Comment: Striking the right professional management balance

I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between a company founder and the professional management they inevitably have to bring in when their organisation grows. In late 2002, The MBS Group worked on a marketing director search with sandwich retailer Pret a Manger. The founders of the chain, Julian Metcalfe and Sinclair Beecham, had arrived at the decision that the firm had outgrown them - professional management had been installed, they had taken a back seat and turnover at the 150-store group hovered just below £150m.

Metcalfe and Beecham rightly realised that their founder-creative skillset was not necessarily the right one to grow the company at pace. And although they came to the view that the professionalisation they had started had gone too far - Metcalfe famously went back into the kitchen - a new chief executive, Clive Schlee, was installed.

Together, Schlee and Metcalfe have taken Pret from strength to strength, with twice as many stores and three times the turnover it had 11 years ago.

This, despite the fact that in a 2007 New York Times interview, Schlee said of Metcalfe: “In a big corporate company, Julian would be a disaster.”

This shows the extent to which the right “professional chief executive” can be the secret ingredient in taking a company to the next level of success.

The White Company has also been successful. The business, which now turns over well in excess of £100m, is firing on all cylinders, and credit for that strong performance must go to Chrissie Rucker, founder; Will Kernan, chief executive; and Pat Burnett, his predecessor. In particular, Kernan has played an instrumental role in developing the brand internationally, and the retailer is expected to quickly add to its number of foreign outlets.

Pinpointing strategic areas for growth is just one area in which a new, experienced pair of eyes can add to a previously founder-led business.

Carphone Warehouse has long benefited from the guiding hand of Roger Taylor, who arrived at the company as finance director in 1999 and is now chief executive. The relationship between him and founder Sir Charles Dunstone was highlighted in a Telegraph interview in which Charles said: “Poor old Roger has to put up with a lot because he’s always got us coming at him with harebrained schemes that are going to lose the company a lot of money.”

Founders are by their nature entrepreneurial and the calming influence of Taylor on Dunstone has no doubt contributed to Carphone’s continued financial success.

Many have talked about the reluctance of founders to relinquish control of their brainchild. Maybe this is because all too often businesses do indeed lose their way when the founder steps away completely.

More importantly, the key to success is creating and nurturing a great founder-chief executive relationship, where the latter complements the former’s brilliance and puts up with their foibles and quirks.

• Moira Benigson, managing partner, MBS Group