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Welcome to the Summer edition of the Newsletter. In this edition: Master Chris provides his regular update, reports on the New Members' Reception and the Education Lecture, (both of which had to be rescheduled for differing reasons), Sally Garratt's obituary, and reminders of coming events.
Our Master's Voice
I am pleased to report steady progress with my aim to speak with every member of the Company during my year. 101 of you have attended at least one event in the year, and I have enjoyed phone conversations with a further 46 members. 2 members – Gordon Stoker and John McLean Fox – kindly invited me to meet them in their homes. I have had snatched phone conversations with a further 4 members, with promises to arrange a proper call. This leaves 19 members still to connect with. Looking back over the last 7 months, the great conversations I have had with members have been one of the real highlights of my year so far.
It was a privilege to admit three new Freemen, to clothe two new Liverymen and admit an Honorary Freeman at the New Member's Reception in April (Full details and photos below).
Since Easter Court, events have included a ProBono event on the theme of viability and sustainability at Carmens' Hall, the Members Reception at the Guildhall where we successfully experimented with discounted ticket pricing for prospective new members, the United Guilds Service at St Paul’s Cathedral followed by lunch at the Guildhall, a CMCE talk about the consultant as ethnographer on Wall Street in 2008, a CMCE event on Measuring Consulting Performance, the Wine Club’s outdoor tasting of Italian wines in Covent Garden, and the Education Lecture and Supper at Bayes Business School co-hosted by Malcolm McCaig and André Spicer. Again, there’s a full report below but it is worth noting that the event generated some excellent feedback and comments both on the night and subsequently on social media. It also represents another key milestone in our ever-strengthening partnership with the business school.
In April, 20 members of the Company joined my family and friends at the Cavalry and Guards Club to celebrate my 60th birthday.
Looking ahead, please come to the Faith Group event at Lambeth Palace library on 12 June, the Pro-bono workshop on income generation on 15 June, the World Heart Beat concert on 22 June, our Summer Celebration in the garden of the Charterhouse on 4 July, and our Annual Church Service following the Election Court on 21 September. Ten of us will be participating in the Sheep Drive on Southwark Bridge on 24 September.
Regarding progress on other areas of our strategy, Collette Stone and her team are continuing with their excellent work on our future strategy. I have met several times with the Sea Cadets, and Lisa Preuveneers and our Clerk represented us at their coronation parade in Greenwich; a trip is planned to a training event at the Sea Cadet unit in Feltham on 23 June at which members are welcome to join me. Kanan Barot and I were invited to Embankment Place to meet PwC UK’s managing partner Marissa Thomas to explore ways to deepen the relationship between the Company and PwC, with several follow-up actions resulting.
For those of you who like to keep informed about my other engagements as Master, I have since Easter Court attended a Garden Party at the Palace on the Tuesday after the Coronation, four Mansion House dinners (Lord Mayor’s Banquet and dinners hosted by the International Bankers, Insurers and Arbitrators); the Chartered Secretaries and Administrators dinner at Goldsmiths' Hall, our Past Masters’ lunch, lunch with the judges at the Old Bailey, the Big Curry lunch at the Guildhall, the Tacitus Lecture at the Guildhall with guest speaker Rory Stewart, another lecture run by the Guild of Investment Managers, a Financial Services Group event, the Pewter Live exhibition, and the World Traders 100 Club lunch where we celebrated the arrival of the 111th Livery Company, the Nurses.
May I end with a request to members to consider standing for election to the Courts of Assistants and Wardens. The election takes place on 21 September and more information on the election process will be circulated by the Clerk in August.
New Members' Reception
April 17th saw the rescheduled New Members’ Reception at Guildhall. 1W Kanan Barot reports:
"The Membership Reception is the main event of the year that celebrates our members, both current and prospective, being one of a handful of events specifically designed for meeting colleagues and friends, and making new ones. This year continued the tradition well, expanding our diversity, with our new Freemens' expertise covering the globe from the USA to China and under the ocean on the way, as well as having a number of potential new Junior Freemen who we hope will join and bring their own growing expertise of the changing industry.
As always, the event, led by the Membership Committee, heard from the Master on the year to date, and from various Members about Company activities and experiences, covering our main areas of Pro-Bono and Mentoring, Education and CMCE, progress with the implementation of the WCoMC Strategy, and finishing with a recently admitted Freeman talking about their experience of the Company since joining.
The speeches being kept to a minimum, the evening moved on to more intimate networking while enjoying Company wine (including a special Chateau McHugh!) and some very filling canapes, for which many thanks to Walter Gill, who admirably circulated with the food to ensure no-one had to break off from interesting discussions.
This was again an informative and convivial evening in the splendour of Guildhall, giving all those attending a great chance to catch up on Company activities at a high level and then move on to more informal conversation – which was certainly lively, given the level of noise and reluctance of people to leave.
At the Ceremonial Court that preceded the event, we admitted three new Freemen to the Company as shown below.
Atul Madahar Jamie McMichael Phillips Michelle Wang
Also, the following were clothed with the Livery.
Lisa Preuveneers Hugh Tinsley
Finally, André Spicer, Dean and Professor at Bayes Business School (see more below) was admitted as an Honorary Liveryman.”
Education Supper - 2023
At long last, on 17th May, the annual Education Supper returned to an "in person" event, jointly hosted with Bayes Business School/City University. It continued our theme of The Future of Education, with a thought provoking debate on educating for the professions of the future.
3W Malcolm McCaig, as Master of Ceremonies, introduced the proceedings at Bayes Business School, and his co-host André Spicer, Dean and Professor at Bayes Business School, set the exam question for the debate: “If you were recruiting five years from now, what would you expect from the education system that is different from what you expect today?”.
The debate featured an expert panel which was moderated by Rebecca George CBE. Rebecca is the Independent Chair, Skills Steering Board for the Department for Education, which is responsible for delivering reform across FE, HE and Lifelong Learning.
The "supply side" of the debate was represented by two leading proponents in Higher and Further Education. The first was Dr Sionade Robinson FRGS who is City University’s Vice President of Engagement, Enterprise, and Employability. She began her career as a management consultant before founding her own consulting firm specialising in customer insight, skills development, and measurable performance improvement. The second was Keith Smith who has worked in the skills system for 25 years. He is currently CEO of West London’s leading college group HRUC (Harrow, Richmond and Uxbridge Colleges), which includes the West London Institute of Technology.
The "demand side" of the debate was represented by two leading employers of graduates, apprentices and school leavers. The first was Jenny Taylor MBE, who is responsible for IBM UK's Graduate, Apprenticeship and Intern programmes. She won Apprentice Champion of the Year in the National Apprenticeship Awards in 2020 and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours list 2022 for services to Education. The second was Sarah Passmore, who is the People Director for PwC's Audit business, which employs over 600 graduates annually. In her role at PwC, she oversees the end-to-end people strategy. This includes all hiring for the audit business, which has recently redesigned their graduate assessment to better align with the future needs of the business.
A variety of interesting points were made in the exchanges during the debate. Living up to its billing as being an interactive debate, the panel also took questions from the 100 strong audience. The moderator kept the pace and ideas flowing throughout the debate, and used her final closing remarks to stress the importance of collaboration.
After the debate and informal networking, a group of about 40 Members and guests attended an exclusive dinner, complete with various toasts and some fine Sicilian wine. During the dinner, Professor Andrew Sturdy, who had earlier been presented with the Urwick Cup by Father of the Livery Calvert Markham, gave a brief synopsis of his award-winning research on "The Governance of Management Consultancy Use: Practices, Problems, and Possibilities".
Your editor was present for this engaging and insightful evening, but I will leave it to Professor André Spicer to summarise the event as follows:
“We had a great Education debate last night at Bayes. This was run with the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants. (The panel) discussed what kind of skills they would expect from graduates in five years’ time. They were all looking for 'soft skills' such as communication, influencing, teamwork, resilience, coaching, giving and receiving feedback as well as critical thinking skills.
One thing which came up was as firms have pivoted towards training people in leadership there is now a big gap in basic management skills. Another insight was that many large firms find graduates who have done an apprenticeship or spent time working while studying or done some kind of internship during their studies are much more prepared.”
Congratulations to Malcolm and all those involved in making the evening such a resounding success and demonstrating our Company’s ability to convene such a prestigious event.
Future Events
The Master has already trailed several upcoming events. The major upcoming ones are:
Faith Group - Coronation Display and Reception at Lambeth Palace (12 June)
Pro Bono Workshop (15 June - evening)
My Most Interesting ... with Nick Bush (22nd June - evening at World Heart Beat). Please note that, in addition to the talk by Nick on how he supported the creation of WHB's new venue - and that's worth a visit in its own right - we have also reserved the balcony for attendees to stay on and listen to a concert by a classical guitarist.
Summer Celebration (4th July).
That’s it up at least up to the summer recess. Look out for emails with more details and also how to book on our website - as ever.
Sally Garratt - Obituary
The sad news of Sally passing has already been reported but, with the blessing of Sally’s husband Bob, we’re including an abridged version of Sally’s obituary from the Times in April.
“When in 1975 Sally Garratt and husband Bob were invited by her distant uncle, the British ambassador to China, to spend a few weeks’ holiday with him they willingly accepted. Few visitors were then allowed into China — it was towards the end of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution — but through embassy connections and dinners the couple would be among the few western management educators to become known to senior members of the Communist Party.
Sally was already an experienced project manager, having worked on construction projects including the new buildings for the Middlesex Polytechnic. She developed more of her consulting skills and wrote well-received books on time management, consulting skills and women managers. She and Bob went on to develop management education programmes for the Architectural Association School of Architecture, with a strong focus on social conscience and environmental issues. By 1972 they had their own consultancy advising architects on effective practice.
 The development of management education for students, managers and business leaders was at an embryonic stage worldwide and communist China was interested in seeking an approach “with Chinese characteristics”. Surprisingly, given their lack of any formal institutional links, Sally, Bob, and the architect and management consultant Max Boisot were personally asked by the Chinese to help to design an MBA programme that linked the EEC with the new China Enterprise Management programme.
For six years they advised China – pro bono - on what would become the world’s first action learning-based MBA. They left in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square massacre and thereafter based themselves in Hong Kong and London.
Over the next 30 years, and still pro bono, they helped to create the EU-Asean management centre in Brunei Darussalam, the Commonwealth Association for Corporate Governance, the Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa at Stellenbosch University, the Gulf Co-operation Council’s Board Development Institute and the Caribbean Corporate Governance Institute. Sally’s facility with languages – she spoke the Malay language Bahasa Rajah and could read Arabic and Dutch – helped significantly.
Sally proved to be a quiet powerhouse behind the scenes, using her ability to listen intently while speaking little to create effective organisational development projects. She also helped to develop the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants as a modern livery company and was elected as the Third Warden and Almoner. To the consternation of others, she also delighted in her title of Mistress Management Consultant.
Sally collected people and was an excellent homemaker, a renowned cook and a social hub across five continents. Her network extended from the very poorest in society to African prime ministers. It was “not bad”, she occasionally said quietly, “for a poor girl from Hackney”.”
© Times Newspapers 2023
Our Members as Volunteers
In Chris’ Master's Year we will be featuring members of the Company who are volunteering their skills and experience in the profession or in the community. In this edition: Liveryman Cosette Reczek.
Cosette has had a long involvement with the pro bono sector. Inspired by her commitment to helping children in the UK and around the world, she volunteered her time as Chair, Audit & Risk Committee (ARC) and Board Trustee with Unicef UK. During her tenure she transformed the ARC's way of working and framework to provide assurance to the Board. She was also the Board's Safeguarding and Staff Association Champion, working closely with UUK's Safeguarding Team and Staff Association to establish sector-leading safeguarding standards and practices and to ensure colleague voices are heard and addressed.
In anticipation of reaching her term limit, Cosette explored other ways to volunteer her time. Another passion is ensuring that for anyone in financial distress there are avenues open for help. To help enable this in her own community, Cosette was privileged to be appointed Chair of Citizens Advice Lewisham, now approaching the end of her first term.
Cosette was able to utilise this and other executive and board experience as a management consultant, both through her own company Permuto Consulting and also as an Associate of the Centre for Charity Effectiveness. Cosette specialises in providing audit & risk committee consulting as well as board appraisal and organisational design services. Cosette is also an occasional Visiting Lecturer at Bayes Business School in their Charity MSc programme.
It was through this work that Cosette was attracted to joining the WCoMC, joining as a Freeman in 2019 and becoming a Liveryman in 2022. During her time with WCoMC, Cosette has provided coaching to a new Charity CEO through the our Pro Bono Mentoring programme. Also, working together with another WCoMC colleague, Cosette provided pro-bono management consulting. Cosette has found the CEO coaching rewarding and took pride in the consulting work providing pro bono for a charity with a complex legal and organisational structure.
As Cosette says: "WCoMC has many rich avenues through which to leverage our management consulting for the greater good - what better way than to get involved with pro bono?" (Ed: For more information on our Pro Bono consulting and Mentoring services look here.)
And Finally ...
Raising Funds for SCOPE in memory of PM John Corneille.
Past Master John Corneille, who sadly died in August 2022 was, for a time, a respected Trustee of the national disability charity Scope. With the support of John’s family, Tom Pulford (son of PM John Pulford) ran the London Marathon on 23 April, 2023 to raise funds for Scope in memory of John. This was Tom’s 39th or is it 40th marathon - he’s forgotten. With Members’ generous support Tom raised a total of £2,600 – more if you add Gift Aid. That put him in the top 10% of the 150 fund raising runners for Scope.
John’s son, Joe Corneille, commented: “What a brilliant achievement Tom! Well done. I’m sure Dad would’ve been extremely impressed. Outstanding fundraising effort too.” John’s daughter Sammy added: “What a hero, well done Tom. Super proud of you and all the money you raised for Scope in Dad’s name. Thank you again.”
Ed: I’m sure that these are sentiment that we can all support.
Thanks to all who provided content for this Newsletter and to you, for reading this far. Have a great summer and look out for GTK Philanthropy in July.
Steve Cant
Editor
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Atul Madahar
Lisa Preuveneers
Hugh Tinsley
André Spicer
