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Welcome to Your Path to Success with me,
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Ruth Kearns-Volman.
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It's a podcast designed to inspire,
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encourage,
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and equip you on your personal leadership journey.
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Today's guest is Vicky Ferrier,
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Chief People and Commercial Officer at Konsileo,
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a commercial insurance broker with no managers.
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Sound unusual?
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It is,
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and that's part of what makes Vicky's story so compelling.
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In this role,
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She operates right at the intersection of people and performance,
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helping unleash individuals'
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leadership so that they can do good work that makes a real difference,
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both commercially and personally.
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But as you'll hear,
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that clarity came over time.
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This wasn't the career she imagined when she started out.
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In our conversation,
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Vicky shares what influenced her early choices,
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how she navigated the messy middle of her career,
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a season of questioning,
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re-evaluation.
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and rediscovery,
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and what she discovered about herself along the way.
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She speaks candidly about identity,
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alignment,
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and what it meant to write herself into being.
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It's a story of courage,
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reflection,
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and reinvention,
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and I'm delighted to share it with you.
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Let's dive in.
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So here we go.
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Well,
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welcome,
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Vicky.
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It's great to have you on the podcast.
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Thanks,
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Ruth.
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Happy to be here.
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Yeah,
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well,
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this is going to be a lot of fun because when we were working at P&G so many years ago,
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I knew you as Vicky from finance,
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someone who had a lot of personality,
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a lot of passion.
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And,
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you know,
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if I look at your job title today,
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you're chief commercial and people officer.
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How does that work?
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Finance and people?
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Yeah,
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well,
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very naturally,
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I believe.
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It's a combination
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of two things I think really are important from a value creation perspective,
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the human dimension and the commercial dimension.
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So when
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I was originally offered this role,
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which we created essentially in the organisation,
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it didn't exist.
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It felt very natural to bring those two parts together for me.
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But I guess that moving from being a chartered accountant in the public sector,
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where I started my career in my early
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20s.
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through Procter & Gamble,
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through investor relations,
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through a bit of HR to here.
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It makes sense to me,
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but it's not necessarily so obvious to,
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I'm sure many accountants in the world would not see the connection,
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but I absolutely do.
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Yeah.
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So let's unpack it a bit because that's what I love about this podcast.
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We get to talk about your journey and everybody's journey is different.
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How did you start off as an accountant?
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How did that come about?
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My dad was an accountant.
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So a complete lack of imagination on my part.
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I think that goes to one of my big leadership principles is about having imagination.
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But yeah,
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I think people become what they can see.
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And whilst I did English literature at university and very much so myself going down a path of marketing or journalism,
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something that would require some kind of storytelling element to it.
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I became a chartered accountant in the public sector.
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Again very much driven yes by my dad being an accountant but this sense of mission that I had to do good to do good work to support my community
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I saw a career path at that age being more around charity work you know something CEO one of the big charities that's where my head was then it was fortuitous that when I qualified there happened to be at that time I don't know if it still exists,
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but there was...
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a movement around people who had qualified and moving,
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you know,
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seeing that as a new,
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almost like a graduation point,
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kind of starting again.
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Yeah,
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you qualify as a chartered accountant,
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but let's take a step back.
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Did you really want to be an accountant?
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And there was a headhunter here in Scotland who gathered all these lost souls,
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lost accountants that had become accountants by default kind of thing.
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And there was a careers fair
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at the Glen Eagles Hotel,
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the Glen Eagles Hotel.
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And that's the only reason I,
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not the only reason,
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but a big attraction for me going was because it was at the Glen Eagles Hotel.
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I came from an incredibly working class background,
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never had the opportunity to go to Glen Eagles.
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So,
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and it was included in overnight stay,
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which was unbelievable.
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And there was people there like Goldman Sachs,
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a lot of the big insurance and financial services employers in Scotland and P&G.
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And the P&G people I met,
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I just connected to.
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straight away.
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Claire Sheridan being one of them,
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shout out to her,
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and really just really found,
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oh my tribe,
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these are my people and that was what took me to joining PNG.
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And what was it,
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do you think,
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that the connection?
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I loved the energy that they had.
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They were all from the finance function,
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but they seemed to me to have that greater connection to the business,
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to not just the commercial side of the business,
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but the human side,
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the brand side,
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the sales side.
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It just seemed to me like a real connecting function that they were playing.
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which I felt was missing in a lot of the experience I'd had.
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Yeah,
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it was a bit of a broader overview,
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more strategic in a way.
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Yeah,
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yeah,
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exactly.
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So tell me a bit about your time at P&G.
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How long were you there?
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Nine years.
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Loved it.
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Loved every minute of it.
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Another friend,
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Matthew Tipple,
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once said that his experience of moving from his sort of more working class background,
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going to Cambridge University was one of the most formative of his life,
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but Procter & Gamble was the most formative of mine.
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Again,
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it was finding...
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one's tribe those people that just had a sense of energy a sense of possibility of mission of wanting to have to do good work and have impact and
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I love I just loved every minute of it I didn't follow a very traditional route which is probably why I only stayed nine years because I got to the point where
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I really had to decide if
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I was going to continue on a finance career path and I'd been recommended
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I'd done different things
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I did a year in marketing,
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doing a couple of different projects.
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One of them was looking at the potential of the black hair care opportunity.
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And I did a little spell in
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ADD, advertising development design,
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which I absolutely loved.
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I think that was probably one of the toughest areas in the business to get into.
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But if I could live my life again,
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I think that would be the sort of role I'd absolutely love to do.
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But being mentored by Chris de la Puente at the time,
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who was the general manager that I was reporting into,
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he gave some very wise advice,
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which was,
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look,
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there's hundreds of people in marketing that are incredibly talented.
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And yes,
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you might make it,
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but your USP is this finance person that can reach into the other areas of the business with some credibility and build relationships and build an understanding and connection of the whole system.
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and do that from a finance grounding rather than joining into another function.
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So it felt that I'd had this really wonderful nine years where I did lots of different projects,
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particularly in the M&A space.
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So I was involved with the acquisition of Clairol and Wella and Gillette,
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big,
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big companies into
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P&G and particularly into beauty and hair care.
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And had different aspects within them as well.
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I did divestiture of certain brands that were non-strategic that came with Wella.
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I did quite a lot of the sort of the human side of the integration on Gillette,
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as well as the trade terms.
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So there's kind of quite interesting roles.
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And that highlighted to me the whole area of investor relations.
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So a good friend of mine,
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Alison Kirkby,
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who I'm sure lots of people will know,
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Chief Executive BT now.
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she had
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moved into investor relations and
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I'd through speaking to her realized that I think if there was any sweet spot in a company that would be perfect for me it would be investor relations because it's marketing it's marketing the company it's talking which I love to do storytelling around the fortunes of the company but
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from a grounding of finance and understanding the real kind of way in which the company creates value for shareholders so that
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that was where I realized my absolute sweet spot was from a sort of career traditional career path point of view and so
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I kind of just put it out out there I guess that that's what I was looking for and
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SAB Miller beer company brewing company was at that time sadly no longer in existence it's been subsumed into a larger organization now but back then they were recruiting
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Procter & Gamble people because they saw the opportunity.
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of brand management in the beer category and I moved into the IR team there so that was a little whistle stop tour around P&G and how I eventually got to Investor Relations.
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Yeah so obviously for many of us who were at P&G one of the big things that we learned there was about ourselves about our personal leadership and so on what do you feel you learned during that time?
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Yeah personal leadership.
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Massive.
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I think we all recognise that
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P&G recruits for personal leadership,
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but it's not something we necessarily appreciate whilst we're in the goldfish bowl.
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When we're outside of it,
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we recognise that that is not the norm.
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It's not normal for people to have such a strong sense of their own sense of personal leadership,
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personal mission,
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the drive to get things done,
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the drive to have an impact.
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That's absolutely key.
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The second personally was that idea of
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storytelling and about leadership being about telling stories of possibility and I you know I'd done English literature at university but very early in my career at P&G I'd read an article in the Financial Times about the finance function being the key storytellers in an organisation which I felt was quite controversial in
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P&G given the importance of marketing and brands to P&G in terms of storytelling but I created a little course for the function and called finance as storytellers.
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And that helped create that red thread through my experience that made sense to me anyway,
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of why someone who'd loved stories and English and fell in love with the psychoanalytic theory of the books of Toni Morrison or whatever could then become an accountant.
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And then the third one was really around values and purpose.
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And I'm not sure if people know this,
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but I was listening to a podcast with Carol Sanford,
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who's now passed,
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unfortunately,
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many years ago.
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And she was a consultant with P&G in the
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60s and 70s,
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when P&G was really at the forefront of the thought,
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the concept that companies have a purpose,
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a corporate entity has a purpose.
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And
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I was moving into organisations that were really just in the 90s,
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2000s,
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2010,
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who were kind of thinking about this for the first time.
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And we'd all been in that and we'd not been,
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we weren't indoctrinated by it.
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It was just part of our experience there.
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So that sense of being part of something that was meaningful and impactful and changing the lives of the world's consumers was something that really lived with me and lives with me today in the work that I'm doing.
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Yeah,
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certainly for me,
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I know that
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I worked in Consumer Insights and the fact that our purpose was about improving people's lives and that there was a belief in the company that if we did the right thing by the consumer,
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then the consumer would reward us
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with buying our products. That was a big driver for me from a values point of view and wanting to really improve things for people yeah so that resonates strongly with me. So what about what you learned about your weaknesses while you were there or during this period of your career?
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Oh gosh so many so so much to learn. Impatience massive massive one I think there is a slight downside to the experience
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many can have at P&G in the sense of assignments and moving every sort of two or three years,
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right,
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or even less.
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And I think that then created this hunger and drive to,
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okay,
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done it now,
255
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18 months,
256
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two years,
257
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what's next?
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When in the sort of next decade of my career,
259
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some people have accused me of being on to the next shiny thing.
260
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I don't personally think that's true.
261
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I think I'm continuously trying to just join the dots and deepen my...
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experience across systems however the accusation is is probably got some truth in it in terms of that kind of next new thing I think there was a part of me that felt a deep deep sort of in a sort of heavy shouldered kind of way responsibility to know and to have the answers which I don't think has to be the case in P&G but it certainly it
263
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activated a part of me that was more perfectionist and more
264
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as I say,
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kind of taken that weight of responsibility of the world on my shoulders,
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which I've since learned that really what clearly what works is working in teams and leveraging the strengths of others,
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et cetera.
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And that's taken me some time to learn.
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And I think it didn't necessarily bring out the best of me in terms of maybe a slight sense of arrogance or knowing it all at parts of my career,
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which I'm not particularly proud of.
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So that would be the ones I think that would spring to mind.
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I want to come back to the impatience.
273
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Is there ever a time where you feel like your impatience has tripped you up?
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Because again,
275
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by the way,
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impatience is kind of the flip side of drive.
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You know,
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sometimes we want to move things forward,
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but if it's pushed too far,
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it can sometimes trip us up,
281
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can't it?
282
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Oh,
283
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yes,
284
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absolutely.
285
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The first move I made from P&G into SCB Miller,
286
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I should have stayed.
287
00:14:21.177 --> 00:14:24.279
I was headhunted to move into a company.
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In my defense,
289
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it was in Scotland,
290
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so it represented an opportunity to move home,
291
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which is quite rare.
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It was a company just promoted into the FTSE 100.
293
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So again,
294
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quite a rare opportunity to be able to head up an investor relations and external comms team in Scotland.
295
00:14:42.680 --> 00:14:43.140
However,
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I'd been in SAB at that point for three years.
297
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I definitely didn't.
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know everything.
299
00:14:50.651 --> 00:14:52.292
I could have spent at least another year,
300
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a couple of years in the IR team and really deepening my expertise.
301
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It was an award-winning team.
302
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It was very,
303
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very well resourced.
304
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I think there was about five or six of us in the team.
305
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And going from that well-resourced sort of footsie,
306
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I think it was a top 10 company.
307
00:15:07.463 --> 00:15:13.788
into a newly promoted into the FTSE 100 with very little in way of resource and a very small team.
308
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I think
309
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I hadn't,
310
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I didn't have enough of a grounding in investor relations at that point to be able to create an entire function around myself.
311
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I was still learning and that proved to be like a very difficult move for me,
312
00:15:30.981 --> 00:15:32.703
which was purely driven,
313
00:15:33.591 --> 00:15:51.965
purely, okay it was in scotland etc so there was a lot of attractiveness about it, but it was an ego-driven move and it was this impatient desire to move up the hierarchy move you know to a more status better job title more money kind of role so that's my big if
314
00:15:51.966 --> 00:16:02.714
i was looking at a cv from a cv point of view big regret I don't regret it terribly because we all have experiences that form us etc and that was definitely one of them but that would be the
315
00:16:03.263 --> 00:16:07.523
That would be the place where I'd go back to myself at age 37 or
316
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40, wherever I was,
317
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and just say,
318
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calm down.
319
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It'll come,
320
00:16:12.204 --> 00:16:12.783
it'll happen.
321
00:16:13.143 --> 00:16:14.023
Just do good work.
322
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Yeah.
323
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You know,
324
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it's a point in our lives,
325
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isn't it,
326
00:16:18.724 --> 00:16:20.163
when we're sort of getting towards 40,
327
00:16:20.243 --> 00:16:23.483
where there's a lot going on and we learn a lot.
328
00:16:23.743 --> 00:16:28.123
And often people experience some questioning in their careers.
329
00:16:28.443 --> 00:16:29.963
How was that period for you?
330
00:16:31.543 --> 00:16:31.863
Dark.
331
00:16:34.032 --> 00:16:43.800
yeah it was it was tough it was really tough my my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer and that was that was difficult we'd moved to
332
00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:59.572
I'm from Scotland live in Edinburgh now my parents had moved from Edinburgh to the south to London to be closer to us when we had children then I'd moved back to Scotland but you know after about three or four years of them been down there and there was a whole there was a whole
333
00:16:59.687 --> 00:17:15.039
bunch of things that came to the surface at that time as as it does when when one is looking at losing a parent particularly you know she was 60 so it wasn't she wasn't particularly old, very vibrant yoga swimmer you know kind of this vibrant individual who'd
334
00:17:15.059 --> 00:17:27.769
had a lot of mental health issues through her life as well which I hadn't spoken about to anyone other than in a highly cognitive way as a sort of you know yeah nothing nothing much below the surface so it was real
335
00:17:28.447 --> 00:17:31.049
I guess it was a sense of a sort of reckoning,
336
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like,
337
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OK,
338
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so what are you going to do with your life now?
339
00:17:33.451 --> 00:17:38.375
Like you were this individual who wanted to be a chief executive of a charity or whatever.
340
00:17:38.376 --> 00:17:39.055
And what the heck,
341
00:17:39.075 --> 00:17:39.316
you know,
342
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you've ended up in the,
343
00:17:41.037 --> 00:17:41.277
you know,
344
00:17:41.317 --> 00:17:41.978
in beer.
345
00:17:42.098 --> 00:17:43.619
And then in the Weir group,
346
00:17:43.639 --> 00:17:46.581
I was in oil fracking and minerals and stuff,
347
00:17:46.582 --> 00:17:46.801
you know,
348
00:17:46.802 --> 00:17:47.962
it's kind of sort of like,
349
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what the heck?
350
00:17:48.983 --> 00:17:51.905
It was definitely went on for more than a few years.
351
00:17:51.906 --> 00:17:52.066
I mean,
352
00:17:52.226 --> 00:17:56.169
I know this is very normal for most people to have this period in their career.
353
00:17:56.631 --> 00:17:58.212
The challenge is when you're in it,
354
00:17:58.232 --> 00:18:00.194
you don't know when you're going to get out the other side.
355
00:18:02.215 --> 00:18:05.038
What was your process and what did you learn through that?
356
00:18:06.599 --> 00:18:07.860
I wrote a lot.
357
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:13.324
I think that was definitely me going back to the love that I had.
358
00:18:13.325 --> 00:18:13.524
I mean,
359
00:18:13.985 --> 00:18:15.125
I'm from an age where
360
00:18:15.706 --> 00:18:18.328
I still wrote all my university essays out longhand.
361
00:18:18.788 --> 00:18:20.390
I didn't even write them on a word processor.
362
00:18:20.430 --> 00:18:21.651
So I did a lot of writing.
363
00:18:22.411 --> 00:18:22.731
And
364
00:18:23.772 --> 00:18:25.474
I was always told that you can't self...
365
00:18:25.963 --> 00:18:28.385
therapize so give yourself therapy but
366
00:18:29.426 --> 00:18:47.800
I felt through writing that I did that and I think I was just continually going down a layer and down a layer and down there to the point that got slightly ridiculous I wouldn't necessarily recommend that but it was very good for me it was very typical of me to get very thorough and very deep and very intense
367
00:18:48.180 --> 00:18:49.902
and treated it like a PhD
368
00:18:50.242 --> 00:18:54.345
I treated myself like a PhD I've got four or five notebooks of that and it's
369
00:18:54.731 --> 00:18:57.593
there's quite remarkable material in there.
370
00:18:59.635 --> 00:19:06.220
It was like writing myself into being and I just felt utterly burnt out.
371
00:19:07.241 --> 00:19:08.742
So that led me actually,
372
00:19:09.262 --> 00:19:11.824
I took a call from an ex-P&G friend,
373
00:19:12.285 --> 00:19:13.025
Ben Fletcher,
374
00:19:13.105 --> 00:19:16.528
who was the finance director at Boots and bless him,
375
00:19:16.529 --> 00:19:22.112
he popped up to Edinburgh on a store visit and we just spent
376
00:19:22.243 --> 00:19:38.796
a few hours chatting actually like about all of these experiences I'd had and he persuaded me and I was easily persuaded that joining Boots would be would be really good in a sort of this it was the start of this hybrid role so I was finance director for the UK stores
377
00:19:39.116 --> 00:19:51.826
but I was also head of learning and development for the finance function and we together we sort of envisaged this creating this finance function that would be very similar to a P&G style finance function that worked in this sort of triumvirate.
378
00:19:51.983 --> 00:20:08.936
with marketing and sales to sort of commercially lead the business and develop the leadership capacity of the finance function so that that was very good it didn't last very long because ben was moved internally or made a move internally and then his replacement didn't see
379
00:20:09.466 --> 00:20:09.926
the mission,
380
00:20:09.966 --> 00:20:11.868
the vision that we were trying to create.
381
00:20:12.248 --> 00:20:16.351
But it allowed me to do some work that then led me to my next move,
382
00:20:16.792 --> 00:20:18.693
which was for six years,
383
00:20:19.474 --> 00:20:24.998
I had a business with a wonderful individual who's one of the sort of my real kind of mentors in my life,
384
00:20:25.038 --> 00:20:25.779
Michael Cahill,
385
00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:28.421
who'd been at UBS,
386
00:20:28.981 --> 00:20:30.102
been in investment banking,
387
00:20:30.122 --> 00:20:31.363
had been a financial analyst.
388
00:20:31.364 --> 00:20:34.225
So I knew him from the days of being in investor relations.
389
00:20:34.226 --> 00:20:37.388
He trained me in the city and company valuation.
390
00:20:38.068 --> 00:20:38.809
and we
391
00:20:39.470 --> 00:20:40.930
created a company together,
392
00:20:41.570 --> 00:20:42.650
which was really,
393
00:20:43.030 --> 00:20:45.310
it was in retrospect,
394
00:20:45.330 --> 00:20:48.170
it was really around trying to create a movement within,
395
00:20:49.170 --> 00:20:50.950
particularly within the finance function,
396
00:20:51.070 --> 00:20:53.090
but we ended up working with all functions,
397
00:20:53.150 --> 00:20:53.670
marketing,
398
00:20:53.830 --> 00:20:54.310
sales,
399
00:20:54.530 --> 00:20:54.690
IT,
400
00:20:55.590 --> 00:20:56.230
CEOs,
401
00:20:56.690 --> 00:21:07.150
around consciously leading for value creation and joining the dots from what you do inside the company and how that's reflected in the share price.
402
00:21:07.650 --> 00:21:08.090
And that was
403
00:21:08.378 --> 00:21:26.152
that was amazing work absolutely fantastic work not that many people even at a very senior level really appreciate and are able to join the dots the share price is doing this but this is actually what's driving it it's not driving it the activity that we're doing today is not necessarily driver it's decisions that we made two
404
00:21:26.232 --> 00:21:36.820
three years ago and financial leadership is almost always at at the nucleus of why the share price is what it is it's either not enough of it stopping
405
00:21:37.598 --> 00:21:53.891
big contracts being signed etc with one company that that should never have been signed or or or too too little of it so yeah that was fantastic work really really really interesting.
So I want to pause there because you talked a lot, there was a lot going on and it sounds like there was this part where you know writing for you was a way of making sense of the story.
406
00:22:04.138 --> 00:22:08.922
Ben came along and helped you kind of reconnect with putting together, it was the beginning of putting together this finance with the bigger picture and also people.
407
00:22:16.408 --> 00:22:23.553
So there was a kind of a turn somewhere in finding or putting words back to the meaning for you.
408
00:22:24.054 --> 00:22:24.334
Yes.
409
00:22:24.794 --> 00:22:25.214
Yeah.
410
00:22:25.395 --> 00:22:26.375
Yeah.
411
00:22:26.395 --> 00:22:30.318
How did that then eventually get you to where you are now?
412
00:22:30.399 --> 00:22:32.280
Because now you're in this role,
413
00:22:32.380 --> 00:22:32.700
which is.
414
00:22:33.154 --> 00:22:33.975
if I understand correctly,
415
00:22:33.976 --> 00:22:39.139
a bit of a sweet spot there between the people part and the finance part,
416
00:22:39.639 --> 00:22:40.820
the big picture finance,
417
00:22:40.860 --> 00:22:42.161
commercial part,
418
00:22:42.181 --> 00:22:43.102
the big picture.
419
00:22:43.562 --> 00:22:43.762
Yeah.
420
00:22:44.303 --> 00:22:46.184
So one of the things I learned from Michael,
421
00:22:46.705 --> 00:22:49.347
and I think this is so important for all small businesses,
422
00:22:49.507 --> 00:22:57.353
is we had a number of sort of concepts and ideas that were really at the heart of what we were delivering,
423
00:22:57.413 --> 00:22:59.635
what we wanted to deliver for our clients.
424
00:23:00.195 --> 00:23:00.495
And we,
425
00:23:01.116 --> 00:23:02.497
rather than just kind of
426
00:23:02.670 --> 00:23:09.515
talk about these ideas yeah you know like the neurological levels of change if you know that model from Robert Dilts um in NLP or
427
00:23:09.956 --> 00:23:30.772
Nancy Klein's time to think work in terms of listening or more prosaically around value creation and his his work around what he calls evaluation villa and how value is created in organizations. We had these ideas but rather than just talk about them we learned together so we did courses together, we did week-long programs with people, we did stuff values,
428
00:23:30.773 --> 00:23:32.033
we did lots and lots of things to learn together so we were really aligned and coming from the same sort of root and heritage if you like, to really ensure we were on the same page around these various concepts we did a lot of learning together so that experience of learning together with my business partner to
429
00:23:49.231 --> 00:24:00.200
what's on the surface of it looked like training for CFOs to understand value creation really went quite deep, which is sort of a theme, that was what kind of created ah there's a
430
00:24:00.818 --> 00:24:17.631
in the world of these companies that are doing something very very different you know no managers entrepreneurial business units self-management and I got into that tribe if you like there's a woman called Lisa Gill who was quite new into that world at the time as well I got speaking to her, she has
431
00:24:17.651 --> 00:24:28.380
a podcast and shout out to Lisa on her podcast leadermorphosis, and that that connection led me to Frederick Laloux and his book reinventing organizations
432
00:24:28.740 --> 00:24:29.801
I supported the
433
00:24:30.682 --> 00:24:33.264
translation of his book into the illustrated version.
434
00:24:33.845 --> 00:24:37.728
And then when Konsileo were looking for a new board member,
435
00:24:38.308 --> 00:24:39.149
a non-exec,
436
00:24:39.969 --> 00:24:42.371
Lisa recommended me to Konsileo.
437
00:24:42.511 --> 00:24:44.593
And when the founder,
438
00:24:44.773 --> 00:24:46.334
CEO came knocking,
439
00:24:46.414 --> 00:24:46.695
John,
440
00:24:47.615 --> 00:24:48.736
I was kind of,
441
00:24:49.557 --> 00:24:49.817
you know,
442
00:24:49.957 --> 00:24:50.518
insurance,
443
00:24:50.538 --> 00:24:51.018
what the heck?
444
00:24:51.158 --> 00:24:51.398
You know,
445
00:24:51.458 --> 00:24:52.639
that's just not,
446
00:24:53.220 --> 00:24:54.881
I know nothing about commercial insurance,
447
00:24:54.901 --> 00:24:55.261
broking,
448
00:24:55.722 --> 00:24:56.642
financial services,
449
00:24:56.662 --> 00:24:59.184
not a sector that I'd ever really saw myself in.
450
00:24:59.185 --> 00:25:00.045
I was in retail.
451
00:25:00.274 --> 00:25:00.876
At the time,
452
00:25:01.236 --> 00:25:03.181
I'd gone from books into the very group.
453
00:25:03.562 --> 00:25:04.805
Retail felt a sweet spot,
454
00:25:04.825 --> 00:25:06.409
or at least retail consumer goods.
455
00:25:06.986 --> 00:25:22.926
beauty care that kind of space and I just didn't see the connection but then when I got to understand what concilio was trying to achieve more around self-management that's when it all clicked and that's when I guess going back to the personal leadership that we learned at P&G and
456
00:25:22.946 --> 00:25:27.906
that sense of mission and drive and purpose that all came together really in concilio.
457
00:25:29.846 --> 00:25:35.206
So now you're there, how does that excite you for the future, this concept? Well,
458
00:25:35.750 --> 00:25:36.110
first of all,
459
00:25:36.130 --> 00:25:40.154
maybe explain a little bit practically how it works on a day-to-day basis.
460
00:25:40.614 --> 00:25:41.675
And how does that excite you,
461
00:25:41.676 --> 00:25:44.057
the potential of it for other organisations excite you?
462
00:25:45.458 --> 00:25:46.018
Yeah, so it works.
463
00:25:46.058 --> 00:25:48.520
We're a relatively small organisation,
464
00:25:48.580 --> 00:25:50.722
about 190 people now,
465
00:25:51.062 --> 00:25:52.143
growing very rapidly.
466
00:25:52.583 --> 00:25:57.087
And our employee workforce is predominantly insurance brokers.
467
00:25:57.687 --> 00:25:59.789
And in a typical insurance broking firm,
468
00:25:59.829 --> 00:26:00.269
you'd have many,
469
00:26:00.329 --> 00:26:01.470
many layers of management.
470
00:26:01.550 --> 00:26:03.572
You'd have a regional manager.
471
00:26:04.170 --> 00:26:07.753
responsible for a region you'd have little offices across you know
472
00:26:08.113 --> 00:26:15.779
Yorkshire whatever and people would be kind of set targets sales targets essentially from on high down there'd be
473
00:26:16.620 --> 00:26:33.733
Monday morning meetings where people would have to account for their their activity and time and how they were progressing versus their sales targets and what John who had been at Allianz for a big chunk of his career recognised is that there was a way in which to get back.
474
00:26:34.070 --> 00:26:37.393
to the real craft of insurance broking,
475
00:26:37.493 --> 00:26:52.605
this kind of relationship between an insurance broker and their client and the community and the advisory and real kind of human-to-human connection that was being lost as lots of insurance brokers were being moved into call centres because the premium,
476
00:26:53.185 --> 00:26:58.569
the income was deemed too low to merit that human-to-human relationship.
477
00:26:59.150 --> 00:27:02.372
So what we have is insurance brokers who have...
478
00:27:02.830 --> 00:27:03.290
No boss,
479
00:27:03.491 --> 00:27:07.093
they have the freedom to essentially run their own little businesses.
480
00:27:07.113 --> 00:27:08.655
They're fully employees,
481
00:27:08.675 --> 00:27:12.277
but they have the freedom to essentially run their businesses how they want.
482
00:27:12.618 --> 00:27:16.421
But we support that very much with both from a human perspective.
483
00:27:16.441 --> 00:27:16.821
So we have
484
00:27:17.281 --> 00:27:22.766
40 coaches in our business who are peers and a very well structured coaching framework.
485
00:27:23.226 --> 00:27:24.687
And then we also have technology,
486
00:27:24.747 --> 00:27:28.770
which I think is the most exciting thing that we have in our organisation,
487
00:27:28.810 --> 00:27:30.812
which I think we could transplant.
488
00:27:31.070 --> 00:27:53.267
any organization on the planet technology underpins everything including the human relationships so we have a a broken platform which all of the stuff that people have to do to create policies on the platform of course we have that and it's our own bespoke platform but that platform is also the home of all of our coaching relationships
489
00:27:53.568 --> 00:27:59.432
the the way in which we support any kind of human to human interaction.
490
00:28:00.174 --> 00:28:00.955
For example,
491
00:28:01.075 --> 00:28:06.279
we have about 60 plus thousand relationships across the organisation where people are,
492
00:28:06.679 --> 00:28:06.799
oh,
493
00:28:06.800 --> 00:28:07.880
I've got this client in,
494
00:28:08.561 --> 00:28:08.801
you know,
495
00:28:08.881 --> 00:28:09.641
Aberdeenshire.
496
00:28:10.002 --> 00:28:10.182
But
497
00:28:10.562 --> 00:28:11.363
I live in Aberdeen,
498
00:28:11.383 --> 00:28:14.505
but I've not got the knowledge of the particular industry,
499
00:28:14.585 --> 00:28:16.287
maybe fisheries industry or something.
500
00:28:16.327 --> 00:28:16.907
Someone down in
501
00:28:17.468 --> 00:28:18.869
Kent has got that experience,
502
00:28:18.909 --> 00:28:19.149
right?
503
00:28:19.289 --> 00:28:21.070
Let's come together and serve that client.
504
00:28:21.130 --> 00:28:21.371
Again,
505
00:28:21.391 --> 00:28:23.512
it sounds kind of not that exciting,
506
00:28:23.552 --> 00:28:25.093
but the industry doesn't work in that way.
507
00:28:25.314 --> 00:28:26.415
Each office is separate.
508
00:28:26.416 --> 00:28:27.335
You've got your targets.
509
00:28:27.355 --> 00:28:29.177
You would never reach out to someone else.
510
00:28:29.594 --> 00:28:46.928
in order to help to help you deliver your targets so we've got this thing called the collaboration center which facilitates all of these 60 000 plus relationships the entire system works to enable the contract between people so like oh i've got you know i've got this client if you can help me on x then
511
00:28:47.288 --> 00:28:57.256
you know I'll give you 20 of the income or 30 or 40 and people will have multiple relationships like that across the company and that is then supported by
512
00:28:57.682 --> 00:28:58.162
P&L,
513
00:28:58.242 --> 00:29:02.686
which is live on the system that they can see so they can understand exactly how they're doing.
514
00:29:03.066 --> 00:29:07.250
And then there's a real sort of appreciation of fairness and the value exchange.
515
00:29:07.530 --> 00:29:09.711
So people who work in our organisation get
516
00:29:10.272 --> 00:29:13.815
49% of all of the income that they write after a certain,
517
00:29:13.816 --> 00:29:14.015
you know,
518
00:29:14.016 --> 00:29:15.776
the certain criteria that need to be met clearly.
519
00:29:16.497 --> 00:29:24.543
So it's a very well thought through framework structure system in response to an industry that is.
520
00:29:24.906 --> 00:29:46.146
it's kind of killing the human part of the experience or the the sort of the dignity and the professional people move into insurance many people fall into like us accountants but when they're in it they realize that the the value that they're providing in their communities and the way in which they're supporting the small business
521
00:29:46.886 --> 00:29:48.586
economy which is 99%
522
00:29:48.587 --> 00:29:53.446
of the UK's economy is really meaningful yeah and that's been kind of wiped out
523
00:29:53.594 --> 00:29:54.603
in the rest of the industry.
524
00:29:54.986 --> 00:29:55.490
Yeah.
525
00:29:55.491 --> 00:29:55.914
Well.
526
00:29:56.798 --> 00:29:59.320
And it's exciting in a way because,
527
00:29:59.580 --> 00:29:59.700
well,
528
00:29:59.820 --> 00:30:04.504
you sound excited to have to be able to tackle these challenges.
529
00:30:04.544 --> 00:30:05.545
That's part of who you are,
530
00:30:05.565 --> 00:30:05.965
isn't it?
531
00:30:06.786 --> 00:30:12.410
To tackle these things from a big picture perspective and how you can join the dots,
532
00:30:12.550 --> 00:30:13.711
as you said a few times.
533
00:30:14.352 --> 00:30:14.512
Yeah,
534
00:30:14.872 --> 00:30:15.873
I think it's joining the dots.
535
00:30:15.874 --> 00:30:20.316
And it's also the biggest joy I have is when,
536
00:30:21.317 --> 00:30:21.557
you know,
537
00:30:21.738 --> 00:30:25.881
one of our brokers just before Christmas got his first third level of.
538
00:30:26.138 --> 00:30:30.842
bonus which is can be quite chunky for some of our brokers because they get 49%
539
00:30:30.922 --> 00:30:33.944
of everything they write and it was the first time he'd achieved that and it was
540
00:30:34.284 --> 00:30:44.272
£2,000 and he phoned me up and he just tears in his eyes my family are going to have a better Christmas and it's like, oh love it, this is this is what we're doing so
541
00:30:44.633 --> 00:30:54.180
I think I started off my career thinking that you could only have that impact if you worked in the charity sector but you can have that impact anywhere and helping
542
00:30:55.106 --> 00:31:12.079
our brokers to connect into something that they're really good at doing it in a way that is really protecting and advising their clients well and and we believe of course better than our competitors and serving their communities and being
543
00:31:12.119 --> 00:31:21.707
rewarded fairly for that that feels like really good work to me yeah it's it's interesting because as you're talking I'm thinking about why I do what I do
544
00:31:22.858 --> 00:31:24.980
And I tend to say that
545
00:31:25.560 --> 00:31:27.742
I love to unleash people's potential.
546
00:31:28.382 --> 00:31:33.687
I believe it's by everybody's potential being released that together we'll solve the world's biggest problems.
547
00:31:33.867 --> 00:31:34.127
Yes.
548
00:31:34.587 --> 00:31:35.588
And I think when you,
549
00:31:36.649 --> 00:31:38.891
when I heard you talk about an individual broker,
550
00:31:39.031 --> 00:31:41.553
when you see the impact you're having on individuals,
551
00:31:41.833 --> 00:31:42.373
is when it,
552
00:31:42.854 --> 00:31:47.037
when each person is released into what they can do and how we can do it in a way that,
553
00:31:47.557 --> 00:31:48.418
that is good work,
554
00:31:48.478 --> 00:31:48.999
like you say,
555
00:31:49.079 --> 00:31:49.599
that is.
556
00:31:49.950 --> 00:31:53.213
working towards human thriving and thriving of the planet and so on.
557
00:31:53.293 --> 00:31:56.695
I think it's just wonderful to see it.
558
00:31:57.316 --> 00:31:57.976
Before we close,
559
00:31:57.977 --> 00:32:01.159
I want to come back to that because I'm talking about human potential now.
560
00:32:01.439 --> 00:32:07.003
We haven't talked about your passion for individual leadership potential and the work you're doing with WYSE.
561
00:32:07.023 --> 00:32:08.565
Do you want to share a little bit about that?
562
00:32:09.305 --> 00:32:11.867
That has been one of the best things I've ever got involved in.
563
00:32:12.087 --> 00:32:12.328
Dr.
564
00:32:12.388 --> 00:32:13.248
Andrew McDowell,
565
00:32:13.689 --> 00:32:15.230
he's been part of WYSE,
566
00:32:15.250 --> 00:32:18.973
which is a UN affiliated charity for 30 plus
567
00:32:19.254 --> 00:32:34.346
years he i worked with him for a number of years he's the first person to bring self-management into the health care system so this sort of smooshing together of executive coaching in a clinical setting and helping clinicians to support
568
00:32:34.366 --> 00:32:47.876
their patients to be self-managing as opposed to that tell so very you know very closely aligned with personal that sense of personal leadership the charity he's been associated with wise supports young people
569
00:32:48.234 --> 00:32:53.898
age 18 to 35 in a very extended personal leadership programme of 12 days,
570
00:32:54.679 --> 00:32:57.001
four times a year in different locations around the world.
571
00:32:57.361 --> 00:33:03.146
And it's directed towards individuals who are already doing good work in their community.
572
00:33:03.606 --> 00:33:08.690
And it's activating even more that sense of personal leadership and mission,
573
00:33:08.950 --> 00:33:12.033
the sense of who I am and what I'm going to do in the world,
574
00:33:12.133 --> 00:33:14.855
how I'm going to express that intent and that mission.
575
00:33:15.302 --> 00:33:18.284
I wish I'd found it myself years ago and been in one of their programmes,
576
00:33:18.324 --> 00:33:20.646
but now I get to do it once a year,
577
00:33:21.107 --> 00:33:21.887
spend two weeks,
578
00:33:22.047 --> 00:33:23.949
a really tough gig in Italy,
579
00:33:24.249 --> 00:33:27.231
in a fantastic villa with a swimming pool and with
580
00:33:27.752 --> 00:33:32.515
40 fabulous young people with a staff team of about 15.
581
00:33:32.576 --> 00:33:36.359
It's a learning journey for me as much as for the participants.
582
00:33:36.959 --> 00:33:37.720
It's just fabulous.
583
00:33:37.721 --> 00:33:38.540
There's nothing like it.
584
00:33:38.900 --> 00:33:40.662
I don't believe in the world.
585
00:33:40.842 --> 00:33:42.864
And it really plays into...
586
00:33:43.354 --> 00:33:47.237
all of the threads I think that are important to me around that sort of sense of mission,
587
00:33:47.317 --> 00:33:48.098
personal leadership,
588
00:33:48.238 --> 00:33:49.019
activating it,
589
00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:50.280
imagination,
590
00:33:50.360 --> 00:33:55.303
being able to see it through other people's actions and things they're doing.
591
00:33:55.304 --> 00:33:55.664
I mean,
592
00:33:55.665 --> 00:33:59.247
I'm interested in all of the young people and what they achieve.
593
00:33:59.527 --> 00:34:01.428
So it's wonderful to be part of it.
594
00:34:02.289 --> 00:34:02.929
I don't know about you,
595
00:34:02.989 --> 00:34:04.711
but every time I'm involved in,
596
00:34:05.091 --> 00:34:05.932
I'm not involved in that,
597
00:34:06.012 --> 00:34:08.053
but in similar things with people,
598
00:34:08.714 --> 00:34:10.415
it gives me so much hope for the future.
599
00:34:10.575 --> 00:34:11.756
I know we live in a very
600
00:34:12.698 --> 00:34:19.063
I don't want to over-exaggerate because there have been other periods of history where people have lived very difficult things that we've not had to suffer.
601
00:34:19.163 --> 00:34:21.005
But when you look at the things going on in the world,
602
00:34:21.065 --> 00:34:22.346
it's easy to lose hope.
603
00:34:22.806 --> 00:34:25.548
But when you look at the potential in people,
604
00:34:25.608 --> 00:34:29.611
when you look at people who are passionate for doing good and making change,
605
00:34:29.612 --> 00:34:30.732
it gives me a lot of energy.
606
00:34:30.952 --> 00:34:31.353
Yeah,
607
00:34:31.354 --> 00:34:31.673
I agree.
608
00:34:32.113 --> 00:34:33.334
So just as we close,
609
00:34:33.715 --> 00:34:36.337
would you be able to just maybe summarise for us,
610
00:34:36.417 --> 00:34:41.701
what are the key leadership principles that have really guided you throughout your journey?
611
00:34:42.978 --> 00:34:43.119
Yeah,
612
00:34:43.219 --> 00:34:49.093
so the activation of personal leadership in that sense of the being and the doing,
613
00:34:49.173 --> 00:34:50.957
how do we put ourselves into what we do?
614
00:34:52.032 --> 00:34:55.995
How do we direct that towards whatever we call purpose?
615
00:34:56.095 --> 00:34:58.197
It doesn't have to be a stated purpose.
616
00:34:58.198 --> 00:34:59.418
It can be a sense of purpose,
617
00:34:59.419 --> 00:34:59.878
a feeling,
618
00:34:59.918 --> 00:35:03.381
just a feeling that we're connecting to doing work that matters.
619
00:35:03.901 --> 00:35:04.542
That's really,
620
00:35:04.602 --> 00:35:05.102
really key.
621
00:35:06.103 --> 00:35:06.864
Imagination.
622
00:35:07.764 --> 00:35:12.228
I think I started this by talking about I became an accountant because my dad was an accountant.
623
00:35:12.308 --> 00:35:14.129
I think if we can see it,
624
00:35:14.149 --> 00:35:14.850
we can be it.
625
00:35:15.230 --> 00:35:17.052
And I think if we can imagine it,
626
00:35:17.592 --> 00:35:18.693
we can become it.
627
00:35:18.773 --> 00:35:19.494
We can do it.
628
00:35:19.874 --> 00:35:20.654
I think writing.
629
00:35:21.236 --> 00:35:43.316
writing for me has been that way of kind of bringing things into existence and that's kind of having that sense of imagination another one would be tenacity that sense of being able to just keep keep going even through dark times even when you feel lost or you feel really disconnected to who you are and who you're trying to become but just just keep going kind of have that idea that you
630
00:35:43.317 --> 00:35:50.536
know the whole steve jobs slightly cliched quote around joining the dots you can't join them you know you can only join them looking backwards not
631
00:35:50.704 --> 00:36:14.803
forward but you can know that there's dots you can know that there will be dots that will join up eventually you just don't know exactly how they're going to join up which is great that's the wonder of life isn't it so yeah having that sort of sense of tenacity and then the um sense of conversations really mattering and having tough conversations there's a great quote i did a sort of one day thing with the poet david white which
632
00:36:14.804 --> 00:36:16.064
uh he said that
633
00:36:16.820 --> 00:36:20.923
the next epoch of your existence is always through the doorway of a conversation.
634
00:36:21.924 --> 00:36:24.046
And I kind of hold that sort of every day.
635
00:36:24.366 --> 00:36:24.566
You know,
636
00:36:24.567 --> 00:36:27.248
if there's a tough moment in the board or the exec team,
637
00:36:27.268 --> 00:36:31.812
and we always have that sense of someone's not saying something here.
638
00:36:32.312 --> 00:36:34.474
There's music and there's words and they're not quite matching.
639
00:36:34.794 --> 00:36:36.876
So that sense of being bold enough,
640
00:36:36.936 --> 00:36:37.596
being brave enough,
641
00:36:37.636 --> 00:36:40.599
courageous enough to have the conversation that matters and it's tough,
642
00:36:40.939 --> 00:36:42.000
whether that's with yourself.
643
00:36:42.280 --> 00:36:42.780
Exactly.
644
00:36:42.840 --> 00:36:43.441
Your spouse,
645
00:36:43.481 --> 00:36:44.041
your family,
646
00:36:44.221 --> 00:36:45.282
your businesses,
647
00:36:45.402 --> 00:36:45.543
etc. that would be the fourth one for me.
648
00:36:46.348 --> 00:37:02.040
Well it's been a wonderful conversation and thank you so much for sharing your journey the good bits and the tough bits because we all need to know that someone else has been there before us and we're not alone if
649
00:37:02.041 --> 00:37:10.967
you have one encouragement to give to someone who is going through a backstop period of your career in the middle this messy middle as I call it what would you say to them
650
00:37:11.448 --> 00:37:15.030
I would say buy yourself a nice pen and a lovely notebook
651
00:37:15.900 --> 00:37:17.561
and just start writing.
652
00:37:17.902 --> 00:37:19.483
Big believer in the write it down,
653
00:37:19.703 --> 00:37:21.284
make it happen mentality.
654
00:37:21.925 --> 00:37:25.127
I've gone as far as writing job descriptions for myself in the past,
655
00:37:25.147 --> 00:37:25.628
et cetera.
656
00:37:26.108 --> 00:37:28.050
And some of that has come into reality.
657
00:37:28.190 --> 00:37:29.130
So yeah,
658
00:37:29.231 --> 00:37:30.131
capture everything.
659
00:37:30.472 --> 00:37:34.214
And you'll be astounded when you look back at who you were,
660
00:37:34.315 --> 00:37:35.475
who you are becoming.
661
00:37:36.016 --> 00:37:36.576
It's all there.
662
00:37:36.937 --> 00:37:37.137
And
663
00:37:37.557 --> 00:37:44.763
I think that can be an incredible resource to support you through your leadership journey.
664
00:37:45.588 --> 00:37:45.708
Yeah,
665
00:37:45.709 --> 00:37:46.188
as you said,
666
00:37:46.208 --> 00:37:47.108
if you can imagine it,
667
00:37:47.109 --> 00:37:47.888
you can believe it.
668
00:37:47.889 --> 00:37:49.748
You can make it happen almost.
669
00:37:49.968 --> 00:37:50.728
Write it down.
670
00:37:51.188 --> 00:37:55.168
You're kind of making something come to life that you didn't think was possible.
671
00:37:55.708 --> 00:37:55.848
Yeah.
672
00:37:56.668 --> 00:37:57.728
So thank you so much.
673
00:37:57.768 --> 00:37:59.048
It's been a wonderful conversation.
674
00:37:59.608 --> 00:37:59.988
Thank you,
675
00:38:00.048 --> 00:38:00.228
Ruth.
676
00:38:00.268 --> 00:38:00.888
I've enjoyed it.
677
00:38:01.328 --> 00:38:02.448
Hopefully we'll be in touch.
678
00:38:02.508 --> 00:38:04.688
I've got some ideas of things I want to bounce off you already.
679
00:38:05.428 --> 00:38:06.188
Likewise.
680
00:38:07.148 --> 00:38:07.368
Thanks,
681
00:38:07.448 --> 00:38:07.588
Ruth.
682
00:38:08.428 --> 00:38:11.928
I hope you found Vicky's story as thought-provoking as I did.
683
00:38:13.048 --> 00:38:14.950
If there's one powerful takeaway for me,
684
00:38:15.470 --> 00:38:18.412
it's the idea that sometimes we don't find clarity,
685
00:38:18.993 --> 00:38:21.134
we write our way into it.
686
00:38:22.155 --> 00:38:24.017
So here's a simple invitation for you.
687
00:38:24.877 --> 00:38:29.981
Take Vicky's advice and write your future as though it already exists.
688
00:38:30.862 --> 00:38:33.324
That might be a job description for your dream role,
689
00:38:34.024 --> 00:38:35.806
an end of year celebration speech,
690
00:38:36.586 --> 00:38:39.889
or even the words you'd love someone to say about you when you move on.
691
00:38:40.850 --> 00:38:42.331
Let your imagination lead.
692
00:38:42.544 --> 00:38:43.905
and see what surfaces.
693
00:38:45.006 --> 00:38:46.167
And if you're feeling stuck,
694
00:38:47.288 --> 00:38:49.329
unsure what's next or how to move forward,
695
00:38:50.010 --> 00:38:52.452
remember you don't have to figure it out alone.
696
00:38:53.292 --> 00:38:55.274
And I'd certainly love to help if I can.
697
00:38:55.734 --> 00:39:01.259
You can get in touch or book a free discovery call at yourpathtosuccess.ch.
698
00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:03.240
Thanks for listening.
699
00:39:03.661 --> 00:39:04.841
And until next time,
700
00:39:05.202 --> 00:39:09.185
keep walking your own personal path to success.
1
00:00:04.384 --> 00:00:06.564
Welcome to Your Path to Success with me,
2
00:00:07.064 --> 00:00:08.144
Ruth Kearns-Volman.
3
00:00:09.144 --> 00:00:11.344
It's a podcast designed to inspire,
4
00:00:11.564 --> 00:00:12.184
encourage,
5
00:00:12.304 --> 00:00:14.964
and equip you on your personal leadership journey.
6
00:00:16.224 --> 00:00:17.964
Today's guest is Vicky Ferrier,
7
00:00:18.584 --> 00:00:21.324
Chief People and Commercial Officer at Konsileo,
8
00:00:21.984 --> 00:00:25.764
a commercial insurance broker with no managers.
9
00:00:26.564 --> 00:00:27.284
Sound unusual?
10
00:00:27.924 --> 00:00:28.424
It is,
11
00:00:28.604 --> 00:00:31.384
and that's part of what makes Vicky's story so compelling.
12
00:00:32.704 --> 00:00:33.364
In this role,
13
00:00:33.728 --> 00:00:37.328
She operates right at the intersection of people and performance,
14
00:00:37.788 --> 00:00:39.168
helping unleash individuals'
15
00:00:39.208 --> 00:00:43.248
leadership so that they can do good work that makes a real difference,
16
00:00:43.528 --> 00:00:45.548
both commercially and personally.
17
00:00:46.308 --> 00:00:47.008
But as you'll hear,
18
00:00:47.368 --> 00:00:49.188
that clarity came over time.
19
00:00:49.708 --> 00:00:52.108
This wasn't the career she imagined when she started out.
20
00:00:52.888 --> 00:00:53.888
In our conversation,
21
00:00:54.388 --> 00:00:56.808
Vicky shares what influenced her early choices,
22
00:00:57.628 --> 00:00:59.948
how she navigated the messy middle of her career,
23
00:01:00.568 --> 00:01:01.808
a season of questioning,
24
00:01:02.168 --> 00:01:02.968
re-evaluation.
25
00:01:03.176 --> 00:01:03.897
and rediscovery,
26
00:01:04.937 --> 00:01:07.800
and what she discovered about herself along the way.
27
00:01:08.921 --> 00:01:11.162
She speaks candidly about identity,
28
00:01:11.683 --> 00:01:12.343
alignment,
29
00:01:12.723 --> 00:01:15.326
and what it meant to write herself into being.
30
00:01:16.146 --> 00:01:17.307
It's a story of courage,
31
00:01:17.647 --> 00:01:18.248
reflection,
32
00:01:18.708 --> 00:01:19.669
and reinvention,
33
00:01:20.109 --> 00:01:21.731
and I'm delighted to share it with you.
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Let's dive in.
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So here we go.
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Well,
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welcome,
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Vicky.
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It's great to have you on the podcast.
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Thanks,
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Ruth.
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Happy to be here.
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Yeah,
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well,
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this is going to be a lot of fun because when we were working at P&G so many years ago,
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I knew you as Vicky from finance,
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someone who had a lot of personality,
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a lot of passion.
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And,
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you know,
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if I look at your job title today,
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you're chief commercial and people officer.
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How does that work?
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Finance and people?
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Yeah,
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well,
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very naturally,
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I believe.
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It's a combination
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of two things I think really are important from a value creation perspective,
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the human dimension and the commercial dimension.
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So when
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I was originally offered this role,
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which we created essentially in the organisation,
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it didn't exist.
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It felt very natural to bring those two parts together for me.
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But I guess that moving from being a chartered accountant in the public sector,
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where I started my career in my early
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20s.
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through Procter & Gamble,
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through investor relations,
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through a bit of HR to here.
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It makes sense to me,
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but it's not necessarily so obvious to,
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I'm sure many accountants in the world would not see the connection,
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but I absolutely do.
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Yeah.
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So let's unpack it a bit because that's what I love about this podcast.
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We get to talk about your journey and everybody's journey is different.
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How did you start off as an accountant?
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How did that come about?
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My dad was an accountant.
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So a complete lack of imagination on my part.
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I think that goes to one of my big leadership principles is about having imagination.
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But yeah,
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I think people become what they can see.
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And whilst I did English literature at university and very much so myself going down a path of marketing or journalism,
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something that would require some kind of storytelling element to it.
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I became a chartered accountant in the public sector.
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Again very much driven yes by my dad being an accountant but this sense of mission that I had to do good to do good work to support my community
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I saw a career path at that age being more around charity work you know something CEO one of the big charities that's where my head was then it was fortuitous that when I qualified there happened to be at that time I don't know if it still exists,
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but there was...
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a movement around people who had qualified and moving,
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you know,
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seeing that as a new,
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almost like a graduation point,
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kind of starting again.
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Yeah,
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you qualify as a chartered accountant,
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but let's take a step back.
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Did you really want to be an accountant?
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And there was a headhunter here in Scotland who gathered all these lost souls,
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lost accountants that had become accountants by default kind of thing.
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And there was a careers fair
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at the Glen Eagles Hotel,
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the Glen Eagles Hotel.
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And that's the only reason I,
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not the only reason,
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but a big attraction for me going was because it was at the Glen Eagles Hotel.
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I came from an incredibly working class background,
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never had the opportunity to go to Glen Eagles.
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So,
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and it was included in overnight stay,
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which was unbelievable.
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And there was people there like Goldman Sachs,
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a lot of the big insurance and financial services employers in Scotland and P&G.
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And the P&G people I met,
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I just connected to.
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straight away.
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Claire Sheridan being one of them,
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shout out to her,
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and really just really found,
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oh my tribe,
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these are my people and that was what took me to joining PNG.
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And what was it,
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do you think,
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that the connection?
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I loved the energy that they had.
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They were all from the finance function,
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but they seemed to me to have that greater connection to the business,
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to not just the commercial side of the business,
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but the human side,
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the brand side,
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the sales side.
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It just seemed to me like a real connecting function that they were playing.
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which I felt was missing in a lot of the experience I'd had.
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Yeah,
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it was a bit of a broader overview,
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more strategic in a way.
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Yeah,
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yeah,
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exactly.
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So tell me a bit about your time at P&G.
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How long were you there?
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Nine years.
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Loved it.
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Loved every minute of it.
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Another friend,
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Matthew Tipple,
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once said that his experience of moving from his sort of more working class background,
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going to Cambridge University was one of the most formative of his life,
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but Procter & Gamble was the most formative of mine.
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Again,
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it was finding...
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one's tribe those people that just had a sense of energy a sense of possibility of mission of wanting to have to do good work and have impact and
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I love I just loved every minute of it I didn't follow a very traditional route which is probably why I only stayed nine years because I got to the point where
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I really had to decide if
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I was going to continue on a finance career path and I'd been recommended
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I'd done different things
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I did a year in marketing,
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doing a couple of different projects.
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One of them was looking at the potential of the black hair care opportunity.
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And I did a little spell in
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ADD, advertising development design,
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which I absolutely loved.
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I think that was probably one of the toughest areas in the business to get into.
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But if I could live my life again,
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I think that would be the sort of role I'd absolutely love to do.
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But being mentored by Chris de la Puente at the time,
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who was the general manager that I was reporting into,
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he gave some very wise advice,
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which was,
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look,
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there's hundreds of people in marketing that are incredibly talented.
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And yes,
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you might make it,
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but your USP is this finance person that can reach into the other areas of the business with some credibility and build relationships and build an understanding and connection of the whole system.
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and do that from a finance grounding rather than joining into another function.
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So it felt that I'd had this really wonderful nine years where I did lots of different projects,
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particularly in the M&A space.
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So I was involved with the acquisition of Clairol and Wella and Gillette,
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big,
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big companies into
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P&G and particularly into beauty and hair care.
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And had different aspects within them as well.
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I did divestiture of certain brands that were non-strategic that came with Wella.
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I did quite a lot of the sort of the human side of the integration on Gillette,
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as well as the trade terms.
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So there's kind of quite interesting roles.
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And that highlighted to me the whole area of investor relations.
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So a good friend of mine,
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Alison Kirkby,
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who I'm sure lots of people will know,
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Chief Executive BT now.
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she had
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moved into investor relations and
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I'd through speaking to her realized that I think if there was any sweet spot in a company that would be perfect for me it would be investor relations because it's marketing it's marketing the company it's talking which I love to do storytelling around the fortunes of the company but
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from a grounding of finance and understanding the real kind of way in which the company creates value for shareholders so that
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that was where I realized my absolute sweet spot was from a sort of career traditional career path point of view and so
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I kind of just put it out out there I guess that that's what I was looking for and
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SAB Miller beer company brewing company was at that time sadly no longer in existence it's been subsumed into a larger organization now but back then they were recruiting
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Procter & Gamble people because they saw the opportunity.
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of brand management in the beer category and I moved into the IR team there so that was a little whistle stop tour around P&G and how I eventually got to Investor Relations.
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Yeah so obviously for many of us who were at P&G one of the big things that we learned there was about ourselves about our personal leadership and so on what do you feel you learned during that time?
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Yeah personal leadership.
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Massive.
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I think we all recognise that
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P&G recruits for personal leadership,
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but it's not something we necessarily appreciate whilst we're in the goldfish bowl.
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When we're outside of it,
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we recognise that that is not the norm.
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It's not normal for people to have such a strong sense of their own sense of personal leadership,
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personal mission,
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the drive to get things done,
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the drive to have an impact.
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That's absolutely key.
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The second personally was that idea of
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storytelling and about leadership being about telling stories of possibility and I you know I'd done English literature at university but very early in my career at P&G I'd read an article in the Financial Times about the finance function being the key storytellers in an organisation which I felt was quite controversial in
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P&G given the importance of marketing and brands to P&G in terms of storytelling but I created a little course for the function and called finance as storytellers.
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And that helped create that red thread through my experience that made sense to me anyway,
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of why someone who'd loved stories and English and fell in love with the psychoanalytic theory of the books of Toni Morrison or whatever could then become an accountant.
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And then the third one was really around values and purpose.
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And I'm not sure if people know this,
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but I was listening to a podcast with Carol Sanford,
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who's now passed,
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unfortunately,
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many years ago.
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And she was a consultant with P&G in the
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60s and 70s,
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when P&G was really at the forefront of the thought,
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the concept that companies have a purpose,
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a corporate entity has a purpose.
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And
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I was moving into organisations that were really just in the 90s,
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2000s,
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2010,
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who were kind of thinking about this for the first time.
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And we'd all been in that and we'd not been,
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we weren't indoctrinated by it.
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It was just part of our experience there.
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So that sense of being part of something that was meaningful and impactful and changing the lives of the world's consumers was something that really lived with me and lives with me today in the work that I'm doing.
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Yeah,
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certainly for me,
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I know that
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I worked in Consumer Insights and the fact that our purpose was about improving people's lives and that there was a belief in the company that if we did the right thing by the consumer,
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then the consumer would reward us
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with buying our products. That was a big driver for me from a values point of view and wanting to really improve things for people yeah so that resonates strongly with me. So what about what you learned about your weaknesses while you were there or during this period of your career?
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Oh gosh so many so so much to learn. Impatience massive massive one I think there is a slight downside to the experience
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many can have at P&G in the sense of assignments and moving every sort of two or three years,
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right,
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or even less.
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And I think that then created this hunger and drive to,
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okay,
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done it now,
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18 months,
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two years,
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what's next?
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When in the sort of next decade of my career,
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some people have accused me of being on to the next shiny thing.
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I don't personally think that's true.
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I think I'm continuously trying to just join the dots and deepen my...
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experience across systems however the accusation is is probably got some truth in it in terms of that kind of next new thing I think there was a part of me that felt a deep deep sort of in a sort of heavy shouldered kind of way responsibility to know and to have the answers which I don't think has to be the case in P&G but it certainly it
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activated a part of me that was more perfectionist and more
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as I say,
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kind of taken that weight of responsibility of the world on my shoulders,
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which I've since learned that really what clearly what works is working in teams and leveraging the strengths of others,
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et cetera.
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And that's taken me some time to learn.
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And I think it didn't necessarily bring out the best of me in terms of maybe a slight sense of arrogance or knowing it all at parts of my career,
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which I'm not particularly proud of.
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So that would be the ones I think that would spring to mind.
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I want to come back to the impatience.
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Is there ever a time where you feel like your impatience has tripped you up?
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Because again,
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by the way,
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impatience is kind of the flip side of drive.
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You know,
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sometimes we want to move things forward,
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but if it's pushed too far,
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it can sometimes trip us up,
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can't it?
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00:14:14.912 --> 00:14:15.032
Oh,
283
00:14:15.112 --> 00:14:15.333
yes,
284
00:14:15.433 --> 00:14:15.873
absolutely.
285
00:14:16.413 --> 00:14:19.556
The first move I made from P&G into SCB Miller,
286
00:14:20.176 --> 00:14:20.897
I should have stayed.
287
00:14:21.177 --> 00:14:24.279
I was headhunted to move into a company.
288
00:14:25.106 --> 00:14:25.727
In my defense,
289
00:14:25.728 --> 00:14:26.447
it was in Scotland,
290
00:14:26.487 --> 00:14:28.769
so it represented an opportunity to move home,
291
00:14:28.809 --> 00:14:29.670
which is quite rare.
292
00:14:30.110 --> 00:14:33.132
It was a company just promoted into the FTSE 100.
293
00:14:33.573 --> 00:14:33.953
So again,
294
00:14:34.013 --> 00:14:41.719
quite a rare opportunity to be able to head up an investor relations and external comms team in Scotland.
295
00:14:42.680 --> 00:14:43.140
However,
296
00:14:43.961 --> 00:14:47.564
I'd been in SAB at that point for three years.
297
00:14:48.484 --> 00:14:49.765
I definitely didn't.
298
00:14:50.010 --> 00:14:50.611
know everything.
299
00:14:50.651 --> 00:14:52.292
I could have spent at least another year,
300
00:14:52.352 --> 00:14:56.275
a couple of years in the IR team and really deepening my expertise.
301
00:14:56.295 --> 00:14:57.616
It was an award-winning team.
302
00:14:57.636 --> 00:14:58.317
It was very,
303
00:14:58.397 --> 00:14:59.497
very well resourced.
304
00:14:59.498 --> 00:15:01.379
I think there was about five or six of us in the team.
305
00:15:02.059 --> 00:15:05.222
And going from that well-resourced sort of footsie,
306
00:15:05.242 --> 00:15:06.623
I think it was a top 10 company.
307
00:15:07.463 --> 00:15:13.788
into a newly promoted into the FTSE 100 with very little in way of resource and a very small team.
308
00:15:14.449 --> 00:15:14.849
I think
309
00:15:15.710 --> 00:15:17.171
I hadn't,
310
00:15:17.191 --> 00:15:24.717
I didn't have enough of a grounding in investor relations at that point to be able to create an entire function around myself.
311
00:15:24.757 --> 00:15:30.741
I was still learning and that proved to be like a very difficult move for me,
312
00:15:30.981 --> 00:15:32.703
which was purely driven,
313
00:15:33.591 --> 00:15:51.965
purely, okay it was in scotland etc so there was a lot of attractiveness about it, but it was an ego-driven move and it was this impatient desire to move up the hierarchy move you know to a more status better job title more money kind of role so that's my big if
314
00:15:51.966 --> 00:16:02.714
i was looking at a cv from a cv point of view big regret I don't regret it terribly because we all have experiences that form us etc and that was definitely one of them but that would be the
315
00:16:03.263 --> 00:16:07.523
That would be the place where I'd go back to myself at age 37 or
316
00:16:07.863 --> 00:16:08.883
40, wherever I was,
317
00:16:08.923 --> 00:16:09.483
and just say,
318
00:16:10.403 --> 00:16:10.903
calm down.
319
00:16:11.663 --> 00:16:12.203
It'll come,
320
00:16:12.204 --> 00:16:12.783
it'll happen.
321
00:16:13.143 --> 00:16:14.023
Just do good work.
322
00:16:14.663 --> 00:16:14.863
Yeah.
323
00:16:16.043 --> 00:16:16.323
You know,
324
00:16:17.423 --> 00:16:18.523
it's a point in our lives,
325
00:16:18.524 --> 00:16:18.723
isn't it,
326
00:16:18.724 --> 00:16:20.163
when we're sort of getting towards 40,
327
00:16:20.243 --> 00:16:23.483
where there's a lot going on and we learn a lot.
328
00:16:23.743 --> 00:16:28.123
And often people experience some questioning in their careers.
329
00:16:28.443 --> 00:16:29.963
How was that period for you?
330
00:16:31.543 --> 00:16:31.863
Dark.
331
00:16:34.032 --> 00:16:43.800
yeah it was it was tough it was really tough my my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer and that was that was difficult we'd moved to
332
00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:59.572
I'm from Scotland live in Edinburgh now my parents had moved from Edinburgh to the south to London to be closer to us when we had children then I'd moved back to Scotland but you know after about three or four years of them been down there and there was a whole there was a whole
333
00:16:59.687 --> 00:17:15.039
bunch of things that came to the surface at that time as as it does when when one is looking at losing a parent particularly you know she was 60 so it wasn't she wasn't particularly old, very vibrant yoga swimmer you know kind of this vibrant individual who'd
334
00:17:15.059 --> 00:17:27.769
had a lot of mental health issues through her life as well which I hadn't spoken about to anyone other than in a highly cognitive way as a sort of you know yeah nothing nothing much below the surface so it was real
335
00:17:28.447 --> 00:17:31.049
I guess it was a sense of a sort of reckoning,
336
00:17:31.149 --> 00:17:31.409
like,
337
00:17:31.489 --> 00:17:31.610
OK,
338
00:17:31.810 --> 00:17:33.311
so what are you going to do with your life now?
339
00:17:33.451 --> 00:17:38.375
Like you were this individual who wanted to be a chief executive of a charity or whatever.
340
00:17:38.376 --> 00:17:39.055
And what the heck,
341
00:17:39.075 --> 00:17:39.316
you know,
342
00:17:39.336 --> 00:17:40.637
you've ended up in the,
343
00:17:41.037 --> 00:17:41.277
you know,
344
00:17:41.317 --> 00:17:41.978
in beer.
345
00:17:42.098 --> 00:17:43.619
And then in the Weir group,
346
00:17:43.639 --> 00:17:46.581
I was in oil fracking and minerals and stuff,
347
00:17:46.582 --> 00:17:46.801
you know,
348
00:17:46.802 --> 00:17:47.962
it's kind of sort of like,
349
00:17:48.062 --> 00:17:48.623
what the heck?
350
00:17:48.983 --> 00:17:51.905
It was definitely went on for more than a few years.
351
00:17:51.906 --> 00:17:52.066
I mean,
352
00:17:52.226 --> 00:17:56.169
I know this is very normal for most people to have this period in their career.
353
00:17:56.631 --> 00:17:58.212
The challenge is when you're in it,
354
00:17:58.232 --> 00:18:00.194
you don't know when you're going to get out the other side.
355
00:18:02.215 --> 00:18:05.038
What was your process and what did you learn through that?
356
00:18:06.599 --> 00:18:07.860
I wrote a lot.
357
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:13.324
I think that was definitely me going back to the love that I had.
358
00:18:13.325 --> 00:18:13.524
I mean,
359
00:18:13.985 --> 00:18:15.125
I'm from an age where
360
00:18:15.706 --> 00:18:18.328
I still wrote all my university essays out longhand.
361
00:18:18.788 --> 00:18:20.390
I didn't even write them on a word processor.
362
00:18:20.430 --> 00:18:21.651
So I did a lot of writing.
363
00:18:22.411 --> 00:18:22.731
And
364
00:18:23.772 --> 00:18:25.474
I was always told that you can't self...
365
00:18:25.963 --> 00:18:28.385
therapize so give yourself therapy but
366
00:18:29.426 --> 00:18:47.800
I felt through writing that I did that and I think I was just continually going down a layer and down a layer and down there to the point that got slightly ridiculous I wouldn't necessarily recommend that but it was very good for me it was very typical of me to get very thorough and very deep and very intense
367
00:18:48.180 --> 00:18:49.902
and treated it like a PhD
368
00:18:50.242 --> 00:18:54.345
I treated myself like a PhD I've got four or five notebooks of that and it's
369
00:18:54.731 --> 00:18:57.593
there's quite remarkable material in there.
370
00:18:59.635 --> 00:19:06.220
It was like writing myself into being and I just felt utterly burnt out.
371
00:19:07.241 --> 00:19:08.742
So that led me actually,
372
00:19:09.262 --> 00:19:11.824
I took a call from an ex-P&G friend,
373
00:19:12.285 --> 00:19:13.025
Ben Fletcher,
374
00:19:13.105 --> 00:19:16.528
who was the finance director at Boots and bless him,
375
00:19:16.529 --> 00:19:22.112
he popped up to Edinburgh on a store visit and we just spent
376
00:19:22.243 --> 00:19:38.796
a few hours chatting actually like about all of these experiences I'd had and he persuaded me and I was easily persuaded that joining Boots would be would be really good in a sort of this it was the start of this hybrid role so I was finance director for the UK stores
377
00:19:39.116 --> 00:19:51.826
but I was also head of learning and development for the finance function and we together we sort of envisaged this creating this finance function that would be very similar to a P&G style finance function that worked in this sort of triumvirate.
378
00:19:51.983 --> 00:20:08.936
with marketing and sales to sort of commercially lead the business and develop the leadership capacity of the finance function so that that was very good it didn't last very long because ben was moved internally or made a move internally and then his replacement didn't see
379
00:20:09.466 --> 00:20:09.926
the mission,
380
00:20:09.966 --> 00:20:11.868
the vision that we were trying to create.
381
00:20:12.248 --> 00:20:16.351
But it allowed me to do some work that then led me to my next move,
382
00:20:16.792 --> 00:20:18.693
which was for six years,
383
00:20:19.474 --> 00:20:24.998
I had a business with a wonderful individual who's one of the sort of my real kind of mentors in my life,
384
00:20:25.038 --> 00:20:25.779
Michael Cahill,
385
00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:28.421
who'd been at UBS,
386
00:20:28.981 --> 00:20:30.102
been in investment banking,
387
00:20:30.122 --> 00:20:31.363
had been a financial analyst.
388
00:20:31.364 --> 00:20:34.225
So I knew him from the days of being in investor relations.
389
00:20:34.226 --> 00:20:37.388
He trained me in the city and company valuation.
390
00:20:38.068 --> 00:20:38.809
and we
391
00:20:39.470 --> 00:20:40.930
created a company together,
392
00:20:41.570 --> 00:20:42.650
which was really,
393
00:20:43.030 --> 00:20:45.310
it was in retrospect,
394
00:20:45.330 --> 00:20:48.170
it was really around trying to create a movement within,
395
00:20:49.170 --> 00:20:50.950
particularly within the finance function,
396
00:20:51.070 --> 00:20:53.090
but we ended up working with all functions,
397
00:20:53.150 --> 00:20:53.670
marketing,
398
00:20:53.830 --> 00:20:54.310
sales,
399
00:20:54.530 --> 00:20:54.690
IT,
400
00:20:55.590 --> 00:20:56.230
CEOs,
401
00:20:56.690 --> 00:21:07.150
around consciously leading for value creation and joining the dots from what you do inside the company and how that's reflected in the share price.
402
00:21:07.650 --> 00:21:08.090
And that was
403
00:21:08.378 --> 00:21:26.152
that was amazing work absolutely fantastic work not that many people even at a very senior level really appreciate and are able to join the dots the share price is doing this but this is actually what's driving it it's not driving it the activity that we're doing today is not necessarily driver it's decisions that we made two
404
00:21:26.232 --> 00:21:36.820
three years ago and financial leadership is almost always at at the nucleus of why the share price is what it is it's either not enough of it stopping
405
00:21:37.598 --> 00:21:53.891
big contracts being signed etc with one company that that should never have been signed or or or too too little of it so yeah that was fantastic work really really really interesting.
So I want to pause there because you talked a lot, there was a lot going on and it sounds like there was this part where you know writing for you was a way of making sense of the story.
406
00:22:04.138 --> 00:22:08.922
Ben came along and helped you kind of reconnect with putting together, it was the beginning of putting together this finance with the bigger picture and also people.
407
00:22:16.408 --> 00:22:23.553
So there was a kind of a turn somewhere in finding or putting words back to the meaning for you.
408
00:22:24.054 --> 00:22:24.334
Yes.
409
00:22:24.794 --> 00:22:25.214
Yeah.
410
00:22:25.395 --> 00:22:26.375
Yeah.
411
00:22:26.395 --> 00:22:30.318
How did that then eventually get you to where you are now?
412
00:22:30.399 --> 00:22:32.280
Because now you're in this role,
413
00:22:32.380 --> 00:22:32.700
which is.
414
00:22:33.154 --> 00:22:33.975
if I understand correctly,
415
00:22:33.976 --> 00:22:39.139
a bit of a sweet spot there between the people part and the finance part,
416
00:22:39.639 --> 00:22:40.820
the big picture finance,
417
00:22:40.860 --> 00:22:42.161
commercial part,
418
00:22:42.181 --> 00:22:43.102
the big picture.
419
00:22:43.562 --> 00:22:43.762
Yeah.
420
00:22:44.303 --> 00:22:46.184
So one of the things I learned from Michael,
421
00:22:46.705 --> 00:22:49.347
and I think this is so important for all small businesses,
422
00:22:49.507 --> 00:22:57.353
is we had a number of sort of concepts and ideas that were really at the heart of what we were delivering,
423
00:22:57.413 --> 00:22:59.635
what we wanted to deliver for our clients.
424
00:23:00.195 --> 00:23:00.495
And we,
425
00:23:01.116 --> 00:23:02.497
rather than just kind of
426
00:23:02.670 --> 00:23:09.515
talk about these ideas yeah you know like the neurological levels of change if you know that model from Robert Dilts um in NLP or
427
00:23:09.956 --> 00:23:30.772
Nancy Klein's time to think work in terms of listening or more prosaically around value creation and his his work around what he calls evaluation villa and how value is created in organizations. We had these ideas but rather than just talk about them we learned together so we did courses together, we did week-long programs with people, we did stuff values,
428
00:23:30.773 --> 00:23:32.033
we did lots and lots of things to learn together so we were really aligned and coming from the same sort of root and heritage if you like, to really ensure we were on the same page around these various concepts we did a lot of learning together so that experience of learning together with my business partner to
429
00:23:49.231 --> 00:24:00.200
what's on the surface of it looked like training for CFOs to understand value creation really went quite deep, which is sort of a theme, that was what kind of created ah there's a
430
00:24:00.818 --> 00:24:17.631
in the world of these companies that are doing something very very different you know no managers entrepreneurial business units self-management and I got into that tribe if you like there's a woman called Lisa Gill who was quite new into that world at the time as well I got speaking to her, she has
431
00:24:17.651 --> 00:24:28.380
a podcast and shout out to Lisa on her podcast leadermorphosis, and that that connection led me to Frederick Laloux and his book reinventing organizations
432
00:24:28.740 --> 00:24:29.801
I supported the
433
00:24:30.682 --> 00:24:33.264
translation of his book into the illustrated version.
434
00:24:33.845 --> 00:24:37.728
And then when Konsileo were looking for a new board member,
435
00:24:38.308 --> 00:24:39.149
a non-exec,
436
00:24:39.969 --> 00:24:42.371
Lisa recommended me to Konsileo.
437
00:24:42.511 --> 00:24:44.593
And when the founder,
438
00:24:44.773 --> 00:24:46.334
CEO came knocking,
439
00:24:46.414 --> 00:24:46.695
John,
440
00:24:47.615 --> 00:24:48.736
I was kind of,
441
00:24:49.557 --> 00:24:49.817
you know,
442
00:24:49.957 --> 00:24:50.518
insurance,
443
00:24:50.538 --> 00:24:51.018
what the heck?
444
00:24:51.158 --> 00:24:51.398
You know,
445
00:24:51.458 --> 00:24:52.639
that's just not,
446
00:24:53.220 --> 00:24:54.881
I know nothing about commercial insurance,
447
00:24:54.901 --> 00:24:55.261
broking,
448
00:24:55.722 --> 00:24:56.642
financial services,
449
00:24:56.662 --> 00:24:59.184
not a sector that I'd ever really saw myself in.
450
00:24:59.185 --> 00:25:00.045
I was in retail.
451
00:25:00.274 --> 00:25:00.876
At the time,
452
00:25:01.236 --> 00:25:03.181
I'd gone from books into the very group.
453
00:25:03.562 --> 00:25:04.805
Retail felt a sweet spot,
454
00:25:04.825 --> 00:25:06.409
or at least retail consumer goods.
455
00:25:06.986 --> 00:25:22.926
beauty care that kind of space and I just didn't see the connection but then when I got to understand what concilio was trying to achieve more around self-management that's when it all clicked and that's when I guess going back to the personal leadership that we learned at P&G and
456
00:25:22.946 --> 00:25:27.906
that sense of mission and drive and purpose that all came together really in concilio.
457
00:25:29.846 --> 00:25:35.206
So now you're there, how does that excite you for the future, this concept? Well,
458
00:25:35.750 --> 00:25:36.110
first of all,
459
00:25:36.130 --> 00:25:40.154
maybe explain a little bit practically how it works on a day-to-day basis.
460
00:25:40.614 --> 00:25:41.675
And how does that excite you,
461
00:25:41.676 --> 00:25:44.057
the potential of it for other organisations excite you?
462
00:25:45.458 --> 00:25:46.018
Yeah, so it works.
463
00:25:46.058 --> 00:25:48.520
We're a relatively small organisation,
464
00:25:48.580 --> 00:25:50.722
about 190 people now,
465
00:25:51.062 --> 00:25:52.143
growing very rapidly.
466
00:25:52.583 --> 00:25:57.087
And our employee workforce is predominantly insurance brokers.
467
00:25:57.687 --> 00:25:59.789
And in a typical insurance broking firm,
468
00:25:59.829 --> 00:26:00.269
you'd have many,
469
00:26:00.329 --> 00:26:01.470
many layers of management.
470
00:26:01.550 --> 00:26:03.572
You'd have a regional manager.
471
00:26:04.170 --> 00:26:07.753
responsible for a region you'd have little offices across you know
472
00:26:08.113 --> 00:26:15.779
Yorkshire whatever and people would be kind of set targets sales targets essentially from on high down there'd be
473
00:26:16.620 --> 00:26:33.733
Monday morning meetings where people would have to account for their their activity and time and how they were progressing versus their sales targets and what John who had been at Allianz for a big chunk of his career recognised is that there was a way in which to get back.
474
00:26:34.070 --> 00:26:37.393
to the real craft of insurance broking,
475
00:26:37.493 --> 00:26:52.605
this kind of relationship between an insurance broker and their client and the community and the advisory and real kind of human-to-human connection that was being lost as lots of insurance brokers were being moved into call centres because the premium,
476
00:26:53.185 --> 00:26:58.569
the income was deemed too low to merit that human-to-human relationship.
477
00:26:59.150 --> 00:27:02.372
So what we have is insurance brokers who have...
478
00:27:02.830 --> 00:27:03.290
No boss,
479
00:27:03.491 --> 00:27:07.093
they have the freedom to essentially run their own little businesses.
480
00:27:07.113 --> 00:27:08.655
They're fully employees,
481
00:27:08.675 --> 00:27:12.277
but they have the freedom to essentially run their businesses how they want.
482
00:27:12.618 --> 00:27:16.421
But we support that very much with both from a human perspective.
483
00:27:16.441 --> 00:27:16.821
So we have
484
00:27:17.281 --> 00:27:22.766
40 coaches in our business who are peers and a very well structured coaching framework.
485
00:27:23.226 --> 00:27:24.687
And then we also have technology,
486
00:27:24.747 --> 00:27:28.770
which I think is the most exciting thing that we have in our organisation,
487
00:27:28.810 --> 00:27:30.812
which I think we could transplant.
488
00:27:31.070 --> 00:27:53.267
any organization on the planet technology underpins everything including the human relationships so we have a a broken platform which all of the stuff that people have to do to create policies on the platform of course we have that and it's our own bespoke platform but that platform is also the home of all of our coaching relationships
489
00:27:53.568 --> 00:27:59.432
the the way in which we support any kind of human to human interaction.
490
00:28:00.174 --> 00:28:00.955
For example,
491
00:28:01.075 --> 00:28:06.279
we have about 60 plus thousand relationships across the organisation where people are,
492
00:28:06.679 --> 00:28:06.799
oh,
493
00:28:06.800 --> 00:28:07.880
I've got this client in,
494
00:28:08.561 --> 00:28:08.801
you know,
495
00:28:08.881 --> 00:28:09.641
Aberdeenshire.
496
00:28:10.002 --> 00:28:10.182
But
497
00:28:10.562 --> 00:28:11.363
I live in Aberdeen,
498
00:28:11.383 --> 00:28:14.505
but I've not got the knowledge of the particular industry,
499
00:28:14.585 --> 00:28:16.287
maybe fisheries industry or something.
500
00:28:16.327 --> 00:28:16.907
Someone down in
501
00:28:17.468 --> 00:28:18.869
Kent has got that experience,
502
00:28:18.909 --> 00:28:19.149
right?
503
00:28:19.289 --> 00:28:21.070
Let's come together and serve that client.
504
00:28:21.130 --> 00:28:21.371
Again,
505
00:28:21.391 --> 00:28:23.512
it sounds kind of not that exciting,
506
00:28:23.552 --> 00:28:25.093
but the industry doesn't work in that way.
507
00:28:25.314 --> 00:28:26.415
Each office is separate.
508
00:28:26.416 --> 00:28:27.335
You've got your targets.
509
00:28:27.355 --> 00:28:29.177
You would never reach out to someone else.
510
00:28:29.594 --> 00:28:46.928
in order to help to help you deliver your targets so we've got this thing called the collaboration center which facilitates all of these 60 000 plus relationships the entire system works to enable the contract between people so like oh i've got you know i've got this client if you can help me on x then
511
00:28:47.288 --> 00:28:57.256
you know I'll give you 20 of the income or 30 or 40 and people will have multiple relationships like that across the company and that is then supported by
512
00:28:57.682 --> 00:28:58.162
P&L,
513
00:28:58.242 --> 00:29:02.686
which is live on the system that they can see so they can understand exactly how they're doing.
514
00:29:03.066 --> 00:29:07.250
And then there's a real sort of appreciation of fairness and the value exchange.
515
00:29:07.530 --> 00:29:09.711
So people who work in our organisation get
516
00:29:10.272 --> 00:29:13.815
49% of all of the income that they write after a certain,
517
00:29:13.816 --> 00:29:14.015
you know,
518
00:29:14.016 --> 00:29:15.776
the certain criteria that need to be met clearly.
519
00:29:16.497 --> 00:29:24.543
So it's a very well thought through framework structure system in response to an industry that is.
520
00:29:24.906 --> 00:29:46.146
it's kind of killing the human part of the experience or the the sort of the dignity and the professional people move into insurance many people fall into like us accountants but when they're in it they realize that the the value that they're providing in their communities and the way in which they're supporting the small business
521
00:29:46.886 --> 00:29:48.586
economy which is 99%
522
00:29:48.587 --> 00:29:53.446
of the UK's economy is really meaningful yeah and that's been kind of wiped out
523
00:29:53.594 --> 00:29:54.603
in the rest of the industry.
524
00:29:54.986 --> 00:29:55.490
Yeah.
525
00:29:55.491 --> 00:29:55.914
Well.
526
00:29:56.798 --> 00:29:59.320
And it's exciting in a way because,
527
00:29:59.580 --> 00:29:59.700
well,
528
00:29:59.820 --> 00:30:04.504
you sound excited to have to be able to tackle these challenges.
529
00:30:04.544 --> 00:30:05.545
That's part of who you are,
530
00:30:05.565 --> 00:30:05.965
isn't it?
531
00:30:06.786 --> 00:30:12.410
To tackle these things from a big picture perspective and how you can join the dots,
532
00:30:12.550 --> 00:30:13.711
as you said a few times.
533
00:30:14.352 --> 00:30:14.512
Yeah,
534
00:30:14.872 --> 00:30:15.873
I think it's joining the dots.
535
00:30:15.874 --> 00:30:20.316
And it's also the biggest joy I have is when,
536
00:30:21.317 --> 00:30:21.557
you know,
537
00:30:21.738 --> 00:30:25.881
one of our brokers just before Christmas got his first third level of.
538
00:30:26.138 --> 00:30:30.842
bonus which is can be quite chunky for some of our brokers because they get 49%
539
00:30:30.922 --> 00:30:33.944
of everything they write and it was the first time he'd achieved that and it was
540
00:30:34.284 --> 00:30:44.272
£2,000 and he phoned me up and he just tears in his eyes my family are going to have a better Christmas and it's like, oh love it, this is this is what we're doing so
541
00:30:44.633 --> 00:30:54.180
I think I started off my career thinking that you could only have that impact if you worked in the charity sector but you can have that impact anywhere and helping
542
00:30:55.106 --> 00:31:12.079
our brokers to connect into something that they're really good at doing it in a way that is really protecting and advising their clients well and and we believe of course better than our competitors and serving their communities and being
543
00:31:12.119 --> 00:31:21.707
rewarded fairly for that that feels like really good work to me yeah it's it's interesting because as you're talking I'm thinking about why I do what I do
544
00:31:22.858 --> 00:31:24.980
And I tend to say that
545
00:31:25.560 --> 00:31:27.742
I love to unleash people's potential.
546
00:31:28.382 --> 00:31:33.687
I believe it's by everybody's potential being released that together we'll solve the world's biggest problems.
547
00:31:33.867 --> 00:31:34.127
Yes.
548
00:31:34.587 --> 00:31:35.588
And I think when you,
549
00:31:36.649 --> 00:31:38.891
when I heard you talk about an individual broker,
550
00:31:39.031 --> 00:31:41.553
when you see the impact you're having on individuals,
551
00:31:41.833 --> 00:31:42.373
is when it,
552
00:31:42.854 --> 00:31:47.037
when each person is released into what they can do and how we can do it in a way that,
553
00:31:47.557 --> 00:31:48.418
that is good work,
554
00:31:48.478 --> 00:31:48.999
like you say,
555
00:31:49.079 --> 00:31:49.599
that is.
556
00:31:49.950 --> 00:31:53.213
working towards human thriving and thriving of the planet and so on.
557
00:31:53.293 --> 00:31:56.695
I think it's just wonderful to see it.
558
00:31:57.316 --> 00:31:57.976
Before we close,
559
00:31:57.977 --> 00:32:01.159
I want to come back to that because I'm talking about human potential now.
560
00:32:01.439 --> 00:32:07.003
We haven't talked about your passion for individual leadership potential and the work you're doing with WYSE.
561
00:32:07.023 --> 00:32:08.565
Do you want to share a little bit about that?
562
00:32:09.305 --> 00:32:11.867
That has been one of the best things I've ever got involved in.
563
00:32:12.087 --> 00:32:12.328
Dr.
564
00:32:12.388 --> 00:32:13.248
Andrew McDowell,
565
00:32:13.689 --> 00:32:15.230
he's been part of WYSE,
566
00:32:15.250 --> 00:32:18.973
which is a UN affiliated charity for 30 plus
567
00:32:19.254 --> 00:32:34.346
years he i worked with him for a number of years he's the first person to bring self-management into the health care system so this sort of smooshing together of executive coaching in a clinical setting and helping clinicians to support
568
00:32:34.366 --> 00:32:47.876
their patients to be self-managing as opposed to that tell so very you know very closely aligned with personal that sense of personal leadership the charity he's been associated with wise supports young people
569
00:32:48.234 --> 00:32:53.898
age 18 to 35 in a very extended personal leadership programme of 12 days,
570
00:32:54.679 --> 00:32:57.001
four times a year in different locations around the world.
571
00:32:57.361 --> 00:33:03.146
And it's directed towards individuals who are already doing good work in their community.
572
00:33:03.606 --> 00:33:08.690
And it's activating even more that sense of personal leadership and mission,
573
00:33:08.950 --> 00:33:12.033
the sense of who I am and what I'm going to do in the world,
574
00:33:12.133 --> 00:33:14.855
how I'm going to express that intent and that mission.
575
00:33:15.302 --> 00:33:18.284
I wish I'd found it myself years ago and been in one of their programmes,
576
00:33:18.324 --> 00:33:20.646
but now I get to do it once a year,
577
00:33:21.107 --> 00:33:21.887
spend two weeks,
578
00:33:22.047 --> 00:33:23.949
a really tough gig in Italy,
579
00:33:24.249 --> 00:33:27.231
in a fantastic villa with a swimming pool and with
580
00:33:27.752 --> 00:33:32.515
40 fabulous young people with a staff team of about 15.
581
00:33:32.576 --> 00:33:36.359
It's a learning journey for me as much as for the participants.
582
00:33:36.959 --> 00:33:37.720
It's just fabulous.
583
00:33:37.721 --> 00:33:38.540
There's nothing like it.
584
00:33:38.900 --> 00:33:40.662
I don't believe in the world.
585
00:33:40.842 --> 00:33:42.864
And it really plays into...
586
00:33:43.354 --> 00:33:47.237
all of the threads I think that are important to me around that sort of sense of mission,
587
00:33:47.317 --> 00:33:48.098
personal leadership,
588
00:33:48.238 --> 00:33:49.019
activating it,
589
00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:50.280
imagination,
590
00:33:50.360 --> 00:33:55.303
being able to see it through other people's actions and things they're doing.
591
00:33:55.304 --> 00:33:55.664
I mean,
592
00:33:55.665 --> 00:33:59.247
I'm interested in all of the young people and what they achieve.
593
00:33:59.527 --> 00:34:01.428
So it's wonderful to be part of it.
594
00:34:02.289 --> 00:34:02.929
I don't know about you,
595
00:34:02.989 --> 00:34:04.711
but every time I'm involved in,
596
00:34:05.091 --> 00:34:05.932
I'm not involved in that,
597
00:34:06.012 --> 00:34:08.053
but in similar things with people,
598
00:34:08.714 --> 00:34:10.415
it gives me so much hope for the future.
599
00:34:10.575 --> 00:34:11.756
I know we live in a very
600
00:34:12.698 --> 00:34:19.063
I don't want to over-exaggerate because there have been other periods of history where people have lived very difficult things that we've not had to suffer.
601
00:34:19.163 --> 00:34:21.005
But when you look at the things going on in the world,
602
00:34:21.065 --> 00:34:22.346
it's easy to lose hope.
603
00:34:22.806 --> 00:34:25.548
But when you look at the potential in people,
604
00:34:25.608 --> 00:34:29.611
when you look at people who are passionate for doing good and making change,
605
00:34:29.612 --> 00:34:30.732
it gives me a lot of energy.
606
00:34:30.952 --> 00:34:31.353
Yeah,
607
00:34:31.354 --> 00:34:31.673
I agree.
608
00:34:32.113 --> 00:34:33.334
So just as we close,
609
00:34:33.715 --> 00:34:36.337
would you be able to just maybe summarise for us,
610
00:34:36.417 --> 00:34:41.701
what are the key leadership principles that have really guided you throughout your journey?
611
00:34:42.978 --> 00:34:43.119
Yeah,
612
00:34:43.219 --> 00:34:49.093
so the activation of personal leadership in that sense of the being and the doing,
613
00:34:49.173 --> 00:34:50.957
how do we put ourselves into what we do?
614
00:34:52.032 --> 00:34:55.995
How do we direct that towards whatever we call purpose?
615
00:34:56.095 --> 00:34:58.197
It doesn't have to be a stated purpose.
616
00:34:58.198 --> 00:34:59.418
It can be a sense of purpose,
617
00:34:59.419 --> 00:34:59.878
a feeling,
618
00:34:59.918 --> 00:35:03.381
just a feeling that we're connecting to doing work that matters.
619
00:35:03.901 --> 00:35:04.542
That's really,
620
00:35:04.602 --> 00:35:05.102
really key.
621
00:35:06.103 --> 00:35:06.864
Imagination.
622
00:35:07.764 --> 00:35:12.228
I think I started this by talking about I became an accountant because my dad was an accountant.
623
00:35:12.308 --> 00:35:14.129
I think if we can see it,
624
00:35:14.149 --> 00:35:14.850
we can be it.
625
00:35:15.230 --> 00:35:17.052
And I think if we can imagine it,
626
00:35:17.592 --> 00:35:18.693
we can become it.
627
00:35:18.773 --> 00:35:19.494
We can do it.
628
00:35:19.874 --> 00:35:20.654
I think writing.
629
00:35:21.236 --> 00:35:43.316
writing for me has been that way of kind of bringing things into existence and that's kind of having that sense of imagination another one would be tenacity that sense of being able to just keep keep going even through dark times even when you feel lost or you feel really disconnected to who you are and who you're trying to become but just just keep going kind of have that idea that you
630
00:35:43.317 --> 00:35:50.536
know the whole steve jobs slightly cliched quote around joining the dots you can't join them you know you can only join them looking backwards not
631
00:35:50.704 --> 00:36:14.803
forward but you can know that there's dots you can know that there will be dots that will join up eventually you just don't know exactly how they're going to join up which is great that's the wonder of life isn't it so yeah having that sort of sense of tenacity and then the um sense of conversations really mattering and having tough conversations there's a great quote i did a sort of one day thing with the poet david white which
632
00:36:14.804 --> 00:36:16.064
uh he said that
633
00:36:16.820 --> 00:36:20.923
the next epoch of your existence is always through the doorway of a conversation.
634
00:36:21.924 --> 00:36:24.046
And I kind of hold that sort of every day.
635
00:36:24.366 --> 00:36:24.566
You know,
636
00:36:24.567 --> 00:36:27.248
if there's a tough moment in the board or the exec team,
637
00:36:27.268 --> 00:36:31.812
and we always have that sense of someone's not saying something here.
638
00:36:32.312 --> 00:36:34.474
There's music and there's words and they're not quite matching.
639
00:36:34.794 --> 00:36:36.876
So that sense of being bold enough,
640
00:36:36.936 --> 00:36:37.596
being brave enough,
641
00:36:37.636 --> 00:36:40.599
courageous enough to have the conversation that matters and it's tough,
642
00:36:40.939 --> 00:36:42.000
whether that's with yourself.
643
00:36:42.280 --> 00:36:42.780
Exactly.
644
00:36:42.840 --> 00:36:43.441
Your spouse,
645
00:36:43.481 --> 00:36:44.041
your family,
646
00:36:44.221 --> 00:36:45.282
your businesses,
647
00:36:45.402 --> 00:36:45.543
etc. that would be the fourth one for me.
648
00:36:46.348 --> 00:37:02.040
Well it's been a wonderful conversation and thank you so much for sharing your journey the good bits and the tough bits because we all need to know that someone else has been there before us and we're not alone if
649
00:37:02.041 --> 00:37:10.967
you have one encouragement to give to someone who is going through a backstop period of your career in the middle this messy middle as I call it what would you say to them
650
00:37:11.448 --> 00:37:15.030
I would say buy yourself a nice pen and a lovely notebook
651
00:37:15.900 --> 00:37:17.561
and just start writing.
652
00:37:17.902 --> 00:37:19.483
Big believer in the write it down,
653
00:37:19.703 --> 00:37:21.284
make it happen mentality.
654
00:37:21.925 --> 00:37:25.127
I've gone as far as writing job descriptions for myself in the past,
655
00:37:25.147 --> 00:37:25.628
et cetera.
656
00:37:26.108 --> 00:37:28.050
And some of that has come into reality.
657
00:37:28.190 --> 00:37:29.130
So yeah,
658
00:37:29.231 --> 00:37:30.131
capture everything.
659
00:37:30.472 --> 00:37:34.214
And you'll be astounded when you look back at who you were,
660
00:37:34.315 --> 00:37:35.475
who you are becoming.
661
00:37:36.016 --> 00:37:36.576
It's all there.
662
00:37:36.937 --> 00:37:37.137
And
663
00:37:37.557 --> 00:37:44.763
I think that can be an incredible resource to support you through your leadership journey.
664
00:37:45.588 --> 00:37:45.708
Yeah,
665
00:37:45.709 --> 00:37:46.188
as you said,
666
00:37:46.208 --> 00:37:47.108
if you can imagine it,
667
00:37:47.109 --> 00:37:47.888
you can believe it.
668
00:37:47.889 --> 00:37:49.748
You can make it happen almost.
669
00:37:49.968 --> 00:37:50.728
Write it down.
670
00:37:51.188 --> 00:37:55.168
You're kind of making something come to life that you didn't think was possible.
671
00:37:55.708 --> 00:37:55.848
Yeah.
672
00:37:56.668 --> 00:37:57.728
So thank you so much.
673
00:37:57.768 --> 00:37:59.048
It's been a wonderful conversation.
674
00:37:59.608 --> 00:37:59.988
Thank you,
675
00:38:00.048 --> 00:38:00.228
Ruth.
676
00:38:00.268 --> 00:38:00.888
I've enjoyed it.
677
00:38:01.328 --> 00:38:02.448
Hopefully we'll be in touch.
678
00:38:02.508 --> 00:38:04.688
I've got some ideas of things I want to bounce off you already.
679
00:38:05.428 --> 00:38:06.188
Likewise.
680
00:38:07.148 --> 00:38:07.368
Thanks,
681
00:38:07.448 --> 00:38:07.588
Ruth.
682
00:38:08.428 --> 00:38:11.928
I hope you found Vicky's story as thought-provoking as I did.
683
00:38:13.048 --> 00:38:14.950
If there's one powerful takeaway for me,
684
00:38:15.470 --> 00:38:18.412
it's the idea that sometimes we don't find clarity,
685
00:38:18.993 --> 00:38:21.134
we write our way into it.
686
00:38:22.155 --> 00:38:24.017
So here's a simple invitation for you.
687
00:38:24.877 --> 00:38:29.981
Take Vicky's advice and write your future as though it already exists.
688
00:38:30.862 --> 00:38:33.324
That might be a job description for your dream role,
689
00:38:34.024 --> 00:38:35.806
an end of year celebration speech,
690
00:38:36.586 --> 00:38:39.889
or even the words you'd love someone to say about you when you move on.
691
00:38:40.850 --> 00:38:42.331
Let your imagination lead.
692
00:38:42.544 --> 00:38:43.905
and see what surfaces.
693
00:38:45.006 --> 00:38:46.167
And if you're feeling stuck,
694
00:38:47.288 --> 00:38:49.329
unsure what's next or how to move forward,
695
00:38:50.010 --> 00:38:52.452
remember you don't have to figure it out alone.
696
00:38:53.292 --> 00:38:55.274
And I'd certainly love to help if I can.
697
00:38:55.734 --> 00:39:01.259
You can get in touch or book a free discovery call at yourpathtosuccess.ch.
698
00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:03.240
Thanks for listening.
699
00:39:03.661 --> 00:39:04.841
And until next time,
700
00:39:05.202 --> 00:39:09.185
keep walking your own personal path to success.
