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Hello, and welcome to Label Sessions Presents.
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Label Sessions is a global platform that connects you to the best advice from the most interesting
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people.
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Whether you want advice, mentoring, or ideas.
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I'm Josh Nixon, content producer for Label Sessions, and in this episode, Maxine Mackie
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talks to Julian Wheatland.
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Julian has a lifetime of experience as a CEO, driving profitable growth and scaling organizations
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like Hatton International, Cornerstone FS, and currently Brava Systems.
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His experience also includes winding down Cambridge Analytica, proving his strength as
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a leader in the midst of a PR and media crisis.
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His belief as a leader is that everyone in your team is a talent managing their own careers.
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If you're helping them achieve their goals, they're not staying.
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Let's find out more about Julian.
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With DrillTab, you as guests today, Julian.
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Thank you so much for joining us.
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You're very much known as an expert for driving profitable growth and scaling organizations.
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To set the stage, could you please introduce yourself to the Label Sessions audience and
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really give us a sense of your leadership journey?
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Sure.
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Well, I'm an engineer by training, and I started my career in manufacturing.
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That was a large 24-7, 365-day factory manufacturing high-voltage electric cables.
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I ended up running that factory, and then I left from there and went into management
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consulting.
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I was with PA consulting for a few years.
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That was at the time of the dot-com boom.
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We were helping large corporates work out what to do with this thing called the internet
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coming down the road as they stood like glazed rabbits in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
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From there, I ended up taking a team out of PA consulting and setting up an independent
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consultancy called Eden Gene, again to do the same thing, corporate venture consulting.
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From there, I went into investment management.
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I ended up running a large technology investment fund investing in the fields of clean tech
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and security technologies.
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When the financial crisis came along and there was no money to invest anymore, then I set
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up Hatten International, which was a technology commercialization business, providing technology
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commercialization services to large defense and aerospace contractors in the countries
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that had bought their equipment.
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Then 2015, I got a phone call from someone who'd been a founder in a company I'd invested
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in when I was investing money.
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The company he had set up was a company called SCL Elections.
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It became Cambridge Analytica and he called me up and he said, this thing's scaling really
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fast.
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I need some help.
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I went in there to help him run that.
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Half my time at the beginning of 2015 and by the middle of that year, I was more than
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full time and COO and CFO as we took it from 12 men in a basement behind the Japanese Embassy
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in London to 120 people across four offices onto continents.
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Because Cambridge Analytica was famously good until it wasn't and then it got itself into
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media difficulties and others.
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In the end, I had to take over as chief exec in order to clean up that mess and tidy up
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the situation.
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Then help some friends in the music industry set up a private equity fund in New York to
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buy music royalties.
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Then in COVID, I took over as CEO of a FinTech company here in London that was doing international
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payments and multi-currency account services for corporates.
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We scaled that, listed it on the stock market.
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Today I'm CEO of a company called Brava Systems, which is an enterprise management system for
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the real estate industry.
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What a breath of experience.
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When you showcase your leadership journey to you, it's really obvious how you've been
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able to pick up and move with some of the changing trends, moving into consulting, helping
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many businesses embrace the first phrase into digital.
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From that, working in, I guess, born in digital companies, which is fascinatingly experienced
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you have running and scaling them and also when you've had to manage conflict and issues
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in the outside world with them as well.
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So that's awesome.
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Let me take you back to, I think that you said maybe a while ago that one of the most
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important questions a business can really face is what business model should we adopt?
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I guess that became more of a pressing issue with digital transformation and all the new
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business models that have broken through.
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Could you dive into that a little bit more for us?
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I'm curious if you think that if you still think it's such a critical decision today
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and if the statement still brings truth to you?
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Yeah, sure.
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And 100%, I think it's as critical today as it ever was.
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It's not just a feature of digital companies, but it's a common issue that technology companies
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in general face.
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The reality is that most entrepreneurial technology companies start with the technology, or maybe
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an idea of a technology, and it's usually based, and the excitement is usually based
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around what the technology can do.
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And then often the needs of the customer are retrofitted to the brilliance of the technology.
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And a compounding problem is that virtually every engineer that I've ever met thinks that
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customers will use technology in the way they would.
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And of course, most customers are not as technology savvy as innovative engineers.
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And so it's a question of matching technology to a real customer need.
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And then when you've done that, it's a question of thinking about, well, all right, but then
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where do we sit in the supply chain?
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And this is really a question of where can you add the most value?
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So let me think of an example.
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Imagine that you came up with a new technology for, let's say, testing pathogens like COVID
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or for the next pandemic in an innovative way.
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So you could develop new tests.
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You could make the machines.
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You could develop the reagents.
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And you could manufacture the reagents.
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And you could distribute the machines and the reagents, or you could, for example, sell
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the machines or provide the machines on a lease basis.
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There's a whole range of different roles within that supply chain and different ways of delivering
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the product to the market or exploiting the technology.
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And each one requires a specific set of skills and capabilities.
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And there's often a tendency to try and do everything.
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Oh, we've come up with this really great way of testing pathogens so we can make machines
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and we can sell them and maybe we can even perform the tests as well.
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And so, but the truth is, you're unlikely to be good at everything.
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And you're very unlikely to be as good as other people in the market who specialize in
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particular elements of it.
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And so the more, by trying to do everything, you're on the risk of, you increase the likelihood
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of failing.
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So it's a question of looking at the market and looking at the supply chain and thinking,
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where can you add the most value and be excellent?
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And so a good example of this is arm holdings.
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So arm holdings designs microchips that are in pretty much every mobile and smartphone
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in the world.
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But all arm does is do the design.
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It doesn't manufacture them.
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It doesn't make mobile phones.
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It's never moved down the supply chain.
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It's specialized at being really excellent at what it does well, which is design, and
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it's grown into a multi-billion organization by doing that.
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It really resonated with me when you were talking about engineers creating technology
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that then often businesses are forced to kind of retrofit for a customer need or a pain
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point.
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It made me think a little bit actually about open banking and the promise of open banking
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because I'm just thinking about this this week.
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We think about how many, like on paper it sounds great, the ability through open banking
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and it's regulated for an individual to connect all their bank accounts to get this holistic
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view of their finances, bring their pensions in, more investments, and their various bank
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accounts to get insights on their money.
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But the reality is there are some customers that may use that all the time in that kind
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of a dedicated bucket, but that's a really small number.
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And the reality is many people will do it once and there's not stickiness in the engagement
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to go back to it.
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And it's something that on paper sounds like a no-brainer, we must do this.
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But the reality is I don't think it has the level of engagement that perhaps everybody
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thought it would.
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And it's a good example, I think, of the technology and being something really interesting and
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new, but actually where does it fit into someone's life?
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Yeah, I think you make a really good point.
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Open banking is delivering value to the banks, but not necessarily designed around or delivering
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or addressing, I should say, addressing a need that customers feel.
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And actually, it's a really good example of a technology that when it was first introduced,
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it didn't even really work that well.
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And so many people's first experience of open banking was a bad one.
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And banking is really important to people.
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And so as soon as they start to get nervous around the technology, then it makes it really
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hard to attract them back again to give it another go, even as the technology's advanced.
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And I think a lot of financial companies open banking off of the opportunity to do partnerships,
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but really open up access to customer data.
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I think that was really a big kind of a cool driver for open banking.
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And I know you've said before that every company now is a data company.
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And I think you gave an example of a coffee shop may know your preference, what you like
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to drink, when you normally drink it.
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What's your take on how companies are going to handle and use our data as a future, someone
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who can then lead data-led organizations?
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Data collection and use is prevalent and it's not going away.
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It's going to become more.
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And it can be used for good and it can be used for harm.
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It does add massive value to the way that we go about our daily lives today, even though
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we don't necessarily see it.
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It streamlines what we're doing.
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It enables us to easily access the things that we want, the things that we're interested
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in.
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And so we all get a huge amount of value out of this, whether it's from the supermarket
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to social media.
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But I think the key thing to be cognizant of in here is that some people are more comfortable
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with this than others.
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And so there needs to be a choice.
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And people need to be able to make a choice and for that, there needs to be transparency.
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And so organizations need to enable people to know what's going on and be able to make
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a choice.
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Now, I'll give an example.
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Apple has a very tight policy around data.
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And lots of people enjoy that about Apple and lots of people pay a huge amount for Apple
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phones and they get that benefit.
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But on the flip side of that, then there's billions of people around the world that don't
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have that luxury, are comfortable with sharing their data and are able to access services
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and indeed phones by enabling companies to use that data to support an economic model
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for them.
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And so it's really important that the choice is there.
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It's quite interesting.
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And if I'm speaking at events, there's a clear difference, I think, in age.
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So often if I'm speaking at an event, let's say I did it in a university and I'll ask
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the audience, would you prefer to keep all of your data private and just see random ads?
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Or would you prefer to share your data and see ads about the things that you care about?
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And in a younger demographic in a university, almost to a man, they'll say, share the data,
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we don't care.
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But as you move up the age range, maybe more professional events or established events
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with older people, then there's a marked shift.
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But the most important thing is that people are able to choose.
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And I guess there's always a trade-off, especially on social media.
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You're sharing information, but you're getting more personalized content.
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There's always a trade-off.
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And I'm curious, what would be your advice to leaders and big organizations on active
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data stewardship and how they are protecting their data and their company, etc., and really
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how they approach data stewardship?
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I think this is really, a really important thing for all organizations and corporations.
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At the very least, it's a brand issue.
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In the worst case, and I know this from experience, it can be an existential issue.
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It's really important that the company doesn't adopt a style of just expecting people in
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the company to know what the right thing is and to do the right thing.
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Organizations need to actively manage their policies around data.
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They need to have a clear policy.
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They need to have a clear ethical position about what they do do and what they don't
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do.
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And additionally, they need to have within the organization processes and procedures
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for the employees to perform to.
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And so employees who are coming up with new ideas and new clever ways of accessing data
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or collecting data or using data, they need to know when to escalate a question of, does
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this fit with the policy or not?
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And they also need to know how to escalate that.
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And there needs to be, because it's so important, there needs to be board-level governance around
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this, so that decisions can be taken that are in line with the brand values and the
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data policies.
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And I think the big mistake that organizations can make is assuming that people know what
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to do and not giving them the tools to be able to do the right thing.
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And I think there's parallels with even customer service operations.
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There's a way in which everybody may expect people in their company to talk to customers
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and then there's a reality.
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So the importance of procedures, policies, and I guess an open dialogue on those things.
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Because you may have to enable people to do their role and not have wild expectations
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if you don't have the support system in place.
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And let me ask you this.
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It was interesting when you're talking about data stewardship.
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You're talking about even board-level governance.
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I don't know if this is a bit of a silly question, but in your experience, where do
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you think, where have you seen the best example of data leadership?
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Or where does it sit in a leadership team?
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But have you seen some organizations, data sets for technology and others with the CEO
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or the COO office?
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I'm curious if there's any kind of, but if you've got any kind of a secret source of
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best practice, where kind of a ownership of data and stewardship should sit in an organization?
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Only within Europe, organizations that are compliant with GDPR, they need to have a nominated
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individual that's responsible for their data policy.
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But that's, you know, the risk of following regulation in this is that you run the risk
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of just ticking boxes.
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And so you need to think practically around how does it manifest within the organization?
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I don't think that it really matters whether it's the chief technology officer or if it's
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the chief financial officer or the chief operating officer at the board level that has responsibility
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for ensuring that the organization runs, has a data policy and runs in accordance with
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it.
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The important thing is that it's at the board level and that the board talks about it because,
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you know, many of these things are nuanced.
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And so it's important that the board discusses it and reaches a combined decision as to whether
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or not one thing is acceptable and another thing isn't.
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And I guess leadership often means taking, guiding a team through transitions.
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When you've had lots of experience with this in companies you've worked out and mentioned
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and came with Jan to get earlier.
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Can you share your advice on how to inspire and lead chains successfully in an organization?
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Yes.
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So I think one of the things that I realized early on in my career is that people need leadership.
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In taking a leadership role, you're not imposing yourself on people.
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People look for someone to take a lead and to set a vision and communicate it and marshal
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them and help them understand their roles within that and what to do to deliver it.
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And so communication is the most important thing in a change situation or a crisis situation
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or a transformation situation.
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It's essential to share the vision very, very clearly with all of the employees, explain
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why the change is happening, explain how the change is going to happen and explain the
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benefits of the change not just for the company but also for the employees.
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And it's important to invest time in the staff, invest in the people and show them how the
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new way of working will be.
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And in doing that, you give them a shared ownership of the new world, of the destination
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and indeed the opportunity to comment on it and contribute to it and most importantly
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the skills to operate in it.
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So effectively, it's think of a football team.
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Now everybody in a football team knows that the objective is to get the goal in the back
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of the net.
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But equally, everybody in the team knows that we've all got different roles.
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She's going to be on the right wing, he's going to be in goal, there's the striker,
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but it doesn't stop them contributing when the ball comes loose in a particular area
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of the field.
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They don't stand back and say that's not my job.
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They all understand what the shared goal is and successful transformation is about sharing
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that goal, letting people see what the future is going to be and believe in it and empowering
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them to get there.
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This podcast is brought to you by Label Sessions.
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A global platform that connects you to the best advice from the most interesting people.
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Around the world, we work with brands to connect their people to true leaders, just like the
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To find out more, visit LabelSessions.com and book in for a demo with our team.
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I'm curious if you've got any thoughts on using the football analogy if you're in the
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second half in the last quarter of the match and the momentum and pace has dipped a bit
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and people are getting a bit nifty with each other.
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Do you have any thoughts that you can share around maintaining momentum and keeping teams
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motivated during change?
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I've often seen a bit of change fatigue in organisations that I've worked at.
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I'm curious what advice would you be giving from the sidelines in the second half?
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If I was the coach shouting at the team, I wouldn't be shouting.
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I think there's a few elements to that.
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I've already said communicate and I would say communicate, communicate, communicate.
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I think that it's important to think of an organisation as like a bed and it's a network
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of coiled bed springs and you can try to move one spring on its own but as soon as you let
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go it will snap back.
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And so when you think about transformation and change within an organisation it's really
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important not to think about this group of workers and how they should change or how
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their work should change but it's essential to think about the organisation around them
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and that organisation's expectations of them are matched with the change that's going on.
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And actually that's often a key cause of fatigue because it's hard work to act in the new way.
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And so think about the transformation as an organisation, not just a specific group or
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department or work area.
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The other thing I'd say is that resistance to change comes from three places.
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The first one is that change requires effort and energy.
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The next one is that it causes worrying concern about security and the third one is it causes
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worrying concern about ability.
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Am I going to be able to do this job in this new job?
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So to address them and this is what I would be thinking about in the first, in the final
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quarter is by communicating the vision and letting everybody see what and why and the
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importance of it and the benefit of it this drives energy and motivation.
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And then also people require reassurance, open conversations about what's going to happen
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to the organisation and them and their roles in order to reduce the insecurity.
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And then the third thing, most important is training.
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Training gives people the skills and ability to be able to work in the new world.
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And I think by addressing those resistances and recognising that there's an entire organisation
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that needs to be on board with the change, not just a group of workers, is the way to
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ensure that the momentum carries through.
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I'm going to really carry a lot of our conversations so far.
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I think it's really the empowerment of people so they know what to do with the right processes
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and policies so that they can perform well.
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I think that's human nature.
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People want to achieve their goals at work.
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They want to do all these things.
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It was interesting talking about I think this concept can come from the fear of the unknown
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change, but I also think that I hit more abilities with football analysis.
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I'm not a very sporty person.
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So I'm going to shift a slightly and ask you to tell us a bit more what's on the horizon
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for you as you're all kind of building and scaling a new organisation.
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Which is quite exciting.
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Yes, it is.
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I've recently taken over in a new role as Chief Executive of Brava Systems, which is
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a fantastic technology platform.
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It's what I'll call a light and agile enterprise management system for the real estate industry.
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And I say light and agile because I want to contrast it from everybody's perceptions of
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what an enterprise system and ERP system usually is, which is monolithic and inflexible.
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You end up having to re-engineer the organisation around it.
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And so it's a really great technology and it's a great honour and a pleasure to be given
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the responsibility to lead it.
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And so we have the potential to transform the workplace of our customers.
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But Brava Systems, to speak frankly, it's a technology-led company.
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It's come from having focused on developing the technology and they've developed a brilliant
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technology, but it has many of the typical issues that I've already spoken about that
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technology-led companies have.
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And in addition, because it's groundbreaking, as with all disruptive technologies, we have
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now a need to educate the market about what we are and what we can do.
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And that's particularly difficult in a corporate environment with selling to corporates because
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corporates are, understandably, conservative.
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So we have a transformation that we need to undertake within Brava.
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We need to focus on our customers, markets and products.
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And so it becomes less about what can we do and more about what do customers want?
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And again, we too need to think about what is our business model?
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Where do we sit in the supply chain?
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What partners should we have?
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How do we go to market?
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Who are our customers going to be?
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And then having done that, we need to build capability in areas where we are frankly currently
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lacking in skills.
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And also I'm poignantly aware that everything I've just described means change for everyone.
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It's not just about bringing in a bunch of new wonder kids and that everything's right.
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It means everybody currently in the organization needs to change the way that they behave and
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the way that they work, as well as supplementing it with new people.
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So it's very, very exciting.
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I'm really, really amped up about it.
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Oh, wonderful.
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I think we need to look forward to following your journey.
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And I think as you embark on this new role, I'm curious where you go to inspiration and
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where you kind of feed your creative brain and keep on the pulse of interesting things
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that you can kind of feed into Barbara and other companies' uruses.
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So where do I feed my creative brain?
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Honestly, in the kitchen.
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And that cooking is my creative outlet.
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And so that's where I restore my energy.
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That's where I can be innovative in a safe environment.
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And I can get a huge amount of satisfaction from that.
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So yeah, I would say the recharge of my creative brain happens in the kitchen.
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Amazing.
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So do you have some favorite dishes?
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Oh, yes, a few.
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I mean, I can tell you that my children's favorite dish that I cook is a seafood laxer.
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Oh, amazing.
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Yeah, I think it's pretty good.
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That sounds delicious.
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I'm getting hungry.
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Okay, next one.
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We're in our quick-fire round two now.
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So can you please describe, we're being nosy, I'm sorry.
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Could you describe your desk for our audience?
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What are your desks typically like, Julian?
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Yes.
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Very nice and tidy.
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All other stacks of books.
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Okay, so first of all, the first most noticeable thing about my desk is that it goes up and
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down.
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So I have a standing desk.
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I work probably about half my time standing up and half my time sitting down.
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It's almost paperless.
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But there are a bunch of post-it notes around that are reminders for me to do things.
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There's a selfie light, of course.
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There's a couple of good luck charms and there's a picture of my children.
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I'll ask you a serious question now.
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Are there any useful people or websites that you follow and can stay on the pulse of your
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industry?
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I mean, I think TechCrunch is just the best resource for knowing what's going on out there
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in the technology sector.
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I'm an avid reader of The Economist.
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It gives me political insight, business insight and technology insight as to what's going
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on.
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And I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk.
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I think he has such a huge brain but also such a go-forward outlook to both technology
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and business that I'm always interested in what he's got to say other than on Twitter.
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In another lie, what could your career be?
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So I used to think I should be a lead singer in a rock band.
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Of course you did.
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I think that's just the performer in me.
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It's the desire to be the guy out front.
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It's certainly not that I can sing.
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Definitely not.
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I'm a strategist and I'm a people person.
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Maybe the other way around.
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Maybe I'm a people person first and the strategist.
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So maybe a coach or a counsellor and I'm an engineer by training.
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And I could very easily have been happy staying in engineering.
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How would you describe your leadership style?
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You mentioned in your life you could have been a rock star at the front, but tell us
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about your leadership style.
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When I was younger, it took me a while to not be self-conscious about taking a leadership
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role.
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I mentioned earlier that people, the world needs leaders.
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And so to hesitate to lead, I think you're doing a disservice to oneself.
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But I believe that my leadership style, I mean certainly collaborative and I hope supportive,
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I remember reading a book many years ago by Mark McCormack.
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It was called What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School.
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And it was all about, actually she was talking about negotiations and he said it's about
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understanding where the other person's coming from and what their objectives are.
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But I think that in an organisation, everybody's an individual, forming part of a team, but
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it's essential to understand what their goals are, what their needs are and where they're
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coming from in order to match those to the organisation's needs and goals.
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As we finish up, let me ask you, what was the best piece of advice you've ever been
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given, perhaps in your formative years or really the best advice you've been given,
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that's really memorable to you and you've been able to use in your life.
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The trick is not to give up.
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So I've always believed that it's important to try hard, push hard, reach high and to
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take adversity as a learning experience rather than the end of the road.
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But the best advice that I ever got is being told that actually the trick to success is
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not giving up.
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What a good place to finish.
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Thank you so much for your time, Julie and we really appreciate it.
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Thank you very much.
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What a wonderful talk.
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Thank you for your time.
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So, it concludes another episode of Label Sessions Presents.
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Be sure to follow and subscribe to the podcast, know my at your platform of choice and of
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00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:30,200
course start your journey today with us at LabelSessions.com.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,480
Hello, and welcome to Label Sessions Presents.
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Label Sessions is a global platform that connects you to the best advice from the most interesting
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people.
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Whether you want advice, mentoring, or ideas.
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I'm Josh Nixon, content producer for Label Sessions, and in this episode, Maxine Mackie
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talks to Julian Wheatland.
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Julian has a lifetime of experience as a CEO, driving profitable growth and scaling organizations
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like Hatton International, Cornerstone FS, and currently Brava Systems.
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His experience also includes winding down Cambridge Analytica, proving his strength as
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a leader in the midst of a PR and media crisis.
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His belief as a leader is that everyone in your team is a talent managing their own careers.
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If you're helping them achieve their goals, they're not staying.
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Let's find out more about Julian.
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With DrillTab, you as guests today, Julian.
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Thank you so much for joining us.
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You're very much known as an expert for driving profitable growth and scaling organizations.
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To set the stage, could you please introduce yourself to the Label Sessions audience and
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really give us a sense of your leadership journey?
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Sure.
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Well, I'm an engineer by training, and I started my career in manufacturing.
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That was a large 24-7, 365-day factory manufacturing high-voltage electric cables.
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I ended up running that factory, and then I left from there and went into management
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consulting.
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I was with PA consulting for a few years.
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That was at the time of the dot-com boom.
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We were helping large corporates work out what to do with this thing called the internet
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coming down the road as they stood like glazed rabbits in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
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From there, I ended up taking a team out of PA consulting and setting up an independent
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consultancy called Eden Gene, again to do the same thing, corporate venture consulting.
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From there, I went into investment management.
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I ended up running a large technology investment fund investing in the fields of clean tech
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and security technologies.
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When the financial crisis came along and there was no money to invest anymore, then I set
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up Hatten International, which was a technology commercialization business, providing technology
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commercialization services to large defense and aerospace contractors in the countries
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that had bought their equipment.
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Then 2015, I got a phone call from someone who'd been a founder in a company I'd invested
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in when I was investing money.
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The company he had set up was a company called SCL Elections.
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It became Cambridge Analytica and he called me up and he said, this thing's scaling really
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fast.
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I need some help.
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I went in there to help him run that.
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Half my time at the beginning of 2015 and by the middle of that year, I was more than
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full time and COO and CFO as we took it from 12 men in a basement behind the Japanese Embassy
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in London to 120 people across four offices onto continents.
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Because Cambridge Analytica was famously good until it wasn't and then it got itself into
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media difficulties and others.
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In the end, I had to take over as chief exec in order to clean up that mess and tidy up
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the situation.
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Then help some friends in the music industry set up a private equity fund in New York to
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buy music royalties.
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Then in COVID, I took over as CEO of a FinTech company here in London that was doing international
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payments and multi-currency account services for corporates.
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We scaled that, listed it on the stock market.
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Today I'm CEO of a company called Brava Systems, which is an enterprise management system for
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the real estate industry.
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What a breath of experience.
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When you showcase your leadership journey to you, it's really obvious how you've been
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able to pick up and move with some of the changing trends, moving into consulting, helping
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many businesses embrace the first phrase into digital.
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From that, working in, I guess, born in digital companies, which is fascinatingly experienced
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you have running and scaling them and also when you've had to manage conflict and issues
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in the outside world with them as well.
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So that's awesome.
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Let me take you back to, I think that you said maybe a while ago that one of the most
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important questions a business can really face is what business model should we adopt?
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I guess that became more of a pressing issue with digital transformation and all the new
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business models that have broken through.
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Could you dive into that a little bit more for us?
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I'm curious if you think that if you still think it's such a critical decision today
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and if the statement still brings truth to you?
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Yeah, sure.
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And 100%, I think it's as critical today as it ever was.
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It's not just a feature of digital companies, but it's a common issue that technology companies
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in general face.
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The reality is that most entrepreneurial technology companies start with the technology, or maybe
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an idea of a technology, and it's usually based, and the excitement is usually based
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around what the technology can do.
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And then often the needs of the customer are retrofitted to the brilliance of the technology.
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And a compounding problem is that virtually every engineer that I've ever met thinks that
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customers will use technology in the way they would.
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And of course, most customers are not as technology savvy as innovative engineers.
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And so it's a question of matching technology to a real customer need.
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And then when you've done that, it's a question of thinking about, well, all right, but then
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where do we sit in the supply chain?
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And this is really a question of where can you add the most value?
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So let me think of an example.
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Imagine that you came up with a new technology for, let's say, testing pathogens like COVID
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or for the next pandemic in an innovative way.
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So you could develop new tests.
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You could make the machines.
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You could develop the reagents.
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And you could manufacture the reagents.
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And you could distribute the machines and the reagents, or you could, for example, sell
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the machines or provide the machines on a lease basis.
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There's a whole range of different roles within that supply chain and different ways of delivering
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the product to the market or exploiting the technology.
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And each one requires a specific set of skills and capabilities.
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And there's often a tendency to try and do everything.
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Oh, we've come up with this really great way of testing pathogens so we can make machines
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and we can sell them and maybe we can even perform the tests as well.
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And so, but the truth is, you're unlikely to be good at everything.
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And you're very unlikely to be as good as other people in the market who specialize in
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particular elements of it.
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And so the more, by trying to do everything, you're on the risk of, you increase the likelihood
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of failing.
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So it's a question of looking at the market and looking at the supply chain and thinking,
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where can you add the most value and be excellent?
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And so a good example of this is arm holdings.
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So arm holdings designs microchips that are in pretty much every mobile and smartphone
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in the world.
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But all arm does is do the design.
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It doesn't manufacture them.
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It doesn't make mobile phones.
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It's never moved down the supply chain.
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It's specialized at being really excellent at what it does well, which is design, and
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it's grown into a multi-billion organization by doing that.
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It really resonated with me when you were talking about engineers creating technology
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that then often businesses are forced to kind of retrofit for a customer need or a pain
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point.
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It made me think a little bit actually about open banking and the promise of open banking
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because I'm just thinking about this this week.
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We think about how many, like on paper it sounds great, the ability through open banking
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and it's regulated for an individual to connect all their bank accounts to get this holistic
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view of their finances, bring their pensions in, more investments, and their various bank
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accounts to get insights on their money.
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But the reality is there are some customers that may use that all the time in that kind
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of a dedicated bucket, but that's a really small number.
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And the reality is many people will do it once and there's not stickiness in the engagement
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to go back to it.
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And it's something that on paper sounds like a no-brainer, we must do this.
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But the reality is I don't think it has the level of engagement that perhaps everybody
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thought it would.
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And it's a good example, I think, of the technology and being something really interesting and
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new, but actually where does it fit into someone's life?
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Yeah, I think you make a really good point.
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Open banking is delivering value to the banks, but not necessarily designed around or delivering
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or addressing, I should say, addressing a need that customers feel.
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And actually, it's a really good example of a technology that when it was first introduced,
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it didn't even really work that well.
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And so many people's first experience of open banking was a bad one.
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And banking is really important to people.
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And so as soon as they start to get nervous around the technology, then it makes it really
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hard to attract them back again to give it another go, even as the technology's advanced.
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And I think a lot of financial companies open banking off of the opportunity to do partnerships,
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but really open up access to customer data.
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I think that was really a big kind of a cool driver for open banking.
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And I know you've said before that every company now is a data company.
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And I think you gave an example of a coffee shop may know your preference, what you like
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to drink, when you normally drink it.
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What's your take on how companies are going to handle and use our data as a future, someone
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who can then lead data-led organizations?
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Data collection and use is prevalent and it's not going away.
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It's going to become more.
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And it can be used for good and it can be used for harm.
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It does add massive value to the way that we go about our daily lives today, even though
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we don't necessarily see it.
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It streamlines what we're doing.
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It enables us to easily access the things that we want, the things that we're interested
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in.
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And so we all get a huge amount of value out of this, whether it's from the supermarket
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to social media.
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But I think the key thing to be cognizant of in here is that some people are more comfortable
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with this than others.
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And so there needs to be a choice.
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And people need to be able to make a choice and for that, there needs to be transparency.
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And so organizations need to enable people to know what's going on and be able to make
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a choice.
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Now, I'll give an example.
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Apple has a very tight policy around data.
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And lots of people enjoy that about Apple and lots of people pay a huge amount for Apple
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phones and they get that benefit.
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But on the flip side of that, then there's billions of people around the world that don't
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have that luxury, are comfortable with sharing their data and are able to access services
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and indeed phones by enabling companies to use that data to support an economic model
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for them.
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And so it's really important that the choice is there.
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It's quite interesting.
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And if I'm speaking at events, there's a clear difference, I think, in age.
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So often if I'm speaking at an event, let's say I did it in a university and I'll ask
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the audience, would you prefer to keep all of your data private and just see random ads?
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Or would you prefer to share your data and see ads about the things that you care about?
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And in a younger demographic in a university, almost to a man, they'll say, share the data,
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we don't care.
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But as you move up the age range, maybe more professional events or established events
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with older people, then there's a marked shift.
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But the most important thing is that people are able to choose.
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And I guess there's always a trade-off, especially on social media.
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You're sharing information, but you're getting more personalized content.
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There's always a trade-off.
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And I'm curious, what would be your advice to leaders and big organizations on active
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data stewardship and how they are protecting their data and their company, etc., and really
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how they approach data stewardship?
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I think this is really, a really important thing for all organizations and corporations.
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At the very least, it's a brand issue.
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In the worst case, and I know this from experience, it can be an existential issue.
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It's really important that the company doesn't adopt a style of just expecting people in
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the company to know what the right thing is and to do the right thing.
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Organizations need to actively manage their policies around data.
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They need to have a clear policy.
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They need to have a clear ethical position about what they do do and what they don't
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do.
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And additionally, they need to have within the organization processes and procedures
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for the employees to perform to.
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And so employees who are coming up with new ideas and new clever ways of accessing data
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or collecting data or using data, they need to know when to escalate a question of, does
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this fit with the policy or not?
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And they also need to know how to escalate that.
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And there needs to be, because it's so important, there needs to be board-level governance around
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this, so that decisions can be taken that are in line with the brand values and the
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data policies.
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And I think the big mistake that organizations can make is assuming that people know what
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to do and not giving them the tools to be able to do the right thing.
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And I think there's parallels with even customer service operations.
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There's a way in which everybody may expect people in their company to talk to customers
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and then there's a reality.
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So the importance of procedures, policies, and I guess an open dialogue on those things.
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Because you may have to enable people to do their role and not have wild expectations
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if you don't have the support system in place.
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And let me ask you this.
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It was interesting when you're talking about data stewardship.
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You're talking about even board-level governance.
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I don't know if this is a bit of a silly question, but in your experience, where do
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you think, where have you seen the best example of data leadership?
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Or where does it sit in a leadership team?
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But have you seen some organizations, data sets for technology and others with the CEO
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or the COO office?
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I'm curious if there's any kind of, but if you've got any kind of a secret source of
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best practice, where kind of a ownership of data and stewardship should sit in an organization?
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Only within Europe, organizations that are compliant with GDPR, they need to have a nominated
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individual that's responsible for their data policy.
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But that's, you know, the risk of following regulation in this is that you run the risk
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of just ticking boxes.
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And so you need to think practically around how does it manifest within the organization?
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I don't think that it really matters whether it's the chief technology officer or if it's
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the chief financial officer or the chief operating officer at the board level that has responsibility
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for ensuring that the organization runs, has a data policy and runs in accordance with
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it.
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The important thing is that it's at the board level and that the board talks about it because,
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you know, many of these things are nuanced.
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And so it's important that the board discusses it and reaches a combined decision as to whether
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or not one thing is acceptable and another thing isn't.
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And I guess leadership often means taking, guiding a team through transitions.
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When you've had lots of experience with this in companies you've worked out and mentioned
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and came with Jan to get earlier.
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Can you share your advice on how to inspire and lead chains successfully in an organization?
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Yes.
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So I think one of the things that I realized early on in my career is that people need leadership.
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In taking a leadership role, you're not imposing yourself on people.
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People look for someone to take a lead and to set a vision and communicate it and marshal
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them and help them understand their roles within that and what to do to deliver it.
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And so communication is the most important thing in a change situation or a crisis situation
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or a transformation situation.
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It's essential to share the vision very, very clearly with all of the employees, explain
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why the change is happening, explain how the change is going to happen and explain the
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benefits of the change not just for the company but also for the employees.
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And it's important to invest time in the staff, invest in the people and show them how the
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new way of working will be.
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And in doing that, you give them a shared ownership of the new world, of the destination
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and indeed the opportunity to comment on it and contribute to it and most importantly
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the skills to operate in it.
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So effectively, it's think of a football team.
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Now everybody in a football team knows that the objective is to get the goal in the back
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of the net.
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But equally, everybody in the team knows that we've all got different roles.
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She's going to be on the right wing, he's going to be in goal, there's the striker,
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but it doesn't stop them contributing when the ball comes loose in a particular area
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of the field.
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They don't stand back and say that's not my job.
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They all understand what the shared goal is and successful transformation is about sharing
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that goal, letting people see what the future is going to be and believe in it and empowering
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them to get there.
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I'm curious if you've got any thoughts on using the football analogy if you're in the
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second half in the last quarter of the match and the momentum and pace has dipped a bit
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and people are getting a bit nifty with each other.
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Do you have any thoughts that you can share around maintaining momentum and keeping teams
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motivated during change?
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I've often seen a bit of change fatigue in organisations that I've worked at.
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I'm curious what advice would you be giving from the sidelines in the second half?
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If I was the coach shouting at the team, I wouldn't be shouting.
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I think there's a few elements to that.
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I've already said communicate and I would say communicate, communicate, communicate.
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I think that it's important to think of an organisation as like a bed and it's a network
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of coiled bed springs and you can try to move one spring on its own but as soon as you let
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go it will snap back.
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And so when you think about transformation and change within an organisation it's really
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important not to think about this group of workers and how they should change or how
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their work should change but it's essential to think about the organisation around them
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and that organisation's expectations of them are matched with the change that's going on.
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And actually that's often a key cause of fatigue because it's hard work to act in the new way.
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And so think about the transformation as an organisation, not just a specific group or
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department or work area.
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The other thing I'd say is that resistance to change comes from three places.
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The first one is that change requires effort and energy.
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The next one is that it causes worrying concern about security and the third one is it causes
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worrying concern about ability.
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Am I going to be able to do this job in this new job?
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So to address them and this is what I would be thinking about in the first, in the final
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quarter is by communicating the vision and letting everybody see what and why and the
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importance of it and the benefit of it this drives energy and motivation.
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And then also people require reassurance, open conversations about what's going to happen
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to the organisation and them and their roles in order to reduce the insecurity.
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And then the third thing, most important is training.
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Training gives people the skills and ability to be able to work in the new world.
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And I think by addressing those resistances and recognising that there's an entire organisation
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that needs to be on board with the change, not just a group of workers, is the way to
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ensure that the momentum carries through.
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I'm going to really carry a lot of our conversations so far.
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I think it's really the empowerment of people so they know what to do with the right processes
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and policies so that they can perform well.
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I think that's human nature.
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People want to achieve their goals at work.
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They want to do all these things.
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It was interesting talking about I think this concept can come from the fear of the unknown
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change, but I also think that I hit more abilities with football analysis.
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I'm not a very sporty person.
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So I'm going to shift a slightly and ask you to tell us a bit more what's on the horizon
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for you as you're all kind of building and scaling a new organisation.
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Which is quite exciting.
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Yes, it is.
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I've recently taken over in a new role as Chief Executive of Brava Systems, which is
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a fantastic technology platform.
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It's what I'll call a light and agile enterprise management system for the real estate industry.
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And I say light and agile because I want to contrast it from everybody's perceptions of
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what an enterprise system and ERP system usually is, which is monolithic and inflexible.
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You end up having to re-engineer the organisation around it.
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And so it's a really great technology and it's a great honour and a pleasure to be given
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the responsibility to lead it.
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And so we have the potential to transform the workplace of our customers.
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But Brava Systems, to speak frankly, it's a technology-led company.
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It's come from having focused on developing the technology and they've developed a brilliant
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technology, but it has many of the typical issues that I've already spoken about that
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technology-led companies have.
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And in addition, because it's groundbreaking, as with all disruptive technologies, we have
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now a need to educate the market about what we are and what we can do.
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And that's particularly difficult in a corporate environment with selling to corporates because
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corporates are, understandably, conservative.
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So we have a transformation that we need to undertake within Brava.
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We need to focus on our customers, markets and products.
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And so it becomes less about what can we do and more about what do customers want?
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And again, we too need to think about what is our business model?
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Where do we sit in the supply chain?
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What partners should we have?
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How do we go to market?
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Who are our customers going to be?
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And then having done that, we need to build capability in areas where we are frankly currently
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lacking in skills.
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And also I'm poignantly aware that everything I've just described means change for everyone.
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It's not just about bringing in a bunch of new wonder kids and that everything's right.
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It means everybody currently in the organization needs to change the way that they behave and
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the way that they work, as well as supplementing it with new people.
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So it's very, very exciting.
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I'm really, really amped up about it.
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Oh, wonderful.
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I think we need to look forward to following your journey.
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And I think as you embark on this new role, I'm curious where you go to inspiration and
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where you kind of feed your creative brain and keep on the pulse of interesting things
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that you can kind of feed into Barbara and other companies' uruses.
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So where do I feed my creative brain?
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Honestly, in the kitchen.
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And that cooking is my creative outlet.
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And so that's where I restore my energy.
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That's where I can be innovative in a safe environment.
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And I can get a huge amount of satisfaction from that.
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So yeah, I would say the recharge of my creative brain happens in the kitchen.
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Amazing.
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So do you have some favorite dishes?
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Oh, yes, a few.
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I mean, I can tell you that my children's favorite dish that I cook is a seafood laxer.
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Oh, amazing.
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Yeah, I think it's pretty good.
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That sounds delicious.
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I'm getting hungry.
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Okay, next one.
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We're in our quick-fire round two now.
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So can you please describe, we're being nosy, I'm sorry.
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Could you describe your desk for our audience?
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What are your desks typically like, Julian?
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Yes.
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Very nice and tidy.
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All other stacks of books.
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Okay, so first of all, the first most noticeable thing about my desk is that it goes up and
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down.
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So I have a standing desk.
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I work probably about half my time standing up and half my time sitting down.
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It's almost paperless.
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But there are a bunch of post-it notes around that are reminders for me to do things.
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There's a selfie light, of course.
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There's a couple of good luck charms and there's a picture of my children.
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I'll ask you a serious question now.
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Are there any useful people or websites that you follow and can stay on the pulse of your
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industry?
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I mean, I think TechCrunch is just the best resource for knowing what's going on out there
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in the technology sector.
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I'm an avid reader of The Economist.
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It gives me political insight, business insight and technology insight as to what's going
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on.
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And I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk.
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I think he has such a huge brain but also such a go-forward outlook to both technology
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and business that I'm always interested in what he's got to say other than on Twitter.
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In another lie, what could your career be?
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So I used to think I should be a lead singer in a rock band.
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Of course you did.
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I think that's just the performer in me.
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It's the desire to be the guy out front.
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It's certainly not that I can sing.
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Definitely not.
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I'm a strategist and I'm a people person.
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Maybe the other way around.
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Maybe I'm a people person first and the strategist.
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So maybe a coach or a counsellor and I'm an engineer by training.
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And I could very easily have been happy staying in engineering.
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How would you describe your leadership style?
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You mentioned in your life you could have been a rock star at the front, but tell us
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about your leadership style.
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When I was younger, it took me a while to not be self-conscious about taking a leadership
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role.
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I mentioned earlier that people, the world needs leaders.
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And so to hesitate to lead, I think you're doing a disservice to oneself.
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But I believe that my leadership style, I mean certainly collaborative and I hope supportive,
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I remember reading a book many years ago by Mark McCormack.
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It was called What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School.
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And it was all about, actually she was talking about negotiations and he said it's about
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understanding where the other person's coming from and what their objectives are.
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But I think that in an organisation, everybody's an individual, forming part of a team, but
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it's essential to understand what their goals are, what their needs are and where they're
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coming from in order to match those to the organisation's needs and goals.
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As we finish up, let me ask you, what was the best piece of advice you've ever been
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given, perhaps in your formative years or really the best advice you've been given,
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that's really memorable to you and you've been able to use in your life.
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The trick is not to give up.
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So I've always believed that it's important to try hard, push hard, reach high and to
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take adversity as a learning experience rather than the end of the road.
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But the best advice that I ever got is being told that actually the trick to success is
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not giving up.
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What a good place to finish.
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Thank you so much for your time, Julie and we really appreciate it.
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Thank you very much.
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What a wonderful talk.
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Thank you for your time.
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So, it concludes another episode of Label Sessions Presents.
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Be sure to follow and subscribe to the podcast, know my at your platform of choice and of
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course start your journey today with us at LabelSessions.com.
