"Very rarely are we successful on our own."
Peter Boehm is an experienced business leader with local and international appointments as Chair, non-executive director and managing director. He has a global governance background with listed (ASX, FTSE , HKSE, NYSE), private, industry, government and for-purpose organizations. As part of his board appointments, he has chaired and been a member of various Board Committees including Audit and Risk; Strategy; Nominations; Mergers and acquisitions and; Reward and Recognition.
Peter has led organisations in a wide range of industry sectors including: banking and financial services; health and fitness; education; relationship counseling; impact investing; religious and charitable; manufacturing; mining-related; professional associations; residential asnd commercial property; indigenous affairs; international food manufacture and distribution; heritage-listed property; and business consulting. These organisations range in asset size from AUD$1m to AUD$20 billion.
Because of his extensive commercial and governance experience and background, Peter has been called upon to act as an expert witness for matters before the Supreme Court, with a particular focus on the director’s duties and responsibilities, risk management, and duties and obligations owed to stakeholders.
A Chartered Accountant with formal qualifications in banking and finance and corporate governance, he is passionate about supporting and advancing the interests of indigenous communities across Australia, currently holding positions as Independent Member of the Decision Making Committee and Independent Trustee of two other substantial indigenous trusts in WA and Queensland.
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Table of Contents
Thank you for accepting my interview invitation! I’d love to know how you ended up becoming an entrepreneur? Tell me your story.
Peter Boehm: By its very nature being a CEO and managing director requires a certain degree of educated risk taking. Very rarely can you achieve your objectives (business or personal) without taking on some level of risk. This is not to say you should be cavalier with your risk taking, but you often have to operate outside your comfort zone in order to succeed.
Being an entrepeneur and risk taking go hand in hand.
Many jobs are highly structured and routine (even senior ones) with little scope to exploit oppotunities and address threats through “out of the box thinking” or taking on a level of risk that may otherwise be uncomfortbale for some or otherwise outside what an organsiaton is cultrurally willing to sustain.
At some point you have to ask yourself, “Will I achieve my personal and business goals and objectives if I stay where I am and do what everyone else is doing?” That tipping point came for me around 20 years ago after a couple of decades in coporate life in Australia and the UK.
I decided I wanted to get out of the 9 to 5 routine, start my own business and share my knowldge and experience with with organsiations across a spectrum of industries. That’s when I started Pathfinder Consulting and the rest is history. I haven’t looked back. It has been a fantastic ride taking me around the world and I’ve had the good fortune to work with some fantastic organsiations and people as a result of being an entrepreneur.
And my journey is still continuing….
Tell our readers what your company does differently than your peers and why that difference is so important to your audience?
Peter Boehm: The biggest differentiator I bring to the organsiations I work with, whether through my Board appointments, mentoring services or business consulting, is my lived experiences which I can share with fellow directors and senior management. This provides me with a level of emapthy and undertanding you can only have if you have actually experienced what others have, or are about to go through.
This brings a great deal of comfort and confidence to those I work with, as they recognise I undertand what they are going through, how they are feeling and most importantly, that I can work with them to identify solutions to help them oversome the obstacles (personal and commercial) that are blocking their path to success.
Running a business, your’s or on behalf of someone requires great leadership skills. What are some of the biggest challenges you faced as you took on a leader’s role and what did you learn?
Peter Boehm: There are a couple of very important aspects to leadership that every successful leader needs to recognise. First, you have to want to lead and second, you have to possess a high degree of self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
I was appointed managing director of a multi-million dollar FTSE listed London based subsidiary at the age of 29. By any standard that was a young age to be appointed to such a senior leadership role, especially to a company that was underperforming and needed significant restructuring and repositioning. The challenge I faced was recognising the issue was not financial but people, and that I needed to “lead” the team to a better place, not just tell them what to do.
That required a significant mindset change, especially for someone like me who came from a financial/accounting background where you could always balance the books, because you can’t always balance the people. The biggest thing I learned from that appointment was the difference between leadership and management, and that you needed to bring the staff with you on the journey, not just tell them where they’re going. The first few months where tough as I had to recognise my own deficiencies let alone problems within the broader team. By enagaging with the senior management, getting them to own the solution, and backing my judgement to make the right call, we successfully turned the company around to one of the most profitable (measured by ROE) within the group. And everyone in that senior management team went on to bigger and better things in their professional life.
Success is not an accident. What are some routines and habits you learned to master that contributed to your current success?
Peter Boehm: Very rarely are we successful on our own. Sure, you have to have a high level of motivation, self-confidence and vision, but ultimately success is something that is shared. So the most important thing I learned and that I always follow is you measure success by how well the team performs, and not solely by how well you perform.
To motivate the team to achieve success they need to have a clear idea of where they’re going and how they’re tracking. So clarity of purpose and objectives, alignment of values and ethics and open and transparent communication with senior management is a must for success. This means you have to trust them to do their jobs and not mico-manage, but you also have to be prepared to redirect and performance manage if things aren’t going well. If you treat people with respect and show confidence in them, support them and train them, they can achieve almost anything.
Can you share with us defining moments in your journey, please give us details and stories to illustrate?
Peter Boehm: If I return to my first managing director appointment at 29, I took a bit of risk and asked the senior team to give me some feedback about how they felt I was perfoming as a leader. Well, they certainly let me know how they were feeling, and it wasn’t a comfortable converstion! Bearing in mind it was very trying times for the business, it became obvious to me that whilst my intentions were noble (i.e. to turn the business around and save everyone’s jobs) I had not connected with the senior team emotionally and they also didn’t feel part of the solution. I had to take a long hard look at how I was behaving and why I was being perceived by them the way I was.
The feedback I received was the jolt I needed to change my leadership style and approach – and I did. I took on board everything they said and made a number of changes to the way in which I led, which I still follow to this day. And this all happended becuase I asked for feedback, got it, owned it, and changed my style to make myself a more effective leader.
What are the five things you wish someone had told you before you became an entrepreneur?
Peter Boehm: I’d say:
- Being an entrepreneur is a bit like being a parent. You can read all the books about being one but until you actually are one, you don’t really know what’s in store and the impact it will have on your life. So be prepared for the ups and downs.
- It can be a lonely place, especially when things don’t go to plan. So its a good idea to have someone available for support and guidance, and to have someone you can call if you need to vent, or need advice.And rememebr, they too will also be affected by the decisions you take – good and bad. If you decide you want to become an entrepreneur, make sure you talk it over with your close family (like your spouse) to ensure they understand and can prepare for the possible impacts on their life and their relationship with you.
- It can be a 24/7 job. You have to put in the time and effort to be successful and this doesn’t always happen between 9 and 5. You have to be prepared to work long hours and out of hours. This means you my have to make certain personal sacrifices and lifestyle changes
- Don’t forget your finances. You may not be earning any income at the beginning so make sure you have money in the bank to cover ongoing day to day living expenses and financial commitements
- Don’t forget your finances. You may not be earning any income at the beginning so make sure you have money in the bank to cover ongoing day to day living expenses and financial commitements
Oftentimes we hear: “Your network is your net worth”, please share your thoughts on that adage and illustrate your experience.
Peter Boehm: Being an entrepeneur and having a relevant business network goes hand in hand. Often opportunities and solution to problems can be found in a good network. So this means you need develop one and keep developing it as your entrepeneural activities increase and broaden.
I recall in the UK I would regularly network at business and industry events to help broaden my network base and hopefully establish some business opportunities. (It’s important to remember you should attend networking events relevant to the business sectors you are focusing on).
At one event I met a senior executive from a South African bank. One thing led to another and within a couple of weeks, I was on a plane to South Africa to address the senior management team on a strategic opportunity in the UK market. I wouldn’t have got this opportunity if not for the networking event I attended.
What are some professional or even personal goals you plan on tackling during the 2022 year? Share the battles you expect to face.
Peter Boehm: My job requires signicant travel and face to face engagements. The world of COVID has made this nigh on impossible and only now is the country starting to open up. But the meeting paradigm has changed, in some cases permanently. This means having to adapt to a digital world where a much higher proportion of meetings and introductions are conducted over Zoom. Ineterstingly I picked up a number of director appointment without having had a face to face meeting with the recruiter or the Nominations Committee. To bthis day I have not met some of my fellow Board directors in person! This was unheard of two years ago and it means I have to develop my digital presence and learn to negotiate and engage over the Internet.
From a professional and personal goal perspective, I plan to continue to grow my network and Board appointments as well as travel more for leisure. Two years of being locked in my own state has resulted in a strong urge to get out and see the world. I will continue my lifetime learning and keep up to date with the latest trends and learnings in the world of business.
With all the social media platforms available, it’s increasingly difficult to be present everywhere. Which ones do you favor for your company and why?
Peter Boehm: I tend to rely on my LinkedIn profile the most becuae it is reflective of my potential business network comprising professionals like me. It is also where people go to to verify my background, experience and job history.
I am regularly quoted online and in the press and so I gain exposure and recognisiton through a number of news platforms and websites. These organisation do my social media work for me, and hlep me reach millions of readers.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Peter Boehm for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Peter Boehm or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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