Jason
Davies

Who I Help

Mid-market Businesses. Large Corporates. Real Estate. Consumer Businesses.

How I Help

Governance. Risk & Compliance. Governance and Board Effectiveness. Enterprise Risk Management and Internal Audit. Fraud Risk. Whistleblowing. Investigations and Regulatory Compliance.

“Cutting through complexity in any organisation, on any topic, makes a huge difference.”

Jason Davies is a Governance, Risk & Compliance Partner based in our London office. He leads the development of our new Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) advisory offering. With over 30 years of experience across professional services, in-house leadership, non-executive and advisory roles, Jason brings a breadth and depth of experience shaped by time in the boardroom, with major UK an International organisations and alongside clients navigating significant change.

His career has included senior roles at Deloitte and Tesco, as well as experience of building functions from the ground up. He has worked across transformation, governance, risk and regulatory challenges, including supporting organisations through major technology and cyber issues. For Jason, the focus is firmly on people. Building a strong team, understanding clients and helping organisations make sense of complexity are at the heart of his approach.

Building trust that moves things forward

“For me, building trust quickly is fundamental to any successful relationship. I’ve spent much of my career working with people at different levels of organisations, from boardrooms to operational teams, and trust is enables you to move at speed.

Businesses want to move quickly. The challenge is often making sure that trust and transparency are there to support that pace. With trust, transparency is enhanced and decisions happen faster, and you can focus on solving the problem rather than working around it. One of the greatest compliments a client has given me was simply, ‘we trust you. What do you think?’ That level of confidence means a huge amount to me because it reflects the kind of relationship I’ve always wanted to build. It means a client knows that I’ll give them an honest view, even when the answer isn’t necessarily the easiest one or the one they were looking for.”

Helping businesses through change

“The part of my career I’ve found most satisfying is helping organisations work through change. That can take many different forms, from transformation programmes through to new regulation, managing risk or responding to an issue that nobody expected. I experienced that both at Deloitte, working with clients through major transformation programmes, and at Tesco, where change was happening at scale from within the business. At Gartner I have worked with leading GRC and Internal Audit teams to transform their effectiveness. Those experiences taught me that governance and risk are not things that should sit separately from the business. They need to be part of how an organisation makes decisions and moves forward.

That’s a big part of what I want to bring to AAB. Businesses are facing more regulation, more scrutiny and more risks than ever, but the answer isn’t to create layers of process for the sake of it. It’s about understanding what really matters and helping organisations respond in a way that is proportionate and practical.”

Experience that cuts through complexity

“I have 30 years experience working with owners, boards and regulators across a range of organisations and situations, I have over 10 years experience as a NED that directly informs my ability to support clients.  That experience underpins my move to AAB and the ambition they have. I’ve seen organisations and problems from different perspectives, this enables me to focus on the value and outcomes required.

Building teams is a passion and I am delighted to do this again at AAB. My role is often to take something complicated and make it understandable and actionable. In my experience the best advisers listen more than they talk, putting ego aside and then applying that experience to the client context and need.  Organisations can invest time and money and end up no safer,  most value sits in two or three decisions mad properly. The rest is often theatre. I have the experience of answering to the Excom, the Board, the Regulator and a major SFO investigation.  In these situations you learn what genuinely protects the business and value and what simply takes up time.”

Adapting to what comes next

“Every transition I’ve experienced throughout my career has meant adapting to a new culture, new people and a new way of working. Looking back, those experiences have probably taught me more than anything else about the importance of listening and staying curious.

You can’t assume that what worked in one organisation will work in another. I’ve learned to go in with a learning mindset, understand the environment first and then work out where I can make the biggest difference.”

Building something new

“I’m hugely excited about building the GRC business at AAB. There is a fantastic foundation to build from, particularly the existing whistleblowing service, and I’m excited about developing that into a broader proposition around governance, risk and compliance. I’m also really looking forward to working alongside the wider People Advisory team. So much of what happens in large organisations ultimately comes down to culture and people, and I think there is a powerful connection between people, culture, governance and risk. Many control or governance failures are culture questions wearing a compliance costume.

What has stood out to me about AAB is the ambition and dynamism of the organisation. The people I met throughout the process made a real difference. That gave me a strong sense of the culture I was joining and the opportunity to build something meaningful here. The opportunity is about bringing together experience, people and technology to help businesses deal with complexity more effectively. That’s what I’m most excited about. Mid-market businesses are now taking on big company governance and regulatory obligations without the underlying infrastructure I believe that AAB GRC will help close that gap and support clients navigating change and complexity.”