Leading Through Permacrisis: Will Geddes on Boardroom Decision-Making Under Pressure

How should boards lead when the world refuses to stand still?

In this episode of The Boardroom Path, host Ralph Grayson speaks with Will Geddes, Managing Director of ICP Group and one of the UK's leading authorities on security, crisis management and geopolitical risk. They explore why boards now operate inside a state of permacrisis, why traditional crisis manuals rarely leave the shelf, and how directors should make decisions with imperfect, contested and fast-moving information.

With markets now openly pricing in permacrisis as the operating environment and EY analysis showing that around 60 percent of FTSE 100 returns now hinge on geopolitical and macro forces, Will's perspective on judgement, instinct and audit trails has rarely been more timely. From a real-world story of advising a director caught in the 2008 Mumbai attacks to practical guidance on rehearsing crisis response across Zoom, Teams and the boardroom, this conversation offers NEDs and aspiring directors a clear-eyed playbook for leading when getting the call wrong is the biggest risk of all.

• (00:00) - Welcome to The Boardroom Path
• (04:04) - An Unconventional Path Into Specialist Security
• (06:06) - Defining Permacrisis for the Boardroom
• (08:03) - The Domino Effect of a Far-Flung Incident
• (11:11) - Breaking Silos and Communicating Across the Board
• (13:25) - Are Board Meetings Still Fit for Purpose?
• (15:48) - Building Horizon-Scanning Into the Agenda
• (18:54) - Decision-Making With Imperfect Information
• (23:07) - When Instinct Beats Data and Analysis
• (27:48) - Reputational Management
• (35:23) - The Next Three Things Every Board Should Do

Will Geddes: Will Geddes is the Managing Director and founder of ICP Group (International Corporate Protection), a globally recognised, niche threat-management security firm originally established in 1996 that supports clients ranging from FTSE and Fortune 100 corporations to family offices and high-profile private individuals. With more than 30 years' experience in specialist security, his work spans close protection, crisis management, kidnap and ransom, counter-terrorism, intelligence gathering, multi-jurisdictional investigations, cyber and geopolitical risk. He also founded TacticsON and is a regular international media commentator on security, terrorism and risk for outlets including the BBC, Sky News, ITN, CNN, The Telegraph and BBC Radio 4 Today. His perspective combines decades of frontline operational experience with strategic advisory work for boards making consequential decisions under pressure.

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:

• Permacrisis means treating crisis as a continuum rather than a contingency, with seemingly minor or far-flung events capable of triggering a domino effect across global operations and reputation.
• Crisis manuals rarely come off the shelf when something actually happens, so what matters is whether the board has practised problem-solving and communication together using the tools they truly rely on.
• Decisions made with imperfect information are unavoidable, which is why a clean audit trail of what was known, by whom and when, is the single best protection for directors and the company.
• A board that defers decisions, fills silence with content for its own sake or refuses to admit failings damages stakeholder trust more than the underlying crisis often does.
• Strong crisis leadership combines humility, judgement and emotional intelligence; AI can support scenario planning at the macro level but the human element remains essential at the micro.

Action Points:

1. Treat crisis as a continuum, not an event: Build standing horizon-scanning into every board agenda alongside performance reporting. Ask each function where they foresee issues and how a single incident in one country could ripple across the business. This forces the board to spot domino effects early and to allocate attention to the right risks rather than the loudest ones.
2. Rehearse together, across channels: Schedule regular cross-functional simulations using the tools you actually rely on day to day, including Zoom, Teams and phone. Test how the board problem-solves laterally rather than how individuals handle a dramatic hostage scenario. Doing this routinely surfaces communication gaps and trains people to lean on each other before a real crisis hits.
3. Build a decision audit trail: Insist that all crisis-era decisions are minuted with timestamps, locations, attendees and the information available at the time, and that everyone present agrees the minutes before they are published. Pair this with a short summary of the alternatives considered and why they were rejected. This protects directors and the company if those decisions are later scrutinised by regulators, courts or the press.
4. Manage the narrative, never lie: Equip your communications function to acknowledge press enquiries quickly, share something of genuine value rather than fill silence, and admit failings with integrity rather than allow the media to take control of the story. Brief any executive or director travelling in volatile situations on what to say, what to avoid and when to go quiet. Trust is built when stakeholders see honest, well-paced communication, not noise.
5. Match leaders to context: Use realistic training to identify which board members lead well under duress and which contribute most in calmer waters. Create a culture where it is safe for someone to step back and let a stronger crisis leader take the chair, without that being read as a failure. Set the example as chair by openly relying on colleagues for the parts of a crisis where they are sharper than you are.

The Boardroom Path is the essential podcast for aspiring and newly appointed Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) 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. 

Subscribe now, and take your first confident step along The Boardroom Path. Learn more about Sainty Hird & Partners at saintyhird.com.

The Boardroom Path is produced by Story Ninety-Four in Oxford, UK. 

Creators and Guests

Host

Ralph Grayson

Founder Partner at Sainty Hird and Partners

ME

Producer

Matt Eastland-Jones

Guest

Will Geddes

What is The Boardroom Path?

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.

Ralph Grayson: Welcome to The Boardroom Path by Sainty Hird & Partners. I'm your host, Ralph Grayson, a partner in the board practice. In this series, we'll offer practical steps and useful perspectives for aspiring and newly appointed NEDs. Throughout its 30 year history, Sainty Hird has recruited senior board members across the City, Industry, the Public Sector and NGOs.

We're now also evaluating those boards, as well as coaching and mentoring those seeking to transition from an executive career into the boardroom. So we'll be speaking to some leading figures in the board advisory and NED world. Specifically, we'll seek their counsel about how and where to spend time and energy to make an effective transition into the boardroom. The goal is to equip recent and aspiring NEDs with tips, tactics and strategies to be most effective and build a successful career as a board director. In the process, we aim to help you to think more about who you are, how you operate and how you can make this work in the boardroom.

Today on The Boardroom Path, we're exploring one of the defining challenges of modern leadership, how to make sound decisions when the world refuses to stand still. For today's board's crisis is no longer episodic, it is continuous. Geopolitical shocks, cyber threats, reputational risks, and market disruptions are no longer isolated events. They are interconnected, fast moving, and often impossible to fully understand in real time. So the question is no longer how do we respond to crisis. It's how do we lead effectively when crisis is the environment?

For board members, this is not an abstract issue. It goes directly to fiduciary duty, oversight and judgement. Decisions now have to be made at speed, often with incomplete or contested information, while balancing regulatory obligations, stakeholder expectations, and strategy. The risk is no longer just operational failure, but misjudgment at board level. Getting the call wrong when it matters most.

My guest today is Will Geddes, Managing Director of ICP Group and one of the UK's leading authorities on security, crisis management and geopolitical risk. Over more than three decades Will has advised corporations, governments, and high profile individuals, in moments where the stakes could not be higher. From kidnappings and cyber attacks to geopolitical instability and reputational crises.

What makes his perspective particularly valuable for board members is the combination of frontline crisis experience and deep geopolitical insight. He doesn't just analyse risk, he operates within it. Helping decision makers act in real time when information is incomplete and consequences are immediate. Alongside his advisory work, Will is a recognised commentator on international security and has recently analysed how geopolitical operations reshape supply chains, investment strategy and corporate exposure.

In short, he operates at the intersection of crisis, strategy and decision making under pressure. Exactly where today's boards increasingly find themselves. Will, welcome to the boardroom path.

Will Geddes: Ralph, thank you very much for the kind invitation.

Ralph Grayson: Do you want to just give us a little bit of background to that of how your career has evolved and how you've found yourself in the space.

Will Geddes: Oh, well that could be a very long story and I'm sure we don't have time for that. But what I will do is give you a very brief plotted history. So, I came into this industry very much by sort of situation more than anything else. So I didn't come from the conventional background which made things challenging in itself.

In so much as I wasn't former military, I wasn't former law enforcement. I wasn't a former spook I was a civilian that was involved in the sporting arena, most predominantly within the martial arts world, and had fallen into the realm of close protection, or as I would've probably better referred to bodyguarding back in the day. Because it certainly wasn't very sophisticated. It was more hit and run than anything else.

But during that time, as one does in any kind of environment, hopefully, you start making friends and you start making contacts and you start evolving the sort of, the understanding of what could potentially be a broader world that circumferences obviously that world of sort of dealing with threats in a very direct sense. And one of the things I was very fortunate to do was to meet some very clever people, including some individuals that became mentors of mine who were very grassroot, hardened, operators some of which former British Special Forces, some of which were former government agencies who I absorbed and drew as much information as I possibly could from. To try and learn and understand better this larger world that covers this whole area of crisis management, threat management and the protection of individuals in a very broadest sense.

So, I think one of the key skills that I have, if I take claim to anything of being good at anything, I would say would be being massively absorbent and being a sponge. And this is something that I certainly mentor many young men and women coming into the industry to try and harness as a skill. Which is to sit there, listen quietly, speak little, and learn as much as you possibly can from people that you can then ultimately take those decisions or ideas or considerations from, and determine whether these are things that you can adapt to, things that you may find helpful, or things that you may disregard. But the key thing is you've got two ears and one mouth, and those two ears are for a reason to listen.

Ralph Grayson: Sounds great advice for every board member. So that segues beautifully into this podcast. Will, I heard you speak a couple of weeks ago. It was fascinating, which is why I'm so excited to have you on this podcast. One of the things that you touched on is that we no longer live in a world of occasional crises, but we're now in a state of permanent crisis. So from your perspective, what does that fundamentally change for boards?

Will Geddes: I think in your fantastic introduction there, I think permacrisis, which is really what we refer to it as, is a continuum of issues that need to be considered and that permacrisis doesn't have to associate itself necessarily to the major big events that we would normally associate a crisis for, which would require the board to convene and to discuss and to decide by committee what their next steps would be.

But it is more in an incremental sense of smaller items or elements which may in isolation appear insignificant or may be minimal in terms of their implication. But look at something which ultimately could have a domino effect and domino effect is very much the consideration that a board needs to think of right across the various roles and positions, whether it be the CFO, whether it be general counsel, whether it be human resources for that matter, that ultimately under the caretaking of the chairman can bring their own considerations. And one of the things that I've been doing more and more with boards these days and C-Suite has been to say something has happened in this one particular area or aspect of the business, and particularly when it's multinational, and it may be in some far-flung country where there is an operation where they may say, okay, that is an isolated geopolitical issue that is only pertinent and relevant to that environment.

Well, is it? And one way that I've perhaps used, and it may be a terrible analogy, so forgive me, I'm a big lover of analogies, is a little bit like when Google first came out with its right to be forgotten which was the ability that if there was some detrimental information that had been published about you in, say, the UK or in Europe. That you could apply to Google for the right to be forgotten, for this information to be removed. Which has the horrible reassurance or not to other individuals is that you can never really remove anything from the internet. But the right to be forgotten is only territorial. So if I was searching for the same information in say, Australasia or in America or in Latin America, I would be able to find it. So all it would do is restrict the audience within your local jurisdiction or your territory from actually being able to discover that information. So the same applies particularly with a crisis.

Now as a major organisation that has stakeholders that have various different interests. If something happens in that far-flung country. How that's managed, how it's dealt with, how it may be even resolved, could have reputational implications more globally for that organisation. And it could be indicative to everybody, the audience, the stakeholders the clients and the customers, that is the way that the company deals with situations that are similar to that. Those are where the broader considerations need to come in within the board to say how we deal with it there shouldn't be any different to how, obviously, bearing in mind some of the local indigenous issues, shouldn't be any different to how we ethically or morally deal with that situation in the United Kingdom or in the United States or anywhere else for that matter.

Ralph Grayson: Have you experienced boards changing the way they think then in terms of their understanding of crisis control and in the context of globalisation and where are we today?

Will Geddes: It really depends on the industry. I mean, I'm fortunate enough to be able to work across many, many different industries. So whether it be extraction and energy or whether it be media, financial right across the board. It really depends on, I think the legacy of experience that that industry is used to. So for example, the oil, energy, and extraction industries are quite used to having crises. Does that mean that necessarily they handle them all effectively? Well, it really depends on the personalities that are actually there. But, I think probably the best way to describe it would be to say that companies are waking up super quick and I think many of the boards, which are getting younger and younger, there's a newer demographic of individuals that are more resilient to potentially or not. It can work conversely. You do have the younger generation that is a little bit, shall we say, less robust than maybe the older generation. I might be saying that as a man who's just touched his sixties. But I think again, it comes down to the personality and the individual.

But the one thing that I think boards are beginning to understand better is that they cannot work in isolation. They cannot work in silos. Each department has to work, and I hate the word, holistically. But it has to work in conjunction with other departments and communication needs to traverse all departments and everybody needs to be aware of what's going on in other parts of the company and not just in their own.

Ralph Grayson: Let's turn that to the tactical level then. So how does a board member think about balancing horizon scanning with that new strategic awareness?

Will Geddes: So again, it's about communication. There are so many companies, you'll know this Ralph, who the board will only ever get together at AGMs or EGMs and those are the only times that they'll actually be able to sit down with each other, and it will be a limited amount of time that they'll have together to be able to discuss what is actually happening across the board or in isolation. You get much more of a macro position than a micro position of which parts of the company other than on the balance sheet are maybe struggling, maybe need support, and are there areas where other parts of the business can potentially support them without there being any kind of invasion or territorial grab or ego bashing that could take place?

I mean, I'll give you a good example. I remember, you know, I've done a lot of training for boards over the years and I can go more into exactly what I believe the fundamentals are a little later, if you wish. But I remember on one occasion, I think I shared this story with you, Ralph, where the last time we got together, was where I had everybody in the room, and this was a large blue chip, FTSE 100, and the chairman turned round and said, can I make anybody a cup of tea?

And I thought my work is done here. The chairman realised that he had nothing that he needed to contribute at that particular time and didn't feel that he had to take control and manage the entire situation entirely. There were times where other parts of the business needed support, and that humility showed just huge amounts of integrity to me, to people understanding and setting a fantastic example as the spearhead of the organisation to say, "We all need to stay in our lanes, but we also need to be able to help each other as well and be supportive in whatever capacity that might fall into" and I pulled the chairman to one side, and this was a gentleman of advanced years, shall we say and the fact that he did that it just resonated. You could see across his fellow board members, they just thought, we've got the right guys, the right chairman here.

Ralph Grayson: Raises a couple of questions in my mind. One is, if we're now in this era of permacrisis, is the formality and theatre of board meetings and board papers still relevant? And once the balloon has gone up and the company, the board finds itself in a crisis, how does it adapt itself? How do you advise people? So are we still fit for purpose in the way board meetings are run and convened and when something goes wrong, how would you advise a chair or a board to change the way it reacts?

Will Geddes: I'd like to also pick up on the question you did actually ask me, and I don't think I answered very well, which is the horizon scanning. That's a very, very good question about whether board meetings are fit for purpose. Whether they serve any advantage or benefit other than a convening of all the key persons that are leading various parts of the company. I think it comes down to agenda. And there are some companies that will pay simple lip service. I've seen it. We've seen it also at AGMs. And I'd like to almost extend this in terms of board meetings all the way through to AGMs and not into simple EGMs. Because for certainly EGMs that will be triggered by some sort of crisis or some sort of disaster that's happened.

There are two aspects. I think there is a confidence building that needs to be maintained. Confidence in one's peers needs to be sustainable by ensuring that within the agenda, it is not simple reporting on performance, on profitability, on the balance sheet and whether that element of the business or those various divisions of the business are succeeding and profiting. It should be also, what are we doing in terms of a permacrisis and horizon scanning capacity? What are we anticipating?

Now, anticipation of threats is kind of old school to a certain extent. They used to be the approach of we'll build a crisis management manual and we'll think of all the things that potentially could happen to our company. That does serve a purpose. But one thing I can tell you, over 30 years of doing this, is the rarity of that manual being pulled off the shelf and actually being referred to. For lack of better expression, it's more of a off the back of a fag packet, sort of problem solving and strategic sort of implementation.

Where I think agendas would be far better served for many boards is to have two things. Two aspects to each division that's reporting in. The first of which is where are we right now? How are we succeeding or not? And the second part of it is where do we foresee problems? Where do we foresee issues? What are the things which, ultimately, we all remain and need to be informed of what's going on in global events, and I think going back to my previous reference of something happening in a far-flung country. What are the implications? What are the domino impacts of that particular incident taking place and how will it reverberate through the business?

Think of it like the pebble in the pond. You drop it in and you see the ripples. How far are the ripples actually going to go? How big of a pebble was it that was dropped in there? This is where I think board meetings need to be transparent and it's to say, okay, these are the areas and where can I lean on my colleagues to assist or be prepared to assist should something happen? And it's almost this event has happened, what are the implications to your division? Legal, what are the implications to your division? What are the areas and the implications to you in Finance? I think it's also a case of looking at how, as a company, can one maintain resilience and realise that you are never going to have everybody in the same room at the same time when something happens. Which is why thinking of things as permacrisis is absolutely essential because some people will be away. They'll be on vacation. They'll be on a business trip. They may even be in flight when things happen. So it's about mutual support within the board, and that goes back to the chairman and the cup of tea.

It's about everybody realising that you are not presenting yourself as vulnerable by relying or leaning to your colleagues on your board to saying, "I can't fix this on my own or I may be able to, but I may want to lean on you for your assistance." And one of the things that I've always done with training, Ralph, is people say, "Okay, we want to simulate a terrorist attack or something like that." And one of the things I've always done with boards is to say, "Let's take it back to bare bones. Let's just look at problem solving and working together as a team. How can you guys talk to each other, whether it be over the phone, Zoom, Teams, in person? How can you guys problem solve together in a lateral sense?"

Ralph Grayson: I am intrigued by the idea of how you build a structure around that when you have imperfect information. It's one thing when you know what the crisis is.

Will Geddes: You'll never have perfect information.

Ralph Grayson: So one of the realities of leadership is that information is rarely complete, and it's usually opaque and complex. How do boards create a function and a structure when those facts are unclear?

Will Geddes: Pretty straightforward actually. Far more straightforward than one might imagine. Information is never perfect. Intelligence is never perfect and we are regrettably in a time in society and life where information is coming in from so many different sources and misinformation, disinformation, whether it be state sponsored, whether it be Joe from Birmingham who put something up. Whether it be on Twitter, whether it be where else, you know, the social media's sort of channels, Mail Online, whoever. That information, the integrity of it, can never be taken in a resolute fashion. It's about hopefully the intelligence of the individual to filter out noise, filter out agenda, filter out bias, filter out conspiracy, and draw back to the bare bones information and corroboration of that information. But it will never be perfect.

One of the things that I've always said to board members is that it's absolutely critical that you audit your actions and your decisions and what information that's based on. This is critical because I've been involved in a number of situations where people have died. Lives have been lost and that may have been avoidable with the benefits of hindsight and retrospect. However, at the time, the decision that was taken by the board was a viable step. And that's why it's so important because if you are gripping the rail in the dock, standing in front of a judge or an inquiry of some description that you need to be able to say, "With the information that I had available at that time, that was the best decision I could make and this was by committee." And that's why boards are, it's important to have committee decisions, but they need to be in the majority. Because if you have a split decision on what course of action that you may potentially take, then that's going to create greater divisions later down the line.

But it's very important that you document what you know at that particular time and why you made the decisions based on that information. That, I know, as something that I've spoken to companies that work in highly volatile industries or certainly in highly volatile countries, they have found incredibly beneficial later down the line. There can be the implications to individuals not only sort of from a criminal fiduciary, but also reputational level, can have far reaching implications and impacts later down the line, just on from the individual that was concerned in the decision making process. So I would say the audit trail is essential.

Perfect information will never, never be available. There's information coming out on various recent events which are putting into question all sorts of unfortunately conspiracy theories. Since COVID, since 2020, conspiracy theories have been running rife. Some of which have proven true, some of which haven't. There is a lot of insanity in the world and certainly how it's being governed and there's a lot of question marks as to what are the true agendas behind some of those activities and actions. And my recent thought piece on the Operation Epic Fury and about how it circles back to Ukraine. A lot of people saw this conspiracy initially, but when you join the dots and the domino effect, you can see that actually there is a bigger play here. Certainly when you look at what's happened in the first three months of this year by President Trump. Whether it be Maduro and Venezuela, the cartels, and now obviously Iran.

Ralph Grayson: Provocative question then. So is it a failure of leadership of the board if it defers making a decision on the basis it hasn't got enough data or information?

Will Geddes: Yes, a board cannot do that these days.

Ralph Grayson: So, where and when does instinct and judgement overcome data and analysis?

Will Geddes: Oh, that's a great question, Ralph. That's a great question. I think in the absence of clarity, your instinct really is important. It's so essential. I know this from personal experience, for me, individually, but I also know this operationally, and I also know this with some of the clients that I have steered them to making a instinctive decision on something in the absence of clarity. The board cannot delay. There's a fine line that needs to be drawn between providing information because there's an obligation or a believed obligation that they need to fill the void. It's a bit like Finish people. Do you know any Finish people, Ralph?

Ralph Grayson: No that I can think of or going to name.

name

Will Geddes: I worked with Nokia for many, many years when they were the thing before Apple overtook with the hideous iPhone and I remember I was doing some K&R training for them, negotiated training. We were sat in a lodge on the darkest borders of Finland, bordering Russia, and it was an evening. And the one thing I love about the Finnish people is, unlike us Brits, they don't fill the need to fill the void in conversation when the conversation lulls. So you could be sat around a table with 12 or so, you know, Fins, and the conversation will just go dead. But nobody feels the obligation to fill it. Whereas us socially and from our social politics and our upbringings we're sort of like, "Oh, I better say something. Cause it's all a bit awkward." They didn't fill the awkwardness.

And this, I would say is take the Finn approach as a board. You don't have to fill the void. It's far rather and far better that you communicate something that is of value, rather than feel the necessity to report or to say something for the sake of it. Never lie. Absolutely never lie. And again, this is where I believe President Trump is failing, unfortunately. Started strong, but now floundering somewhat because he made so many bold claims about having pretty much won the conflict against Iran and Iran is showing very much, you know, to the contrary.

As a board, you cannot remain in a stasis of indecision. You have to make some decision. But when you communicate that decision, make sure that it's an efficient message.

Ralph Grayson: How should the board document that and be transparent, not only in the decision it's made, but how as a collective the board reached that decision?

Will Geddes: I think it should be in a traditional sense minuted and I think ultimately there needs to be proper minuting of decisions. But also a minuting of the items which led to those decisions or led to that decision. So again, timestamped, date stamped, location stamped, and also the individuals present stamped. Everything is documented to make sure that everybody's name is together on that.

I know from personal experience how precarious those decisions can be. But I think it's very important that they do document. I'm a strong believer in minutes. Always have been and I think, again, everybody needs to have agreed those minutes before they're published.

Ralph Grayson: And can it backfire, transparency?

Will Geddes: It depends on backfire and your definition of backfire. I think with stakeholders, I think they would be grateful for that integrity. I think staff are grateful for that integrity. The general public. I think nobody, nobody really wishes to shame a failing.

Ralph Grayson: Really? The media? Really?

Will Geddes: The media might, absolutely, yes. They may shame failing. But I think it's about admission. If the board has made an admission, because we rarely see admissions of failings. Great example is politicians. If a politician turned around and said, "You know what? I screwed up." I think the electorate would have a great deal more respect for them. The papers, yeah, may throw them on the furnace. And again, this comes down to the communications department and it comes down to how and well managed the PR for the company is curated

Ralph Grayson: Well, let's turn to that because I think that reputational management during crisis is a particular area of expertise of yours. So, who controls that narrative from the board downwards? How do you keep control rather than the media taking control? How does the board manage that process?

Will Geddes: Okay. So it's about managing it. So let me give you an, it's probably a bad example, but I'll try my best, Ralph. I had, as is often the way, I had a quick phone call one sort of weekday morning from the board of a large legal company, a legal firm in the City who said, "Will we need you in here now." And I said, "What's up?" And they said, "We can't really communicate this, or we'd rather not communicate this over the phone. Could you just get to our offices asap?" So I went fine, scooted over. The board had convened and what had happened was one of their directors was in the Oberoi Hotel. Now we're talking 2007 and the Mumbai terrorist attack, as you may recall. Both the Taj and the Oberoi Hotels had been taken over by the Alqaeda terrorists who were then working systematically through each floor and each room gathering up hostages to take to the rooftop.

Now their PR department, or the Communications department, they said, "We're being deluged by phone calls because this director's tweeting that he's in the Oberoi Hotel." The press had picked up on it, and this information is moving so fast. And that is the thing, you will never move faster than the information that's being generated and distributed across various different platforms because it'll be reposted and you are never going to get ahead of that wave. That's one thing you'd be prepared for.

But what you got to be prepared for is a counter narrative if necessary. So I said, "Who's handling your communications right now?" and they said "Jane, she's in the boardroom right now." So I walked into the boardroom and there was this lovely woman running communications for the company. The greatest respect to her. She had no crisis communications experience and she was used to doing press releases about, we know fantastic new services or developments within the company and who'd moved where and whatever and literally she's going, "No comment, no comment," to the endless phone calls coming in and I said, "Right. Okay, Jane, just take a breather for a second. The first thing you do is you say, thank you so much for calling. We're just getting across this right now. Can you give me your name, give me your publication, give me your telephone number, I'll get back to you the moment I have anything that I can share with you." And I said that this will quiet them down because they'll stop calling. And literally she did. And I said, "The chances of you calling back probably is zero to none. But at least they feel that they've been looked after."

And that's the thing with the press, you've got to look after them. You've got to make them feel that they're not just hitting a blank wall because if they hit a blank wall, they're going to find another way to navigate around that wall. So I sat down with the board and I said, "Okay, firstly need to tell this director. Shut the fuck up. Excuse my French. And the second thing is we need to give him a very good reason for why he needs to do that." And they said, "Okay, what's that?" Because he's enjoying, obviously the publicity that he's getting from it. I said, "Well, tell him that the special forces are very likely to cut off all the power to the hotel. He will then only have whatever battery power he has remaining on his Blackberry or his iPhone or whatever it might be that he's got. So he has a limited lifespan of time for us to be able to communicate with him, to find out where he is, and we need to give him some surplus information to tell him how to hide where he needs to go as the terrorists are working their way through floor by floor." And it was the best way to shut this guy up because he then thought and it emphasised to him, his wife may want to call him, he may want to call his wife, he may want to speak to his kids. He may want to speak to his colleagues in the business. But please, do not, because if you are giving out information of who you are, this will be republished. It'll probably be distributed onto mainstream media. This will help also the terrorists determine exactly where you are in the hotel and they'll come looking for you. So shush and move.

Ralph Grayson: It's a great story. So what I'm thinking is, if I'm a board member listening to this, how do I stress test my functional heads and my C-suite to know that they've got the requisite leadership and experience to be able to act under pressure?

Will Geddes: The only way, Ralph, that you can really stress test your team even during permacrisis is training. It's the only way to do it. Whether it be myself or someone else who's suitably qualified to be able to do it. Training is important. Whether it be remote, and absolutely do it remote. Do it with everybody on teams calls. But have someone that can actually chair a meeting that can be part of a training process to basically put the stress on individuals and also this is, I think, also important. You'll know this as an old soldier, Ralph. Putting yourself through that training, rehearsing, and it doesn't matter if the situation is different, you will have a mindset of how you can react to a certain situation. What you should do. What's good. What are your control measures that you need to implement yourself. Whether it be I need to go and take a walk around the block and okay, it's going to take me five, 10 minutes, but I will come back and I will come back with a decision. But I cannot do it here in the room because my head is absolutely being inundated. It's the chairman. It's about managing and wrangling all the personalities in the room, and nobody is going to be head of their department unless they're very strong-minded, intelligent individuals. So there's going to be strong-minded and intelligent decisions and opinions that are going to be shared.

You need to test that environment. People also need to be able to understand when restraint is essential for thinking through a situation. Running them up and down the mountains in the Brecon Beacons isn't going to achieve it and I'm kind of opposed to this kind of warrior mindset. You know, let's get some ex SF guy to run you through a hostage situation. It is utter nonsense in my book, I think. Yeah, it's great for your own personal mindset, but for crisis management, no, not necessarily. I think the best way to do it is to do it in an environment that you are used to, you are comfortable in generally, and you know there's accountability for what you say.

Ralph Grayson: If I jump in so this is at the organisational level, not the individual level?

Will Geddes: This is organisational level, absolutely. Individual level, there are many things, lots of fantastic books you can read. Lots of training that you can personally do to enhance your own abilities. But one would hope that if you've met the heady heights of being CFO or Head of human Resources or General Counsel, then you've already got a lot of experience and years behind you and intelligence and capability that have put you in that position and recruited you to that position.

However, it's when you are working as part of a team. Which many of these individuals will not be conventionally doing because they'll be leading their teams. So it's putting people together in the room to be able to see how they can work effectively together. And this is also about spreading and mitigating that risk as well by it becoming more of a committe decision. But it's also, I think, key, even if everybody is in the same location or able to be in the same location. And again, I've heard many boards that have turned around and said, "Well, we can't get everybody together to be able to do this training." Well, you are rarely ever going to be together. You will be in different parts of the world. You may be in different parts of the city. You may be in different locations. So do it as a combination of Zoom and teams and telephone calls and practise across all these various different platforms, how you can communicate with each other.

Ralph Grayson: I mean, it sounds to me as though you're saying crisis rehearsal should be approached the same way as financial governance then. It needs to be a formal part of the board agenda, needs to be looked at the organisational level. So, what are the first three things every board member should be doing having listened to you when they go to the next board meeting?

Will Geddes: I think in the next board meeting, they should propose that as a team, they shouldn't just get together for emergencies and formal meetings like AGMs. They should, if they're not already doing so. They need to understand each other's strands of responsibility within the company and if they're not already doing this, making sure they're not siloing each of those departments.

Permacrisis, as we said right from the outset is an ongoing process. It's an ongoing issue. It's not about contingency planning or what used to be called business continuity management or plans. This is business continuity in a sustained and continual sense. This is not a book that you bring out or a manual with a fantastic red folder that you pull out and you put on the table and you look at.

This is something that each person needs to look at in terms of how their business is potentially impacting in a positive sense, macro and micro and horizon scanning. What are the foreseeable issues? And even drawing up, I would say, if one has the time available, and I think you need to make the time available, not just for training. But also to look at a geopolitical position globally and say what are the implications?

Ralph Grayson: As you know, I'm fascinated by the whole concept of leadership in the board and what it means and how it's evidential and contextual. Everything you've talked about is raising again, in my mind, do we have the right leaders in the boardroom, and what are tomorrow's leaders in the boardroom going to look like?

Will Geddes: Oh wow. I don't want to lose any clients here. Do we have the right leaders? That's a sort of inflecting question that they need to ask themselves. And I think it's a pretty brutal and savage question that they have to introspectively look at and say, do we have that? And the only way that you are going to find out is when it's under duress. Whether that be a manufactured duress as in training or whether it be an actual crisis that hits.

The one thing I would say is the training will out that. I mean, I've seen this Ralph when I've done training. There are some people who are brilliant at what they do. They're very, very good at their role. But when it comes to managing crisis, they're absolutely useless. It's case of relinquishing that responsibility in that framework of crisis management if necessary without feeling that that's exposed vulnerability.

Okay, good example. I've had some brilliant Hereford guys, former Hereford Special Forces guys who've worked for me. Some have been amazing, some have been absolutely terrible, and there have been some that I would say, "Great, stick him on that corner with a 50 mil. Tell him to kill anything that comes in that direction" and he'd be brilliant. Would I put him in front of a board? Absolutely, no way. So, the board is a Swiss Army knife and everybody has their own sort of capability and skillset that they're bringing to the table.

But I think it's important for the chairman to ensure that there's recognition of someone's function that they are brilliant at doing, but also for that person to feel that they're not exposing themselves unnecessarily by relinquishing the responsibility to someone else for their particular field.

Ralph Grayson: Judgement. It all comes about to judgement , right? That's why AI can't replace the board.

Will Geddes: God, no. It never will. Never will. You need that human element in there.

Ralph Grayson: Can AI, I just, God, I thought for once I get through a podcast without talking about AI. But can AI help with scenario planning and risk analysis?

Will Geddes: I think in a macro sense, yes. I think it can be one of the contributing elements. I would rather use something that was slightly more human like Claude, than say ChatGPT, which is a slightly too sterile opinion I think. Not that I would say a Claude is necessarily the very best, but I think in setting out a framework, it can be quite helpful. The macro is the automation, the micro is the human, and the micro is the EQ aspect as far as I'm concerned and you'll never get EQ from ChatGPT, Claude or any other AI and EQ is important for stakeholder reassurance, staff reassurance, and peer reassurance.

Ralph Grayson: Will, we've covered an enormous range of issues and I suspect raised many more questions than answers. So thank you for sharing your insights. Where and how can listeners follow up with you and read your thoughts and in particular the piece that you've written on current geopolitics, which is, I would commend everybody to read, it's fascinating.

Will Geddes: Well, that's very kind of you and thank you for having me, Ralph. I hope there have been a few nuggets in there that may help or assist your listeners. They can reach me. My name is Will Geddes. My company is ICP Group and that stands for International Corporate Protection. My website, which is icpgroupcompanies.com and if they want to drop me an email, it's [e-mail].

Ralph Grayson: Will, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Will Geddes: Thank you, Ralph. It's been a pleasure for me too. Thank you.

Ralph Grayson: I hope that you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and have found it helpful when thinking about how to approach your own path to the boardroom. If you would like to push this a little bit further, Sainty Hird runs a bespoke one to one programme designed specifically to this end. For more information, please visit our website saintyhird.com, follow us on LinkedIn, and subscribe to the Boardroom Path to receive new episodes. Thank you for listening.