Your Business Steward
Simon Hayward — Lead Business Steward, Wardcon. Every engagement is led by a single, named, senior Business Steward personally, from first conversation to final handover.
Simon has more than 35 years of senior leadership, Board and advisory experience across private industry, infrastructure, aviation, nuclear, retail and technology, including Non-Executive Director and Vice-Chair appointments.
His work centres on consequential decisions: what they will set in motion, whether the organisation can actually deliver what they require, and what has to be true before a Board, CEO or investor should commit. He is known for connecting issues that sit across functions and for distinguishing ambition from evidenced deliverability.
Simon holds a degree in Linguistics and Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and speaks internationally within the nuclear sector.
Current Board and Non-Executive appointments
- Independent Non-Executive Director, Infracon UK
- Vice Chair & Trustee, Compass Partnership Multi-Academy Trust
I am not there to validate the answer a Board already prefers. I am there to establish what would have to be true for it to work, what else it will set in motion, and whether the organisation can actually carry it through.
— Simon Hayward
Why I created Wardcon
I created Wardcon because I have seen too many important decisions assessed in fragments. A decision can look perfectly rational in one part of a business and still create serious consequences elsewhere. I wanted to build a different kind of advisory model: one where senior judgement stays close to the decision, where challenge is genuinely independent, and where the work is shaped by what the client actually needs rather than by how many consultants can be deployed.
In the room, alongside you, invested in the outcome
Simon works directly with the people closest to the decision and the operation: stress-testing the cross-functional impact of major structural decisions before capital is committed, tracing and containing those effects after commitment even once they have compounded, resolving governance and cultural stalemates at Board and executive level, leading and holding the line through the highest-friction phase of execution until the position is stable.
The Executive Stewards
Precisely matched senior experience, drawn only when the decision requires it.
Wardcon draws on established, well-respected, Board-experienced individuals — including former CEOs, founders and non-executive directors — whose experience is known directly through long-standing professional relationships. It is not a recruitment panel and Wardcon does not supply people.
Their remit
Whether leading or drawn down, every Steward’s remit is the same: test whether the enterprise can genuinely absorb the proposed strategic choice; define the precise conditions under which to proceed, pause or scale; secure the business outcome; align Board intent with front-line execution; and exit once the value is stabilised and the client’s internal teams can carry it forward.
Discretion by design
Executive Stewards may continue to sit on other boards, committees and advisory panels while engaged with Wardcon. Relevant experience and track record can be shared privately and directly with the client once a specific Steward is being considered. Individual names, headshots and profiles are not published simply to create the appearance of a standing roster.
How Wardcon chooses to work
- 01 Evidence before optimism.
- 02 Whole-enterprise judgement.
- 03 Independent challenge.
- 04 No manufactured dependency.
- 05 Personal accountability.
- 06 Discretion by design.
- 07 Leave capability behind.