Compliance increasingly dominates leaders time

Over 50% of leaders say they spend more than half their time on compliance

The number of business leaders spending more than half of their time on governance and compliance has increased from 19% before the financial crash to 50% today, according to a recent survey.

The survey of more than 4,000 business leaders was conducted by London Business School ahead of its Global Leadership Summit, which is organised in collaboration with Deloitte and takes place at The Brewery on 20 May.

The survey reveals that one in 10 (11%) of leaders are now spending as much as 80% of their time on governance and compliance as compared with just 3% before the financial crash.

Almost three quarters (71%) of leaders also said that shareholders now have a greater influence on their strategy than before the crash.

It is another shift in the financial landscape demanding the time and attention of business leaders. However Julian Franks, Professor of Finance at London Business School has cited increased shareholder scrutiny among five potential solutions to debt recovery and believes that it may protect the banking sector at least, from sledgehammer governance.

“Unless we can be confident that solutions like this will work, we will have to go back to the sledgehammer option of raising equity requirements to very high levels.”

In the five years since the crisis, the financial services sector has rarely been out of the headlines, with every move scrutinised by the public, politicians and the media. How the industry can change and what it could look like will be debated in the Global Summit panel ‘Beyond reforms and recriminations – The future of financial leadership’ by high profile speakers including:

• Dame Amelia Fawcett, Chairman, Hedge Fund Standards Board; Non-Executive Chairman, Guardian Media Group

• Alessandro Profumo, Chairman, Monte dei Paschi di Siena

• Martin Wheatley, Chief Executive Officer, Financial Conduct Authority