Who can you trust to truly understand your challenges?

A fantastic investment of budget and time. The energy and commitment the Council director and manager bring goes above and beyond, Solvay and myself personally have benefitted massively from this. The connections that members have built both inside and outside the formal council sessions are fantastic. I am moving into a new role, and a new organisation, and I have shared with my successor to NEVER let something get in the way of the Council sessions.  

I am very happy to be a Member of the Council. I take great inspiration both from meeting other leaders within Customer Experience as well as the guest speakers who are experts. The Council is contributing to my relationship building and best practice sharing with other leaders. This is a great outside-in and cross industry source of knowledge that I would not have access to without the Council membership.  

I could only join the Innovation Council for a year but I wish I would have done it earlier. The diversity of inputs and experiences has been very enriching and giving a necessary perspective in executing my responsibilities as Chief Innovation Officer. In a nutshell: a very interesting and inspiring place to be.  

One of the big advantages of the Council is the ability to ask questions of the group. That's hugely beneficial in terms of saving time and effort and getting some external benchmarking done very quickly. In addition, the networking, meeting other people, and coming away with good ideas is incredibly powerful. For every meeting that I go to there is normally one or two nuggets of information you take away.  

In the group we can share about our own experience, plans, ideas maybe successes or failures that we have had in running our own health and safety strategies. For me what's useful is the exchange and getting feedback on ideas. What is in the room stays in the room, so we can really trust each other and share information openly and this is a great platform.  

Something different about this group is the energy that comes out of it. The research that is put together by the professionals at The Conference Board is very useful to us. They give us a starting point, we get a reliable set of data that tells us on a particular topic what's the state of the art, what's the state of mind of a particular topic. From there, we can compare where we are at as organizations.  

Every time I come to a meeting, I feel I take away one or two things to bring back. At meetings you can share experiences, and it really accelerates your learning curve. Where are you going to get a chance, in one room, in one day, to have that kind of networking experience and learn from others? The research on D&I from The Conference Board has been very useful for us.  

I’ve been a member of many groups and committees, as a consultant and as an industry representative, but The Conference Board is different. I particularly like the balance the Council strikes, between presenting the bigger picture and trends, providing detailed insight on topics, and allowing time for members to share openly successes, challenges and experiences to help others.  

The size of the Council is small, which leaves time for discussions ad allows for building relationships. Meetings are run under Chatham House rules and are consultant free, I always leave these events with several takeaways which help me drive my organization to the next level.  

Due to the small and intimate size of Councils, all members can speak freely and share confidential information from which very enlightening discussions evolve. The seniority of the members provides me with a great exchange and new views on topics that I have not yet considered or which I have only vaguely identified as challenges. Takeaways are sometimes based on a very precise statement by a peer or can be derived from a speaker.  

If I can help someone who is struggling with a certain issue and I've already achieved it, I'm more than happy to share what we did, how we did it, pain points we went through, or what I would do better next time. And I think that’s what a Council does, you have that cross-sharing of ideas that you can then use, whichever way you want to.  

We're a member of quite a number of initiatives, but this one really stands out. It's one of the rare ones where you get the opportunity to meet with senior colleagues at the same level, who are very open and prepared to help share and collaborate on a host of issues in a very safe environment.  

The Council is like no other networking group that I am involved in. What makes this group unique is the willingness of all members to share their experiences. The Council itself prides itself on being member-led. This means that we remain authentic, relevant and timely to the real issues that our organisations are facing. We set the agenda and the majority of the time we are sharing our experiences, learning and shaping directions.  

The Council has been a great platform to source new ideas and practices from highly capable subject matter experts from different industries. The exchange with thought leaders from leading companies has provided me with invaluable insights and access to expertise to keep innovating new talent practices in an increasingly competitive talent marketplace and ultimately contribute to accelerated profitable business growth.  

I have been a member of several Councils at The Conference Board throughout my career, and I have always enjoyed them as a safe platform to have open discussion with peers, to learn about industry trends, get fresh inspiration as well as be challenged constructively. I appreciate the fact that the members represent mixture of companies of various sizes, from various industries – and this always gives a good external perspective.  

The Tax Council not only offers a forum to discuss a wide range of relevant issues with peers, but it also makes you consider priorities. As the working format is based on active discussion and feedback, it both requires and offers me valuable Insights. My key takeaways have been ideas on how we could do some things differently in my company, or in some cases what we shouldn’t do.  

The biggest value from the Council is that I am among colleagues from different countries, representing different sectors, and a vast range in diversity of experiences. The diversity that comes from this is good for me; to be working with colleagues who don’t work in similar businesses. I find this quite powerful - getting challenges to my understanding, my practices, many of which allow me to take new learnings back and apply them to my workplace.