Mark Freebairn

Virginia Bottomley chairs our board practice. I mention this not because I'm showing off the circles in which I move, but because she is well known and is therefore asked to speak at a number of conferences.

As a result, I have a pretty good idea of what's coming up on the rails as critical for the next six months. And the topic of the day is flotations, or initial public offerings (IPOs).

Indeed, a very well known and influential City figure ran a conference last week on this very subject, and the main thrust of the day was that they are coming back. Private equity is going to struggle to offload businesses, while the leveraged model is out of favour. The wealthy are not quite so wealthy any more and their ability to fund substantial purchases has been reduced.

And so, finally, the market is turning full circle, and public ownership is back in vogue.

Now this is all very interesting - but exactly what relevance does it have to you? Well, it's simple. Who tends to do most of the work in the run-up to a public offering? The CEO, the FD, the chairman, the finance function and the audit chair.

On this basis, there is a decent chance that the readers of this magazine fall into at least four of those five groups.

However, my point is much wider-ranging than this. Involvement in an IPO is incredibly useful experience to obtain. At whatever level you work, the chance to help take an organisation through an event like this has far-reaching consequences.

The challenge, the network you develop, the change management exercise, the exposure to investors, the governance aspect - I could go on. All of these are excellent areas

in which to gain exposure.

Any business going through an IPO is going to need people within its finance function to step up to provide support. It is going to need an FD that can lead the business through it; and it is going to need an audit chairman, and a chairman.

All of these create opportunities for the finance community - opportunities that will reward you in several ways. You will gain great

experience, but you will also be able to market yourself to businesses that are planning to go through an IPO

in the future.

For opportunities like that,

experience in that space is worth its weight in ... well ... share options.

Mark Freebairn is a partner at Odgers Berndtson

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!