Leadership & Law: School creates bespoke programme for Hugh James

Cardiff Business School’s Executive Education team has designed a bespoke leadership programme for Hugh James, the top 100 UK law firm.

This exciting new programme has been created by Director of Executive Education, Ms Sarah Lethbridge, in collaboration with Pip Thomas, Internal Training Manager at Hugh James.

The four-day executive programme will run for one day per month from September to December. The first session, hosted by Ms Lethbridge, took place on 6 September 2016.

Each session has been prepared with Hugh James’ vision and values in mind to create a custom, relevant and highly applicable programme. Current business and leadership thinking, informed by Cardiff Business School’s excellent and world-leading research, underpins the programme design and has been tailored to Hugh James’ core competencies.

The overarching objective of the programme is to provide a strong foundation for enhanced business performance. Sessions will consider: the components of successful organisation, how to nurture client relationships, manage high performing teams and encourage new business development.

Pip Thomas from Hugh James explains why the programme has been commissioned: “Leadership development is very important to us here at Hugh James and the creation of the Understanding Leadership' Programme is testament to that. This bespoke programme will bring together Partners and Heads of Department from across the firm and support them in the growth of their leadership and management skills.

“This investment in leadership capability demonstrates our commitment to a learning culture and supports our view that continual professional development is vital to the success of our business. I am delighted to be working closely with Cardiff Business School and I'm excited by the wealth of knowledge and expertise that is being made available to us due to this partnership. We hope that we will be planning many programmes to come as a result of the success of this first programme.”

Sarah Lethbridge added: “We’ve really enjoyed working with Pip and Hugh James in creating this custom programme on leadership, and are eager for it to get underway. Hugh James has existing ties with the University and we are delighted that it has chosen Cardiff Business School and the Executive Education team to design and deliver this important programme.

“Once again this is an opportunity for us to take the School’s world-leading and forward-looking research and teaching, in areas of leadership and management, to the local business community in order to transform organisational practice. I have no doubt this will be another successful programme and look forward to working with the delegates in the coming months.”

The programme will be delivered in the Executive Education suite of Cardiff Business School’s multi-million pound Postgraduate Teaching centre while School faculty will take the lead in delivering the sessions. Dr Sarah Hurlow, lecturer in leadership and former Director of the Executive MBA programme, and Professor Robert Morgan, the Julian Hodge Professor of Marketing & Strategy, will lead two sessions. Ms Suzanne Cole, a highly respected marketing lecturer who has been active within the Chartered Institute of Marketing in Wales, will also lead one of the sessions.