Brave questions, diversity, and boardroom pressure, with Terri Duhon, NED and Risk Chair

In this episode:

"The most powerful tool I have at my disposal as chair of the risk committee is other people in the room." 

This week's guest on the Boardroom Confidential podcast, powered by Sherpany, is Terri Duhon, non-executive director and risk chair at Rathbones and the money transfer company Wise.  

Terri shares the boardroom stories and insights that have shaped her career, including confidently walking into her first Morgan Stanley board meeting and realising within minutes that she was joining a conversation with years of history, a language full of acronyms, and a scope far broader than anything she'd mastered before.  

She reveals where she believes boardroom pressure really sits, why the most powerful tool she has as risk committee chair is the other people in the room, and her pre-meeting technique that ensures different voices are heard in the boardroom. 

Terri began her career as a derivatives trader before becoming an entrepreneur, author, and board director. She served on the board of Morgan Stanley International for many years, is an ambassador for Women on Boards, and is a guest lecturer at the London School of Economics and Oxford University. 

Boardroom Confidential is brought to you by Sherpany, a leading meeting management solution, designed to meet the unique needs of the board, board committee, and executive meetings.  

Chapters:

• (00:00) Introduction 
• (06:25) Acronyms and Asking Questions 
• (12:30) What Makes A Great Chair 
• (14:36) Dynamics, Diversity and Imposter Syndrome 
• (17:09) Be Brave In Your First Meeting 

Key Takeaways 

Why staying silent when you don't understand is the real boardroom risk

(07:01) 

Terri Duhon: The longer I sat on the board, the less I realised I knew. And I needed to rely on other expertise around the room — but also really understand how to ask questions about things in which I wasn't an expert. I had to be brave and ask those questions which might sound simple. I'm sorry, I didn't understand a word you just said. You're going to have to say that in language I speak. What I keep telling myself is: I'm a thoughtful person. I've done the reading. And if I don't understand it, it's probably not me.

When directors fall into fixed roles — and why the board stops hearing them 

(10:01) 

Terri Duhon: You can see boards evolve. If you have the same people in the room over time, you can see people settling into specific roles — this person asks the difficult questions, this person asks the details, this person focuses on the human element. Falling into those predictable patterns maybe makes it easier for everybody, but it also means you end up with one or two people providing the same questions over and over. And maybe they're not heard sometimes because it's the same question in the same voice. It needs to move around the room a bit. 

Why rotating who asks what makes for a stronger board conversation

(10:51) 

Terri Duhon: I have a non-executive only session for 30 minutes before the risk committee. We go around the room and I say: what struck you? What are you worried about in this pack? Who should ask that question? I try to get different people around the table to ask different questions. Sometimes we say, OK, the CEO really feels quite connected to you — can you ask this one? Can you do it in a way that's going to help? It's trying to change it up in terms of who talks about what, because then it's a different voice. 

Imposter syndrome in the boardroom isn't a gender issue

(15:50) 

Terri Duhon: Imposter syndrome is something many, many people feel, and it's not just gender specific. It's back to the earlier conversation about asking what is considered the stupid question in the room. Nobody wants to ask that question. That fear of asking it — looking stupid, looking like you don't belong, looking like you don't understand — I've seen that apply across the board to people with so many different backgrounds. 

Why new board members should speak up from day one — and how chairs can help them do it 

(17:27) 

Terri Duhon: I would have told myself to be brave, be a little bolder. I still think to this day of the first board meeting I went to, and I didn't say a single word — the questions I had noted down to ask, with hindsight, I still wish I had asked them. What I have made a point of is that when I'm on a board and a new person comes on, afterwards I try to say: those were great questions, really glad you're on board. Just to give them the confidence, just to remind them that their perspective is important, it's different, it's unique, and we really welcome it.