KCB is excited to welcome Matthew Doyle as the new Development of Strategy Tutor for the Chartered Governance Qualifying Programme. Matthew will also be teaching one of our Risk Management Qualifying Programme classes. As an expert in governance, strategic decision making and organisational risk, Matthew brings industry-leading insight into these modules, offering students a comprehensive perspective across both risk and strategy.
Matthew brings a unique blend of board-level experience, academic insight and real-world adventure to the classroom. His career spans governance roles across the UK and US, lecturing at institutions such as Cox Business School, and working within the ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) space for a major asset manager. Alongside his professional expertise, Matthew is also an avid adventurer, drawing on extreme environments to deepen his understanding of risk, decision-making and strategy.
If you would like to register for Matthew’s Development of Strategy class, click here.
If you would like to register for Matthew’s Risk Management class, click here.
What initially inspired you to pursue a career in governance and risk, and how has that motivation evolved over time?
Matthew: I remember having my first board role, and up until that point in time, I hadn’t really thought about risk and governance. I remember people saying that ‘we can’t do this or that’ and ‘this is bad governance’. I wasn’t experienced enough to challenge it, so I went and thought about it. I learnt about governance and how it works, the rules, principles and outcomes. From this I learnt that a lot of people don’t understand what governance is, particularly good governance. That was my starting point.
I worked for a big asset manager in their ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) group. I joined having a strong interest in the environment and what corporates and investors were doing in this space, including societal work. When I started, for want of a better term, I wasn’t really thinking about governance. Then one day I sort of had this epiphany moment, which sounds silly, but I thought, if you implement good governance, the environmental and social aspects will happen automatically. I asked myself, ‘why are we spending all this time worrying about the environmental and societal issues, when, if we get the governance right, they will become self-evident, these are the things we should be doing.’
You’re quite an avid adventurer. How do you think those experiences contribute to your knowledge surrounding risk and strategy?
I think it gives you a very different perspective. The view of having everything on the line makes you look at things differently. I work on the board of a financial services company and the compliance people are amazing. They know their stuff back to front but they don’t have the perspective that the CEO has, or the directors. Or for that matter, someone who’s been on the side of a mountain at -30°c and is thinking ‘It’s dark, I can’t see where I’m going. How am I going to get out of this? What are my options? Where am I going?’ You’re running through those different risks and I find that, whether in a boardroom or chattering or a CEO about risk and strategy and governance, you understand the fact that you’re the person who is going to own the decision, whether it succeeds or fails.
Extreme sports, because they’re so dangerous, have a lot of governance (i.e. controls). They’re actually quite similar to the corporate world, because you’re putting a lot on the line. Ultimately it’s up to you to make sure you succeed.
It also helps people who aren’t senior answer questions a bit more specifically, and those who are senior will better understand that perspective. Doing extreme sports and being an adventurer helps you better qualify and understand strategy, governance and risk. Just as those who work on a board need to understand these dimensions to make decisions effectively.
Given your wide range of real‑world experiences in risk and strategy, how will you draw on these to help students understand the governance concepts behind them?
It is those real world experiences that bring governance to life. It’s about making decisions, about managing businesses where it’s gone well, and where it hasn’t. By using real life examples, whether it’s from their work or things going on in current affairs, it will hopefully bring risk management & developing strategy concepts to life for my students.
Because I’m really interested in governance, I’ve done lots of research into it. I am looking forward to bringing examples to light and discussing specific concpets and interests, and my perspective and experience in class. Governance is abstract, but talking about it in terms of things students will understand or have experience in, will help them better understand concepts to take into their exams, making them feel more confident and prepared.
Sometimes, if a particular concept is hard to grasp, or I can see interest waning, I do a role play with them. Even if it’s a bit abstract, you can always make it a bit of fun, and get the students making the decisions. Then we can talk though their choices, the different challenges of the situation and what they could do differently.
There was a show in Australia, called Hypothetical, by Jeffery Robinson. It was basically a show about governance. He was great at getting people to talk about decisions and decision making processes. I’ve sort of used this as a template to get students to think, ‘how are you going to make that decision?’ By giving real life experiences, and letting them role play I hope it will allow them to see why they are making decision in that particular way, or think about it in a different way to help them make sense of risk management.
One of the things I find interesting during these role plays, is being told what isn’t working. And that’s exactly what should happen, because then you can unpack it and explain. Quite often it’s because they don’t understand what’s actually happening in the boardroom, and that’s common – people don’t fully understand the role of the board. So then we talk about the role of the board, and they see that the board hasn’t done anything wrong, but they didn’t have the right information to make a good decision. The board is only as good as the information they’re provided. So if the information isn’t getting through, then that’s a governance issue. The issue isn’t that boards make bad decisions. The issue is bad governance and that the board needs to make decisions with information that isn’t getting through to them, to make good decisions.
This applies equally at all level of management.
If you could offer one piece of advice to students about to take their first CGQP exam, what would it be?
Listen to the other people in your class as you will learn so much from it. You will learn as much, if not more, from the other people in the room as you will from your Tutor. If there are 20 people in your class, that’s 20 other views, 20 other experiences you can draw on and learn from. Whether you’re taking my Development of Strategy of Risk Management Class, learning and taking in other peoples views and real world experiences will help deepen your understanding of governance concepts.
By the time you’re in the exam, you will be prepared. You have the knowledge, and you just need to put it into motion and be clear in your answers. The KCB Companion Examination Practice Tool will have given you the time to practice in exam conditions, and the advice you need to improve (from me and the AI) so hopefully by the time you’re in the real thing, you will feel calm, prepared and ready to ace the exam!
If you’d like to register for Matthew’s Development of Strategy class, click here, or register for his Risk Management class here.