NLJ PROFILE: Chris Bones, Chair of the CILEx Group

Here, Chris explains more about his new role, and his own background and experience.

Can you tell us about your career interests, and how you came to be appointed to the CILEx Group?

I’ve always been hugely motivated by two things: doing the right thing by people and the principle of fairness and equality of opportunity. Those have defined most of the choices I’ve made about what I do.

For example, I chose to leave business and go into education as the first non-academic dean of Henley Business School, which was one of the few top business schools in Europe that admitted people without formal qualifications.

I’m attracted by organisations that open up opportunity, build skills and allow people to fulfil their potential. That is precisely what CILEx does and explains why I was attracted by the role.

Please tell us more.

I started out in Human Resources, and held senior roles in Diageo and Cadbury Schweppes, before going to Henley, where I am now the Dean Emeritus. Other roles I’ve had include chairing of the trustee board of the Terence Higgins Trust, and of the supervisory board of AIESEC, the world's largest non-profit youth-run organisation. I also spent five years on the Government Skills Management Board.

In addition to my role at CILEx, I am currently co-founder and chair of Good Growth Limited, a digital services company, Professor of Creativity and Leadership at Manchester Business School and non-executive director of MK-LF Partnership, which helps companies develop their senior female talent.

Is the CILEx Group new? What are its aims, and how will it go about achieving these?

CILEx remains the professional institute for chartered legal executives and at its core nothing has changed. The CILEx Group board will be at the apex of CILEx’s new governance structure, the aim of which is to ensure that we deliver our duties to the public interest, the profession and independent regulation to the highest possible standards and the greatest possible impact.

The Group board will have an overarching duty to the public interest. It will be charged also with protecting CILEx’s Royal Charter and its reputation. On it sit the Chairs of the boards of each CILEx company: CILEx Professional, dedicated to promoting the profession’s interests; CILEx Law School, delivering legal education; and Group Services, providing business infrastructure to all parts of the group. CILEx Regulation will continue to have its own independent board.

First and foremost, on a practical level we need to fully implement the new structure. At the same time, with the rise of apprenticeships meaning that others bodies are entering the ‘earn while you learn’ market, we have to ensure that everybody—members, employers, the public and those approaching decisions about the next stage of their careers—understand who we are, what we do and why we’re a positive choice for people looking for a career in the law.

That is a big task—it’s about identity. People know what a solicitor and barrister is, but what’s a chartered legal executive and why would I consider becoming one?

The opportunities for Chartered Legal Executives have increased in recent years. How do you see the future shaping up?

We need to encourage our current and future members to embrace the opportunities that come with having equal standing with other legal professionals. One is to help people get to where they want to go—such as family law or conveyancing—in a more focused way.

Given the diversity of our members, we are the ones who could really engage future generations in the law and the value of it, and what it can do for people—not just in helping them move house but developing their rights and protecting them from abuses of the overmighty.

What has been your biggest career challenge?

Moving out of corporate business into business education and then having to run a major change programme in an academic environment. How do you turn a loss-making education institution around and modernise it? And how do you change that culture such that it is willing to work with you?

And your highlight?

My book, The Cult of the Leader, won the CMI/British Library ‘Management Book of the Year’ prize in 2012. I wrote it because I felt angry about the damage business leadership had done. I thought I had some ideas about how you could do things differently. I was bowled over to get that degree of recognition.

What inspires you about lawyers/the law?

My daughter. She started studying law in the UK but recently qualified in New York and is working in public and international justice. What’s inspirational is that she wants to change the world and sees that you do it by changing the law such that the system works for all, rather than a privileged minority.

Who’s your favourite fictional lawyer?

Rumpole. Whilst the books are funny, there’s also a core of what’s right and what’s wrong and a belief in the importance of humanity.

Finally, out of work, how do you relax?

I’m a very keen gardener—I’m restoring a garden at the moment. It’s an extraordinary way of clearing your mind.