STYLISA FoundHers Boardroom August: Suzie Harvey on What Makes a Board Truly Effective.

This is the third interview in the FoundHers Boardroom series, a strand of the wider STYLISA FoundHers ecosystem exploring leadership, governance, influence and the spaces where long-term decisions are made.

For this conversation, I spoke with Suzie Harvey, board chair, non-executive director, mentor and advisor whose portfolio spans life sciences, healthcare, AI and innovation. Throughout our discussion, Suzie challenges some of the common assumptions about governance, arguing that truly effective boards are built not through compliance alone, but through trust, psychological safety, diversity of thought and strong relationships. We discuss board effectiveness, leadership, visibility, innovation and why influence matters just as much as oversight.

Please note: A glossary of key terms and acronyms used in this interview is included at the end of this interview, for ease and clarity.

Suzie Harvey sharing her insights on leadership, governance and innovation at a life sciences industry event.

You work across life sciences, AI, healthcare, governance and public service, all spaces carrying huge responsibility and long-term societal impact. What originally drew you towards board-level leadership and governance work, beyond operational leadership itself?

I have a strong desire to give back and to share my expertise and experience widely. I want to pass my knowledge on to the next generation. I also really enjoy teamwork and the mentoring that I do in board work. I was encouraged to explore board roles as a next career step by my great coach, Marianne Beck, and I’ve since discovered there are board opportunities there for everyone who has some life and work experience to offer.

There is often a perception that boards are purely about oversight, compliance and scrutiny. Yet the strongest boards seem to shape culture, direction and possibility as much as performance. How would you describe the true role of a board in today’s world?

This is a topic close to my heart! Much of the guidance and training on board work is focused on the technical aspects of board work – which is very important, but…. the advice and value that the board brings can only be seen in the delivery of the organisation. The board does not get involved with delivery, so it must influence to be effective. To influence the leaders responsible for delivery, an atmosphere of psychological safety must be built in the board room.

Too often, boards think they are there to tick boxes and get away to their other work as soon as they can. Too often, CEOs and leadership feel the board is there to give them a hard time, so they try to present an un-controversial report to minimise questions, or ‘criticism’ as they see it. The most effective boards take the time necessary to build a strong supportive relationship with the leadership team and to bring the right skills out of each board member to support the leadership to deliver at their best. I’m so passionate about this that I’m writing a book about it!

Much of your work sits at the intersection of innovation and responsibility, particularly within AI and healthtech. As technology moves faster than regulation in many areas, what do you believe good governance needs to look like now?

I’ve spoken about this quite a bit at meetings in recent months and you’re right, regulation is not keeping up with the speed that innovation can move now with AI. Many innovators are now working with regulation that is not fit to govern the technology they are developing. Rather than making sure innovation checks the relevant regulations, innovators must take on additional moral responsibility, checking for safety and equity right from the start of the design process.

Suzie Harvey connecting with fellow leaders at the Global Pharma Tech Summit.

You’ve spoken previously about helping organisations achieve clarity in strategy and confidence in execution. In your experience, where do leadership teams most commonly lose clarity as organisations begin to scale or evolve?

Clarity is much easier when you have a small organisation and a small number of moving parts. It becomes increasingly difficult as the organisation grows and becomes more complex, adding more staff and additional products. It is common for there to be no planning for clarity in the early stages because it is easy for everyone to see what is going on. The realisation that they should have planned for clarity only comes when it is too late, and then it is much more difficult to untangle the organisation and processes to reveal clarity again. I try to get organisations to think ahead and start putting structure in place early, before they need it, so that growth and clarity build hand in hand.

One of the things I find interesting about governance is that the real work often happens in nuance, challenge, tension and difficult conversations rather than visible moments of leadership. How do you personally approach challenge and disagreement in boardroom environments?

Challenge and disagreement are an important part of the board work. The Chair needs to create the right atmosphere so that robust discussion is productive for everyone involved. My firm belief is that it starts with understanding the people involved, their strengths and weaknesses, how they like to work and how they communicate. I see this as the job of the Chair of the Board; it is their role to get to know the CEO, to build trust, to get to know each board member and what they can bring, and then to match these up for greatest effect. The Chair then needs to be able to create a boardroom atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable challenging and being challenged, with enough discipline to cover the important agenda items and with enough flexibility to allow for discussion and to surface new points of view.

Many women are highly experienced and capable, yet still hesitate when it comes to board opportunities because they feel they need to know more, achieve more or “be more ready.” What would you say to women who may underestimate the value of the perspective they already bring?

I would say I’ve seen this in many men as well as women, and it is the same reason I didn’t consider board roles until I was encouraged. This is a tough space to get into. Most board roles are not advertised and are appointed through networks. This is a very different and unfamiliar process for most people in executive roles who could be eligible for board work. I now mentor women, and men, through this process, helping them see where they can add value to boards and how to make themselves visible in the right circles.

Your career spans international markets, commercial leadership, healthcare and advisory work. Looking back, do you think leadership today places enough value on breadth of experience and lived perspective, or do we still overvalue linear career paths?

We overvalue linear career paths and unfortunately that is what our education system trains us for. I’ve recruited team members in my executive roles, and it is very easy to create a job description that eliminates a large chunk of people, for example, if they don’t have a degree, even if a degree is not necessary. Recruitment is tough because you need to whittle down vast numbers of applicants, especially now that is so easy to apply online through LinkedIn. It would be nice if we could include breadth of experience and lived perspective easily in job descriptions but that is quite hard to do.

With experience, I started to focus on highlighting the personal traits needed to be successful in a job rather than specifying a particular level of experience. It is often those ‘soft skills’ that are the hardest to train but it is relatively easy to train them on your industry, your organisation, your product and your marketplace, especially if you have recruited for quick learners!

Suzie Harvey sharing her expertise as part of a panel discussion on innovation and leadership.

FoundHers Boardroom is partly rooted in the idea that visibility and influence are not always the same thing. Have you observed a difference between being present in the room and genuinely having influence within it?

Yes. This is where women can sometimes struggle. If your boardroom is predominately men there will either be a lot of talking and posturing, or an expectation of deference, depending on which part of the world you are doing business in. This is tough for women as we often perform better in a highly cooperative environment. The good news is that a collaborative approach makes the board more effective, so getting more women onto boards to drive this way of working will increase board effectiveness for everyone.

Governance requires both strategic thinking and emotional intelligence, particularly when organisations are navigating uncertainty, risk or transformation. How do you balance commercial realism with humanity in leadership spaces?

I don’t think this is too difficult if you’ve been an effective business leader. The only way you can get commercial effectiveness from an individual, is to work with their personality traits and understand them as a person, using your emotional intelligence. You then help them to craft their strengths and minimise their weaknesses so that they can deliver maximum commercial impact. Governance and board work are a different application of these skills. As Chair of the Board, you are crafting effective governance and challenge from your board member, rather than effective delivery. The principles and the way you achieve this as a leader are much the same.

You mentor and support others entering governance and board-level leadership. What do you think people are still misunderstanding about what board work actually involves?

Most people are suffering from imposter syndrome or just don’t realise board work is an option for them. Appointments work very differently from the way they have through their executive career so they may have no idea how to go about it. My approach is to take the time to get to know the person and their aspirations. People choose to move into board work for many different reasons and that can influence the type of board pathway they want to follow. We then look at what they have in place already and what more needs to be done. Often a lot of education is required around what board roles are, what it is like to be on a board, and importantly how to secure them.

Across your portfolio career, what has leadership taught you about judgement? Not technical expertise or qualifications, but the quieter skill of discernment and decision-making.

My confidence in judgement has improved with life experience. There is some truth that wisdom grows with age! I am now much more confident to ‘follow my gut,’ even in new types of decision-making. As a trained scientist, when I was younger, I felt I had to get indisputable and repeatable proof before I had the confidence to take decisions. Now I know from experience that I have a pretty good gut instinct and that if I can temper it with the right guardrails, this is likely to be my fastest and most effective tool.

We often talk about innovation in terms of speed, disruption and growth, but not always in terms of ethics, trust and consequence. As someone working closely with emerging sectors, do you think enough attention is being paid to the human implications of innovation?

I work in life sciences and healthcare, a highly regulated sector where human safety has always been paramount. However, as innovation speeds up, particularly now with AI, regulation is struggling to keep up. Innovators now need to take on that responsibility for human ethics during the design process, as there is unlikely to be enough regulatory protection yet for what they’re building. I also think that there is some unnecessary pessimism about the speed of innovation. If we do it right, we can make the most of the modern tools we have to make fast progress to a better world. ‘Doing it right’ means not just considering human ethics but also making sure it is right for our environment and the natural world.

For women aspiring to move into governance, advisory or non-executive leadership positions, what do you think becomes more important at that level: expertise, relationships, reputation, perspective, or something else entirely?

Two things: confidence and visibility. Women notoriously lack confidence in their abilities so finding the mentoring and support network you need to maximise your confidence and the right way to demonstrate your value to boards is important.

Visibility is something that is less talked about. If people recruiting board members don’t know you exist, they will not consider you for their board – visibility is critical.

Finally, when you think about the rooms where decisions are made, what do you believe still needs to change in order for those spaces to become more representative, more effective and ultimately more future-facing?

Diversity is a big one, not just gender diversity but bringing in people to represent the client base, help with new markets, fill skills gaps, or think differently. The biggest risk is having a board made up from the same ‘mould’ as the leadership team. This happens a lot; the CEO is often the one that initiates the board and they are tempted to recruit people that think like them, whereas you really want diversity of thought.

The second thing that needs to change is using an emotionally intelligent approach to maximise board effectiveness and to ensure that the tremendous value you have on your board gets translated into real outcomes for the organisation. Working in a diverse team requires different skills from working in a team of made up of very similar people; there will be more disagreement and discomfort. Managed effectively, diversity is the key weapon to a high performing board.

Much of this lands on the CEO and on the Chair of the Board and the relationship between them. That is the topic of my book.

A special thank you to Suzie Harvey, for agreeing to be interviewed for FoundHers Boardroom and becoming a part of the STYLISA FoundHers community. If you’re interested in finding out more about her work:

Connect with Suzie on LinkedIn

FoundHers Boardroom Glossary: August Edition

Because understanding the language is half the battle.

•  AI (Artificial Intelligence) Technology that enables computers and systems to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence, such as learning, problem-solving and decision-making.

• AI Governance The frameworks, policies and oversight mechanisms used to ensure artificial intelligence is developed and used responsibly, ethically and safely.

• Board Chair The person responsible for leading the board, facilitating discussions, setting the agenda and ensuring the board operates effectively. The Chair works closely with the CEO but is separate from the executive leadership team.

• Board Effectiveness A measure of how well a board supports an organisation’s success through strategic oversight, challenge, decision-making and leadership.

• Board Recruitment The process of identifying, selecting and appointing people to serve on a board.

• Diversity of Thought Bringing together people with different experiences, perspectives, backgrounds and ways of thinking to improve decision-making and reduce blind spots.

• Emotional Intelligence The ability to understand and manage your own emotions while recognising and responding effectively to the emotions of others.

• Executive Leadership The senior leaders responsible for the day-to-day management and delivery of an organisation’s strategy and operations.

• Governance The systems, processes and structures used to ensure an organisation is well-led, accountable and making sound decisions.

• Governance Pathway The route someone takes into board, advisory or non-executive leadership roles, often involving networking, mentoring and developing governance experience alongside an executive career.

• Innovation The process of developing and implementing new ideas, products, services or ways of working.

• Non-Executive Director (NED) A board member who provides independent oversight, challenge and strategic guidance. Non-Executive Directors are not involved in the day-to-day running of an organisation.

• Portfolio Career A career made up of multiple roles, projects or appointments rather than a single full-time position. Many board members, advisors and consultants work in this way.

• Psychological Safety An environment where people feel comfortable sharing ideas, asking questions, challenging assumptions and admitting mistakes without fear of embarrassment or negative consequences.

• Regulation Rules and standards established by governments or regulatory bodies to protect people, organisations and society.

• Visibility Being known and recognised within your professional field. As Suzie highlights, visibility is often an important factor in being considered for board opportunities.

FoundHers Boardroom Takeaways

Effective Boards Influence Rather Than Control

Boards do not deliver strategy themselves. Their impact comes from supporting, challenging and influencing leaders to perform at their best.

Psychological Safety Matters

The strongest boards create an environment where people feel comfortable asking difficult questions, challenging assumptions and contributing different perspectives.

Diversity Is a Performance Advantage

Diversity is not simply about representation. Diverse boards are often better equipped to identify risks, challenge thinking and make stronger decisions.

Governance Must Keep Pace with Innovation

As technologies such as AI evolve rapidly, organisations cannot rely solely on regulation. Innovators must also consider ethics, safety and equity throughout the design process.

Visibility Creates Opportunity

Many board appointments happen through networks and relationships. If decision-makers do not know you exist, they are unlikely to consider you for board opportunities.

Confidence Is a Leadership Skill

Women and other underrepresented groups often underestimate the value of the experience and perspective they already possess. Confidence can be just as important as capability.

Leadership Is Ultimately About People

Whether leading a business or a board, understanding people, building trust and creating effective relationships remains at the heart of successful leadership.

Diversity of Thought Strengthens Decision-Making

Boards are most effective when members bring different experiences, perspectives and viewpoints to the table, rather than simply reinforcing existing thinking.

Emotional Intelligence Is a Governance Skill

Strong governance requires more than technical expertise. It also requires the ability to navigate relationships, disagreement and complex human dynamics.

The Future of Leadership Requires Broader Perspectives

Organisations benefit when they value lived experience, transferable skills and different career paths alongside traditional qualifications and linear career progression.