Management-Issues

Boards have never had access to more data, and arguably never been under more pressure to act on it. As AI systems become more sophisticated, a new question is starting to surface in governance circles: not whether AI belongs in the boardroom, but how it will add value. For David Fairhurst, former Global Chief People Officer of McDonald's and founder of OrgShakers, the idea of an ‘AI Board Member’ isn’t about replacement. It’s about redefinition.

Nicola Hunt: Today I'm joined by Marie-Claire Dwek, the CEO of Newmark Security. Marie-Claire's path to the top of the security industry wasn't a standard corporate climb. After helping found the company in the 1990s, she was forced to walk away from both her business and her home during a personal and financial crisis. She then spent 12 years rebuilding her career in commercial property before being invited back to lead Newmark as CEO in 2013.

Senior leaders often assume that if a strategy is commercially sound, analytically rigorous, and clearly communicated, it will eventually gain traction. Yet many transformation efforts fail despite excellent planning and substantial investment. Execution stalls. Cynicism spreads. Employees disengage. Leaders conclude that people are resistant to change. But people rarely resist change itself. More often, they resist the story in which that change is embedded.

In Strategy Is a Verb, Martin Weigel argues that strategy is a discipline of action, judgement and consequence. The book is a collection of 58 short chapters, each named for a verb, from ‘Imagine’ and ‘Disobey’ to ‘Struggle’ and ‘Unlearn’. Weigel spent nearly four decades in brand strategy, including fourteen years as Chief Strategy Officer at Wieden+Kennedy, working with brands from Coca-Cola to Spotify.

We’ve all heard the statistic: up to 90% of start-ups will ultimately fail. For decades, the global investment ecosystem has accepted this as the inevitable price for disruptive progress. But what if that entire mindset is wrong and high failure rates are simply a design flaw? In Why Start-ups Fail, Bernie Bulkin challenges this fatalistic dogma and delivers an optimistic, forward-looking masterclass in pattern recognition.

Stress Awareness Month is a useful reminder that pressure at work isn’t just an individual issue, but something that affects the whole organisation. For leaders, that pressure is often bigger. Expectations stay high, decisions carry weight, and the pace rarely slows. When it builds up, stress can quietly seep into everything, affecting judgement, relationships, and overall performance.

More flexible ways of working have become the decisive factor for competing for leading tech talent, as businesses vying for top-tier AI and digital skills discover that salary alone is no longer enough to attract or retain the next generation of leaders. New research from International Workplace Group (IWG) also shows that more than eight out of 10 (83%) business leaders say advanced technology skills - such as AI, data analytics and coding - are now crucial for promotion into leadership roles.

90 percent of leadership literature is biased toward one kind of leader: decisive, assertive, fast-paced, and individualistic. Yet most of the world prefers a different kind of leadership style. I’ve written extensively about this in Leading with Cultural Intelligence and in a variety of academic and practitioner articles. Adapting how we lead is at the heart of cultural intelligence.

Have you ever found yourself biting your tongue at work, hesitating to say something to a colleague, afraid that it may offend them? Have you ever held back from cracking a joke at a meeting, unsure of how people may perceive you? Have you ever hesitated to give feedback to an employee from a marginalised group to avoid being seen as prejudiced? If any of these questions resonate with you and have been your personal experience, you’re not alone.

Employers in the UK are facing one of the most complex benefits environments in recent memory. Successive increases in the National Living Wage, higher National Insurance contributions, and persistent cost-of-living pressures have tightened salary budgets across various sectors. In 2025, official figures show that median pay awards were only 3-3.5%, and forecasts suggest a similar trend for this year, with potential compression down to 2-3% by 2027.