Take a closer glimpse into the people at Saxton Bampfylde our global colleagues with our regular team insight feature ‘View from the River’.
David Munns leads our Finance Practice and works broadly on leadership appointments across the commercial, public and not for profit sectors. He works with a broad range of clients with diverse property assets, as well as in the housing space specifically. Before joining Saxton Bampfylde in 2012, David was CFO of Rocco Forte Hotels and the Financial Times Publishing Group and he is a former Non-Executive Director of Colliers CRE.
Past, present and future – your role at Saxton Bampfylde
I founded and still lead Saxton Bampfylde’s CFO practice. We have two key areas that make our practice different. Firstly, we appoint CFOs and Finance Directors across a very wide range of sectors and pride ourselves on our ability to move candidates between sectors. Secondly, we believe it is the only CFO practice at a leading executive search firm to be headed by a former CFO. Before I joined, I spent twelve years as CFO at the Financial Times Group and Rocco Forte Hotels. I am also non-executive director and on the audit committee at Colliers, the real estate consultancy.
Rainy day dreams
I have very fond memories of Goodman – a fine American steakhouse – based in Moscow. When I was CFO at Rocco Forte, I spent a fair amount of time in the city and this was a wonderful place of calm in a rather frenetic environment. Last year I returned to Moscow with Saxton Bampfylde and it was wonderful to return to Goodman and be reminded of that great sanctuary from the icy Moscow rain (and snow).
True passion
I love long distance walking and this summer I plan to walk over 200 kilometres of the GR7, a remote route in Andalusia.
Who – dead or alive – do you view as a particularly inspiring leader, and why?
In spite of his faults I believe Steve Jobs was one of the great business leaders of all time. He founded Apple; was fired from it (I did mention his faults); was invited back when Apple was on the brink of collapse; and he then went on to make it a brand worth $1 trillion at its peak, and with almost unrivalled global ubiquity. As a business leader that really is quite a feat.
Hot tip
Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo. A hidden gem in contemporary American literature.
To what extent is the talent pool for senior finance roles diversifying? How can housing associations and other organisations help attract more diverse pools to these crucial posts?
Diversification of the pool for senior talent takes time and, in the long run, relies on the continued efforts made by key players, like the Big 4, to develop those coming from more walks of life at the start of their careers. That said, with promising gains across the profession at all levels there does seem to be a diversifying pool; most importantly in the divisional and controller roles which act as springboards to the most senior positions.
To attract this wider pool of talent, we encourage housing associations to think more frequently from the perspective of potential candidates. Will they be joining an organisation which will develop the whole person as a potential future leader? Will they be joining an organisation which talks-the-talk and walks the walk on valuing diversity? If a housing association can answer those questions in the right way, they’ll attract more diverse talent.
We work with some really enlightened organisations across the commercial public and not-for-profit sectors and are really pleased to have made some fantastic, diverse appointments in finance as well as in a whole host of other general management and functional roles.
