Tessa Bamford
Consultant, Board Practice, London
12 years at Spencer Stuart
Describe what you’re doing currently.
After leaving Spencer Stuart at the end of 2023, I joined board of DS Smith, a UK-based international packaging company, until its acquisition by International Paper in early 2025. I’m also a senior adviser to BoardOutlook, an Australian-based software platform that helps board performance, including an AI-powered analytics and reporting tool that makes sense of, interprets and prioritises data from board evaluations, skills matrices, director 360s, etc. I’m an investor and sit on the board, helping them build the business here in EMEA.
Other than that, I'm enjoying running my own life, doing what I want, when I want, how I want. That includes visiting places all over England that I've never been to or want to re-visit, as well as wonderful trips to far flung places like Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and Ecuador, the Galapagos and Colombia. I also spend a lot of time going to art exhibitions and the theatre.
What is your proudest achievement?
I joined Spencer Stuart when boards were still pretty “pale, male and stale.” When I started with the firm, just 12% of all UK board directors were women. When I left, that figure was 39%. I’m proud to have played my part in helping boards diversify broadly, to unearth really good people and give them a chance. I strongly believe that every board should have at least one “newbie” director. Part of that was encapsulating my best advice in the publication “Becoming a non-executive director.”
What book, movie or show would you recommend?
I recently saw Inter Alia and The Estate at The National Theatre; both excellent in different ways. One of the great things I’m able to do now is go to matinees! Much easier to get tickets.
Kiefer/Van Gogh at the Royal Academy is also excellent (along with the Kiefer exhibition at White Cube). I’m also looking forward to going to the recently opened V&A Storehouse in Stratford and the re-opened Frick in New York.
I read a lot; all sorts of things. Recent books I’ve enjoyed for different reasons are The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, Billionaire Nerd Saviour King by Anupreeta Das and re-reading The Leopard by Tomasi di Lampedusa, as well as by-the-pool holiday reading — thrillers, biographies, whodunnits.
What experience isn’t on your official CV that you feel had a significant impact on your career?
It’s easy to post-rationalise a career and say that I spent my career advising large, quoted companies, but the fact is that my CV had no planning in it at all. What’s probably had the biggest impact on my career was the ability to be brave and take up opportunities to do different things. After I left investment banking, I took a two-and-a-half year break to travel and pursue personal interests. I then became founding director of Cantos Communications, and after that I fell into headhunting. Neither were obvious moves, but I just think you have to have faith in yourself.