Debbie Hewitt MBE - Resilience, perspective and accountability: Insights from The FA's first female chair

Nottingham Business School Business Leaders

Nottingham Business School Business Leaders Podcast

Debbie Hewitt MBE - Resilience, perspective and accountability: Insights from The FA's first female chair | Episode 28

Inspirational Debbie Hewitt has had a remarkable 40-year career in business.

As Chair of the English Football Association and Vice President of world football, she is one of the most powerful people in the game. She is also non-executive chair of big-brand companies Visa Europe, CompareTheMarket and White Stuff.

But her first job was on the shop floor at the Marks and Spencer store, in Newark.

And as she tells Episode 28 of the Nottingham Business School’s Business Leaders’ Podcast, she is still striving to impress one of her greatest critics – her 87-year-old dad!

“My dad didn't have a career per se,” she tells Honorary Visiting Professor Mike Sassi.

“He worked in a factory. He had no qualifications. When he left school at 14 or 15, he couldn't read or write.

“He’s an example of a system that didn’t care. He was often made to stand at the back of class because he was the class clown. Why couldn't he read and write? Because he was always standing at the back of the class! How crazy was that?

“He realised as he got older that actually he was bright. He became the union shop steward at the engineering factory where he worked in Newark.

“According to my dad, unions exist because management is poor. If management did a great job, you wouldn't need unions. That was his mantra.

“He's 87 now and still as sharp as anything. He’s my biggest critic – he keeps me very grounded. And he’s taught me a lot about leadership.”

After leaving Marks and Spencer, Debbie went on to work for motor company Lex, where her early leadership career was almost over before it started, when she was given a well-deserved, final written warning.

“For having a real chip on my shoulder…” she tells the podcast.

At the age of 32 she was appointed as the first woman managing director of the RAC in its 120-year history.

And in recent years she has had 18 non-executive roles on company boards across ten different sectors of business.

She currently juggles her FA and FIFA positions with her three other non-exec chairs. She and her husband also have 14-year-old twins and Debbie is a parish councillor in the Cheshire village where she lives.

But despite her great success, Debbie believes that good leaders learn as much from their failures as their successes – and her previous mistakes have helped prepare her for her role with the FA.

“It’s the things I've got wrong – the bad judgments – that have prepared me for this more high-profile job,” she says.

“They’ve made me able to deal with the highs and the lows – and that’s important.”

More about Nottingham Business School:

• Visit the Nottingham Business School website
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• Watch Debbie Hewitt deliver a Business Leaders Lecture.