Sir Douglas Flint on Just Finance Foundation and credit union board rooms - EDITION 20

This is an interviewed with Sir Douglas Flint who is chair of Standard Life Aberdeen, IP Group, the Corporate board of Cancer Research UK and is a trustee of the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. He was previously Group Chairman of HSBC Holdings and he has held other roles, notably as a non-executive director of BP.

Clearly, Sir Douglas has many years of experience of board rooms of successful businesses and his Chairmanship of the Just Finance Foundation has placed him in close proximity to credit unions. So, along with his insights into successful board rooms,  I was firstly interested in asking him about his Chairmanship of the Just Finance Foundation.

Then I asked him what changes would you make to boardrooms to make them more effective?
"Boards need to spend more time on what’s important rather that what’s urgent".  He added, There are 5 key questions that we need to think about:

1. Where do we think our industry is going to be in 5 or 10-years’ time?
2. What do we need to do to put ourselves in a position for that change?
3. What resources do we need, human, financial, and technology?
4. What do we think our competitors are doing to position themselves?
5. What do we think people who aren’t our competitors today but do have the capability to be our competitors in the future are doing?

https://www.justfinancefoundation.org.uk/
The Just Finance Foundation runs a project called LifeSavers. This is an innovative, values-based financial education programme for primary schools, teaching children how to manage money wisely. Offering a whole school approach, LifeSavers provides: 

1.  Resources and training for teachers
2.  Savings Clubs: giving children practical experience of handling and saving money
3.  A whole community approach, including parents, credit unions and other community groups 

Talking Credit Unions with Chris Smith is a regular podcast dedicated to informing credit union practitioners, leaders and opinion formers on variety of industry topics. To contact Chris Smith, smithowls@gmail.com