“ESG and sustainability – a soup of acronyms or an opportunity for real change?” (Exploring SME’s contribution to creating shared value for everyone.)

Guest Speaker: Oonagh Harpur

Executive Summary and Background

Environment, Social and Corporate Governance (ESR) and sustainability are being discussed in corporate boardrooms across the world. But are we seeing a sea change in the relationships between organisations, and especially businesses, within wider society?

Some will say these issues are just for the big companies and organisations? However, many SMEs take their social impacts far more seriously than their “Big” cousins”. More and more people look to us as leaders in the world of SMEs to find a way to add social value and help build a better world.

The purpose of this workshop is to invite SIBL members to consider how we can lead our organisations in a way that creates shared value for everyone involved in its success including colleagues, customers or clients, investors or grant givers, suppliers, and everyone else in the ecosystem. So that everyone can thrive.

Recent Events and Developments

The COVID Pandemic has shown how we all depend on each other and many types of organisations from hospitals and care homes; farmers and supermarket; Schools and nurseries; professional service large and small businesses and charities for our health and wellbeing food production, transport and delivery, education; TV companies and phone, broadband, water gas and electricity.

We have seen those on minimum wages become essential workers during lockdowns across the world. Health and Safety – previously “slips and trips” – got redefined and escalated into the board management information pack as Health and Wellbeing, Inclusion, and psychological safety particularly after the George Floyd murder shot up the board agenda.

Workshop Agenda

This month’s speaker Oonagh Harpur invites us to explore what this is all about, what it might mean for our own organisations and what we can do as leaders to ensure our organisations are a force for good for people and the planet?

Oonagh will offer a brief history through the lens of her own experience during her 45-year career in the public private and not for profit sectors and how she sees the social impacts within ESG and sustainability being addressed by businesses today

 This will prepare the way for participants to explore a range of topical questions such as:

1. How we got here – Members will be invited to reflect on their own careers, how they have experienced this change and what they are seeing in and around their organisations.
2. What ESG/sustainability/ CSR means to us today –Time to reflect on what really matter to us personally, professionally and for the sustainability of our organisations. Why do we exist? What is our contribution in our world? What is our purpose and that of our organisation?
3. So, what can we do? How might our world look by 2040? What might that mean for 2030? What might your organisation and those around you need to start doing to be able to adapt to change?
4.  How might you respond to the pressure that is on banks and big business? How might that impact        you, the communities around your organisation, your suppliers or your customers?

Oonagh Harpur – Profile

Since becoming the first woman CEO in the Professional Services sector more than 30 years ago, Oonagh has worked tirelessly with boards in the public and private sectors to deliver results through building trust and integrity in boards. Her experience has convinced her that boards who govern culture well facilitate both entrepreneurial success and shared value creation for all stakeholders. She believes business has a critical role in creating a world where people and the planet can thrive. Oonagh is an Independent Non-Executive at KPMG and a member of its Public Interest Committee. She has had a long career as a serial CEO, Chair, Non-Executive Director and Trustee in the energy, health, professional and financial services sectors in the UK and USA.  Oonagh is also a qualified Business Coach.

Following senior executive roles at BCLP, Deloitte and Oliver Wyman, Oonagh created and led the UK’s first national entrepreneurship campaign. As Partnership Secretary and Director, Corporate Responsibility at Linklaters for 9 years she led the post-merger integration of culture and values, and partner selection, partnership HR, tax, remuneration, risk and compliance and communication. Subsequently, she started her own business and has established a reputation as a thought leader on the Board’s leadership in strategy, good governance and culture and as a respected public speaker, author and Senior Board Advisor to numerous boards, Chairs and CEOs in the financial, medical and profession services sectors.

In addition, Oonagh has held the following appointments Government Legal Department, Non-Executive Director; Cabinet Office, Cultural Observatory, member; Walgreens Boots Alliance, Advisory Panel on Sustainability, Member; The Wisdom of the Crowd Ltd, Chair; Scientific and Medical Network, Trustee; and Senior Advisor to Tomorrow’s Company and Blueprint for Better Business.

Oonagh has been a pioneer with a string of “firsts” including drafting the first sustainable business report “Coal and the Environment”, NCB, 1982; first Non-Lawyer CEO of a law firm 1987-94; CEO, Enterprise Insight, 1999-2002 – a joint venture between government and the UK’s leading business organisations and NGOs; and City Values Forum, Board Member (2012-2017) – the Lord Mayors’ initiative to restore trust and integrity in the City.

Oonagh led and co-authored with City Values Forum and Tomorrow’s Company, “Governing Culture: Risk & Opportunity” for the FRC’s Culture Coalition in 2016; co-authored with KPMG, Korn Ferry and Tomorrow’s Company “Tomorrow’s Chairman” serialised in the FT in 2014 and reprinted in 2019; and contributed chapters to two publications in autumn 2021: “Effective Directors: The Right Questions to Ask” Routledge, September 2021; and the FRC’s “Collection of Perspectives on Audit Culture” November 2021. Oonagh has been listed in Debrett’s “People of Today” for over 15 years and Cranfield’s “FTSE 100 Women to Watch”,