Frank Krikhaar is the CSR Reporting Manager at Aegis plc and a newly-graduated LEAD Fellow. In this post he talks about creating an award-winning Corporate Responsibility report and how the LEAD Fellowship programme contributed to his success.

"Anyone working in the field of sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) will know that while doing good is rewarding enough in itself, it is nice when somebody acknowledges your hard work.

This week I was pleasantly surprised to receive the Best Sustainability and Stakeholder Disclosure Award (FTSE 250) on behalf of Aegis Group plc for our 2010 Annual Report. In doing so we beat 250 other companies on the British stock exchange on the strength of our Corporate Responsibility Report and really gained some recognition for our work over the past 2 years. The judges of the ICSA Hermes Transparency in Governance Awards said that our Corporate Responsibility Report not only clearly explained the progress made over the year but also honestly and transparently described the sustainability challenges faced by the company.

LEAD made a huge contribution to me being able to claim this award for Aegis - I’ll explain why.

My background is in corporate finance and consulting and I started work at Aegis (now 4 years ago) in the Corporate Development & Strategy department. Our work focused on business planning and mergers & acquisitions and I learned a great deal on how multinational companies operate. Two year ago I was asked to become the Corporate Responsibility Manager and my first response was “But I don’t even know how you spell sustainability!” I had helped out here and there with our first steps towards measuring our carbon footprint and our community investment but I knew nothing about planetary boundaries, carbon conversion factors or social impact measurement.

Aegis persisted and said they were looking for someone to take on the challenge of embedding sustainability throughout the company -  a challenge it certainly was! The first task at hand was to “get our house in order” which meant improving our measurement, reporting and disclosure, as well as outlining a new strategy for going forward. It was a steep learning curve and I noticed that I was being asked questions I did not know the answer to. In 2011 I therefore applied to the LEAD Europe programme as part of Cohort 16: my goal was to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

The LEAD Fellowship programme was a fantastic experience and really changed the way that I think about sustainability and leadership. It has also supported my career -  I now know so much more about sustainability and the challenges we face, and the role that stakeholder engagement plays in future success. An award for producing the best disclosure report is the first step and the crowning achievement of two years work but we can’t just stop there. In two years we want to win the prize for best stakeholder engagement around sustainability – this will demonstrate that we have made a measurable and significant impact. The Fellowship programme has focused my mind on what we should all be doing in the future and given me my personal challenge for the next two years – thank you LEAD!"