Leadership Lens: Simon Baugh
In 2024, before joining forces with Taylor Bennett to create Taylor Birchwood, Birchwood Knight celebrated it’s 15th birthday. To mark the occasion, Wayne Reynolds conducted interviews with a wide range of highly accomplished corporate affairs leaders about their experience and views of the function. This interview is with Simon Baugh who leads the Government Communication Service.
Bio
Chief Executive, UK Government Communication Service (current)
Director of Communications, UK Home Office (2020 to 2021)
Director of Communications and Engagement, Department for Exiting the EU (2019 to 2020)
Travelling, Career Break (2018 to 2019)
Director of Strategy and Communications, Department for Transport (2015 to 2018)
Director of Media and Public Relations, Heathrow (2006 to 2015)
What advice would you give to yourself 15 years ago?
Work hard, focus on delivering results and be nice to others. There’s a great interview with Barack Obama online where he’s asked for his career advice for young people. He talks about people who are very good at describing problems, people who opine on why things went wrong or can’t be fixed, but what he looks for are people who say, “let me take care of that”. You will get noticed. Don’t be too impatient to get on and embrace setbacks, they often offer lots of positives and open new doors. There are many paths to fulfilment and happiness in careers.
How has corporate affairs changed over the last 15 years, and what do you expect next?
15 years ago, I was responsible for internal and passenger communications at Heathrow airport when one of my team enthusiastically approached me about how we could use a new microblogging site to improve engagement with our customers. I confess I didn’t get Twitter at first, but the benefits were soon obvious to see with customers letting us know about problems in real time and the business being able to do a much better job of fixing them and having improved communications with them too. For all the positive developments in digital communications, they have also contributed to greater division in our society and people are less likely to listen to other people’s points of view and understand that most decisions involve compromise and trade-offs.
What next? AI represents a massive opportunity for us to get the right message to the right audience at the right time. At GCS, our AI co-pilot is already helping to save time, such as producing good first drafts of documents which incorporate best practice, allowing our people to bring nuance and strategic thinking. In another example we’re experimenting with AI avatars for sign language which we hope will make the vast majority of our communications accessible to people who are deaf or have hearing impairments.
What three skills does a modern-day corporate affairs director need? And if you could pick only one, which would it be and why?
Relationships are critical, you can’t be successful in these jobs in isolation, you need to build strong relationships within your own organisation and beyond. The ability to lead through change, which in many organisations can feel constant, is also critical. And strategic thinking, you need to be agile enough to respond to day-to-day events but know where your north star is and have a plan to get there.
What do you love about the job?
These jobs are invariably interesting and in most organisations really make a difference. Whatever the big issue of the day for a business, corporate affairs has a role to play and CEOs, Ministers and shareholders increasingly understand and value it. My role at GCS is an enormous privilege, leading a team helping to deliver outcomes for the public good. If we do a good job, we can save lives and livelihoods, and that’s hugely motivating.
If you didn’t work in corporate affairs, what would you do instead?
My wife and I love travelling, so something that allowed us to do that, perhaps a travel writer.
What was the last book you read?
“Foolproof” by Sander van der Linden is a fascinating book about information versus disinformation, it introduces the concept of inoculation theory in communications and the premise that rebuttal of disinformation is pretty ineffective. I also recently finished reading Robert Harris’ Cicero trilogy which is just brilliant.
What would be your specialist subject on Mastermind?
British Politics 2015 to 2024.
What do you enjoy doing away from the office?
I love watching Fulham FC, skiing and travel more broadly.
If you enjoyed this you may also like Wayne’s interviews with:
Louise Shield, Group Director of Corporate Affairs and Branding at M&G plc
Mark Henderson, Corporate Affairs Director at Wellcome
Matt Ridsdale, Group Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Sky
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28th August 2024