Corporate Governance Expert
Helen has had a business career spanning nearly 30 years, with over 20 of those years at executive level advising boards of directors as a corporate governance professional and business consultant with a value engineering focus. She began her career in Trans-Atlantic Sea Cable Installation and Manufacturing and she continued her career as a Company Secretary in London from Cheshire during the mid-90s to be part of the Eurotunnel team securing the £4.6bn debt refinancing deal where the pressure of insolvency was daily, and focus was everything.
Her business and governance expertise led her to spend six years with Deutsche Bank which included over 85 Secretaryships, and directorship appointments for businesses worth Aus$20m, and £150m.
Helen worked on complex private equity and eCommerce transactions with investments worth E100m leading front office executives through the process of business plan application to board approval with much of this time spent on cross jurisdiction regulation and governance due diligence.
With ten years of independent consulting Helen has most recently advised venture capital firms on regulation and carried out due diligence for overseas start-ups, and business process re-engineering for organisations needing to reduce cost wastage.
In addition to cross industry experience Helen has a unique blend of skills both in business and relating to people at all levels and backgrounds. In the early 1990s she piloted a Self-Managed Learning, development programme, at Cable & Wireless PLC in her spare time which led to two employees being chosen for MBA sponsorship.
Her passion for people has since led her to mentoring and on the stage for motivational speaking at inner city schools and encouraging hundreds of church goers in the US and the UK. This passion extends to a 13 years association with London City Mission both as a volunteer and more recently as a part-time missionary based in the largest social housing estate in Europe. With a legal lens, Helen has also acted as a McKenzie Friend Advocate for the last 10 years in the county court and Family Court helping those who cannot afford to, nor are able to, help themselves.
Helen is a long standing member of the Institute of Directors, a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and a member of the ICSA, the Governance Institute. She also holds a degree in Business Administration.
