CXO INSIGHT

I don ’ t believe in that going the other way around , where you come in from an ivory tower , look down and try to strategise the business .

I think the first thing is to understand the business , make sure you ’ re involved in the content , and that incremental improvements form really big changes . I always say to people after every week or after month , ‘ what are three things that are different now than they were last week or last month ?’. You ’ re just constantly working on continuous improvement plans . I think another thing is to hit the accelerator ; be very client-focused , very tech product-focused and go for growth , rather than being too cautious . What comes with that is quicker , more agile decision making .

The third part is that it is fun , that we get on as a team , that there ’ s a great team atmosphere . I think that is very infectious and makes people join the business . Then you can build on the qualities that you have even further , with a great energetic culture . forward . If you gather , over the years , a group of people around you , then they will gather people around them again etc . These people will all be brought up in that culture of wanting to do what ’ s right for the business , rather than for them , just individually . So , I think the starting point is that culture and getting to know each other .

Lastly , if you share certain objectives , you can drive different behaviour . We have a transformation portfolio to make sure all the functions are represented . They ’ re the kind of things that we ’ re trying to do from cultural things to HR things , to the events to crossfunctional working .

How did the pandemic impact your business operations and how did you respond ?

BE VERY CLIENT- FOCUSED , VERY TECH PRODUCT-FOCUSED AND GO FOR GROWTH , RATHER THAN BEING TOO CAUTIOUS .

As CEO , what advice would you offer other executives within the C-suite to make sure their voice is heard ?

To get your voice heard , you will have to spend time understanding the business , understanding the people , understanding the data and understanding how to make things better , rather than a pile of observations . If you are more informed , then your colleagues around the board table will listen much more .

How do you ensure different teams in your organisation work together ?

The pandemic itself doubled the business overnight . But the first thing we were all concerned with was the well-being of our people , our customers , etc . We were trying to adjust our products and our services to what was right for the pandemic – so that was step one .

Step two was to make quick decisions around capacity and try to capture that . We were decisive around our investment choices and that has been good for the business , enabling us to capture the opportunity of the pandemic .

I think it is very important that there is a healthy culture of people who want to bring the business

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