BGF hosts inaugural Future Chairs Programme

BGF recently hosted the first edition of its Future Chairs Programme, a two-day initiative designed to help more business leaders step into Chair roles within investor-backed businesses. The first edition was designed specifically for female business leaders.

Held at BGF’s London office, the course was conceived and co-hosted by Sophie Birch, Head of Non-Executive Talent at BGF, and led by experienced Chair and board advisor Sharon Baylay-Bell. It brought together a cohort of senior female executives for practical sessions, peer-to-peer learning, and candid conversations with Chairs, BGF Investors and BGF Portfolio team leaders.

The need for change

Discussions about diversity in UK business leadership often focus on familiar challenges, like a lack of female founders, the venture funding gap, and the need to attract more women into senior operational roles. These are important issues. But there is another, often overlooked question: who’s governing the next generation of growth companies, as they scale?

Across the UK’s fastest-growing businesses, particularly those backed by private equity and growth capital, women remain significantly underrepresented in board leadership. For example, research by Think & Grow shows that women hold just 18% of board roles across the leading UK tech scaleups, and 36% of those companies have no female board members at all. And yet, these are the positions that shape strategy, challenge management teams and guide companies through critical moments, including international expansion, acquisitions and exit planning. The talent is there, but the pathways aren’t.

What the programme delivers

Throughout the two days, attendees at BGF’s Future Chairs Programme explored what it means to step into a Chair role within a BGF-backed business, from governance fundamentals and board structures to investment strategy and exit planning. Sessions blended expert-led content with small group workshops, giving participants space to stress-test real scenarios, alongside those who’ve navigated them first-hand.

Day one opened with an introduction to BGF’s investment philosophy and the role Chairs play in supporting portfolio growth, before moving into how BGF-backed boards are structured, and how Chairs work alongside Investors, CEOs and Executive teams. The afternoon focused on investment strategy, with BGF’s Origination team walking participants through how the firm identifies and manages investments, including the moments where a Chair’s input can be decisive.

Day two covered what it takes to set a board up for success from day one, including governance structures and succession planning, before turning to exit strategy: how to plan for and lead a business through the exit process, and how to navigate the unexpected. Suzanne Lawrence, Chair of OCL Vision, joined Sharon to share her own experience of shaping a Chair role within a BGF-backed business, and discussed the importance of building a trusted relationship with the Executive team from the very beginning.

BGF experts Richard Taylor, Gemma Hamilton, Duncan Wade, Spencer Woods, Jill Williams and Matt Simcox each contributed across the two days, bringing investor, origination and portfolio perspectives into the room.

BGF’s commitment to female leadership

As one of the UK and Ireland’s most active equity investors, and the UK’s most active institutional investor in female-founded scaleups for over five years, BGF has consistently championed women in entrepreneurship. It provides growth capital, alongside strategic guidance, networks and platforms, to help female business leaders scale. Women remain underrepresented in entrepreneurship and at board level, and the Future Chairs Programme is one practical step towards changing that.