He wears Homer Simpson socks and a Walt Disney gingham shirt, but Ian Marchant isn't about to start playing the clown. Within seconds of meeting the boyish 47-year-old rugby fanatic and chief executive of the UK's second-largest energy company, it's clear he's deadly serious about everything he does, right down to the tiniest detail. He may earn more than £1m a year at Scottish and Southern Energy plc, Scotland's only remaining independent energy company, but he takes his place in the canteen queue at the company's Perth HQ, choosing black coffee and sneering good-naturedly at my ginger and mint tea. He knows everybody by their first names - but two employees scarper when asked to vacate their sofa in order to make room for us.

SSE has taken a leading role in renewable power, and Surrey-born Marchant, who did a two-year secondment at the Department of Energy and chairs the Climate Change Business Delivery Group, has been urging us all to use energy-saving lightbulbs. With that in mind, I tell him I've tried to cut my own emissions down to six - it's meant to be a joke about the highly efficient number of questions I'll be asking - but it fails to spark. Marchant immediately makes it clear he will not discuss his "day job" with me, out of deference to every business editor in the country. He simply doesn't give business interviews: end of story.

But ask him about how he applies his business acumen to Maggie's Centres, where he has been a non-executive director for two years, and the air immediately begins to warm up.

These are interesting times for Maggie's. Scotland's five centres are soon to be augmented by another two, at Glasgow Gartnavel and Wishaw General hospitals, and the first one in London, at the Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith, is about to be completed. Thereafter, an intensive building programme will roll out across England and Wales to bring the total up to 12, and on to 20.

"Maggie's is a small charity but a growing one, which is great, because it needs help and advice on the sorts of things I've learned over time working with a large company," Marchant explains. "I'm able to advise them on systems and processes such as how to upscale their communications, ensure their construction projects are as safe and as green as possible, grow their HR programme and manage their expanding database of donors - that sort of thing. Maggie's is going through a growth stage that means it's becoming a medium-sized enterprise with outside directors and is moving away from the family firm' it started out as."

He doesn't mean Maggie's is moving away from its charitable status; rather, like all expanding charities, it has to adopt business principles in order to grow successfully. "With Maggie's that's tempered because there's not a profit motive - but, like all companies, it has a performance measure'," Marchant says. "With SSE that is profit, but with Maggie's it's cancer support; the delivery of a service. While the measure of success differs, the business lessons are the same - how you organise people to work together to a common purpose."

As a non-executive director, Marchant attends Maggie's board meetings once a quarter and gives members "the benefit of my expertise and wisdom". Between these meetings, he regularly speaks with chief executive Laura Lee to offer her advice.

"Maggie's has to be acutely aware of its position as it relates to the NHS, which is a large bureaucracy with HR procedures that we at SSE understand and have been able to translate," he says. "As an ex-nationalised industry ourselves, we have even more understanding of how the public sector works.

"Maggie's only works when an oncologist suggests it to the person who's been diagnosed with cancer, or to their carer. The hospital and the Maggie's team have got to work together. Part of my role is helping them understand that."

Unlike his work as non-executive director at Wood Group plc in Aberdeen, for which he is paid, Marchant's input to Maggie's is voluntary. "It's odd," he concedes with a giggle. "When you're the non-exec director of a company, you get paid. When you're the non-exec director of a charity, you're expected to make donations. But I would anyway, because I'm so committed."

Marchant's involvement with Maggie's began two years before he was approached to join the board. Scottish and Southern Energy sponsored the 2004 Maggie's Monster Bike and Hike in Inverness, raising more than £400,000, and Marchant himself took part. "I was knackered at the end of it," he says with a laugh. "I've never done so much physical activity in one period, either before or since. That was true for quite a few people who did the event as well."

Clearly, this is a man who's as generous with his knowledge as with his time. He explains that in his role as CEO of SSE, he works hard at getting the message across that knowledge is not power, and that building a team environment is much more important.

"Power lies in relationships," he says. "It's who you know, who you get on with, who you could build a relationship with; that's what matters. Sharing knowledge is the way you build working relationships. The natural style in a business can be quite individualistic, but at SSE we actively strive to make it a team environment.

"That's what's nice about Maggie's. It is also a team environment."

Rallying 500 staff from all over the UK to take part in the Bike and Hike is a clear example of how this business principle can be applied to help others. Marchant calls himself "the ultimate boundary spanner" because he can go anywhere at SSE and talk to anybody about anything. "The key is not to be afraid to ask," he says. I ask if he is on a mission to empower. "My job is to help people make better decisions," he replies.

Marchant attended school in Croydon and graduated with a BA in Economics from Durham University. I ask what kind of a child he was, and he reluctantly volunteers that he was "probably the sort of child who was always asking questions, always wanting to know why.

"I just enjoy learning," he says. "If you are open to whatever is going on around you, you will learn something new every day."

So what has he learned from his involvement with Maggie's? "Maggie's hit 92% in its Net Promoter Score a management tool used as an alternative to traditional customer satisfaction research. That's a stunning result. At SSE we're really pleased to get 30-40% for our call centres. We can learn from Maggie's how to improve our service standards. Customer satisfaction with them is beyond world-class. "

As Maggie's continues to grow, is he keen to help ensure that doesn't change? "Yes, that's absolutely key," he says. "Maggie's core service is not about buildings; it's about helping people with cancer. We want to retain that successful business model right into the future."

  • Follow Ian Marchant's example and help raise funds for Maggie's. The charity is about to launch its biggest UK challenge event, the Mighty Bike and Hike 2008, which will take place in Wales from October 10-12. Teams of colleagues are welcome; see panel, below left, for further information, or contact Ellen Martin on 0845 508 4681.
  • Don't miss Saturday's edition of The Herald Magazine, which features interviews with friends of Maggie's Ian Rankin, Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid.

How you and your company can help

Would your company like to become involved in a Maggie's event? To mark our 225th anniversary, The Herald is teaming up with the Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres in a campaign that will provide lasting support for people across Scotland affected by cancer. The panel to the right explains how you can become a personal friend - but your company could help, too. Corporate friends Maggie's corporate fundraising team will work with you closely to tailor a programme of collaboration, whether you want to build your profile as a socially responsible company, improve teamworking or boost staff morale.
  • Charity of the Year/staff fundraising: This is the way most companies support Maggie's. The charity is typically chosen through a staff vote. Employees can get involved with existing events, such as Maggie's Mighty Bike and Hike, or organise their own events with the support of Maggie's staff. This is similar to Active Friends of Maggies - groups that help raise money in their local area.
  • Sponsorship: Your company underwrites the cost of a Maggie's event; your logo then appears on all promotional material.
  • Cause-related campaigns: This is when a company asks customers to make a small donation to Maggie's when they buy a particular product, or the company donates a sum to Maggie's when customers buy the product.
  • Simple corporate donation: Of money, shares or staff time.
  • Payroll giving: This is when a company sets up a system so employees can donate money through the payroll to a charity of their choice, tax-free.
  • Business breakfasts and networking events. To discuss these or any other aspect of becoming a Corporate Friend, call Ellen Martin on 0845 508 4681.

What are Maggie's Centres?

Maggie's Centres were the vision of the author and garden designer Maggie Keswick Jencks. When she was treated for cancer, Maggie realised the difficulties people had accessing information and support. There are now five centres across Scotland. They are places that offer drop-in information and support for people with cancer, their families, friends and carers. Although they are close to hospitals, they are designed as non-institutional environments, with no waiting rooms, appointments or uniforms. They are also well-known for their award-winning architecture: Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid's first UK buildings were both Maggie's Centres. To learn more about Maggie's, visit www.maggiescentres.org