When you think about board diversity, it’s easy to picture quotas or tick-box exercises. But what if diversity was actually the key to faster, better decisions and a stronger culture?
In this episode of Incremental Edge, I spoke with Louise Stephenson, Partner at DRAX and founder of the DRAX Empowering Women in Business community. Louise works with founders and private equity-backed businesses to ensure they have the right leadership in place to achieve their growth plans.
Louise defines diversity in three ways: demographic, experience and cognitive. It’s that last one, cognitive diversity, that makes the difference. Curiosity, pragmatism, agility and execution are behaviours that, when balanced across a team, help avoid groupthink and drive outperformance.
What really resonated was her view that the board is the cultural blueprint. The behaviours and balance at the top set the tone for the whole organisation, shaping both day-to-day culture and the talent a business attracts.
Three takeaways stood out for me from our conversation:
Diversity goes beyond demographics. Complementary behaviours are just as important as representation.
Boards shape culture. Who sits at the table sends a message to employees and the market.
Ask two simple questions. Where are we strong? And where are we exposed?
This conversation confirmed that small shifts in leadership composition can unlock big strategic gains, and sometimes even one new perspective around the table can change everything.
📺 Watch on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM0Q_mmkPBU
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The PACE™ behavioural evaluation tool (Pragmatism, Agility, Curiosity, Execution) was developed by The LCap Group in partnership with Dr Adrian Furnham of UCL and the Work Psychology Group to answer a vital question: how do high-performing leadership teams behave? Based on data from over 12,000 senior leaders, PACE™ identifies the key behavioural archetypes that matter most at board level, offering businesses actionable insight to enhance leadership strengths, address weaknesses, and elevate performance to deliver growth. It moves beyond CVs and job titles to provide a clear, evidence-based picture of how leaders will perform together in the high-pressure environments of private equity and fast-growth businesses.
https://web.draxexecutive.com/cn/advsj/LD_PACE