Honesty Beats Spin: Nigel Gardner on Leadership, Crisis, and the Real Work of Boards

Fresh from the sale this week of his latest company Flint Global to international private equity firm Cinven in a deal reported to be worth $250 milllion, Nigel Gardner talks about his life as a journalist, European Commission spokesman and Chairman and Board Member.
Nigel has co-founded 3 companies: GPlus Europe, a pan European communications company sold to advertising giant Omnicom; Sandstone Global, the international historical documentary production house; and Flint Global, the business advisory acquired by Cinven.

You’re recognized as a leading voice in European strategic communications, but your career began in journalism with Channel 4 and the BBC. What first drew you to political and historical storytelling, and how did those early experiences shape your approach to business and leadership?

Nigel Gardner:  Leaving Oxford in 1988, current affairs TV journalism seemed a great place to go. On my first day as a researcher on “The World This Week” they allocated me Africa. But when I came into the office the next day, they changed their minds and put me to work on Central and Eastern Europe! My first piece was about Tito’s collapsing administration. I still remember the title, “Titoing on the brink”! And from then, I found I had a ringside seat not just on the events unfolding in the soon to be ex-Yugoslavia, but on the unprecedented changes throughout Central and Eastern Europe. This was literally less than a year after leaving Oxford, where one of the economics courses I was offered was the command economies of Central and Eastern Europe. What did I learn? How nobody ever knows how fast change can come.

You later became a spokesperson for the European Commission. What was it like to operate at the heart of European politics, and what did you learn about resilience and communication in such a high-pressure environment?

Nigel Gardner:  My portfolio as a spokesperson was global trade and the EU’s bilateral relations with the US, China and Japan. I still remember my first morning. The Clinton administration decided without warning to impose unilateral extraterritorial sanctions on the French oil company Total. I had just about survived my first press conference to a heaving press room thanks to an excellent crib note from top diplomat Sir Simon Fraser who later became a co-founder of Flint. Then a final question landed: ‘Mr. Gardner, is this a start of a new transatlantic trade war? The only reply I could think of was actually the most honest: “This is my first day; I don’t have an office. I don’t even have a security pass. The security guard did not want to even let me into the room. So, I won’t be starting any trade wars this morning.” The lesson I learnt is that honesty and a little bit of humour can get you out of a hole.

Making the leap from journalism and public service to entrepreneurship, you co-founded GPlus and later Flint Global, both now respected names in the field. What inspired you to take that risk, and what were some of the toughest challenges you faced in getting these ventures off the ground?

Nigel Gardner:  It was actually much easier and more straightforward than it seems. I was massively helped by having a first business partner, Peter Guilford, who was also prepared to take the jump and resign his post as a Spokesman to the President of the Commission. And we were both helped massively by having a choice of financial investors willing to back us. In the end, we were both tired and frustrated with a bureaucracy which is sadly often its own worst enemy.

Building and scaling GPlus and Flint Global must have come with moments of uncertainty and adversity. Can you share a specific setback or obstacle you encountered during those early days, and how you managed to push through and keep growing?

Nigel Gardner:  When you are just six in the office, and your client list can be written on the back of your hand, and still leave plenty of skin spare, it’s hard to imagine getting to a 150+ staff with operations across the globe. And it’s not a straight line.

The setbacks and obstacles are not always the expected ones of lost clients, defecting staff, and budgetary targets unmet. Rather, they come out of the blue. I remember an afternoon, some nine months into GPlus, the then very small team was in the office when the news came through of the attacks on the twin towers, and in that moment, everything changed. Fifteen years later, and very early on in the story of Flint, Britain voted to leave the EU, forcing us to rethink much of our European offer. And then of course, there was Covid, when within days, clients terminated their contracts, and for several weeks, we had no idea whether we would still have a business.

You’ve recently stepped directly into the political arena as a parliamentary candidate. How has your experience in business and strategic communications shaped your approach to politics, and what have you learned from being on the front lines of political life?

Nigel Gardner:  Yes, last year I stood as the Conservative candidate for the new constituency of Harpenden and Berkhamsted. This was the area I had grown up in, and where my family had lived for generations. It was a complete honour and a lot of fun. My grandmother had been born upstairs in a local pub, The Oddfellows Arms, one of six daughters, all born upstairs in the pub. Taking former British Prime Minister David Cameron for a pint there the day before voting was a great moment. But much of the election was hard graft with an electorate determined to give the Conservatives a bloody nose.

Having co-founded and led multiple organizations, what have you learned about leadership, building resilient teams and hiring the right senior leaders? What skills or qualities do you look for in top executives?

Nigel Gardner:  This is an interesting question coming after you just asked me about politics. Leading a political campaign seems so different to leading and building a company. You have no salaries to offer. No bonuses to offer. No sweet equity to offer. And your people are giving up their free time. You have none of the tools leaders have in companies. It’s all about making sure people are enjoying themselves and believe they are doing something worthwhile.

The irony is that if you want the best results in the private sector, it’s actually the same. I believe making sure your team are enjoying themselves and believe they are doing something worthwhile is as important as any amount of financial redress.

My belief has always been leadership is a hundred times easier if you recruit the right people to start with. Right from the early days at all of my companies, I have insisted that senior management and founders devote meaningful time to proper recruitment processes and proper – not box ticking – reviews. In the early years of both Flint and GPlus, leaders reviewed all staff every three months. As for the skills, the best people I have recruited could have succeeded either in the public or private sector. Their skills transcended this division.

You’re widely regarded as an expert on Britain’s relationship with the European Union. How do you see this relationship evolving in the coming years, especially in light of recent political changes? And what is your perspective on the EU’s relationship with the Western Balkans? What opportunities or challenges do you see for the region?

Nigel Gardner:  A few years back, I was lucky enough to return to the BBC to make a documentary series about Britain’s troubled relationship with Europe over the last 75 years. I believe that to understand that relationship, you need to go back to the 1950’s and 1960s and Britain’s delayed entry into the EEC.

As Europe’s top Foreign Ministers met in Messina in 1955 to lay the foundations of an integrated Europe, Britain refused to send even a minister. Rather, it was left to the mid-ranking official Mr Bretherton to attend and report back. We were not at the table, and the Europeans went ahead without us. By the time Britain changed its mind in the early 1960s and applied, the French were in the driving seat, and refused us entry with De Gaulle’s famous words “vous etes insulaire et maritime”. So, when we actually finally entered a decade later in 1973, so much of the EEC system had been set up in a way that could be nothing but problematic for the British. This dilemma will remain for any British Government that wants once again to move closer to Europe.

As far as the Balkans are concerned, my heart is in one place, but my head, I fear is in another. I was working in the European Commission when the first big bang of CEE enlargement happened. And whilst the collapse of communism meant there was a good case for a grand political gesture to tie-in 10 countries at once, the EU is now paying the price, as Victor Orban’s Government brings problems and paralysis to many areas of EU decision making. As decisions approach on Montenegro, Macedonia, Moldova and Albania, I believe we need a case-by-case approach which rewards those who introduce fully fledged economic and institutional reforms. Only this should matter, not the gripes and bugbears of individual current member states towards individual applicants.

Looking ahead, what’s next for you, whether in business, media, or politics? Are there new projects or ambitions you’re particularly excited about?

Nigel Gardner:  This week, I sold my final stake in Flint as part of the sale to a new private equity investor. So, you are right, next year I will be looking for new projects and new places. But I love building companies and sitting on their Boards and Excos, especially in their early days, as there really is all to play for. I can’t believe I won’t be tempted again.