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The Boardroom Path

The Boardroom Path

Written by: Sainty Hird & Partners
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 Welcome to The Boardroom Path, the essential podcast for aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors navigating the journey from executive leadership to the boardroom. Hosted by Ralph Grayson, partner at Sainty Hird & Partners, each episode offers insightful conversations with industry leaders, seasoned board directors, and governance experts. Our guests share practical strategies, valuable perspectives, and actionable advice on how to effectively transition into board roles, maximise your impact, and build a rewarding NED career.Sainty Hird & Partners Economics Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Evgeny Shadchnev on Transitioning From Founder to CEO

    Evgeny Shadchnev on Transitioning From Founder to CEO
    Dec 10 2025
    Why has founder CEO succession become one of the most stressful and consequential decisions a board can make?In this episode of The Boardroom Path, host Ralph Grayson speaks with Evgeny Shadchnev, founder of Makers, author of Startup CEO Succession and coach to founder CEOs, about how to navigate leadership transitions when the stakes feel deeply personal and financially critical. Drawing on his own journey from founder CEO to coach, Evgeny explains the crucial shift from building a product to building the company that builds the product, and why behaviours that work in a five‑person team become harmful in a seventy‑person organisation.Against a backdrop of rising CEO turnover even at high‑performing companies, as boards lean into more proactive succession planning rather than waiting for crisis, Evgeny and Ralph explore how boards can spot early warning signs, support founders through burnout and identity shifts, and create a safe, trusted space for honest conversations. From job specs that look ahead to where the “puck” is going, to the pitfalls of rushed transitions and lateral moves into chair roles, this conversation offers a practical roadmap for founders, investors and aspiring NEDs.Evgeny Shadchnev: Evgeny Shadchnev is the founder and former CEO of Makers, one of the UK’s leading coding bootcamps, where he helped tackle the tech talent shortage by training complete beginners to become software developers. After leading Makers through its growth and his own CEO succession, he became a certified professional coach specialising in founder CEO transitions, working with entrepreneurs and boards on the personal and organisational challenges of leadership change. He is the author of Startup CEO Succession: A Founder’s Guide to Leadership Transition and hosts the Startup CEO Succession podcast, where he interviews founders, successor CEOs and investors about real‑world succession stories.Ralph Grayson: Ralph Grayson is a Partner in the Board Practice at Sainty Hird & Partners, bringing extensive experience in board-level recruitment, assessment, and advisory services. With a deep understanding of the corporate governance landscape, Ralph specialises in guiding senior executives as they transition into impactful boardroom careers. His thoughtful approach, combined with a passion for developing effective leaders, enables him to facilitate insightful conversations that equip aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors with the tools they need to succeed. Through The Boardroom Path, Ralph leverages his extensive professional network and expertise to empower listeners on their journey into the boardroom.Episode Insights:The founder’s job is to keep the company alive and find product–market fit, while the CEO’s job is to build and lead the organisation that builds the product.Behaviours that are life‑saving in a five‑person startup, such as having an opinion on everything, often become micromanagement and a blocker once the team scales.Early, ongoing conversations about the CEO job spec, the company’s future needs and the founder’s preferences reduce the risk of crisis‑driven, rushed transitions.Trust and informal dialogue between founder, chair and investors are as important as formal board meetings in handling succession with maturity and respect.Lateral moves (for example, founder to chair or functional role) only work when the founder is genuinely qualified for the role and willing to get out of the new CEO’s way.Action Points:Clarify the founder vs CEO job over time: Schedule regular discussions between the founder, chair and board about how the CEO role is evolving over the next two to three years. Map what the company will need from its leader, compare that with the founder’s strengths and preferences, and document a living CEO job spec that is revisited annually rather than only in moments of crisis.Normalise early succession conversations: Build CEO succession into the board’s “good hygiene” agenda, alongside cash flow and risk. Treat it as an ongoing strategic topic, not a signal of imminent removal, so that founders can talk openly about burnout, changing life priorities and future roles without fear that one conversation will trigger an immediate process.Invest in trusted relationships on the board: Ensure there is at least one board member – ideally the chair – with whom the founder has a deep, trusted relationship. Encourage informal check‑ins between meetings so concerns about fit, performance or wellbeing surface early and privately, rather than erupting in formal sessions where they are harder to handle constructively.Design the succession process as a shared project: When a CEO transition becomes likely, treat it as a collaboration between outgoing CEO and board. Co‑create the forward‑looking job description, agree who leads the search, and define how the current CEO will contribute without over‑controlling the process. This ...
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    49 mins
  • Are Boards Adding Enough Value? Megan Pantelides on the Evidence

    Are Boards Adding Enough Value? Megan Pantelides on the Evidence
    Dec 3 2025
    What does a high‑value board really look like in a world of scandals, regulation fatigue, and infinite agendas? In this episode of The Boardroom Path, host Ralph Grayson speaks with Board Intelligence’s Megan Pantelides to unpack the mindset, skills, and information boards need to move from box‑ticking to real strategic impact. They explore why critical thinking, curiosity and humility separate effective directors from “back‑seat drivers”, and why great governance is really the discipline of a well‑run company – and economy.Megan shares insights from Board Intelligence’s Board Value Index, where nearly half of directors felt their boards were not adding enough value, and explains how better board packs, sharper questions and continuous development can turn that around. She also reflects on live debates about the UK Corporate Governance Code’s comply‑or‑explain regime, including the FRC’s recent push for more meaningful explanations in its latest Annual Review of Corporate Governance Reporting and the updated guidance on NED remuneration, which gives boards new flexibility while preserving independence.From due diligence tips for aspiring NEDs to practical ways to embed critical thinking across an organisation, this conversation offers a grounded roadmap for anyone serious about a long‑term board career.(00:00) - Welcome to The Boardroom Path (03:00) - From Search to Board Intelligence (04:18) - How Board Intelligence Evolved Its Board Effectiveness Offer (06:30) - What Good Board Packs Look Like Across Sectors (10:30) - Using Board Papers for Due Diligence on a New Board Role (12:45) - Higgs Review, Scandals and the Changing Role of NEDs (15:32) - Comply or Explain, Proxies and the Reality of Governance Codes (18:13) - Is It Worth Being on a Board? Risk, Reward and Scrutiny (21:03) - Certification, Competence and the Mindset of Effective Directors (23:31) - Critical Thinking as a Daily Discipline for Boards and Management (33:36) - The Board Value Index and How Boards Can Add More ValueMegan Pantelides: Megan Pantelides is a Senior Director at Board Intelligence, Europe’s largest board technology and advisory firm, where she leads on research, content, communications and brand development. She writes extensively on board effectiveness, corporate governance, AI, leadership and organisational culture, with work featured in outlets such as the Financial Times, Sunday Times and Governance and Compliance. Drawing on senior roles in executive search and board advisory, Megan helps boards and leadership teams improve the quality of their information, decision‑making and oversight, and has contributed to major initiatives including the Institute of Directors’ 2025 Commission on the evolving role of non‑executive directors.Ralph Grayson: Ralph Grayson is a Partner in the Board Practice at Sainty Hird & Partners, bringing extensive experience in board-level recruitment, assessment, and advisory services. With a deep understanding of the corporate governance landscape, Ralph specialises in guiding senior executives as they transition into impactful boardroom careers. His thoughtful approach, combined with a passion for developing effective leaders, enables him to facilitate insightful conversations that equip aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors with the tools they need to succeed. Through The Boardroom Path, Ralph leverages his extensive professional network and expertise to empower listeners on their journey into the boardroom.Episode Insights:Board effectiveness is less about heroic individuals and more about disciplined processes, high‑quality information and a culture that welcomes challenge.Critical thinking in the boardroom starts with better questions, not bigger packs: directors need decision‑ready insight, not kitchen‑sink reporting.The best boards blend a common framework – such as Board Intelligence’s question‑driven insight approach – with tailored, sector‑specific nuance.Certification and formal training can signal commitment and humility, but they only add real value when paired with deep experience and ongoing curiosity.Comply‑or‑explain still works when companies use it honestly: recent FRC reviews show that clearer, context‑rich explanations are becoming a marker of good governance rather than a sign of weakness, as highlighted in the FRC’s Annual Review of Corporate Governance Reporting and related analysis in The Accountant.Action Points:Clarify your board value proposition: Define in plain language what you uniquely bring to a board beyond your executive CV. Distil your sector expertise, functional strengths and mindset (for example, growth versus risk focus) into a coherent narrative you can evidence with real situations and outcomes.Use board packs as a due diligence tool: When considering a role, ask for several years of board papers and read them for signals about focus, candour and alignment with strategy. Look ...
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    45 mins
  • The AI Arms Race: What NEDs Must Know About Cyber, Data and AI

    The AI Arms Race: What NEDs Must Know About Cyber, Data and AI
    Nov 26 2025
    How should boards really think about cyber and AI when every organisation feels under siege? In this episode of The Boardroom Path, host Ralph Grayson speaks with Danny Lopez, CEO of Glasswall and experienced NED, about why cybersecurity is now the defining risk of our time – and why boards must stop treating it as a narrow IT issue. They explore how to reframe cyber as core to trust, reputation and licence to operate, and why good NEDs do not need to code but do need sharp, strategic questions and real intellectual curiosity. Drawing on recent data showing that over 8 in 10 UK businesses plan to increase cyber budgets next year and that AI‑driven threats are a top concern for European security professionals, Danny explains how boards can move beyond tick‑box compliance into meaningful scenario planning, resilience and culture change. From identifying the “crown jewels” in your data estate to avoiding naive uses of open AI tools for board papers, this conversation offers a practical roadmap for NEDs who want to stay ahead of AI‑enabled threats without losing sight of long‑term growth.(00:00) - Welcome to The Boardroom Path (04:50) - A Non‑Linear Career of Risk and Growth (06:04) - Why Cybersecurity Is the Defining Risk of Our Time (07:06) - Inside Glasswall and File‑Based Threat Protection (08:15) - Breaking into the US Intelligence and Defence Market (10:17) - Cyber on the Board Agenda: Curiosity over Fear (13:25) - AI, Cyber and Risk: Enabler Not Just Threat (15:05) - Crown Jewels, Risk Registers and Better Board Questions (17:03) - Resilience, War‑Gaming and Culture Under Stress (20:28) - A New Geopolitical Paradigm and Swan‑Stacking Boards (24:01) - AI as Burglar and Alarm System in Cybersecurity (31:37) - AI, Governance and Avoiding Groupthink in the BoardroomDanny Lopez: Danny Lopez is the CEO of Glasswall, an award‑winning cybersecurity company that protects organisations against sophisticated file‑based threats using zero‑trust Content Disarm and Reconstruction technology. A former British Consul General in New York and Director‑General for trade and investment across North America, he previously served as the inaugural CEO of London & Partners and held senior international banking roles at Barclays in London, New York, Miami and Mumbai. Danny is a non‑executive director at Innovate Finance and Aquis Stock Exchange and a pro bono adviser to the City of London Corporation, giving him a unique vantage point at the intersection of geopolitics, finance, technology and board‑level risk. Ralph Grayson: Ralph Grayson is a Partner in the Board Practice at Sainty Hird & Partners, bringing extensive experience in board-level recruitment, assessment, and advisory services. With a deep understanding of the corporate governance landscape, Ralph specialises in guiding senior executives as they transition into impactful boardroom careers. His thoughtful approach, combined with a passion for developing effective leaders, enables him to facilitate insightful conversations that equip aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors with the tools they need to succeed. Through The Boardroom Path, Ralph leverages his extensive professional network and expertise to empower listeners on their journey into the boardroom.Episode Insights:Cybersecurity is not a narrow IT issue but a core risk‑management and trust issue that underpins an organisation’s licence to operate.Boards do not need deep technical skills but must be intellectually curious, ask incisive questions and insist that cyber information is presented in plain, decision‑ready language.Identifying and protecting the “crown jewels” in your digital landscape allows boards to focus spend and oversight where it matters most instead of spreading security budgets thinly across everything.Practical scenario planning and war‑gaming around doomsday‑style incidents build real organisational resilience, clarify roles in a crisis and strengthen culture.AI has become both burglar and alarm system: it dramatically scales attackers’ capabilities, but, when governed well, also enables faster anomaly detection, pattern recognition and defence.Action Points:Define your crown jewels: Map the 5–7% of your data and digital estate without which the organisation would be on its knees. Ask management to quantify the impact of losing those assets and to show how cyber spend is weighted towards protecting them, not just evenly distributed across every system.Make scenario planning non‑negotiable: Schedule regular, realistic cyber incident simulations at board level. Treat them as live rehearsals, not compliance exercises, so everyone understands their role, communications pathways and decision thresholds when a major breach or AI‑enabled attack hits.Reframe cyber as culture, not just controls: Challenge management on how cyber, AI and data risk feature in training, incentives and everyday behaviours. Look for evidence ...
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    49 mins
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