Company Secretary - Financial Services

Gresham Hunt have partnered with a highly regarded Financial Services client operating within the Payments space to perform a search for a Company Secretary to lead their Governance & Secretarial division.

The key focus of this role is to lead and develop the Corporate Governance strategy across the business, by influencing and coaching multiple stakeholders and units on their corporate governance responsibilities, including the ExCo and Board.

This is a senior leadership role and therefore it is required that the successful candidate will have had prior board level experience in a listed or Financial Services organisation.

The role:

• Oversee the Corporate Governance team providing guidance, mentoring, training, support and challenge to deliver against strategic and core objectives. This includes recruitment and performance management.
• Offer advice to executive directors and the Executive to support them and their authors in the development of excellent reporting to the Board.
• Developing best governance practice for the business to meet expectations of a complex set of stakeholders.
• Responsible for the proactive development and delivery of the annual board forward agenda, and supporting the Chair to plan and arrange strategic and key planning events including but not limited to, the Annual General Meeting (AGM).
• Responsible for the management of guarantors, including communication with and assessing the role and scope of this cohort.
• A member of the senior team working to serve as the main point of contact between the company’s officers and middle management
• A key support to ExCo in the effective running of executive ExCo and executive committees.
• Working closely with the Chief Policy & Engagement Office team to ensure a high level of stakeholder engagement reporting into the Board.
• Governance lead for the company wide ESG agenda.
• Responsible for the preparation and delivery of the annual report and accounts, ensuring quality of content and messaging, consistent with the strategic direction of the business. Liaison with and management of the Guarantors in respect the annual report and full delivery of successful annual general meetings and other member meetings, as required.
• Responsible for monitoring changes in relevant legislation and the regulatory environment and taking appropriate action to support the organisation accordingly.
• Collaboration with stakeholders, internally and externally to share knowledge, experience and best practice on governance obligations and initiatives as appropriate, acting as a sounding board for all directors on matters of corporate governance.
• Acting as advisor and coach to leaders across the business on all corporate governance related matters and provide support and guidance on all governance issues.
• Responsible for developing improvements in corporate governance analytics and key metrics to support the understanding of and tracking governance performance against key performance indicators, leading to a mature governance framework.
• Responsible for keeping under review the current governance operating model and providing recommendations for process re‑engineering, resource management and ways of working.
• Responsible for developing the work of the Board and its committees.
• Responsible for the annual board and committee evaluations, making recommendations for and implementing changes to structure and ways of working.
• In conjunction with the Chair design and implement an appropriate training plan for the Board on a collective and individual basis as well as comprehensive induction and on‑boarding programme for new Board members.
• Management Oversight
• Providing strong leadership to the governance team, ensuring the continued professionalisation of skills and capabilities, to maintain industry standards and adopting best practice.
• Ensuring appropriate liaison and communication with members of the committees and internal/ external stakeholders is highly effective.
• Responsible for ensuring chairs of committees are supported in delivering initiatives and actions, the appointment of new committee members and managing the subsequent induction process, including the provision of directors’ duties training.
• Responsible for committees operating in accordance with their Terms of Reference and all artefacts detailing actions, minutes and decisions made are accurate and produced within governance standards and SLA timelines, including storage maintenance.
• Ensuring the committee structure for external industry engagement is maintained effectively and appropriate governance reporting is delivered as required and developed, in conjunction with both internal stakeholders and regulators, where required.

The candidate / Qualifications:

• ICSA qualified, Chartered membership, Fellow (FCG).
• Extensive Post Qualification Experience
• Further/higher qualifications related to either legal requirements of a business or general business management (MBA).
• Proven leadership of developing and implementing Company Governance frameworks, end to end change programmes, tools and policies with measurable impacts.
• Extensive knowledge and experience to support a progressive and heavily regulated environment for complex financial services organisations.
• Exceptional Company Secretary technical skills and able to lead, coach and influence the adoption of industry standards and best practice.
• Practical experience of UK company administration with a deep knowledge of Corporate Governance legislation, regulatory and legal codes.
• Able to demonstrate positive impact on colleague performance and organisational effectiveness.