Boardroom Confidential

Conflict, responsibility, and Hollywood boardroom interventions, with Margaret Heffernan, Entrepreneur, Author, CEO

Running software companies during the dot-com boom, and managing conflict at the top.

About our guest

Margaret Heffernan

Margaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, author, and one of the most influential business thinkers of our time. She was the CEO of five companies and ran internet businesses during the dot‑com boom. She spent years at the BBC conducting award‑winning documentaries before moving into the business world. She is now a professor at the University of Bath School of Management and mentors CEOs and senior executives at major global organisations. She is also a best‑selling author.

In this episode:

This week's guest on the Boardroom Confidential podcast is Margaret Heffernan, author, entrepreneur, and professor at the University of Bath's School of Management.

She shares with us the boardroom stories that have shaped her career, including running software companies during the dot-com boom, managing conflict at the top, and how a star of the screen showed great bravery to jolt a board into action.

Margaret has been CEO of five businesses, served on numerous boards, and now chairs boards herself. She's authored seven books on business and leadership and has mentored chief executives for the past 15 years.

Her TedTalks have attracted millions of views, including ‘Dare to Disagree’ and ‘Forget the Pecking Order at Work’.

She talks candidly about being the only female in the boardroom, the systemic issues women still face in boardrooms today, and her disappointment that progress has stalled.

She also shares her thoughts on how to get the best from introverted board members, and her belief that executive teams flourish when allowed to take responsibility for making decisions.