelligence muscle. And, you know, and the great thing about it you may think I'm exhausted I'm doing my job, you know how can I take on more work. You know, often it's, you know, four meetings a year. Each meeting is usually maybe three four hours. And, and then you often get a sort of a board pack a week before which takes a couple of hours to read so the commitment sometimes could be six to eight days, you often have one day sort of annual review. So it could up to be nine and if you sit on subcommittees which you have subcommittees for governance you have subcommittees for maybe comms subcommittees for partnerships, you sit on subcommittees then your time would obviously double. I think the Ned positions can be eight days a year, and you can always ask your organization whether or not they could give you paid time off to do that, especially if it's a charity, you know, and you know, if you don't ask you never know if you get it. Now, the other thing to understand is, is really learning about governance, because obviously when you're on the board, you're the sort of the conscience of the organization. So whenever you feel something ethically is not right. Whenever you feel there's a disconnect between what the organization says and what they do. And, you know, that's where you know the board steps in and says you know, we can't be hypocritical, especially when it comes to things like greenwashing, you know, it's very important to be the conscience of the organization because again your reputation, you're, you're protecting the reputation. If there's a gap between what you say and what you do, that will come out, you know, in today's world where everyone is a publisher with a smartphone in their hand. There's many things to read, you know, obviously in different countries you have different corporate governance codes. But there are, you know, some that have universal significance like the weights corporate governance principles, if they're listed organization, you know, there's a different aspect. And also sector context, you know, really matters. So really understanding what's the best practice what are the norms in that industry as well. Now, diversity is very fashionable and it's nowhere as important as it is in on boards, because the biggest problem with boards is the lack of diversity when people think about boards they think about people in their 50s and 60s and 70s often male. You know, the diversity of the board is really critical to keep to avoid group thinking where a lot of boards mess up is when everyone thinks the same everyone is the same socioeconomic background the same gender the same age group and that is not what we do. There must be some people who are watching this who probably are maybe in their 20s thinking, Oh, well that's something I'll do my 50s and 60s. No, people on the board should be reflective of the target audience and the stakeholders of the organization, and an organization needs to know what the younger generations are thinking because they may be reflective in in terms of the employees stakeholder, or in terms of their customer stakeholder, or communities. And so, you know, one of my advice is for those people don't think about it to do it in your 50s or 60s, you know, do it now now of course people on the board may not understand that people in their 20s and 30s can add a lot of value on the board so it's up to you to articulate why you often see a lot of organizations falling foul because they have outdated ideas, and you know somebody from a younger generation can really add that and likewise, you know, looking at diversity is not just about age and sexuality and religion and ethnicity is also looking at cognitive diversity. So people, you know, perhaps, you know with, you know, with sort of dyslexia or dyspraxia and they bring incredible perspectives in so it's really important that if you are part of a board or you want to be part of a board is really important to champion diversity to avoid the group thinking because that's where the problems happen with boards when they become abnormal and dysfunctional and not effective. Now, when you think about boards you should really think about what's the point. The point is governance, and governance is Latin for steer. So it's like steering a ship you've got to steer a ship through the storms and that's what board members have to do to the organization. And so you've got to really be looking ahead for what's called gray rhinos. That's kind of things that are coming at you, you know it's going to impact the business that people are just pretending it doesn't exist because it's too stressful to think about. Oh, you're too busy dealing with, you know, sort of firefighting and that's obviously what happens with the executive team. So that's what the board members should really be thinking about what are the gray rhinos that the executive team maybe don't have a headspace to deal with. We need to identify them, we need to come up with a mitigation strategy. And also, you know what are the potential black swans I mean you know COVID came out of nowhere but actually it wasn't really a black swan because COVID you know it was a lot of the experts predicted that this is something that could happen and it has happened throughout human history. So understanding you know what are the threats, what has happened in the industries what has you know what's what's kind of like one of the potential technological risks, the, the sort of the generational shifts that are happening, as well as any sort of geopolitical risks as well. You know, it's important when you are on the board is to stay in your lane strategy don't get involved in operational now some organizations particularly underfunded organizations like charities, often will invite people on the board, but actually make you do operational work and they often do it because perhaps they can't afford a PR person or a PR agency so they may invite you on the board now that's technically not really the correct thing to do, because when you're on the board you've got to stay in your lane and do strategy, and, and, and governance, and, and so you've got to be very aware when they invite you on boards to be like, am I strictly going to focus on governance and strategy or is the understanding that you actually want me to be involved in operational which is not strategic governance, you know, sort of strategic work for the board. So be careful about that. And also when you do have conversations with people, you know, what are the timelines, you know how often will be be meeting what are the time expectations will it be paid will it not be paid. You know, and risk is also important because yes it's great to be on the boards for many reasons. A in the future you may want to transition from executive roles to having a portfolio of board positions which are paid and that can supplement your income. The, you know, but there are risks involved so you know what are the risks, you know one is that actually, you can get into a lot of legal trouble if it turns out to be malpractice, you know, and it turns out to be gross and competence in an organization and it collapses. So when you do join you should ask do they have insurance often it's called dno insurance director and office insurance, asked for a copy read it, you know what is your personal liability. You know, and you've got to always declare all conflicts of interest both actual and perceived, and because perceptions matter and really understand, you know, what your risks are if you're also going to be made a director of the organization, and that carries risks, but when you join you should receive a letter of appointment, a contract, Articles of Association, a board level document detailing the code of contact the protocols, succession planning, you know, annual reviews, organizational values and so forth. If you find the organization doesn't have that then it gives you an idea of how well organized this organization is. I remember if you're joining boards and it's a disorganized organization. That means it's high risk, high risk for things to screw up. And if it's high risk that means you carry that risk with somebody on the board it affects not only your personal reputation but you could be legally liable as well. So don't just jump into any board positions that are offered to be extremely careful and diligent to make sure. Now, often PR people when they join boards they say well you know I'm really good at PR and marketing and comms and brand I'm not going to touch the financial. There's a lot of court cases that have shown that that if you're a trustee or a, you know on the board of an organization you can't use ignorance as an excuse. So if you're not comfortable with profit loss accounts and balance sheets and cash flow forecasts, I would suggest that you do a sort of you know one day course for non finance professions, so that you can make sure that you understand all aspects if you do join a board and you've got legal exposure, you can't use the excuse that you're not an accounts person, you have to understand and know it. Often boards are, you know, should have ideally less than 12 people to avoid being a talking shop odd numbers are usually better than even so you can arrive at a consensus. And, you know, and what you really, you know, wants to do is make sure that you have a good sound understanding of legal as well as accounting and financial. And of course you can add massive value in your comms area, but those areas, you know are important for you to be aware of you can't go into a board ignorant. I think just wrapping up. I would say that they're for those people who are interested. If you Google my name and non executive director, there is a blog that I've written that has a lot of the sort of advice on how to, you know how to get a non executive director position, what to do and negotiate when you are, you know, offered one, and also what to do when you get there. So all of that if you're interested is there's a blog that's available. There's also a number of online, you know, courses available the Institute of Directors in the UK for instance a really good online course. And the Financial Times also does a very good course on non executive director some of them are one to two days, other of them are kind of throughout a period of a few months. But I would say that it's a really good time for PR people to think about being on the board because we are moving from a highly tactical sort of profession to becoming more strategic. I think it's important for people from our industry to make that shift, because when you think about especially what happened with COVID. The biggest sort of issues that the CEOs faced was internal communications managing remote teams that was the skill sets that we could have brought, you know, to the table on the board. You know, it becomes much more integrated you've got a far more risk because of technology because of communications going around the world really quick, and like and go around the world in five minutes just like the truth can. You know how do you deal with the crisis part of that. And that is all naturally within the wheelhouse of PR people so we actually hold the skills to identify risk, risk mitigation, make sure there's no gap between the perception and the reality of greenwashing for instance going on in the organization. We understand sentiment stakeholder management. We understand risk. We understand crisis communications not in terms of when things do go wrong but also planning on how to make sure things don't go wrong to begin with. I think that those skill sets are within public relations professionals we do them, you know, intuitively they are within our profession, and those are exactly the skill sets that are required to be on boards today. In the old days they used to just have a marketing person there. But now, you know marketing, you know, communications, it's not just the stakeholder of the customer that's that's key. The employees are as important as customers, government as important communities as important, you know, consumers have become very activist in nature. So, you know, they don't really care just about price product plays promotion. You know they care about the realm that's within the PR world they care about, you know, how well do you subscribe to your sustainability credentials, how well do you treat your staff. Well, you know what you do for the for community, you know, so all of those are really within the PRs not the marketing world. And that's why we need to be at the table, and we need to deliver our strategic and governance credentials, and you know and really elevate from tactical to strategic, because the time for PR people to get on boards is right now. And I wish you all the best. And, and I, you know, and I think it was a very rewarding journey whether you choose to be on the board in charities or, you know, within corporates. It will be a massive opportunity for personal and professional growth. So I wish you all the best. And thank you.