Sam Laidlaw
Old Etonian Sam Laidlaw qualified as a solicitor soon after graduating from Cambridge University, but a career in law was not for him. Instead he chose to follow in the footsteps of his father – Sir Christopher Laidlaw, former BP chairman – and venture into the oil and energy industry. He joined US firm Amerada Hess in 1981, leaving 20 years later to take on top roles at Enterprise Oil and Chevron; finally, he accepted the mammoth task of leading British Gas owner Centrica.

Recently, Laidlaw has had his hands full defending British Gas, which has faced consumer anger over fuel price hikes. In an interview with the Guardian, Laidlaw laid out one of his key roles at Centrica during this period: “My job is to ensure morale isn’t destroyed by some of the ill-informed commentary. It has an impact.” As this suggests, Laidlaw is keenly aware of the importance of media management: four years ago he flew to the scene of an accident in which four Centrica workers died in a helicopter crash, and in a recent appearance before the House of Commons business and enterprise select committee he provided an assertive defence of Centrica’s high management pay.

Alan Cook
Alan Cook brings two years of specific non-executive experience to the DfT board; he currently also serves on the boards of the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Office of Fair Trading. Prior to these positions he was at the helm for four years at National Savings and Investments, before taking over responsibility for Post Office Ltd for the same length of time.

Asked how he would respond to abrupt change of policies and plans due to political sensitivities, he tells CSW that “flexibility is everything”. Successful managers and organisations, he says “are the ones that respond the most swiftly to changes”. And Cook is no Westminster virgin; his time at the Post Office will have given him rare experience at the intersection of business and politics. Cook may also bring his address book with him – successful non-execs, he says, will help to “put the executive in touch with organisations with relevant experience to the challenges being faced”.

Sally Davis
Only last year, Sally Davis appeared in the Cranfield University School of Management’s first 100 Women to Watch report. She is CEO of BT Wholesale, the division of BT Group responsible for wholesale leases of Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN), broadband and communications services to large retailers.

In a speech at the 2010 Management World conference, Davis declared: “There’s no way we can cut our way to glory; it’s all about maximising innovation and moving to new platforms.” In a follow-up interview with specialist telecoms media company TelecomTV, she revealed that she had cut her costs in half at BT Wholesale and was “not against cost-cutting”, adding that she could “save further with new IT systems, collapsing and simplifying things”.

Managing cost-cutting efficiencies will, therefore, be one of her strengths on the DfT board, and she is likely to stress the importance of innovation in this process. Speaking to TelecomTV, Davis was quick to point out that “you have to innovate to grow”, adding that in particular she feels “very strongly about customer-led innovation”. She believes innovation can be a long-term process: “You can continually innovate, if you have the right environment.”

Ed Smith
During his 30-year career at Coopers & Lybrand and PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ed Smith not only audited BT and took centre stage as a senior partner at the firm; he was also partial to taking to the stage in the pantomime sense, which in 2007 meant producing and starring in a PWC performance of Puss in Boots. He reflected in the Telegraph that “informal networks are a great way of getting something done in our firm, rather than relying on hierarchy… sometimes in the day job, the hierarchy can get in the way”.

Clearly a man who likes to stay busy, he has held roles as chairman of the Student Loans Company, British Universities and Colleges Sport, and the World Wildlife Fund-UK, and remains a member of the Commission on the Future of Women’s Sport.

Smith is passionate about gender equality, as demonstrated by his involvement with Opportunity Now, the gender equality campaign at the charity Business in the Community. In a recent article for BitC addressing the public sector cuts, he stressed that he believes “it is vital that issues of gender equality and diversity are not sidelined and that women are not disproportionately affected”. Smith was also a member of the four-person panel that selected Lin Homer for the job of new permanent secretary at the Department for Transport.

Written by Civil Service World