Episode 33

Value creation through strategic transformation Starring Karen Thomas

Welcome to another episode of 100 days and beyond with Karen Thomas. She is the founder and director of Seven Transformation Ltd. She is also a Chartered Organisational Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a member of INSEAD's global director network (IDP-C).

Background

Karen started her journey with training and specialising in organisational psychology. Then, she got into Management consultancy, specialising in the people aspects of M&A. After that, she went into IBM to lead businesses and integration.

Karen is an Interim Executive Committee member, Consultant and NED with 25 years of experience leading complex enterprise-wide transformations and M&A integrations to $105bn turnover. Karen has proven expertise in strategy and transformation of complex global businesses involving the creation of new and disruptive operating models to reduce cost, grow the top line, extract more excellent value from data and technology, create new dynamic cultures and deliver customer-centric and digitally delivered customer experiences.

Value Creation Management as NED

Karen focus on the private equity world from the non-executive chair and believes that if you’re interested in value creation, then explore private equity because governance is the priority as the NEDs build a relationship with the CEO and the broader management team is critical. You need to know their motivation and passion for supporting them achieve their goals. From a cultural perspective, you can help the CEO to scale up the journey. Recognise the need to bring in more formalities and processes to scale up.


Psychology of value creation

Karen is a big advocate of strength methodology. She says that you must know your career and the purpose of business.

Strength plays a key role, but you need to know the issues to get better at bringing the proper capability support. Be focused on knowing the correct principles and tools with experience and knowledge to fix the issue.


Leading value creation through strategic transformation being CTO


Being part of the executive team is working with the business teams on the journey with a process to follow to set up a transformation office and centres of excellence. If they want to set up a new model around account management, CTO must deliver what they've set out that they want to achieve.


A transformation must have a defined endpoint with a set of KPIs that needs to be delivered, but the importance and the difference between working with an interim and a consultancy are that they're working with you. They're taking you on the journey, but they're leaving you with that capability and that sustainability that you may know that you will do more next time.

Make sure to work towards it in a planned way. Build checkpoints to see if we are achieving our goals in a planned and methodical way. You need the provocation and make a mission. These were some of the few things discussed in the Podcast with Karen Thomas. To know her magnificent experience, tune into the Podcast.

Connect with Karen Thomas

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenthomas-bland


Share your expertise and knowledge on our podcast platforms. Apply to be one of our featured guests at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dudley-peacock This podcast gives M&A experts the platform and the opportunity to demonstrate and showcase their ‘in the trenches’ experiences using a state-of-the-art platform for peers and potential clients. Go To www.100daysandbeyond.com for more episodes.

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Skilful Pursuit is a dedicated team of highly skilled business management and marketing experts with a unique and proven plan to help business leaders achieve and maintain sustainable growth. We have developed a complete “Business Leader User Guide Series” and several other courses to unlock your business’s optimum growth capacity. We have been helping mid-sized companies and entrepreneurs turn their companies into revenue-generating and wealth-creation machines for the past 29 years. We have now developed specialised courses for mid-sized businesses and entrepreneurs, available on this website.



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