Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors is unique. It opens the doors to the boardroom and explains what happens inside. Using his thirty years of board experience, Simon Laffin describes board issues, all of which he has experienced, and how boards deal with them. He gives over 150 tips, including how better decisions could be taken and how board directors can better join in those debates. He doesn't shy away from difficult topics; from how a company responds to a hostile take-over, to how to remove an underperforming director, and even how to handle sex in the boardroom: To name but a few. He argues strongly that boardrooms need more female and ethnic minority directors, and pinpoints the problem that underrepresented groups lack board experience and knowledge, something that this book can start to address. This book is about being a real director. How do you get to be one? How does it feel to join a board for the first time? How do you develop relationships with other directors? How do you make the right decisions? What do those financials mean? How should the board handle shareholders? How do you set executive pay? The book answers all these questions and more in an engaging style, packed with amusing anecdotes and much painfully-earned, real-life experience. It is a manifesto for more informed and effective boards. Reading this book will give directors a better understanding of the issues that arise inside the boardroom. His tips on building relationships and working together will make boards more cohesive teams. These will make be bigger contributions to better governance than the plethora of corporate regulation that is being developed and implemented globally. Politically-driven, populist, rule changes are challenged as the book demands evidence-based and tested regulation, focussed on people doing a difficult job, not easy targets for lazy blame. Behind Closed Doors sheds new light on the hidden workings of company boards, and will appeal to anyone interested in the boardroom; current directors; aspiring directors; commentators on, and students, of business; and even enlighted regulators.

Simon is currently a non-executive director at Dentsu Group Inc (a Japanese-based global media company) and Watkin Jones plc (a listed UK property company). Previously, he has chaired Assura plc, Flybe Group plc and Hozelock Group, and served as a non-executive on Quintain Estates and Development plc, Aegis Group plc, Mitchells & Butlers plc, and Northern Rock plc (as part of the rescue team). His early career stretched from being a milkman, working in a post-room, to being a store manager and CFO at Safeway plc.