The Little Questions

Penny James has a 30 year career at, and leading, some of the world’s largest financial institutions.

A Chartered Accountant by training, from Chief Risk Officer at the Pru she joined Direct Line in 2017 first as CFO, becoming CEO in 2019. Penny now holds a suite of board positions: Senior Independent Director at Hargreaves Lansdown, Non-Executive Director at QBE Insurance Group and Mitie Group plc. She is also co-chair of the FTSE Women Leaders Review.

Given her long tenure on Boards and range of current Non-Exec roles, this wide ranging interview focuses on how best Corporate Affairs can serve and support the Board, while also ensuring strong relationships with the CEO and Exco. We examine how reputation and stakeholders are discussed at the top table – and yes, we do consider Section 172 for the Companies Act geeks among you. Also, if reputation is so important for the Board, why aren't there more former CADs in NED roles?

Along the way we also chat:

• War and peace – corporately, not the book
• Why for the CEO engaging with the media is now firmly more risk than reward
• What she looks for in a corporate affairs leader; and,
• Why she loves a bit of media training.

We do hope you enjoy this special edition of the Little Questions podcast. Check out our back catalogue for other similar interviews with Alison Brittain, current Chair of the Premier League, Amanda Blanc, CEO of Aviva, Joe Garner, former CEO of Nationwide Building Society, Paul Drexler, the former President of the CBI and, last but not least, our good friend Mark Kleinman of Sky News.

You can get in touch by emailing [email protected] and please consider leaving us a review.

Matt Young is an Apella Advisors partner with 25 years of experience in corporate affairs. He was Corporate Affairs Director at Lloyds Banking Group, part of the senior team which rescued the bank and rebuilt its reputation following the financial crisis. Formerly communications director at Santander UK and board member of the BBA. Experienced in corporate communications; public affairs and policy; regulatory affairs and risk; industrial relations; crisis and complex issues management; reputation turnarounds; campaigns, competition; and ESG. Former Head of Public Affairs and Public Policy at TSB Bank. Previously a Partner at a global communications agency and has worked in the media and politics.

Andrew Brown is an Apella Advisors partner, a former Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Ageas Insurance. He has more than ten years’ experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors, developing considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc.

Find out more at apellaadvisors.com.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

"The brand is our promise, our reputation is how well we live up to it. Or not."

Is that really the case? Is it that binary? Isn’t branding all about design and badges – the colours and shapes we can and cannot use as defined by the infamous brand police? Oh, and the odd expensive ad campaign or three?

Isn’t influencing and curating the firm’s reputation what we comms and corporate affairs people do?

Let’s accept that every organisation does need a brand and that brand needs to be managed. The little question is then; how can we comms people best work with and help our always snappily dressed brand colleagues down the corridor with their coloured pencils and fancy computers?

To discuss this little question are two Apella Advisors partners, Andrew Brown and Matt Young.

Find out more about Apella Advisors at www.apellaadvisors.com and you can get in touch by emailing[email protected] and if you enjoy this episode, please consider leaving us a review.

Matt Young is an Apella Advisors partner with 25 years of experience in corporate affairs. He was Corporate Affairs Director at Lloyds Banking Group, part of the senior team which rescued the bank and rebuilt its reputation following the financial crisis. Formerly communications director at Santander UK and board member of the BBA. Experienced in corporate communications; public affairs and policy; regulatory affairs and risk; industrial relations; crisis and complex issues management; reputation turnarounds; campaigns, competition; and ESG. Former Head of Public Affairs and Public Policy at TSB Bank. Previously a Partner at a global communications agency and has worked in the media and politics.

Andrew Brown is an Apella Advisors partner, a former Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Ageas Insurance. He has more than ten years’ experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors, developing considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Christmas and the New Year are nearly upon us and it's the season of TV repeats and compilations. Our chance to laugh again at the things we laughed at just a few months ago. We’re no different at Apella Advisors. With our world leading sustainability commitments, reuse and recycle is our mantra, so we’ve produced our very own Little Questions Podcast Xmas highlights.

This is all our best bits from 2022.

Our thoughts on everything from the merits of having activist investors on your books to thinking about how to consider brain friendly changes through organisational transformations. From what a journalist wants from a Comms team to our favourite PR heroes and villains.

Hopefully, faithful listener, you’ll agree with our choices. If you don’t, you can, of course, go back and relisten to all our previous episodes at your leisure!

We’d love to hear what you think. Get in touch on social media or email [email protected]

This edition of The Little Questions podcast is presented by Matt Young and Andrew Brown.

Apella partner Andrew Brown is a former Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Ageas Insurance. He has more than ten years’ experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors, developing considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc.

Matt Young is an Apella partner with 25 years of experience in corporate affairs. He was Corporate Affairs Director at Lloyds Banking Group, part of the senior team which rescued the bank and rebuilt its reputation following the financial crisis. Formerly communications director at Santander UK and board member of the BBA.

Find out more about Apella Advisors at www.apellaadvisors.com and you can get in touch by emailing [email protected]

This podcast was produced by the www.thepodcastcoach.co.uk

For every Atticus Finch and Han Solo, there’s a Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader.

Who doesn’t love a great hero or a terrifying villain? They are the protagonists that sit at the heart of every great story, of how we demonstrate the values that matter, define our morals and learn valuable lessons.

Arguably you can only become a great hero if you have a compelling villain against which you can strive: Without Voldemort, Harry Potter is just another young wizard; Without the Joker, Batman is just an angry ‘trustafarian’ killing time.

And given it's getting to that time of the year where we like to look back, we thought we’d have a look at our PR heroes and villains of 2022!

We’d love to hear what you think. Get in touch on social media or email [email protected]

This edition of The Little Questions podcast is presented by Andrew Brown, Jenny Scott and Matt Young.

Apella partner Andrew Brown is a former Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Ageas Insurance. He has more than ten years’ experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors, developing considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc.

Apella partner Jenny Scott joins us again on The Little Questions podcast. Jenny has worked as Executive Director of Communications at the Bank of England and co-lead for Bank wide strategy. She was also Advisor to the Governor, and sat on the Bank’s executive committee and risk committee. Formerly Economics and Politics Correspondent for the BBC and Presenter of the Daily Politics, she is now Trustee of Pro Bono Economics.

Matt Young is an Apella partner with 25 years of experience in corporate affairs. He was Corporate Affairs Director at Lloyds Banking Group, part of the senior team which rescued the bank and rebuilt its reputation following the financial crisis. Formerly communications director at Santander UK and board member of the BBA.

Find out more about Apella Advisors at www.apellaadvisors.com and you can get in touch by emailing [email protected]

This podcast was produced by the www.thepodcastcoach.co.uk

‘Content is king’ has been our clarion call on many a podcast. What we often leave out is the equally important point of how you say something, as well as when you say it and where.

As Corporate Affairs and Comms professionals we are often the director of the presentations our spokespeople give to key audiences. The ‘stage’ could be a physical stage at a conference, or a virtual results presentation. It could be sitting in a TV or radio studio. Or even just a speech to employees at a town hall.

In many ways, Corporate Affairs practitioners need to be a Trevor Nunn, an Arlene Phillips and a Stephen Spielberg rolled into one with the occasional need to be a Tom Hanks as well.

This episode is about the power of performance. How to make your content come alive, to stay memorable and even repeatable.

This is often where Comms professionals realise they need specialist advice. If only they could get access to someone who has been an actor, has been classically trained at somewhere prestigious like RADA, and has worked with CEOs and business leaders to extract the best of performances. Luckily at Little Questions we have just such an expert who is happy to give away some that valuable performance-related stardust on this episode.

David Solomon is our guest for this podcast. He originally worked in the City, but left to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and spent the next ten years as a professional actor working at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre.

This episode is hosted by Matt Young.

You can get in touch by emailing [email protected] and please consider leaving us a review. Find out more at apellaadvisors.com.

David Solomon, Executive Coach - Sun & Moon Training

David's professional journey is a testament to versatility and excellence. He began with a BSc in Maths and Statistics from the University of Exeter, followed by a year in the finance sector in the City. His passion for the arts then led him to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he trained and subsequently spent a decade performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. David's career evolved significantly as he became a Business Development Director in Corporate Video for prominent clients such as BP, Goldman Sachs, Heinz, HSBC and UBS Warburg. In 2003, David combined his corporate expertise and professional acting experience to become a Facilitator and Coach. Over the years, he has conducted skills training courses for organisations within the private and public sector, including London Business School, Cisco and the NHS. David is an accredited Executive Coach and a certified practitioner of MBTI and DiSC.

Elizabeth Mobed, Senior Associate - Apella Advisors

Elizabeth joined Apella as a Senior Associate in November 2023. She has extensive capital markets communications experience, advising on financial calendar communications, international M&A transactions and IPOs with FTSE 100 and leading private equity firms. She has also advised clients on reputation management, advocacy campaigns and crisis communications. Before Apella, Elizabeth worked in the Financial Communications team at Teneo. She previously worked at FTI Consulting's Strategic Communications team, joining as a Graduate. She holds an BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.

Matt Young, Partner - Apella Advisors

Matt has 25 years of experience across media relations, public affairs, regulatory development, employee engagement, brand development, competition and CSR. Group corporate affairs director at Lloyds Banking Group, part of the senior team which rescued the bank and rebuilt its reputation following the financial crisis. Formerly communications director at Santander UK and board member of the BBA.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.