Norman Broadbent (LON:NBB) Chief Executive Officer Mike Brennan caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their partnership with UN Women UK, what this means for the company & their clients and what investors should be looking out for in terms of news flow.
Q1: Last week, we saw that you entered into a partnership with UN Women UK. Mike, can you just explain for us what it is that they actually do?
A1: UN for Women globally is obviously a part of the United Nations and what they do is they look to promote diversity on a gender basis and opportunities for women, it’s within education and it’s within business as well.
As one of the UK’s leading professional services firms within the business space, we were delighted to be able to get involved because promoting more diverse workforces for our clients is important to them and it’s important that we can help them do that.
Q2: How did the partnership come about?
A2: So, we’ve been working in this space for a long time so we’ve been helping clients achieve their, particularly gender, diversity objectives for a long time. So, we’ve been helping them redress any imbalances they might have within the organisation, helping them attract more diverse talent so that could more inclusive or more female talent because more diverse businesses are better in lots of different ways. It’s been proven they’re more profitable.
It came abut because the UN had noticed what we’ve been doing in this space for some time, they regarded us as very innovative, we’ve also just been recognised by Hampton Alexander for our work in helping Board’s and companies in the same space.
They asked me to join a judging panel and we were looking at companies across the UK and individuals who have promoted women in business and the gender diversity agenda in business. It was off the back of that work I did on the judging panel where I actually sat down with the people from UN Women UK and said we can do this much more significantly now and we can really help you get into the corporate consciousness, as it were. So, that’s where the partnership came about.
The great thing about this is this is the first partnership of its kind in the world that’s ever been entered into by UN Women UK and a company such as ours so it’s a real first for Norman Broadbent.
Q3: I think you hinted at this earlier but what does this mean for the company and of course, your clients?
A3: I think, first of all, it validates everything we’ve been doing so to be invited into this kind of partnership by somebody by UN Women UK is very significant because it says what we’re doing it right and they want to see more of it. So, that’s the first thing, it’s a big validation for our company.
In addition to that, what it means is I think we can get our message out a lot more widely in conjunction with UN Women UK, it means we can spread the message more and we can talk about a lot more with a much wider range of clients.
So, it’s a win-win, there’s opportunities for UN Women UK, there are opportunities for companies to build more diverse and inclusive workforces and obviously, the benefit for us because it means that we can promote our services more actively with a wider range of clients.
Q4: Finally, what should investors be looking out for in terms of news flow over the coming months from Norman Broadbent?
A4: Our year-end is end of December this year so I’d like to think we’d be in a position to get a trading statement out in the early part of Q1 of next year, I’m quite keen to keep the market posted on a fairly regular basis on how we’re performing as a business.
In addition to that, we’re rather hopeful that we’re going to be able to get our full-year figures out for the end of Q1/the beginning of Q2 next year so they’re the two big milestones for us.
