Leadership Conversations – the first year

Livingston James founding Director, Jamie Livingston shares the thinking behind the launch of Livingston James’ Leadership Conversation series ahead of the final event of 2015.

As executive search specialists, succession planning is often at the heart of our business. In 2014, my colleagues and I were becoming increasingly aware of the talent shortage of professionals in the 30-40 age bracket, and the impact that this is likely to have on businesses looking to find their leaders of the future.

We discussed how we as recruiters could best address this, and came back time and again to the importance of nurturing and educating these leaders of the future to ensure that as many of them as possible are as well-equipped to lead as they can be when the time comes. From these discussions, the Livingston James Leadership Conversations were born.

What better way to educate and inspire our leaders of the future than to get them together with those leaders who are at the top of their game today? We began approaching some of the most high profile business leaders in Scotland, and in January 2015 we hosted our inaugural Leadership Conversation with Ian Curle, CEO of drinks giant the Edrington Group.

Ian addressed a group of around 30 future leaders from across all sectors of business in Scotland, sharing with them insights into his own journey to CEO as well as the challenges of leading an international drinks business. You can read more about the event here.

In the months that followed we were very fortunate to host events in partnership with Rob Woodward, CEO of STV plc; Dame Sue Bruce, CEO of the City of Edinburgh Council and Brendan Dick, Managing Director of BT Regions, each of whom shared their experience and expertise with our audiences of future CEOs to great effect.

Our final Leadership Conversation of 2015 is taking place on Thursday 10th December when we will be hosted by one of Scotland’s most successful business leaders, Jim McColl. Jim will share the story of his successes and motivations, and give our audience exclusive access to his visionary independent school, Newlands Junior College.

Whilst there is no doubt that businesses in Scotland will face the challenge of recruiting future leaders from a limited talent pool, it is clear that there is much that can be done to prepare as many of our ambitions professionals for future leadership. We look forward to collaborating with other Scottish business leaders to deliver an exciting programme of Leadership Conversations in 2016.

If you would like to learn more about the Leadership Conversations, please email [email protected].

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