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The future of work is still being debated in boardrooms around the world. Some leaders are calling teams back to the office. Others are doubling down on flexibility. But for Mags McPherson, Executive Chair of SmartPA, the real conversation should be less about where people are based and instead focus on how they are led as well as how their performance is measured and managed.
Having built and scaled businesses across the UK and internationally, including founding Intelligent Office in 2001 and growing the business to 900 employees before its sale in 2022, Mags brings decades of commercial and operational experience to SmartPA. She was a champion of remote working long before it became mainstream post-Covid and believes the organisations set to thrive in the years ahead will be those built on trust, clarity and accountability.
Now helping guide SmartPA through its next phase of growth, she shares why remote-first models can outperform, how businesses scale successfully, and why culture is built through behaviour, not workplace gimmicks.
Q: You were working remotely long before it became mainstream. What did you understand early that others are only now recognising?
Mags: I started working from home around 2006 or 2007, so for me it was never something that arrived with Covid. It was already part of how I worked.
At the time, we had office space, but a lot of the people who were office-based shouldn’t really have been there. They should have been out with clients, building relationships, managing accounts, growing the business. We had an office that sat half-empty most of the time.
Once you look honestly at how people add value, you realise productivity doesn’t come from sitting at a desk in one location. It comes from having clear objectives, the right support, lots of feedback and people who know what great looks like.
Q: Why do some organisations still struggle with remote or hybrid working?
Mags: In many cases, it’s because they’re trying to manage people in the same way they always have when in actual fact everything has changed.
A lot of managers were brought up to believe that if they can see people tapping away or on calls there in front of them, they know work is happening. But leadership shouldn’t be about supervision, leaders are there to give direction, maintain standards, bolster outcomes and have a really clear understanding about how they measure productivity and success.
If someone hasn’t adapted how they manage performance, communication and trust to manage remote or hybrid teams successfully, then asking everyone back into the office can feel like the easiest option, but often it’s simply avoiding the need to evolve.
Q: So, what does strong leadership look like in a remote-first world?
Mags: It’s actually quite simple, although not always easy.
Be clear about expectations, be clear about what success looks like, measure outputs properly, not inputs, communicate consistently, and make people feel part of something.
Managing people is not about watching what they’re doing all day. We should be creating an environment where they can perform well and know how they’re being measured. If you harness that then location becomes far less relevant.
I find it incredible that someone can install software that moves their mouse; leaders and managers need to be looking at what’s been achieved not the fact that a PC is active!
Q: You’ve said flexible working also changes access to talent. How important is that?
Mags: Massively important.
If you only recruit people who can travel into one office every day, you immediately narrow your options. Why would you do that?
Flexible models allow you to access talented people across the country and indeed the globe and often people who might otherwise be excluded because of geography, caring responsibilities or lifestyle choices.
For ambitious businesses, widening the talent pool is one of the smartest commercial decisions you can make.
Q: You came on board at SmartPA a year ago in May 2025. What attracted you to the business?
Mags: The first thing was the culture; there’s a real energy in the business and a genuine positivity about what people are building together.
The second was the business model, because I think it’s a strong one. SmartPA has created a really interesting ecosystem: UK-based teams, South Africa-based teams, a growing franchise network, and the ability to support everyone from ambitious smaller businesses through to major corporates.
That combination is really powerful because it gives clients flexibility, depth of resource and access to a broad range of skills and experience. Bringing people together across different markets and different specialisms creates a much richer and far more flexible support model.
It also means there is real scalability in the business. You’re not relying on one route to growth; you’ve got multiple strengths working together.
For me, it was a business with strong foundations, good people and significant potential due to the high (and increasing) demand for the service SmartPA provides; I saw my role as helping to ensure it was structured properly for the next stage of growth.
Q: What did you feel SmartPA needed most when you joined?
Mags: Structure, discipline and ambition for the next stage.
A lot of entrepreneurial businesses are brilliant at getting started. They move quickly, they’re agile, they create momentum. But what gets you to one level doesn’t always get you to the next.
My role has been to help bring more rigour around planning, measurement, communication and accountability without losing the entrepreneurial spirit that made the business successful in the first place.
You want the pace and agility of a smaller business, but the standards, professionalism and consistency of a larger one.
Q: Have you already seen a shift?
Mags: Yes, definitely. The biggest shift has been from looking backwards and fixing issues, to looking forwards and preparing for growth. We’ve made massive progress in 12 months.
That’s an important turning point for any business. Once you stop reacting all the time and start planning properly, you create momentum. The team has been very receptive to change, which is always a strong sign. People can see progress, and they want more of it.
Q: You’ve built businesses with strong reputations for culture. What do many companies misunderstand about culture today?
Mags: They mistake perks for culture.
Culture isn’t a pool table or free coffee or getting a day’s annual leave for your birthday.
Culture is how people behave when nobody is watching. It’s how leaders treat people, whether standards are high, communication is honest, and people feel proud to be part of the organisation.
The best businesses create teams who enjoy working there, feel passionate about what they are doing and want to go above and beyond to please their clients. That coupled with clients who genuinely value the relationship.
Q: What excites you most about SmartPA’s future?
Mags: Growth in every sense – growth in the business, growth in profitability and growth in opportunity for the people inside the business.
I’d like to see SmartPA become a business that people are proud to work for, proud to work with, and proud to be part of building. You can achieve so much if you have the right people, the right model, the right mindset and the right discipline.
Q: Finally, is there one leadership principle that has stayed with you throughout your career?
Mags: One I always come back to is: The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.
There’s no shortcut for effort. You still have to do the work, keep standards high and stay consistent. That’s as true for a start-up as it is for a global business, and just as true whether your team is in one office or spread across the world.
About SmartPA
SmartPA is a leading provider of transformative business support services, disrupting the industry with our highly skilled teams and proprietary methodology, which is enabled by technology and supported by Generative AI.
We help organisations simplify admin and scale faster by combining process optimisation, simplification and cutting-edge technology.
We deliver measurable ROI and unlock potential by removing administrative burden, allowing our clients to focus on top-line growth while we deliver bottom-line impact through data-led decisions.
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