Risk, Control and Governance

How can organisations move beyond treating risk management as a compliance issue and really integrate it with their governance?

This new half-day course looks in detail at risk as an aspect of governance, and explores the key messages to emerge from the Turnbull guidance and the UK Corporate Governance Code. Delegates will be encouraged to consider how risk influences and is influenced by strategy, how it informs decision-making at the highest level, and how organisations can understand and manage their own appetite for risk. They will also be given the opportunity to develop a familiarity with, and assess the effectiveness of, a variety of control frameworks.

Delegates will finish the course with an appreciation of how effective internal controls can add value to their own organisations’ governance.

Strategic Skills for Company Secretaries
The development of strategy is a key part of the work of any company board – a point which was underscored again in 2011 with publication of the FRC Guidance on Board Effectiveness. As an enabler of this critical board process, the company secretary has a crucial part to play.

This new course looks at how company secretaries can facilitate their boards in designing and implementing effective strategic processes, and identifies the various roles which they may play throughout the different stages of that process. Through a combination of structured classroom learning and the use of current scenarios, the course is designed to equip delegates with a knowledge of the language of strategy and its implications, together with a clear understanding of how strategic principles and tools fit together.

Delegates will finish the course with the knowledge and skills to develop a tailored approach to their own organisational situation, and insights into how they can support their board on its strategic journey.

Women as Leaders
Earlier this year, the Davies review of woman on boards made the recommendation that by 2015 at least 25% of the directors on the boards of companies in the FTSE 350 be women. As companies work towards that target, women will over the next couple of years be presented with more opportunities than ever before to take their career to the next level.

This workshop aims to enhance women’s knowledge of what makes them successful and to clearly identify their own leadership style. The course will look at how to develop and improve personal performance by identifying the context in which leadership decisions are made and how to make that work for them. Delegates will be encouraged to share their own leadership challenges in order to develop a personal strategy for leading their organisation.

The course will explore the idea that women who aspire to senior roles don’t require different development to men, but do require support in understanding the external factors that affect the choices they make on the road to becoming an effective leader.