What is a Chartered Governance Professional and how can they help my business?

How can a Chartered Governance Professional help my business?

A Chartered Governance Professional is a specialist that helps companies manage their business administration from a governance, compliance and record keeping perspective.

In business, I see that the best Chartered Governance Professionals are a key partner to the owners of a Small to Medium Enterprise (‘SME’) or to the Board of a company that has significant compliance obligations, such as an Australian Financial Services Licence (‘AFSL’) holder or an Australian Credit Licence (‘ACL’) holder.

Drawing on my two decades of board experience, my view is that the best Chartered Governance Professionals should:

1.       Reduce stress to business owners, family owned enterprises and boards by bringing order to their regular obligations and set out a clear roadmap and strategy for achieving successful governance.

2.       Create clear 12 month plans for organisations to meet their key business and compliance obligations and be a project manager for hitting all key milestones.

3.       Bring an external and commercial view to the Board table by zooming out of the day-to-day operations and help keep the company focus on longer term business strategy and objectives.

4.       Keep excellent records, particularly for companies seeking outside investment capital, or have private equity owners, or who may have the occasional visit from Government regulators. Excellent records are important to show a clear intent from owners and the board of how the company does business.  

5.       Create overall commercial value for the business so that key people driving P&L outcomes can do what they are best at, and not get bogged down in compliance related activities.      

What is a Chartered Governance Professional?

The Chartered Governance Professional charter is awarded by the internationally recognised Chartered Governance Institute. Chartered status requires graduate level qualifications and is the international benchmark for company secretaries, risk management practitioners and governance professionals. Charter holders have the knowledge, skills and experience to take on governance roles with significant and wide-ranging responsibilities.

The types of clients that I help

If any of the descriptions below sound familiar, please contact me to discuss how I can assist your business:

1.       You are a growing SME that could attract external capital for growth, but owners know that their strategy, business plans, compliance, governance and risk management are not up to an institutional standard yet.

2.       You are a mature SME business without a succession plan that requires help to take the next steps of exiting the business and you want to make the business investment or ‘sale’ ready.  

3.       You are interested in obtaining an AFSL or ACL for an emerging financial services company but don’t know where to start.  

4.       You are operating a financial services company under someone else’s AFSL or ACL and need assistance to get your board and compliance papers in order to meet your obligations under the Corporate Authorised Representative (‘CAR’) or aggregator agreement.

5.       You genuinely want to comply with all your governance and compliance obligations but don’t have the temperament to be actively involved with compliance because you are busy generating revenue for your business. You need an outsourced governance specialist to help manage these obligations professionally and efficiently.   

 Conclusion

The company board and its directors are responsible for meeting their numerous governance, compliance and record keeping obligations.

A Chartered Governance Professional can greatly assist the board, or the private owners in the case of a SME, to achieve excellent levels of risk management, and compliance with record keeping obligations.

If you are a board or an owner that needs to make better sense of your ongoing compliance requirements in a calm and commercial manner, please contact me to discuss how a Chartered Governance Professional can assist you with regular reporting, review, and project management of your organisation’s obligations.

https://www.andrewsmcneil.com/