Eton Bridge Podcast

Transformation delivered: Stories from the front line

Kat Stewart, Partner within the HR Practice at Eton Bridge Partners is joined by Cecilie Sondergaard Nielson, executive coach and founder of the leadership consultancy CN8, to promote confidence in the workplace for women, and to discuss a few of the main issues female leaders encounter in their rise to more senior positions in the workplace.

Cecilie has an impressive track record of working with senior leaders to identify and change the dynamics that stand in the way of delivery and progress. With a special interest in supporting women in senior leadership positions, Cecilie is an advocate for diversity in leadership, and has extensive experience with issues surrounding female leadership in traditionally male-dominated industries.

As an executive search, interim management and consulting firm, we are in a privileged position of being able to meet many senior leaders across lots of different organisations in the UK, as well as internationally. Through these conversations, we have identified that women in leadership roles struggle to change themselves to fit a ‘mould’ of what they feel is expected of them, often questioning themselves, pushing themselves harder and often never quite feeling ‘enough’. Despite the progress made in recent years, with females in senior leadership roles, there’s still work to do. We’re back with episode 3 on the topic of ‘authority’.

An introduction to neurodiversity with FTSE Chair and founder of the Institute of Neurodiversity, Charlotte Valeur.

Neurodiversity is the concept that all humans vary in terms of their neurocognitive ability. Everyone has both talents and things they struggle with. However, for some people, the variation between those strengths and challenges is more pronounced.

Perhaps it is not enough to simply accept these differences where instead, we could be doing more to celebrate these cognitive differences to truly harness the power of neurodiversity in the workplace.

Charlotte Valeur joins Josh Emmerson, Associate Partner at Eton Bridge Partners for this episode talking about her own experience of being diagnosed with autism and ADHD as an adult, whilst working within Non-Executive Director and FTSE Chair roles, and more about launching the Institute of Neurodiversity (ION) in 2021 to give a voice to all neurodiverse individuals and campaign for inclusion.

Charlotte is a former merchant banker, corporate governance expert, and a former chair of the UK's Institute of Directors. She has chaired three international companies and has non-executive directorships at private and public companies.

Since being diagnosed with autism in later life – Charlotte has been called "a boardroom diversity champion" for all of the awareness and support she has provided for neurodiverse community.

Kat Stewart, Partner within the HR Practice at Eton Bridge Partners is joined by Cecilie Sondergaard Nielson, executive coach and founder of the leadership consultancy CN8, to promote confidence in the workplace for women, and to discuss a few of the main issues female leaders encounter in their rise to more senior positions in the workplace.

Cecilie has an impressive track record of working with senior leaders to identify and change the dynamics that stand in the way of delivery and progress. With a special interest in supporting women in senior leadership positions, Cecilie is an advocate for diversity in leadership, and has extensive experience with issues surrounding female leadership in traditionally male-dominated industries.

As an executive search, interim management and consulting firm, we are in a privileged position of being able to meet many senior leaders across lots of different organisations in the UK, as well as internationally. Through these conversations, we have identified that women in leadership roles struggle to change themselves to fit a ‘mould’ of what they feel is expected of them, often questioning themselves, pushing themselves harder and often never quite feeling ‘enough’. Despite the progress made in recent years, with females in senior leadership roles, there’s still work to do.

We’re back with episode 2 on the topic of ‘perfectionism’

Eton Bridge Partners - Annual Mental Wellbeing Event 2022

Marcus Shah, Partner within the Private Equity Practice at Eton Bridge Partners, had the pleasure of being joined by Keith Browner, Group CFO at Elysium Healthcare.

Eton Bridge Partners successfully helped Keith secure this initial engagement, and subsequently built out his management team capability with a number of strategic hires.

Keith took the time to talk us through his journey from interim to permanent, and then how he went on to complete a successful business sale for Elysium Healthcare and their backers, BC Partners. He also provides advice to aspiring CFO’s and outlines his approach to success.

Kat Stewart, Partner within the HR Practice at Eton Bridge Partners is joined by Cecilie Sondergaard Nielson, executive coach and founder of the leadership consultancy CN8, to promote confidence in the workplace for women, and to discuss a few of the main issues female leaders encounter in their rise to more senior positions in the workplace.

Cecilie has an impressive track record of working with senior leaders to identify and change the dynamics that stand in the way of delivery and progress. With a special interest in supporting women in senior leadership positions, Cecilie is an advocate for diversity in leadership, and has extensive experience with issues surrounding female leadership in traditionally male-dominated industries.

As an executive search, interim management and consulting firm, we are in a privileged position of being able to meet many senior leaders across lots of different organisations in the UK, as well as internationally. Through these conversations, we have identified that women in leadership roles struggle to change themselves to fit a ‘mould’ of what they feel is expected of them, often questioning themselves, pushing themselves harder and often never quite feeling ‘enough’. Despite the progress made in recent years, with females in senior leadership roles, there’s still work to do.

So, here we are with episode 1 on the topic of Imposter Syndrome.

Over the last five years, this panel series has focused on driving the mental health conversation forwards. We specifically focus on workplace and employer culture, rather than on reactive crisis response in the workplace. This year’s panellists will explore the relationship between mental wellbeing, performance and employment.

Topics include:

Naturally, the challenges of the pandemic will be a thread throughout, as will the concepts of kindness, humanity and the importance of human conversations.

Seema Talwar is a Senior Operational Executive with 20 years of global team leadership across all aspects of both a physical and digital business focused on supply chain through planning, procurement, manufacturing, logistics, vendor managed inventory, demand planning, P&L management and driving cost efficiencies.

Most recently, Seema was Senior Vice President International Operations for Twentieth Century Fox, a division of The Walt Disney Company. She started her career as a temporary administrator at Twentieth Century Fox and worked her way up to become the Global Lead for Operations and was a key sponsor and change agent, guiding the business through the acquisition by Walt Disney, and the subsequent merger.

Here she shares her journey with Ross Dawson, Partner within Operations, Procurement & Supply Chain at Eton Bridge Partners; from her family background to her impressive career spanning over 20 years as an Operational Executive and how her husband and family have enabled her to have the career and experience she has today.

Eton Bridge Partners is a leading Executive Search, Interim Management and Consulting firm covering the breadth of corporate leadership. Our purpose is to build great teams that drive business performance.

Respect, care, and collaboration are at the heart of everything we do: our people-first culture prioritises building long term personal relationships with colleagues, clients, and candidates alike.

As an executive search, interim management and consulting firm, Eton Bridge Partners are in a genuinely privileged position, meeting people from all walks of life, across lots of different organisations.

Through these conversations, we constantly hear the importance of inclusivity and the distinct lack of diverse role models at the C-Suite level. So, we’ve invited people from our network to share their story and experiences in the workplace, how they became a C-Suite executive and what can we all do to help create more inclusive work places.