Charlotte Valeur

Kirsten Charlotte Valeur (born January 1964) is a Danish former merchant banker, corporate governance expert, and a former chair of the UK's Institute of Directors. She has chaired three international companies and has non-executive director ships at private and public companies. She has been called "a boardroom diversity champion". In July 2020, Valeur said that she is on the autism spectrum, and launched the Institute Of Neurodiversity just over a year later.

Early life Valeur was born in January 1964 in Copenhagen. Her mother, Kirsten Valeur Rosenbeck-Hansen, was a teacher; her father, Leo Balleby, was a butcher. Valeur was raised in Copenhagen. When Valeur was seven years old, her mother, 36, died of breast cancer, which Valeur later said was "a defining moment": "I felt that I should live the life she didn't have. ... I also think going through all that has given me a resilience, which has helped me throughout my life." Valeur speaks six languages. as a fixed-income trader for the Scandinavian bank Nordea in Copenhagen. In 1991 she moved to the London office of Nordea A/S as Head of the UK Fixed Income Sales group, later becoming Vice President of SG Warburg. In 2015, Valeur oversaw the sale of AIM-listed company, Renewable Energy Generation, where she was an independent director, to BlackRock in 2015. By 2011, Brook Street Partners counted many top UK and Scandinavian institutions as clients, to whom it provided an advisory service, matching their investment needs by sourcing appropriate [asset] managers.

Corporate governance Valeur is a specialist in corporate governance, founding (in 2009) and running her own advisory firm, the Global Governance Group.

Board Apprentice In 2013, Valeur founded Board Apprentice, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to increasing diversity on boards globally. She has been called a boardroom diversity champion, partly thanks to Board Apprentice - now also a phrase used globally to refer to senior professionals gaining board experience through occupying a seat at the board room table reserved for education of tomorrow's directors.

Valeur told ITV it is an "insult to the stakeholders and there is absolutely no excuse for not having a diverse board".

"We need to help new participants from under-represented groups to develop the confidence of working on boards and to come to know that."

Valeur is currently a visiting professor in Governance at the University of Strathclyde and on the advisory board of the Møller Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge.

London Stock Exchange In September 2018, Valeur joined the London Stock Exchange as a member of the primary markets group.

Boardroom diversity Throughout her time with the IoD, Valeur was a vocal advocate of boardroom diversification, often speaking publicly on the issue and criticising large, listed companies for not achieving diversity targets. UK business secretary Andrea Leadsom was reported to have welcomed the development, achieved without having to threaten companies with fines or penalties for failing to appoint women to their boards.

IoD Centre for Corporate Governance On 30 June 2020, Valeur launched the IoD Centre for Corporate Governance, a new initiative seeking to explore how companies are — and could be — run. One person familiar with the project described her as the driving force behind it. Her work on the centre was supported by senior City figures including former Lloyd's of London chief executive Inga Beale, London Stock Exchange executive Marcus Stuttard, and BlackRock stewardship head Amra Balic.

Standing down In August 2020, When the IoD announced proposals for a significant restructure to deal with the impact of COVID-19, Valeur said this meant she could no longer provide the necessary leadership. Valeur stood down from the IoD citing constraints on her time. She said "In recent months it has become clear that the IoD is going through a stage in its evolution where it is likely to need increasing levels of hands-on involvement from its chair, and more than was anticipated...when I took on the role", she wrote in a message to IoD members. "I have concluded that I will find it difficult to provide this amount of time during the pandemic, being resident in Jersey and in a vulnerable household." The IoD's board said it was "very grateful... for the substantial contribution that she has made to the turnround and continued success of the institute." It is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is the world's only umbrella organisation that represents all neurominorities.

By bringing all neurodiverse groups together, ION aims to create a single, unified community that supports and celebrates the multitude of contributions of neurodivergent people throughout all sections of society. As Neurodiversity has long been regarded as something to "overcome" or assimilate, ION seeks to challenge this view, Valeur also wants the ION to become a community for neurodiverse people, "to celebrate that we are here, as opposed to look for a way to get rid of us." She was diagnosed as autistic in 2017. An HR industry magazine report viewed speaking out about her diagnosis as an act of bravery when no other such business leaders had "come out with autism or similar neurodiverse conditions".

Valeur said boards need to prioritise neurodiversity and recognise that differences in brain function that cause dyslexia, autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can also boost performance in organisations. "If everybody just follows the set rules and never questions them we would not move forward", she said. In 2017, Valeur won "Director of the Year for a Small Organisation" in the Jersey Director of the Year Awards, organised by IoD Jersey. In 2018, Valeur was listed as one of Denmark's 100 most influential women, chosen because they have influence, create results, or move the agenda.