Businesses can drive social change more than governments can

12 January 2010

Interview in the Spanish publication, Expansión, with Virginia Bottomley Partner of Odgers Berndtson / Advocate of female talent, the former Secretary of State for Health and National Heritage in the UK affirms that companies governed by ethics have, at present, a huge opportunity to improve.

One of  her father’s favorite sayings was  –“If you want to earn your salary, you have to work hard”- and Virginia Bottomley (Dunoon, Scotland, 1948) has lived by these words throughout her extensive career as a public figure and in the private sector.  Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone studied Social Administration at Essex University and the London School of Economics prior to moving into public life.  She was elected Member of Parliament (MP) in the British House of Commons when, of 600 MPs, only 23 were women and she made history as the youngest (and sixth) woman to serve as a Secretary of State. She is currently Partner of the executive search firm Odgers Berndtson where she leads Board Search and the Venture Capital Practice.

A frequent visitor to the Spanish capital, Virginia Bottomley is dressed in a gray jacket and skirt in the purest British style. Smiling, her blue eyes reveal constant activity. She has so much energy that during our interview she couldn’t help but jumping out of her chair and going out onto the balcony to catch a glimpse of the fighter jets practicing for the exhibition for the celebration of the Spanish National Holiday on October 12th.  But Baroness Bottomley is above all correct. She does not avoid answering questions and even wishes David Cameron luck in the race for Downing Street, the official residence of the British Prime Minister. “I like his team, they are highly capable and talented”, assures Bottomley, who rules out returning to politics. “I had my day and I feel a bit like a grandmother; I love my grandchildren but wouldn’t want to be a mother again”, she affirms.

She defines her current job as “a combination and integration of all the roles I’ve had throughout my career”. After dedicating her early career to conducting research on poverty and helping underprivileged children (she was appointed President of the London Juvenile Court at age 32), politics came knocking on her door.  She remembers: “It was my husband who started when there were only 23 women in the House of Commons. Margaret Thatcher said:  “Get me Virginia Bottomley”.  And this was how I became a member of her cabinet”. During this period, she worked side by side with the Iron Lady and subsequently with former Prime Minister John Major, in whose government she served as Secretary of State for Health (1992-1995) and National Heritage (1995-1997). 

Memories

Baroness Bottomley has very good memories of her experiences in politics. One of them was when Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, visited London for the first time. Bottomley was in charge of accompanying him to Africa House and recalls two ideas the leader stressed: “He said that fighting against apartheid was easier than building a country because you have a responsibility, you have to meet the expectations of your people and make difficult decisions”. Moreover, “Mandela thanked God for the presence of all the multinational companies who had stayed in South Africa because they were teaching his people about employment related questions.

“I was delighted by Mandela’s defense of the power of business. In fact, what most interests me about executive search is precisely that businesses can drive social change in some countries more than their own governments. Business,  if it focuses on gender equality and a responsible supply chain, and fight against corruption, becomes truly capable of doing good, as demonstrated, for example by large groups such as Anglo American, BP and Shell.” Virginia Bottomley is so convinced of this that she challenges multinationals not to let this moment escape. “Companies governed by ethics have, right now, a huge opportunity to do good,” She says.

Metamorphosis

Intent on making a contribution in a different field, Bottomley left politics for Odgers Berndtson, where she initially developed the public sector practice. The metamorphosis of the former Secretary of State into a consultant specializing in executive search was, from her point of view, “a natural progression because in order to help companies find the right people, it is necessary to understand their strategy so that I could give them advice and recommendations that add value.”
She has led projects to find the Director of the National Audit Office and the President of Oxfam, and helped identify Richard Lambert as Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). “That was a complex search because we believed that it was important to find someone different. Many of the candidates knew only too well the reality of the UK and its business community, but we saw it was fundamental to choose someone familiar with Brussels, its institutions and its functioning”, explains Bottomley.

Decision

Lambert was chosen after a search involving some 400 interviews, 85 of which the former Secretary of State conducted herself. Bottomley says: “Three years later, the client told us that he was the best candidate they could have chosen – that is the outcome that Odgers Berndtson seeks to achieve on every search it undertakes”

With regard to corporate governance, Bottomley emphasizes that “despite the difficult economic situation, there is still a market for executive search because, especially now, being number two in a given sector isn’t sufficient.” Moreover, she states that in the last decades, “there have been advances in Europe toward the separation of a chief executive’s day-to-day management function from the role of chairing the board, the introduction of more rigorous independent auditing, and requirements relating to the number of independent members of the board”. However, there’s still a long road ahead on three issues: the board’s responsibility, its process of evaluation and female representation.
“The standards are changing and the challenge is to achieve greater diversity on the board in order to have more than one line of thought. That is, how to help independent board members collaborate without changing their nature”, explains Bottomley. One formula to achieve this, from her point of view, is to increase the number of women on the board. “For example, in the case of a consumer products company, it can be helpful to know more about the end user since the decision to buy usually falls on the woman”, she adds.

Bottomley admits she has doubts about imposing mandatory quotas, such as in Norway, and encourages women to stop second guessing their capabilities: “being the only female member of the board can be intimidating. That’s why we need more women, but they need to believe in their ability to take on the role”, she states.

Another possibility that Bottomley considers “interesting” is having more academic professionals on the board. “The recommendation is that the board can have an authentic free thinker”, she argues. Regarding compensation, she believes it’s a “double standard when football players are paid such astronomical salaries, but only the banks get the criticism” and asks companies for greater transparency and shareholders to take a stand “because I don’t believe governments will get involved”.

“Window breakers” vs. “glaziers”

About the lessons she has learned from her experience in politics, she stresses patience. “In order to see results in the spring, one first has to get through the autumn and the winter. At times, politicians think it can all be done from one day to another”, she explains.  “Throughout every politician’s career, you can have good or bad luck, but, on occasion, you can’t be disappointed when you weren’t chosen for the post”, emphasizes Bottomley, who also applies this idea to the business world. Talking about styles, she separates the “window breakers “(who break everything and bring change) and the “glaziers” who rebuild after the storm. For Bottomley, she is closer to the latter. “The challenge is to know exactly which one is necessary and when”. And that’s where Odgers Berndtson comes into play; the firm provides executive search services to its clients through its 52 offices in 27 countries. “A network of international offices is the basic ingredient for a firm specialized in executive search in the 21st century”, affirms Bottomley.