Leading Professionals

Episod

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  S4 EP6 - Leading Complex Change: Breaking Through Practical Barriers and Political Resistance 01.12.2025 43min

  Guest: Dame Emily Lawson, formerly COO, NHS England, and Head of Number 10's Delivery UnitEmily has considerable experience of leading change in complex professional organisations, including leading the initial rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine programme across the UK. Laura asks: How do you manage to not be overwhelmed by complexity or discouraged by failure? How do you bring the right team together and deal with covert resistance?Website: https://www.lauraempson.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadingProfessionalsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-laura-empson-69820773/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  S4 EP5 - Becoming "Professional": How to Look, Sound, Act and Feel like a Professional 17.11.2025 37min

  Guest: Paul Lewis, Firmwide Managing Partner of LinklatersIf you do not fit the conventional image of an elite professional, how do you persuade others that you are, and how do you learn to feel like one? Paul and Laura discuss his own very personal experiences of “becoming professional”. What can be done to help people from non-professional backgrounds to thrive within elite professional organisations?Website: https://www.lauraempson.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadingProfessionalsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-laura-empson-69820773/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  S4 EP4 - Considering the Future: How AI and Private Equity Will Change Professionals' Work 03.11.2025 35min

  Guest: Michael Izza CBE, CEO (former) of ICAEWFor almost 20 years, Michael led the ICAEW, with more than 200,000 members in almost 150 countries. So he has a distinctively long-term and global perspective on the accounting profession. Focusing on the interrelated changes of Gen AI and PE ownership, Laura and Michael explore: What is already happening and what changes lie ahead?Website: https://www.lauraempson.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadingProfessionalsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-laura-empson-69820773/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  S4 EP3 - Electing Leaders: How to Choose Your Leaders and How To Get Elected 20.10.2025 32min

  Guest: Michael Ensser, Chair of Egon ZehnderLaura asks Michael: Why does a world leading firm of leadership consultants choose to elect their senior leaders, and how do their elections actually work? They discuss what really goes on behind the scenes of professional service firms’ carefully stage managed leadership elections.  Website: https://www.lauraempson.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadingProfessionalsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-laura-empson-69820773/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  S4 EP2 - Doing the Right Thing: How to Make Ethically Tough Decisions 06.10.2025 33min

  Guest: Georgia Dawson, Senior Partner of FreshfieldsIf you are a lawyer you may be able to guess why Laura asks Georgia to explore the challenging theme of professional ethics with her.In a complex commercial, social, and political environment, how do you balance the competing interests of multiple stakeholders?How do you decide, what is the 'right' thing? And then, how do you make sure you do it? Website: https://www.lauraempson.com/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadingProfessionalsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-laura-empson-69820773/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  S4 EP1 - Leading in Uncertain Times: How to Respond to Geopolitical Change and AI Disruption 22.09.2025 43min

   Guest: Fabien Curto Millet, Chief Economist of Google. Fabien joins Laura to discuss how he and his team of economists anticipate, analyse, and understand the scale of change with which Google must contend. How does he lead his team of professionals, and manage himself, during these uncertain times? And what does he remember from when Laura taught him Strategy at Oxford 25 years ago?Website: https://www.lauraempson.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadingProfessionalsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-laura-empson-69820773/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  S4 EP0 Welcome to Leading Professionals 15.09.2025 4min

  Professor Laura Empson introduces key topics and guests from the upcoming series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  David Bickford: Spies as professionals 11.12.2023 28min

  What are the parallels between the worlds of espionage and professional services? Laura and Tony talk to David Bickford, previously General Counsel to MI5 and MI6, about his role as the agencies’ Legal Director and Under Secretary of State. They explore how to build trust when professionals are working remotely, how to collaborate when knowledge is shared on a need-to-know basis, and how to stop powerful professionals from going rogue. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Katherine White: Leading discretely 27.11.2023 35min

  Laura and Tony speak to Katherine White, the first Chief Talent Officer of global executive search firm, Spencer Stuart. They explore the challenges of being a senior leader when you are not a fee-earner, and of leading the so-called talent when the fee-earners themselves do not see you as the talent. Katherine explains how she built trust and influence, and how she learnt to add value quickly while working slowly and discretely to bring about change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Gianpiero Petriglieri: Coming out of the psychological closet 13.11.2023 35min

  Gianpiero Petriglieri, Associate Professor at INSEAD, is ranked as one of the top 50 management thinkers in the world. Laura and Tony talk to him about the difficult emotions that often stay hidden and suppressed in organisations and individuals, and how leaders of professional organisations can become more effective when they engage more directly with these emotions.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  June Sarpong: Leading as an outsider 30.10.2023 35min

  Laura and Tony are joined by June Sarpong OBE, the BBC’s first Global Director of Creative Diversity. They explore how to bring about disruptive change in a large, complex and high-profile professional organisation, and how to get things done quickly in an environment when decisions are taken slowly. June explains how she managed to do all this as an outsider with no previous leadership experience, but a great deal of broadcast experience. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Chris Saul: Subtle power 16.10.2023 38min

  Chris Saul is the former Senior Partner of the UK’s most prestigious law firm, Slaughter and May. Laura and Tony explore how leaders use subtle power to build consensus among partners in a professional organisation. They discover some of the secrets of how Slaughter and May has evolved successfully over more than a century, and managed to retain its powerful position at the heart of the UK’s economy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Steve Varley: Profiting from sustainability 02.10.2023 36min

  Laura and Tony speak to Steve Varley, EY’s first Global Vice Chair for Sustainability. They find out how he was inspired by Greta Thunberg to try to build a bridge between environmentalism and capitalism, and the skills he used to make this happen.  He explains how he created this role in EY to place sustainability at the heart of the firm’s business, and how he mobilised both colleagues and clients to build a significant sustainability practice.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Welcome Back 28.09.2023 4min

  Welcome back to Leading Professional People, the podcast that explores the most crucial leadership questions currently facing professional organisations. For this third series, Professor Laura Empson, who has dedicated almost 30 years to researching professionals and professional service firms, will be joined by a new co-host, Tony Hall, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the former Director General of the BBC. Laura and Tony’s guests include a fascinating selection of senior leaders from professional organisations, including EY, Slaughter & May, Spencer Stuart, INSEAD, the BBC, and MI6.Join them to explore the challenges, confusions, frustrations, and elations that make professional organisations so difficult to lead and so fascinating to understand. Follow this podcast so you never miss an episode. Find out more at lauraempson.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Leadership in the spotlight 26.07.2021 30min

  Empson & Morley speak to Tony Hall, Lord Hall, about his time as Director General of the BBC, and his many other high-profile roles. They examine what it is like to lead complex organizations with multiple groups of stakeholders under intense public scrutiny. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Leadership value chain 12.07.2021 26min

  How do you build better leaders in a professional service firm? Empson & Morley speak to Russ Hagey, Worldwide Chief Talent Officer of Bain. They explore Bain’s self-reinforcing leadership development system, and the way “insurgency” is both encouraged and controlled to strengthen the system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Ethics and leadership 28.06.2021 33min

  Why do professionals do bad things? Empson & Morley speak to Professor Brooke Harrington of Dartmouth College, in the USA. They explore the factors which drive some professionals to behave unethically, and the organizational and societal factors which encourage it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Extreme collegiality 14.06.2021 34min

  What is collegiality and how does it work in practice? Empson & Morley speak to Jill Ader, Chair of executive search and leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder. They examine how to create an environment of mutual support, cultural consistency, and equality among peers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Leadership duets 31.05.2021 34min

  Can dual leadership be effective and how does it work in practice? Empson & Morley analyse these questions with the help of Barry Devereaux and Catherine Deane, Managing Partner and Chairof leading Irish law firm, McCann Fitzgerald, who have recently introduced a dual leadership structure.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Post-pandemic Professionalism 17.05.2021 29min

  How can leaders help their professionals prepare for the challenges and opportunities of post-pandemic professional work? Empson & Morley explore this theme with Nick Owen, Chair of Deloitte UK. They consider how hybrid working is calling into question some well-established “truths” about the nature of professionalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.