Chair of a FTSE 250 Renewable Energy Group
A succession-led Chair appointment at a £2.4bn renewable energy operator, completed in twelve weeks against a brief that required deep regulatory experience and credibility with both institutional investors and a complex stakeholder base.
- Duration
- 12 weeks
- Completed
- September 2025
- Lead Partner
- Henry Corbett
The brief
A FTSE 250 renewable energy operator approached us with twelve months’ notice that their long-serving Chair would step down at the AGM. The board had set itself an exacting brief — a successor with regulatory weight at the highest level, prior FTSE Chair or Senior Independent Director experience, credibility with the firm’s substantial institutional investor base, and the personal disposition to be a measured presence through what the next CEO was likely to face.
What the brief did not say, but which the conversation made clear, was that the existing Chair’s relationship with the CEO was the firm’s most important informal asset. The successor would inherit not just a role but a partnership.
The work
We took twelve weeks. The early phase was unhurried — three weeks of board interviews, investor conversations, and dialogue with the outgoing Chair before any candidate work began. This is the discipline that retained search at this level requires. The brief that finally crystallised was sharper, narrower, and frankly more difficult than the one we had been given.
Our long-list ran to eleven candidates, drawn from prior FTSE 100 and 250 Chairs, senior non-executive directors, and a small group of operators who had not chaired listed companies but whose experience in the regulatory environment was uniquely relevant. Short-list interviews ran across six weeks. The final candidate was someone the board would not have generated themselves — but was, with hindsight, an obvious choice.
The outcome
The appointment was announced ten weeks after engagement, three weeks ahead of the original timeline. The new Chair has now been in role for nine months. The most meaningful indicator of fit is something a board has to live with for some time before they can name it — but the early signs, from CEO, from investors, and from the rest of the board, have been unambiguous.
Why it matters
Chair appointments rarely fail because the search was rushed. They fail because the wrong question was being answered. The work that mattered here was the time we took before any name was put forward, not the candidate work itself. That work cannot be compressed, and is the single most important reason retained search exists.