Adams & Adams a very strong brand – COO
12/01/2009

Adams & Adams appointed Stuart Boyd as Chief Operating Officer in September 2008. Stuart, a Chartered Accountant, was a consultant to the office of the Auditor General from 2007, implementing financial management improvements. Prior to that he was with Nedbank, a major South African bank, where he held various executive positions, including at Swisscard, in Switzerland.

“The time is right for me to pause and reflect on my first five months with Adams & Adams,” says Stuart. “Actually, I can hardly believe it’s only been five months as it feels like I have been here at least a year. I have been warmly welcomed into the fold. I have certainly learnt much about how Adams & Adams provides legal services and what intellectual property law actually means.

“I am pleased to confirm that Adams & Adams has a great business model comprising a very strong brand, a client list ‘to die for’ and a depth and breadth of specialised legal skills par excellence. Key aspects of the culture which underpin our successful business include ‘a constant mind set of I must respond to my client quickly’, ‘always pay attention to detail and don’t compromise on quality’ and ‘be proud of our history’.

“It is highly probable that we will experience a number of inflection points in the foreseeable future which will greatly test our successful track record. Not least of those is the difficult economic cycle the whole world has entered. These difficult economic cycles often trigger significant changes in consumer behavior, technologies, regulatory frameworks and consequently business models. A consistent theme during these cycles is that organisations realise the only way to protect market share and profitability in the long term is to differentiate through its talent and service and operational excellence.

“Partner, professionals, management and support staff knowledge, skills, attitude and business process digitisation play a major role in service and operational excellence. I believe these will need to continue to be key focus areas in order to protect our success.

“I look forward to continuing to work with the management committee, my managers and the partners to ensure the Adams & Adams success story continues.”

Stuart qualified with KPMG and Ernst and Young and spent some time at Rolls-Royce in the UK in the early 1990s before joining Nedbank in 1994.