ABP Workforce Experience Award

An Award-Winning Case Study – Engagement in re-structuring and expanding the Board at City & Country.

In October 2016 Athena Professional won the Association of Business Psychology Award for Coaching and Training Excellence for their work on this project.

Business Impact

“We have a settled Board and the best combination and level of skills and experience we have ever had, enabling us to focus on future challenges with a shared vision of how we will achieve them.” – Helen Moore, Managing Director, City & County

The Client

A family business, City & Country (C&C) are the 24th fastest growing private company in the UK and won Housebuilder of the Year in 2014. C&C conserve and re-imagine historic buildings to create exceptional places to live and work. Second generation builders, the Sargeant brothers combine fierce commercial sense, expertise in the building process and a passion for craftsmanship.

The company has expanded from its base in Essex to own sites nationally, securing JV funding and aiming to at least double turnover in the 5 years to 2020.

The Challenge

To make growth possible the company needed an expanded, high-performing Board. In a family business relationships are everything. Senior leaders recognised that the company needed to carry people with it as it grew, and that this process had to start at the top.

The Board comprised 50% family members. As a whole, they formed a tight group of individuals who had created a hugely successful business imbued with the family members’ charisma, values and abilities.

The pace of growth dictated urgency, however, over the previous 5 years four external appointments to the Board had not worked out. Efforts to appoint internally had also resulted in mixed success; some were excellent fits, others had not made the grade. Staff turn-over generally had been high.

There was a need to re-calibrate expectation, equip potential internal candidates to the Board with new skills, and engage them to deliver a new phase of growth.

Read the full coaching and training case study: Athena_Professional_ABP_Award_case_study