Governance Unpacked by NEDness
The boardroom is changing. Governance Unpacked by NEDness brings expert guests to the table to explore what it really takes to succeed in the boardroom today. Honest, grounded conversations for non-executive directors/independent directors (NEDs), aspiring NEDs, and the organisations and charities that benefit from strong governance.
Governance Unpacked by NEDness
Governance Unpacked by NEDness: A conversation with Founder Julia Warrander
NEDness is a global governance ecosystem enabling clarity, capability and community; connecting non-executive directors (NEDs) and the organisations around them with everything they need to thrive in the boardroom. NEDness is a global governance ecosystem enabling clarity, capability and community; connecting NEDs and the organisations around them with everything they need to thrive in the boardroom.
This episode is a conversation with Julia Warrander, the founder of NEDness, about her motivation behind creating the organisation, the story behind the name NEDness, and her vision for building a global community around modern governance.
Welcome to Governance Unpacked by NEDness, the podcast where we explore the realities of modern governance through conversations with the people who live it every day. In this first episode, we're starting at the beginning. Before we speak with the board members, the chairs, and governance leaders from around the world, it felt right to tell the story of how NEDness came to be. I'm joined by Julia Warrander, the founder of NEDness, to talk about what inspired her to create it. She'll explain where the name NEDness came from and why she believes that governance needs a stronger, more connected global community. It's a conversation about purpose and curiosity and the practical challenges that boards are facing today. It sets the scene for everything that's going to be to come in this series. Here's my conversation with Julia Warrander. Hi Julia, welcome. Thank you. It's nice to see you. How are you doing today?
JuliaHi, um pretty good. Thank you. Yeah, I'm happy to be here with you. And I'm looking forward to having this conversation about NEDness.
PeggySo tell me how you came up with the idea of NEDness. What is where does that name even come from?
JuliaYeah, it's a it's a made-up word. So it actually starts with some feedback I received. I was interviewing for a role, and um the recruitment person fed back that I wasn't gonna be taken to the final round. And um he knew me quite well already because he had undertaken a board assessment um of the company that I had co-founded. Um so he felt he could be quite frank and direct with me, which suits me fine. And he said, Julia, you need to work on your NEDness. And I I kind of said, Okay, great, yeah, no problem. And then when we dropped off the video call, I'm like, yeah, NEDness. Okay, what does that actually mean? What is NEDness? You know, and I I thought I'd been a director for um you know over a decade, and the truth was I I kind of thought I knew about governance, but there is a difference as I've learned between being exec and being a non-exec. And this was really him saying that I needed to better understand, you know, what it took to be a NED. And I thought, great, okay, I need to understand how I go about being more Ned-ish. And so why do I go for that? And I like to buy books, but there weren't really books that kind of appealed to me about being a NED. And then I looked at courses, but I thought, well, you know, the courses are great, and maybe if I hadn't been a non-exec for 11 years and I hadn't been on a board for as an executive for you know for 12, maybe that'd have been the right route to go to. But I I felt it was a lot of time and money to invest, and it just didn't suit me. So I thought, well, I must be somewhere I can go and find out, you know, what skills, what knowledge, sort of the rules, the do's and the don'ts, etc. And I kept looking, and there wasn't a single place where I could find this and where I could also um tap into a community of people who were either in a similar position to me, so looking for roles, or actually were also either in a role and already doing this, or been doing it for a long time, who could act as a mentor or an advisor as to you know how I go about this journey and how I improved my NEDness. So that's why we are setting up the company. It is there to solve that clear gap in the market.
PeggyThat's amazing because you're definitely not going to be the only person in that type of a s situation looking for connections with other people, looking for that experience, looking to learn. Great. So tell me a little bit more about your own personal career journey. Like how did you get to where you are today?
JuliaWell, when I finished university, I was supposed to go into fashion, but I ended up in finance, and that's a whole other story. But it took me around the world. I started at Citibank and then I joined Goldman. And in Goldman, I got to work in Asia and in New York as well as in London. Um, and then I got to spend some time in Europe before I came to where I now live, which is Jersey in the Channels. And um when I came here, I myself and four others set up a wealth management company with the goal that we would try and bring our personal values in through the office door with us each morning. Oh, and we built that up um over a period of years, um, and it was a lot of hard work and a lot of fun. Um but I really enjoy building and fixing, and so in 2023 it was time for me to go and do something else. Um, and I was very aware that AI was rapidly going to change the world, but I didn't really feel like I understood enough about it. So I ordered lots of books and I started reading one and then a bit of another, but I didn't really know where to start, so I took myself back to school and I went back to Oxford and I went to Cyber Business School and did an AI program. Um, and then I returned the following year and did a Cyber for Leadership program. Excellent. Um both of which were really good, and both of which I felt were skills that any director in the boardroom had to have. They were no longer nice nice to have, and therefore, you know, it was an imperative for me to learn in order to be able to ask the right questions, help shape strategy. And so that's really how I became interested in what good governance looks like, not just for today, but going forward. And that led me to NEDness. Great.
PeggyWhat rich history that you have, an amazing experience. So looking across your career and your experience, what are the lessons that you learned about um corporate governance?
JuliaSo for me, um the strongest boards, and you know, we haven't been on thousands, but for me, my in my experience are ones where you're willing to ask the awkward question that you know others might choose to avoid, but a good board, and particularly good non-execs, will challenge, will question, will ask the kind of and deal with the elephant that's in the room. And I think that's really, really important. Um and sometimes those questions can almost sound naive, but that's the advantage you're bringing. You're bringing a sort of an external perspective. You're you know, the executives spend a huge amount of time in the business day in, day out, and and you you get to come in with fresh eyes with a different perspective and and challenge and question, you know, what's going on. The second thing would be the importance of values and culture, the intangibles that count. When you know we built the wealth management company, you know, they were very much the framework that we used to ensure if we were making decisions, we could sense check it against those those values and ensure it was consistent with you know our culture and our ethics.
PeggySo not just having values as words on a wall, but actually putting them in practice.
JuliaExactly. Um and the third is that you can't just use process, you can't delegate things to you know committees, to policies, to procedures, because if the culture underneath it is hollow, you know, you're not actually going to and you'd have honesty in that room, you're not actually going to decide whether a board is being genuinely effective or not. So human judgement and honesty are two really important parts of having an effective board. Excellent.
PeggySo Julia, tell me what you think people misunderstand about governance.
Speaker 1I think it's a misunderstanding around you know the persona of a non-executive. So, you know, I think there's a feeling that it's sort of an easy part-time, near the end of your career um sort of role where you can, you know, have a intimate distance. Yeah, and enjoy some nice sandwiches and you know, and then chat and and you know, sign some documents and you know, and it's nothing of the sort, um, you carry real accountability. You have the same liability and the same fiduciary duty as the executives on the board, um, and you're expected to exercise you know sharp judgment, but on a much thinner knowledge base. So, whilst you are provided board packs and you are given ongoing training and you are um making sure that you are individually going out there and you know learning and improving your skills, you are much less supported in terms of your job than you would be if you're working for the company full-time.
PeggyYeah.
JuliaUm, and the role can feel really lonely. Um, you know, unlike when you're in an office where you can wander and have a chat and use somebody as a sounding board, um, you know, you're privy to confidential information, so you can't possibly talk about that outside of the organisation they're working for. Um, but you're also not naturally connected to other NEDs. Um there isn't that community. Um, and so you know, I think people see the board seat, they see the title, and they rarely understand the responsibility, the complexity, and to an extent the weight you can feel carrying it.
PeggyAnd is that something that you want to be addressing with NEDness as well?
JuliaAbsolutely. No, for me, NEDness is really about increasing the transparency and the access to information, skills, knowledge, but also to a community that is very disparate. It might be across different geographies, that you know, in time zones, it is you know across different generations. And so I think you know, netness can play a real role in making the the content, the learning, and the community more accessible. Great.
PeggySo, Julia, why do you feel that there's a need for a platform like NEDness today?
JuliaI would gently swap the word platform for ecosystem because for me, NEDness is something that you take part in and where the impact, the community, and the tools kind of feed on each other. Um, it's a living, growing organism rather than a technology or software solution that kind of you plug and play. That makes sense.
PeggyAnd and tell me a little bit more about the community that you want to build.
JuliaSo, you know, the world of the non-execs that we talked about is is it's hard to navigate, it's fragmented, it's complicated, and everything sits in different places. So you've got you know, uh a recruiter over here, you've got a governance organisation that provides training over there, and you've got uh potentially events you know in an in another place. And you know, it's multi-jurisdictional, you know, governance governance travels. There is you know, there's great best practices in South Africa, in Australia, you know, across Europe, you know, no one region has all the answers, and yet we tend to be quite siloed. And so that practical support of being, how do I become a NED, or how do I get be a better NED, or you know, should we add a NED or an advisory board to our organisation remains very scattered and uneven and um difficult to sort of tap into. Um, so what NEDness is going to do, it's gonna bring all of that together. So whether you are looking for contemporary insight, whether you're looking for honest peer community, if you are wanting some tools or just want to learn about what is best practice of what directors are doing around the world, then you'll be able to go to NEDness and find those answers.
PeggyUm, do you become a member of NEDness? How does that work?
JuliaYeah, so it's free and it will always be free for the individuals who wish to be part of that community and ecosystem, and for the organisations that are looking at you know improving their their governance structure. So that could be a small to medium-sized company that hasn't had a non-sec and is maybe considering it, or a non-for-profit that um has its board but can't afford to actually send them on expensive training courses and would like to up skill them about you know good governance and also you know the evolving world of risks that are occurring. So you will be able to basically join for free um and uh become part of the community, and uh and you will never have to pay to access any of the content or the tools that we have on the website. And you know, that's not because we're a charity, we are a for-profit, but we believe that we can create a commercial model whereby the ability for partners who would like to tap into this disparate community of non-execs to be able to access both the community and also on an anonymised basis the data around that community will be attractive for them to help finance the actual ecosystem itself.
PeggySo give me an example of what type of partner you'd be talking about.
JuliaIt could be an insurance company that offers directors and office insurance, it could be a cyber consultant, it could be a governance platform that offers training. So it's very broad and very wide, but yeah, that and they and they could be from anywhere in the world. Okay so it's not just uh Channel Islands, it is an ecosystem wider, it's very much global because as I mentioned earlier, you know, the knowledge isn't you know in one geography, the knowledge is spread across the world. The problem isn't the knowledge, the problem is tapping into that knowledge.
PeggyYeah, yeah, and a community then as well, that experience from various other geographies which give such a different perspective. Absolutely. So tell me about what values and principles you really want to be part of the foundation of NEDness.
JuliaThe most important is definitely independence. I just talked about the partnerships that we look to put in place, those commercial relationships that will help make sure that the you know knowledge part is for free for the community. We would never allow them to shape what we publish or influence, you know, what names we put in front of people. Um, because if so, the whole proposition would be just worthless. So independence is really important, um, trusted, um, particularly in the world of AI, where you have large language models that are writing content and there's no human in the loop, um, we are going to make absolutely certain that our content is original and human-authored. We will use AI in the business, but we'll use it for research and for editing. But the editorial judgment and the actual creation will very much be by humans. So keeping that human intelligence, the real connection in the contemporary, because you know, one of the things I personally, when I viewed from the outside in around the governance community, was was very much that um it was a little intimidating, a little definite old-fashioned at times, um, and a lot of the material was sometimes dated or used a language which excluded lots of people. Um so contemporary, approachable, that's a really good part of it, and and you know, linking into that inclusive, um, because the insight needs to be available from you know people who are considering becoming an ed, from a first-time director to a seasoned chair, all on equal terms, irrespective of where in the world they are. So that inclusivity is really important. So those four kind of come together: the independence trusted, the contemporary, and the inclusive.
PeggyI love that combination because it means then that people who are in that ecosystem can focus on actually doing good governance and having growing their skills, growing you know, learning along the way rather than having that as such a huge barrier. And in a place where they feel safe and that they belong. Yeah, excellent. But tell me more about the community that you want to be building in this.
JuliaSo the value flows in every direction. So, not surprisingly, a new director will learn a lot from someone who's been, you know, on a board for many, many years. But a cyber and AI specialist who maybe has only just joined a board may be exactly the kind of person that a veteran 30-year director needs to hear from because expertise and experience are very different things. So a real community trades in both. The other party is um making the right connections rather than leaving them to chance. So we would like to create community conversations that are built around things and topics um and geographies where people have something in common. So that could be bringing chairs together, it could be bringing people who are in a particular jurisdiction, so we could say people in Singapore, and it could be people across the world who are wrestling with the same questions and issues, you know, like AI, you know, governance, um, and so yeah, exactly, but but trying to make it that those community conversations are relevant for the people involved, and so um you know, making certain that um they're useful and relevant, and also ensuring that the conversations that take part in those communities are appropriate and not revealing anything that that they shouldn't. Right, another important part.
PeggyAnd I love that contemporary aspect that you were mentioning as well, because that means that you the community would then help each other to stay up to date. Exactly. So it's really a growing ecosystem.
JuliaAnd it came back to the safety net, you know, the safe space because sometimes it can be hard for lots of individuals to admit that they, being so senior, actually don't understand something. Um and so that's what I really want to see happen is that there is no fear of putting your hand up and saying, Can someone explain this to me? And that doesn't matter however seasoned or new you are.
PeggyYeah, right. So looking towards the future, what is great? I definitely filling a gap in a need that's out there is a phenomenal way of putting something together. You sound very driven and very motivating. I think I am. The vision that you have for the impact that NEDness can have on boards and on the governance.
JuliaWell, we're ambitious, um, and so we'd really like to see a change in who gets into the boardroom in the first place, and also maybe lift the quality of the conversations that are happening in the boardroom. So on the widening out, I mean a couple of things. So the simple question as to you know whoever gets a chance to reach a board, um, it depends a lot at the moment on where you come from, what you can afford, and yeah, the connections you have, exactly. And the second, you know, and so you know, we want to try and increase that inclusiveness, that access. Um, and then the second part that I mentioned was effectiveness. So when you get that diverse board around the table with different experiences and expertise and ways of thinking, the danger is you end up with still end up with with groupthink because people conform, they conform to the way the board was already run. And and so uh you end up, even though you've brought diversity into the boardroom itself, you haven't brought that diversity into the culture and the behaviours. And and so trying to figure out how you translate that creative thinking into helping the company or the non-for-profit be the best it can be, without just assuming that it's going to happen because you have a diverse board, because that in itself is not enough. And making sure that everybody who's around that board is on a journey of learning. So if you hire someone who has, say, a strong audit background, it doesn't mean that they should be the only people who are really knowledgeable about changes in audit regulations and laws and things like that. Everybody needs to have a base learning, and that runs across all the different skill sets. So, you know, avoiding it where the the you defer to an expert on the board and everyone else kind of sits and nods and listens to create a a board where people are upskilling themselves, asking questions and feeling that their question and their view is just as valid, even if they're not the designated experts in a particular topic.
PeggyAnd that links back then that having that ecosystem that teaches you to be vulnerable, gives you that safe space within NEDness, then if you're taking those qualities into the board, then you would dare to ask some of those questions that you mentioned earlier about the more challenging questions that might sound naive, but which is exactly what needs to be challenged in the boardroom. So you started this journey of creating the NEDness ecosystem in 2026. Yeah. So what have been the biggest learnings and the biggest surprises on this journey?
JuliaSo the biggest surprise for me is the appetite to learn about governance. For a lot of people, well, maybe they don't even know what governance is, um, but even if they do, it it might come across as a little dry and perhaps not something that that people go, yay, I really want to go and learn more about that. Um but actually I found the opposite. I found in a conversation with a founder in her 30s who's growing her business, she doesn't have a board yet. It would be wrong to have a board yet, but she's already asking questions of you know, what is good governance? You know, how does that look? What should I be doing? What should I be thinking about? And you know, when I scale, at what point would I think about having a board. And it also runs across people leading charities, non-for-profits that are already doing great work and carrying real responsibility. But their trustees may have joined because they they want to give back, they they feel they've got something to add, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they know a lot about their fiduciary duties and you know understand the breadth and depth of their responsibilities. So they need an accessible way to sort of grow that understanding. And that's the gap I keep seeing. I keep seeing people going, you know, these capable, these committed people who have, you know, who haven't got a place where they can just go and try and learn or find the answers or or or you know find solution providers for the questions and the problems they've got. And so, you know, there's there's the ability to do this without having to, you know, hand over your hard-earned cash or the donations that you might have been given, um, because it's free to everybody who chooses to belong. So for me, that's been the biggest surprise. It's been the fact that when I've tried to explain, you know, what NEDness is, um, and you know, it takes a little time sometimes to figure it out, it's just that that people, there's a demand for that. And you know, you always hope that when you're setting a business up, but I actually genuinely you know think there is. And there's um South Africa has something called the King's Framework, which is really widely regarded, and you know it's a global benchmark, and it was specifically set up um to make sure that it worked from large listed corporates down to you know smallest non-for-profits, and that's exactly the same spirit that I want to carry into NEDness.
PeggySo, Julia, tell me what NEDness means for you personally.
Speaker 1Personally, it's proof that you can start something new when you're in your late 50s and beyond. Um, and that the years behind you still count for something uh rather than holding you back. Um, I get to take everything I've learned, those kind of battle scars that I've accumulated on the way, and hard lessons, and put it to work in something that I really, really believe in. Um, and it feeds the real appetite that I have in terms of you know continuous learning. So, yeah, that's what makes it personal and the chance to shape a venture that's new at this stage of my life and with a small group of people that I really trust. Thank you. Great insights. Thank you.
PeggyOkay, so finally, if there's one thing that you want people to hold on to and to understand when they hear NEDness, what would that be?
JuliaThat good governance shouldn't be on on, you know, depend on where you sit or what you run or who you happen to know. That and unfortunately too often it does, and NEDness exists to close that gap for the widest possible range of organisations and individuals, so the boardroom starts to look more like the people that they serve. And so, yeah, that's what I want you to leave with. I love that.
PeggyJulia, thank you. I love seeing your passion about this topic. I get very enthusiastic about it by talking with you, and I appreciate all your insights. Very excited to help to build NEDness. Thank you so much for listening to Governance Unpacked by NEDness. If something in today's conversation sparked an idea or raised a question, we would love to hear from you. And if there's a governance topic you would like us to tackle in a future episode, please send it our way. You can reach us at hello at nedness.com or find us through our website at nedness.com. If you found today's episode valuable, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and consider leaving a review or sharing a link with others. Be part of help building up the ecosystem. The views shared in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests offered for general information and discussion only. They don't constitute legal, financial, or professional governance advice, and they don't necessarily represent any organisation we are affiliated with. Governance rules vary by jurisdiction and sector. So consult a qualified professional before acting on anything you hear. Thanks so much for joining us, and until next time, bye for now.