RUNNING TOWARDS A LIFE FULL OF COLOUR

AS FAMILY AND DIVORCE LAWYER DOCTOR GLYNIS WRIGHT MBE EMBARKS ON THE NEXT STEP IN HER CAREER, I – ALONG WITH THE EAST MIDLANDS BUSINESS COMMUNITY – AM KEEN TO FIND OUT WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE. I CAUGHT UP WITH GLYNIS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE ON WHAT’S NEXT FOR LEICESTER’S REVERED LAWYER

When I tell Glynis Wright I have heard rumours of exciting changes in her career, I also mention that she doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. She agrees: “I know it’s common for business owners who have sold their businesses to consider early retirement, but I have no intention of that Emily. I am onto my next exciting chapter. Life is about personal growth, and I am still riding that roller coaster!”

I am not surprised. I know this already because I have been interviewing Glynis over the last decade of her career. But even those who only know Glynis a little will sense immediately that she is always on a fast forward trajectory to someplace special. Her working life is inextricably linked to her strong intellectual and creative drivers, and she is certainly not the type to allow anyone to fence her in with stereotypes of any kind.

Glynis has never been one for doing things to a conventional timeline. Having entered the world of law at the age of 40 she then set up the wildly successful multi-award-winning family law firm Glynis Wright & Co at the age of 48 with no previous business knowledge.

Ten years later, she’d successfully brokered the sale of Glynis Wright & Co to Nelsons LLP –a prestigious £20m East Midlands law firm. In doing so, one of the strongest and most successful family law divisions in the region was created.

During this time, she was also elected as President of the Leicestershire Law Society and served from July 2019 to September 2020 holding some of the most glittering, successful events the Law Society has seen and raising significant sums for charity.

She sold her shares to Nelsons on December 2, 2020 and on the same day, she received an email from the Cabinet Office informing her that she had been awarded an MBE for Female Entrepreneurship in the

Queen’s New Year’s Honours List.

As a journalist who has followed her career over the years, it honestly feels like I have watched her not only fly but soar within the local legal and business communities and beyond. To those who have met her, whether at a business event or in the courtroom, Glynis is anything but beige – surely the colour of retirement if there was one?

When I make this comment to her, she exclaims: “I love that Emily, I have always hated beige. Who wants to blend into the wallpaper?”

Glynis’ approach to business is a combination of gut instinct with cool strategy. Both have played their equal part in the commercial decisions that Glynis has made and crucially, there has never been a hint of the dull.

I asked Glynis about her main motivators. “It’s never purely about profit, that’s not the main show. It’s about having the ability to self-determine, to draw on your own personal vision of what might be possible and then to make it happen. It’s intoxicating!”

I wonder if that intoxication is what has led Glynis to make yet another strategic move, this time from her position as an equity partner at Nelsons LLP to setting up a company specialising in business development consultancy, GW Growth Consultancy Ltd.

“When I sold my shares to Nelsons at the height of Glynis Wright & Co’s success, people were really surprised and were asking why I’d sold. But the best time to sell is when you are successful. Too many make the mistake of planning their exit strategies way too late in their company evolution,” she advises.

“Now people are saying the same thing again. They’re surprised that I’m leaving Nelsons to run a business development consultancy. But, in addition to lawyering, my passion over the last 10 years of my life has been bound up in growing, developing and selling a very profitable company and then overseeing its successful integration into its final parent company.

“I am so proud of how my former team have performed since their integration at Nelsons.

Over the two years since the acquisition, the team brought in fees of £2.3m under my leadership, which was more than 25% of the total turnover of the Leicester Nelsons office. That is a phenomenal achievement in business, and the skills I have honed over the last decade are entirely transferable to other sectors.”

I admit to Glynis that I too was surprised. Glynis is family law to me, and I suspect to many others too.

“I understand that and it’s such a wonderful compliment,” says Glynis. “But many also know me as a successful businesswoman whose product and service was law, which is a different way of looking at things. So, tapping into my proven experience and skills in businessdevelopment f or the benefit of the professional and legal sector will be a perfectly natural transition.”

In my mind, I liken Glynis to a prism who radiates all of the colours of the spectrum whichever way you turn it. She has always run towards life, not away from it. I ask her how she ever switches off. She laughs: “My former team would say that doesn’t really apply to me. I like to feel stimulated, excited and driven and that doesn’t feel like running on a treadmill. If I start feeling like that, I get off the treadmill and change direction!”

I perceive that Glynis’ working life must have a dynamic, ever-changing slant, one that keeps her motivated. “I demand stimulation from my working life. If I don’t have that, or if I feel I am unable to create or self-determine, I know it’s time to think again.

“It’s not boredom, it’s a desire to experience more and to find new ways of doing things. As my favourite poet John Donne said, “It is an astonishment to be alive, and it behoves you to be astonished.”

And there is more exciting news that Glynis shared, “In July I was admitted as a Freeman of the Company of Entrepreneurs in London at their election banquet at the Merchant Taylors Hall in London. Their motto is ‘Dare, Create, Succeed’ which I absolutely align to as a person along with their charitable intentions which includes helping those from more difficult backgrounds to consider entrepreneurship.”

Glynis then went on to tell me her other exciting news which is that she is being awarded the huge honour of an Honorary Doctorate in Law by the University of Leicester at a graduation ceremony on July 20 after which she will be known as Doctor Glynis Wright MBE.

“I am more proud than I can say. The University of Leicester has such a special place for me in my heart being the first university I attended. I remember such happy times studying there. It was the reason why I chose to remain living in Leicester and made it my home. To return to the university again to become an Honorand is wonderful!”

Glynis is nothing short of a tour de force and her enthusiasm and passion for life and all things business is infectious.

I leave our coffee catch-up feeling that so much is possible. Call it inspirational, or call it real connection, I simply call it the Glynis effect – and it’s anything but beige.

Words by Emily Miller