Robert Ford

I regularly speak on panels or as keynote speaker on corporate governance, corporate culture, transformation and change management matters in the region and internationally. I offer a wide selection of masterclasses and workshops and create bespoke programs for the public or in-house teams. I'm an advocate for diversity in the workplace, boardroom and C-suite.

I am the Managing Partner Governance Gurus. The company provides strategic consulting and training to businesses across the regional and internationally on corporate governance, change management, director duties, the role of the company secretary and HRM/HRD subjects. We also present on strategy and corporate cult

Previously, I provided corporate governance advisory services to the Board and Committees of the Dubai Properties Group (DPG), a member of Dubai Holding and Dubai government. Working closely with the Chairman and the Group CEO to enhance the Corporate Governance Framework across DPG and its verticals and has also developed the Risk Appetite Compliance Assessment.

An investor and on the board of a UAE IT business; which provides business consulting on governance, change management and professional IT services to the UAE and wider region.

Vice-Chairman of the steering committee of the ICSA Gulf Forum, a broad-based governance interest group and the ICSA’s regional platform serving Chartered Secretaries and governance practitioners within the UAE.

I headed the Corporate Services team in Clyde & Co covering company formations, corporate governance/company secretarial services and government liaison and was responsible for conducting a root and branch review of the Corporate Services function across three offices and professionalizing the processes and systems. One area of transformation was the creation of a virtual translation team and the implementation of specialist translation software to capture Arabic to English and English to Arabic know-how.

When at PwC Legal, I was the Middle East leader for Entity Governance and Compliance services and part of the leadership team involved in a regional project with PwC’s regional Assurance transformation team. I conducted a needs based assessment of the translation requirements of the regional business together with an analysis of the utilisation of the existing regional translators and established a centrally coordinated regional translation service and researched and purchased specialist software to capture know-how, terminology, regional dialects and nuances. The centrally coordinated translation service covers the regional requirements across 13 territories. I was the chief adviser to the operational team of the Arabic Centre of Excellence on governance and strategy matters.