Dr Helen Pernelet

Dr Helen Pernelet has served as Non-Executive Director and Chair on a wide range of boards and audit committees in the UK public, private and non-profit sectors since 2006. These include boards within the UK Ministry of Defence, the UK National Health Service, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the States of Jersey, as well as a number of charity boards.

Helen is a qualified English lawyer, having completed her law degree (licence en droit) in France and trained as a solicitor in the UK. She has also worked extensively as an investment banker and corporate finance / M&A / strategic advisory specialist with corporate clients in the UK, continental Europe, Scandinavia and the US. Helen also provides pro bono governance and other advice to small UK charities.

Helen's focus is on board dynamics and process. In 2021, she completed a Doctorate of Governance at University College Dublin. Her doctoral thesis was entitled "Challenge in the Boardroom: A Case Study of Board Interactions". Observing three comparable public sector boards holding their meetings in public and in private, her findings identified, first, a lack of willingness to challenge by NEDs in the public meetings, in contrast to the meetings held in private. Second, using dramaturgy as a lens to interpret her findings, she identifed eight dramaturgical tools used by the boards / managers to stifle challenge and debate. Third, dramaturgical analysis showed that the differences between questions and answers in public and private could be explained by the use of impression management by both NEDs and managers.  Thus, despite the meetings in public being established by the relevant regulator to demonstrate transparency and accountability to observers, the findings showed that challenge by NEDs in these meetings was largely performative.