Former minister Theresa Villiers on the importance of representation in politics and business

Former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers spent more than two decades in politics, serving as secretary for Northern Ireland, and environment secretary before her exit in 2024. Working with The Champions Speakers Agency, she explains what consultants and the world of front–bench politics can learn from each other – particularly around diversity.

Diversity and representation are now central to boardroom discussions. From your perspective, why is female visibility in senior leadership critical to business success?

I think diversity in a board or in your overall leadership team is just a crucial part of competitiveness. Having women in leadership positions sends a real signal that businesses are interested in the perspective of their women customers, their women investors.

And representation does matter. Women make up half the population and they want to know that their concerns are listened to, that their perspective is part of the decision–making in our great businesses in the UK. You can’t really do that unless you have women in visible, prominent positions.

Also, in terms of motivating the workforce, every business will have high–performing women involved in their workforce, and keeping them is important. One of the ways to do that is to make sure that they see women role models at senior levels in the business.

I think there are obviously many debates on affirmative action programmes and so–called “wokeness”, but it’s absolutely mainstream that having women represented at senior levels in a business helps it engage with its customers.

It ensures that, by having a diverse board with different perspectives on how you approach innovation and manage risk, you can gain a serious competitive advantage. I’m pleased to say that businesses seem to very much remain committed to that, despite the background of culture wars that seem to be underway at the moment.

Sustainability is a growing priority for boards and consultants alike. How should businesses embed it into long–term strategy and operations?

I think it’s really crucial that they do. Sustainability is, I think, a crucial part of having a sustainable business for the long term, and there are huge amounts of initiatives underway in terms of incorporating environmental impact into reporting and accounts, which I think is really welcome news.

There are great ways in which businesses can begin to measure their impact on climate, the natural environment, and biodiversity. Setting science–based targets and KPIs to reduce their environmental footprint is now being done across a wide range of sectors.

Some of the work that I did in terms of the Environment Act was designed to make that easier. I think we’re seeing some dividends being yielded from the Act, helping businesses get involved in reducing their environmental footprint and their impact on both our climate and nature.

Getting good professional advice on how to set achievable targets is going to be important. Involving and training staff and contractors on how to operate in the most sustainable way is crucial, as is engaging with staff, contractors, and customers about this journey we are all going on.

For me, nature recovery and conservation – conserving the natural environment – was a key theme of my political career and my time in public life, which I return to again and again. I’ve been impressed with the commitment shown amongst UK business to that.

In the speeches I make, I always try to build in that environmental theme because of the urgency of dealing with this issue, and it’s a cause I care really strongly about.

Regulatory reform is often seen as a driver or barrier to growth. How can well–designed regulation unlock innovation while maintaining safeguards?

Regulatory reform is crucial for facilitating innovation, because there are so many sectors where it’s very difficult to get products onto the market or engage with customers unless you have some certainty about standards, about safety, about regulation.

An obvious example is AI, but there are others such as driverless cars and agri–tech, which was something that I was very interested in and focused on during my time as an MP. In all of these areas, the UK has tremendous strengths, and creating the right regulatory environment will enable them to flourish.

We’ve seen a bit of a contrast between the approach taken in the UK compared to the EU on artificial intelligence. There’s a real anxiety that EU rules could smother innovation, whereas in the UK we’ve tried to take a more flexible approach which will enable innovation.

In the work I did on the Task Force on Regulatory Reform, and further back in my career doing financial services regulation in the European Parliament, I saw how important it is that regulation is targeted, risk–based, and proportionate.

A crucial issue is that you’ve got to be able to update regulation quickly when circumstances change. With technology moving at such a fast pace, what makes sense in regulatory terms one month may be counterproductive the next.

I’ve been a strong advocate for testing and trialling different types of regulation – particularly sandboxes, which enable a product to be marketed with real consumers so you can see how it works and whether safety and regulatory concerns exist, while minimising risk because you’re testing in a controlled environment.

That targeted nature of regulation, coupled with flexibility to adapt when circumstances change, is vital. It has been an area of interest for me for 25 years, across two parliaments – the European Parliament and the House of Commons.

Getting regulation right is crucial to enabling us to compete in the global race for jobs and investment. The right regulatory climate will attract capital here, which leads to more and better jobs and economic growth. That’s why I’ve taken such a strong interest in it, and why it features in many of the speeches I make.

You regularly speak at major events. What core messages do you want business leaders and professionals to take away from your public speeches?

I hope they will take away that, if everyone really puts the effort in, we can all make a difference. It is worthwhile to stand for elected office, because it is possible to change things for the better.

I also tend to reflect on themes about Northern Ireland in my speeches, which is an inspirational story. I hope people take away the message that it is possible to reconcile decades – even centuries – of animosities. You can find accommodation and compromise which allows people with very different perspectives to coexist peacefully.

I also believe, and hope people take away, the crucial importance of protecting the natural environment. That was something I focused on throughout my time in public life, and I feel it is one of the most important tasks for all of us: to hand the natural environment on to future generations in a better state than we found it. There can be almost nothing more important than that.

Lastly, I hope people will take away the importance of women in leadership positions. We have something to offer; our perspective is worth listening to. I’ve seen so much change since I was first elected.

At that stage, I was just one of 17 Conservative women MPs elected in 2005. Subsequent parliaments had many more women, they were far more representative, and I believe they made better decisions as a result. So, those are just a few of the key points that I hope people will remember from the speeches I have made.