A Leadership Conversation with Susanne Legena

By Nikki Beaumont, Founder & Director, Beaumont People I've started writing this blog post about ten different ways. Every version felt too small for what this actually means to me, so I'm just going to tell it the way it happened. Where this started Twenty five years ago, I started Beaumont People with an idea that felt almost too simple to say out loud: that a recruitment business could genuinely put people first, not just say it on a website. I'd seen enough of the industry by then to know what it usually looked like. Placements chased for margin. Candidates treated as a means to an end. Clients handed whoever was available rather than whoever was right. I didn't want to build that. I wanted to build something that measured success by the strength of the relationships it created, not just the invoices it sent. So that's what we set out to do. Slowly, sometimes messily, always with the same idea underneath it: enrich lives and livelihoods. Help organisations build strong teams. Help people find meaningful work. Invest in the sectors and communities we serve, not just extract from them. For a long time, that was a set of values we held ourselves to. It lived in how we hired, how we treated candidates, how we chose clients, how we ran the business day to day. But it wasn't independently tested. It was our word. Why we decided to put it to the test A few years ago, I started looking seriously at B Corp Certification. For those who haven't come across it before, the B stands for Benefit: it's a certification that says a business is genuinely set up to benefit people and the planet, not just shareholders. I didn't look into it because it was trending, and not because I thought it would look good on a pitch deck. I looked at it because it was the first framework I'd found that actually held businesses accountable, not just to a mission statement, but to evidence. That mattered to me. Anyone can write a values page. Fewer businesses are willing to open their governance, their pay practices, their supplier relationships and their community impact up to independent scrutiny and have someone else decide whether they've actually lived up to it. I wanted us to be one of the businesses willing to do that. What the process actually involved I won't pretend this was easy. We answered more than 238 questions across five key areas: governance, workers, community, environment and customers. Every single answer needed evidence behind it. Not intentions. Not policies sitting in a folder nobody reads. Proof that the way we said we operated was actually how we operated. There were moments in this process that were genuinely confronting. We found gaps. Places where our governance was clear in principle but fuzzy in practice. Places where we thought we were measuring our impact well, and discovered we were really only measuring the parts that were easy to measure. So we fixed things. We strengthened our governance frameworks. We clarified who was accountable for what, and made sure that accountability wasn't just sitting with me or with our leadership team, but built into how the whole business runs. We got much sharper about how we measure and report on our impact, so it's something we can actually track and improve, not just something we talk about once a year. It took real work from people across the business, not just from me. I want to be honest about that. This certification belongs to every person at Beaumont People who does right by a candidate when it would have been easier not to, who pushes back on a client request that doesn't sit well with our values, who shows up for our community partners because it matters, not because anyone's watching. What it means, practically Here's what I keep coming back to. This certification isn't really about a badge or a logo. It's about what it changes for the people we work with. For our clients, many of them charities, education providers, health and community organisations and membership bodies doing genuinely hard work themselves, it means you're partnering with a business that holds itself to the same standards of transparency and accountability that your own work demands of you. For our candidates, it means an even stronger, formally verified commitment to fair, accessible, values-led recruitment, from the first conversation through to the final offer, and beyond it. For our team, I hope it means something too. We've always known why we do what we do, but there's something powerful about having that put to the test by an independent benchmark, and seeing it hold up. I hope that this certification feels like confirmation of what we already believed, and a sign that the way we do things has real meaning. Why this is genuinely just the beginning B Corp Certification isn’t a finish line. It’s not awarded once and then forgotten. It's a standard we now have to keep meeting, on a cycle, with real scrutiny each time. That's exactly what I wanted. It gives us a framework to keep learning, keep measuring, and keep improving, permanently, rather than a plaque on the wall that we point to and stop thinking about. There's more work ahead. We're looking closely at our supplier relationships, at how we support our people through every stage of their career with us, at how we can keep sharpening the way we measure our impact on the communities and sectors we serve. This certification gave us the framework to do that properly. Now the work is actually doing it, year after year. Thank you To every client who's trusted us with something as important as building their team. To every candidate who's trusted us with something as important as their career. To every person at Beaumont People who's helped build this business into something I'm genuinely proud of, over 25 years, this certification is yours as much as it is mine. I'm proud of every person on our team who helped us get here, and there's one person I want to thank especially. Robyn Riddle led this project from the start, and I don't think I've worked with anyone who's brought more care, patience and determination to a piece of work. She dug into every question, chased down every piece of evidence, and never once let the size of the task make her lose sight of why we were doing it. This achievement would not have happened without her, and I'm so grateful for everything she poured into it. This has been a long time coming. I'm proud of how far we've come, and honestly, I'm even more excited about what's ahead. Nikki Beaumont Founder and Director, Beaumont People

(By Alma Raheem) Natalie Egleton is CEO of FRRR (Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal), an organisation that partners with rural, regional and remote communities across Australia to help them thrive on their own terms. Having spent more than a decade with FRRR, Natalie has led the organisation through significant growth and change, while also experiencing firsthand how the role of a CEO evolves alongside the organisation itself. What I enjoyed about our conversation was how openly Natalie reflected on that evolution: not only what it takes to lead an organisation, but what she has learnt about herself and her leadership along the way. We spoke about the balance between working in the organisation and on the organisation, the loneliness that can come with the CEO role, and the importance of building an executive team that allows you to operate at the right level. We also explored what Natalie looks for in people who are ready to step into more senior leadership, the changing capabilities leaders will need, and the importance of having a clear personal and organisational compass when so much around us continues to shift. One of the themes that came through strongly was that leadership at this level isn't something you simply arrive at and master. It requires ongoing judgement about when to step closer to the work, when to step back, what you need to hold yourself and what you need to trust others to carry. As Natalie reflected, even after many years as a CEO, that balance continues to evolve. As always, I’ve included a few reflection questions throughout — some prompted by Natalie’s insights and others that I hope encourage current and aspiring executives to consider their own leadership journey. The Reality of the CEO Role When Natalie first stepped into the CEO role, FRRR was a much smaller organisation. While she expected to spend much of her time on higher-order strategic priorities, the reality was that she needed to spend considerably more time working in the organisation. While that has changed as FRRR has grown, Natalie reflected that the tension never completely disappears. There will always be times when a CEO is pulled back into the detail and, particularly when you know how to do the work, it can be tempting to step in. For Natalie, building a strong executive team was a significant part of shifting that balance. She spoke about supporting her executive leaders to genuinely hold their executive function, which in turn allows her to hold hers. I thought this was an important distinction. A CEO's ability to operate at the right level is closely connected to the capability and confidence of the team around them. At the same time, CEOs need to remain close enough to understand what is happening. Natalie periodically joins team meetings simply to listen, answer questions and hear directly from people across FRRR. It gives her proximity without needing to be involved in everything. Natalie also spoke openly about the loneliness of the CEO role, something she particularly noticed after stepping up from within the organisation. The relationships change, people interact with you differently and there are things you can no longer share in the same way. Coaching and CEO peer networks have been incredibly important throughout her journey, giving her somewhere to think aloud, gain perspective and connect with people who understand the realities of the role. There was also a lesson that took longer to learn: looking after herself. Like many leaders in the for-purpose sector, Natalie spent years caring for the organisation and everyone around her without creating enough space for her own wellbeing. She is now much more deliberate about taking meaningful breaks and creating boundaries that allow her to reset. Questions to consider Where are you currently spending most of your time - in the organisation or on the organisation? Do you have the right people around you to allow you to operate at the level your role requires? Who do you have in your corner when you need perspective, challenge or simply somewhere to think aloud? What Does Executive Readiness Actually Look Like? Given my work in Executive Search, I was particularly interested in Natalie's perspective on how she knows someone is ready to step into more senior leadership. Her answer wasn't about technical expertise or already having held the title. She looks for someone's ability to look up and across. People earlier in their management careers are often understandably focused on their program, function or team. As leaders become ready for broader executive responsibility, Natalie sees them beginning to consider the organisation as a whole. They notice the connections between different areas and start thinking about how a decision in one part of the organisation might affect another. She also looks at how people manage upwards. Can they anticipate what the executive team, CEO or Board will need to know? Can they take a complex issue, think it through and provide the information required to make a decision? I thought this was such a useful way of describing executive readiness because it is something I see in Executive Search too. Being exceptional within your function doesn't automatically mean you are ready to lead at enterprise level. The shift is often less about knowing more about your particular area and more about broadening the way you think. Natalie suggested deliberately exposing yourself to higher-order thinking - reading more broadly about strategy, risk, governance and business, finding mentors who can stretch your thinking and spending time around leaders already operating at the level you aspire to reach. She also spoke about finding role models and simply observing them. How do they think? How do they behave in a room? What are they noticing? Rather than entering those environments questioning whether you belong there, approach them with curiosity and use the opportunity to learn. Questions to consider Are you focused primarily on your own area, or are you looking up and across the organisation? How well do you anticipate what the level above you needs in order to make decisions? Who are you learning from who is already operating at the level you aspire to reach? Leadership Needs a Compass When we spoke about the capabilities future CEOs will need, Natalie came back to adaptability and the ability to understand what is happening in the environment around you. Technology, funding models, workforce expectations, service delivery and the way people engage with organisations are all shifting. Natalie believes leaders increasingly need to be able to read the environment, make decisions without perfect information and recognise when they need to change course. To do that well, you need a compass. For FRRR, that compass is clear: they are there as partners for rural and remote Australia, supporting communities to thrive on their own terms. When opportunities arise, the organisation can return to that purpose and ask whether what is being proposed genuinely aligns with what communities say they need. For Natalie personally, her compass comes back to integrity. I found the distinction she made between an organisational compass and a personal one particularly interesting. In the for-purpose sector, the two can become very closely intertwined. When you care deeply about the work, it can become difficult to separate who you are from what you do. A three-month sabbatical became an important circuit breaker for Natalie and helped her recognise that while FRRR is a significant part of her life, it isn't her identity. The organisation existed before her leadership and will continue beyond it. That led to another theme from our conversation that really stayed with me: stewardship. Natalie described the CEO role as fundamentally a stewardship role. Every CEO holds the chair for a period of time, with an opportunity to influence the organisation in ways few other roles allow. Her advice to aspiring CEOs was to recognise that privilege, but also to enter the role with their eyes open. Understand the Board, the culture and how the organisation really operates. Do your research and be clear about what you hope to contribute during your time there. From an Executive Search perspective, I think this is an important question for aspiring CEOs to consider. It isn't simply: Do I want to be a CEO? It is also: Why this organisation, why now, and what am I uniquely positioned to contribute during my time there? Questions to consider What is the compass you return to when the environment around you is changing? How closely connected is your identity to the role you hold? If you stepped into a CEO role tomorrow, what would you want your period of stewardship to contribute? Final Reflections There was a lot I took away from my conversation with Natalie. The CEO role brings enormous opportunity to influence an organisation, its people and its impact, but ultimately every leader holds that responsibility for a period of time. The role is to understand what the organisation needs now, prepare it for what is coming next and eventually leave it ready for someone else to continue the work. Doing that work well requires stewardship. It requires the ability to look up and across, build the right people around you, stay connected without needing to be involved in everything, and remain grounded in a clear sense of purpose while the environment around you changes. For aspiring CEOs, perhaps Natalie's advice to enter the role with your eyes open is particularly important. Understand what you are stepping into, know what you stand for and be clear about what you hope to contribute during the time you are entrusted with leading the organisation. My sincere thanks to Natalie for sharing her experience and reflections so openly, and for the work she and the FRRR team continue to do alongside rural, regional and remote communities across Australia. Alma Raheem, Associate Partner, Executive Search