Lady Barbara Judge: The rise and fall of the pioneering first female IoD chair

After several days of vicious reports and closed-door meetings, one of the UK’s most prestigious business groups issued a statement on Friday morning confirming that its first ever female chair, Lady Barbara Judge, had been suspended.

The drama that resulted in the Institute of Directors’ (IoD) announcement kicked off earlier in the week, when several news outlets reported that the 71-year old New York-raised businesswoman was being investigated over accusations that she had made racist and sexist slurs and bullied colleagues.

The IoD, which likes to present itself as a bastion of best practice in corporate governance, later confirmed that it had commissioned a full investigation into the matter, conducted by law firm Hill Dickinson.

Lady Judge said that she had voluntarily decided to step aside temporarily, to contest the claims.

On Friday, the IoD’s council – after receiving an executive summary of the investigation – said that it had taken the decision to suspend Lady Judge “pending further investigation into the matters raised and the process”.

What emerged from the report makes it easy to understand how the decision was reached. The investigation reportedly found that Lady Judge had suggested black people “can get aggressive”, while also making disparaging remarks about a pregnant colleague.

While undoubtedly dealing a significant blow to the Pall Mall-based IoD’s reputation, it also represents a setback for the female business community, both in the City of London and beyond.

Lady Judge, often almost regal in appearance, had become known as a champion of women’s rights and boardroom diversity, and was frequently held up as a role model for females hoping to crash through a glass ceiling still firmly domed above a male-dominated world.

When she assumed her role as chair of the IoD three years ago, just 5,000 of the organisation’s 34,000 members were women, according to the Financial Times.

Born in the small village of Saddle Rock, on the north shore of Long Island, her entrepreneurial spirit and ambition to succeed can probably be traced back to her childhood and adolescence. Her father owned a small business while her mother, Marcia Singer, is credited with creating a then-pioneering course called “World of Work for Women” at the New York Institute of Technology.

In 1969, she graduated from New York’s University School of Law with the highest honours and became editor of New York University Law Review, setting her up to become the youngest person and only the second women ever to be made a member of US Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington DC.

There, she was instrumental in convincing the Tokyo Stock Exchange to open its doors to foreign members.

The break-neck pace of her career progression didn’t show signs of slowing throughout the next three decades. A move to Hong Kong led her to become the first female director of British merchant bank Samuel Montagu & Co. Later she was named senior vice-president of Bankers Trust International Banking in New York.

A job as executive director of Rupert Murdoch’s News International followed, and her CV was further augmented when she set up investment company Private Equity Investor plc.

In 2004, she was appointed chair of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), prompting the Daily Mail to ask whether she might indeed be “the best connected woman in Britain”.

“Lady Judge, a lawyer, has more jobs than seems possible,” the paper wrote in 2007. “Name a board and she is on it; find a charity and she will be associated with it.”

In 2010, Lady Judge was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the nuclear and financial services industries. That same year, she was named in BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour 100 Most Powerful Women list. She’s also featured in similar lists compiled by Management Today as well as by Debrett’s, a coaching company which styles itself as an authority on etiquette and upstanding behaviour.

Before joining the IoD, she served as chairwoman of the Pension Protection Fund and was deputy chair of the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s new Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The Independent hailed her as “Japan’s nuclear saviour”.

On Friday, Mike Taylor, managing director at leadership consultancy Accelerating Experience, said that the allegations now marring Lady Judge and the IoD, and the disarray that the organisation’s leadership has been plunged into, “would be comedic, if it wasn’t so tragic”.

“While this behaviour may be exceptional, and limited to the actions of an individual, it has the potential to cause long-lasting damage both to the IoD, and to the businesses that look to it to set an example for best practice and strong governance,” he added.

It’s understood that Lady Judge clashed with Stephen Martin, who became the IoD’s director-general last year. According to several reports, her critics had for some time questioned her genuine commitment to issues around diversity – the very issues she appeared to champion so vocally.

“She always talked about these things. But she didn’t necessarily live as she spoke,” the Financial Times quoted an unnamed former coworker.

Others seem to dismiss the possibility that the allegations that have already stained her name could be true. Some of her mannerisms, another person who knew her said, might just be perceived as a bit “anachronistic”.

Lady Judge’s term was set to expire in May and she was not expected to seek re-election, but even when she moves on and the IoD regroups, Mr Taylor says that we can learn a greater lesson from this episode.

“Unacceptable behaviour cannot be allowed to go unchecked and must be adequately called out, starting at the top,” he said.

Adding that if an organisation’s leaders are “neither role modelling good behaviours individually or collectively, value loss is a direct result.”

And what does that mean in the longer run for the bastion of corporate governance specifically? “The Institute of Directors is about to find out.”