boardroom
Small and family owned
businesses can benefit greatly fromappointing non-executive directors (NEDs), who bring a fresh perspective and new
opportunities. Grainne Rothery spoke to one such business and to its new NED
O 34 Irish Director Spring 2011
The driving force behind the decision to appoint an
NED, according to Anne Millar, was to formalise the structure of the business. “When it is a privately owned company, particularly
when it’s a husband-and-wife team like ourselves, it can be difficult to put in the structure that’s required,” she explains. “We knew we were facing into more challeng- ing times and we wanted to formalise the business, bringing in somebody who had experience in the indus- try, in some shape or form, who could help us profes- sionalise what we were doing – even though we were very professional ourselves. We wanted someone to help us see different opportunities over and above the mar- kets that we were currently operating in.” The fact that the Millars are in expansion mode and
want to plan for future growth in an orderly fashion also influenced their decision. “We had brought the company to a particular level,”
says Millar. “We were not able to go forward in the sense of increasing capacity. We could deliver to existing cus- tomers but we needed to dilute the customer base. We needed to have more variety and maybe look at new sec- tors. So we needed somebody who had experience in the property industry.”
utside
It is well documented that the benefits of having an experienced non-executive director (NED) can be very significant for smaller and family owned companies in terms of providing access to fresh thinking and diverse skills, as well as bringing a more structured approach to governance issues and strategy planning. However, bringing in that outside perspective is not
exactly top of the agenda for the majority of small busi- nesses, with just 38pc of SMEs in a recent Institute of Directors (IoD) in Ireland survey saying they had appointed NEDs to their boards. One small company that recognised the benefits and is
now in the process of realising them is Sandyford-based Professional Tradesmen, which provides property support and construction services. It was established in 2001 by husband-and-wife team Robert and Anne Millar, who continue to jointly run the business, which employs 10 people directly. In August of last year, Professional Tradesmen appointed Laura Magahy, managing director and joint founder ofMCO Projects and a former president of the IoD in Ireland, as its first independent director.
Influence
Outside perspective “Obviously we had other ideas that we had discussed between ourselves and it was important for us to get an outside perspective to confirm or negate these. We knew we were after someone in the property industry to open up new opportunities and help us to consider markets outside the ones we were in,” she explains. To track down the right candidate, the company decided to use The Boardroom Centre at the IoD, which Millar describes as great for sourcing people with rele- vant experience. “We weren’t quite sure what kind of person we were
looking for when we went to look, but we knew that we wanted to get a high level in terms of people’s experi- ence. We really needed somebody who had been around and done a lot in their years. “They did a very good job in terms of teasing out
what the business was about, where we were trying to go and the type of people we thought we needed to talk to. Then they put together a shortlist of candidates
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