Leadership Stories: Annabel Tagoe-Bannerman

Leadership to me means being true to my personal values, empowering others with whom I engage, having the courage to do hard things and being of service to others (in my personal life, community and at work). Leadership also means having influence rather than one’s title per se.

My approach has been to lead by example, continuing to learn and to teach others and to always remain authentic.

My style has changed over time and continues to change as I develop myself and as I am faced with new challenges and opportunities. I used to be so focused on being self-reliant whenever I was under pressure, but I am learning to accept external support and to appreciate the nuances that exist in most situations. Life isn’t certain in a lot of ways and the beauty and joy often comes in a less than perfect, or dare I say, messy package!

The biggest challenge in my life has been losing three of my closest family members early on in my adult life. The first was the loss of my dear brother when he was just 35 years old to a freak event. It was all so sudden and it knocked our beautiful family for six. Life had been “perfect” until that fateful day. My parents never really recovered from it. Mum started to be forgetful and was diagnosed shortly thereafter with grief induced dementia. The strong professional career woman I had known became forgetful and unsure of herself. It was heartbreaking to watch mum lose her sense of self and within a decade we lost her at the relatively young age of 73 years. Dad missed mum too much and couldn’t envisage life without his wife of over 50 years. We lost dad a year after mum’s passing. Thankfully I was at a stage in my life when I could be supportive in every sense to both parents before their passing.

I learnt from this family tragedy that we must count our blessings (incidentally my mum’s favourite hymn) and we must take every opportunity to show love to our dear ones before it is too late. My remaining sibling and I are fortunate to have had a loving and stable family upbringing and we remain close.

It is difficult to talk about one’s successes when one is still on life’s path. One of my successes has been my ability to balance a close-knit loving family life and working hard in various senior executive legal and governance roles in the listed corporate environment, as well as, in a non-executive capacity. Alongside these roles I have been impactful in various civic and social activities in my community.

As an individual, I am resilient and good at ‘digging deep’ to do what is needed in tough situations whilst not losing sight of what really matters in life. When I started my legal career in the City well over two decades ago I was the only black trainee solicitor in my cohort of 40 at my firm. Having spent my formative years in Ghana my perspective was positive and I relished working in corporate and handling a wide array of M&A work and commercial work. There were few female partners in corporate at the time and the those who had children could afford live-in nannies/au pairs or boarding school for their children.

I started out as a young mother and I had to balance a lot with support from my husband in order to create the right home life for our son. I enjoyed my time as solicitor in private practice in the City and built a lot of my connections and relationships in that time. In my bid to cultivate a close family life for our son, I decided to move in-house in order to work more flexibly and to have more autonomy. It was the right move for me and I worked diligently and moved up the ladder quickly becoming a General Counsel in a FTSE 250 company and practising law with more influence and impact in several sectors in using the law as an enabler in business.

Another area of success for me has been my willingness to be generous with my time and my efforts to mentor as well as sponsor others. I have been fortunate to have had others pour into me continuously and so I do the same. I am always keen to pull others up as I climb the ladder and to ensure that others are not left behind.

My parents ingrained into me that “to whom much is given, much is expected” and I take joy in helping and in giving. It is a blessing to be able to do so!

• Bet on yourself, always.
• Know your personal values and hold them dear.
• Lead yourself first before seeking to lead others.
• Be mindful of the shadow you cast as a leader and be deliberately impactful.
• Say ‘yes’ and figure it out afterwards (of course having weighed the risks and opportunities first).
• Network, network, network and do so authentically.