Recruited from FTSE 100 company Kingfisher to oversee the legal function at the newly-merged soft drink entity Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP), Clare Wardle has plenty of leadership experience to undertake the challenge of integrating the three legal teams at Coca-Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola Iberian Partners, and Coca-Cola Erfrischungsgetränke.
Wardle was called to the Bar in 1984 and moved to Lovells in 1986 where she worked for ten years before moving in-house – first at the Post Office, where she served as head of legal, before working as general counsel (GC) and company secretary at Tube Lines. She joined British retailer Kingfisher in 2010 as group legal director, taking over as group GC in 2012 where she became responsible for risk, governance, competition and compliance matters. Now based in Uxbridge, Wardle serves as a member of the executive leadership team at CCEP, reporting to chief executive John Brock and serving as legal adviser to company chair Sol Daurella.
At Kingfisher, Wardle played a substantive role in the DIY group’s 2013 expansion into Romania, with the acquisition of 15 Bricostore shops from French retailer Group Bresson for an undisclosed sum. Also in 2013, she established the Kingfisher Women’s Network which involved both men and women across the company helping women at Kingfisher to achieve their potential and saw an increase of senior women in the business. This led to Wardle being named as a Specsavers everywoman in their Retail Ambassador Programme for inspiring success in others.
‘Explain your ideas clearly. No long words.’
‘At Kingfisher the reason I started the women’s network was because it was really obvious that diversity was patchy across the group. There was no lack of goodwill about it from the leadership but there was no focus. And we needed that nudge to bring everybody up to the same level of understanding and approach that individual companies had. [As GC] you are in a brilliant position to lead projects of that kind exactly because you see what’s going on.’
For Wardle, the most important attribute of leadership is confidence. ‘That comes in two axes – one being able to explain clearly your ideas in words that makes sense to the people you are talking to, which generally means succinctly and without using long words. And secondly, in ways that appeal to the person you are talking to.’
On the other hand, Wardle disputes the frequent claim that being seen as the conscience of a company is akin to having leadership status: ‘You get a lot of people saying the company secretary or the GC is the conscience of the company. They’re not. If the company doesn’t have a conscience without you, then you can’t resonate with anything.’