July 2026

You’ve had a front-row seat to many of the UK’s most successful listed companies. What behaviours, governance practices or leadership traits consistently distinguish the best-performing boards from the rest?

The best boards are those that understand governance not as a compliance exercise, but as a mechanism for better strategic judgement. The companies I see perform well over time tend to have boards that are intellectually curious, constructively challenging and very clear about the answer to the “in service of what” question. They know what the company exists to do, what its obligations to shareholders and stakeholders are, where its commercial USP is and where it is prepared to take risk in order to create long-term value. That sounds simple, but in practice it requires real discipline.

The strongest boards also have a very healthy relationship with disagreement. They do not confuse collegiality with consensus. They create the conditions in which executives can be challenged rigorously, but not theatrically; where the non-executives understand the business deeply enough to test strategy, but not so much that they end up trying to run it.

I also think the best boards are clear-eyed about talent. They understand that people, culture and succession are not “soft” topics. They are often the hardest determinants of whether a strategy can actually be delivered. And they take stewardship seriously: not in the narrow sense of ticking every box, but in the deeper sense of acting as custodians of an enterprise that should be stronger in ten years’ time than it is today.

Finally, the best boards have confidence in their own sovereignty. The UK rightly has high standards of corporate governance, but “comply or explain” was never intended to become “comply or else”. A good board knows when to comply, and it knows when to explain why a different course is right for the true value creation of that particular company. Executed properly, that is governance working as intended.

Many private companies view public markets as a source of additional scrutiny and regulation. In your experience, what are the most common misconceptions executives have about life as a listed company?

The most common misconception is that being public is a loss of freedom. In reality, it can be a profound increase in strategic agency. Of course there is scrutiny. There should be. Public markets operate on trust, transparency and accountability. But that scrutiny is not the enemy of growth. Market discipline is what helps drive the liquidity, size and depth of public markets. It is why the largest asset owners in the world invest more in public equities than in any other asset class.

At their best, public markets can sharpen the quality of decision-making, deepen a company’s investor base, improve resilience and help companies build the operating disciplines and access to capital they need to truly scale.

The second misconception is that public markets are only about an IPO day. They are not. The real value of public markets is what they allow you to do afterwards: raise capital again (and again), give employees and investors liquidity, use shares strategically, build a broader profile, and create a currency for growth. There are M&A opportunities that simply do not exist outside of public markets, and this is often key to rapid growth.

I often say that ‘a listing is for life, not just for Christmas’. Whilst many focus on the IPO, the true value of public markets is to enable companies to execute against their strategy time after time, year after year. I will always remember the experience of COVID. Listed companies were able to raise huge amounts of additional capital from investors that enabled them to continue operating through the pandemic disruption – something that was simply not an option for many of their private counterparts.

The third misconception is that listing means handing your company over to the market. I would put it differently: it means entering into a long-term conversation with investors. Like any good conversation, it requires clarity, consistency and trust. Public markets are not a constraint on ambition, they are one of the mechanisms by which ambition is realised.

Now, we also have to acknowledge that public markets had become harder to navigate in recent years. The UK has been hugely proactive here, making the most significant changes to its listing regime in a generation, including a new Main Market structure and reforms that make capital raising faster and more flexible for companies, while preserving the standards and protections that underpin trust in our markets.

The UK has implemented significant listing reforms over recent years. Beyond those changes, what do you believe is the next big challenge that policymakers, investors and companies need to solve together?

We have stated that our focus now, after the remarkable reforms the UK has implemented in the last 5 or so years, is on what we describe as ‘The 2 C’s’ of capital and culture, and the two are deeply connected.

The UK does not lack ideas or capital. We are third in the world at company formation, third in the world for scaling companies, create world-class research and have more than our fair share of genuinely consequential innovation. The question is whether we deploy our deep pockets of domestic capital towards those companies and have the cultural mindset to back those companies early and thereafter regularly so that they can start, grow, scale and stay here.

For too long, we have been great at creating companies and far less good at backing them with our own capital to help them reach the point where they become globally consequential. This is key, because most developed countries treat their domestic capital markets as a source of national economic security and sovereignty. They understand that capital markets are not an abstraction. They help determine where companies grow, where jobs are created, where tax revenues arise, how domestic growth is driven and whether citizens have enough money for life events and old age.

That is why I focus so much of my time on the debate around pensions, retail investing and domestic risk appetite. I often talk about the fact that UK pension funds’ allocation to UK companies and UK capital markets has fallen dramatically over the last 25 years. The broader point is that we need more of our own long-term capital backing our own productive economy and we need a culture that assumes we should.

The reforms to listing rules were essential, but supply-side reform is not enough. We also need to drive domestic demand. At the moment, many UK pensioners have more exposure in their equity investments to a single company in the US than to the entirety of the listed companies in the UK and they don’t even know it. We need pension capital, retail capital and institutional capital to have the confidence to invest in domestic growth. And we need a cultural shift that celebrates success, celebrates responsible risk-taking and recognises that the financial markets are one of the mechanisms through which society turns ambition into reality.

What is the most interesting thing you’ve read / watched / listened to recently?

I am an enormous fan of podcasts – I alternate between the Rest is History, Empire and Kermode and Mayo – so if I don’t have time to read history books and watch movies, I can at least keep up a little bit!

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Please note: The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the individual financial professional(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Alma Strategic. These insights are provided for informational purposes only and may not be relevant at the time of reading, as market conditions can change rapidly. The information provided should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any financial product or security. Individuals should conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Alma Strategic disclaims any responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this interview.