Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen: The Chairman’s Perspective
We were delighted to welcome Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen to BCKR. After studying law at Cambridge, Stephen’s career initially embraced financial journalism (a founder of Euromoney Publications at 23) before moving into theatre-owning and managing 11 leading West End theatres.
While Stephen has had plenty of commercial non-executive experience, he focused the session on the not-for-profit elements of his career and in particular, his Chairing of RADA, where he took over from Richard Attenborough – and why Attenborough called everyone ‘darling’! He discussed taking trustee roles at younger or older ages, the role of non-execs given the limited knowledge available to them, and the importance of strategy reviews, touching on the importance of lawyers on the board not being regarded as a source of free advice.
“It’s the Chairman’s job to make sure the meetings are useful, interesting and constructive.”
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