E126 – Responsible Business in 2021 (w Jamie Mitchell)

Thank you. Hello, hello, yeah. So look, most of my time at the moment is correctly spent with altogether, trying to build this very young social enterprise. But I'm also chairman at a couple of businesses. I chair rare restaurants, which is includes the brands like Gaucho and restaurants. I think you have a gaucho in Edinburgh, hopefully, hopefully you go, yeah, I've been

there. Yeah, it's, I think it's still closed, but I have definitely open now. Okay, cool. Well, anyway, anyway, yes, next time I'm in Edinburgh, yes,

as well as some, I do some work with the Mayor of London. I sit on economic partnership. I'm juggling a few balls at the moment, but I guess historically, I'm a serial chief executive and entrepreneur. So I've I've run a venture capital company. I used to run innocent drinks in the UK. I then went on to run Dales for the organic farm to fork business. I've also been CEO Tom Dixon, which is a design, furniture and lighting design business, global brand. So I, you know, I've definitely got a long track record of leading businesses, and now I'm sort of spending most of my time helping other leaders. Yeah, brilliant.

And I love a sort of breadth of experience that you have in there. It spans many different areas, which is, I think, really probably great for giving you an insight into some of the things that we could change about what our businesses do and some of the roles that the businesses play in society. I guess at the minute, you are focusing a bit more on responsibility. I've seen some of your panels where you've spoken about this. I guess I'd like to explore first, why are you drawn to responsibility, and what does responsibility mean for you from that business perspective? Well,

I've got a crass answer, which is, I'm a human being, right? I don't understand and businesses are human organizations. I mean, they're communities of people. So so that I don't I've never really understood the antithesis of responsible business. But look, the history is a I guess. I started off from an intellectual point of view in the 90s. I think you studied economics too. I studied economics, and economics answered everything on paper, and then I went out into the world of work and was a bit confused. It didn't seem quite like that. And I had the pleasure after a few years being a management consultant, consultant. I worked at the CBI, which, you know, is, is a fabulous organization that's full of really smart people thinking about stuff. And I worked with a chap called a dare Turner, Lord Turner now, and he's, he's brilliant. And some of the work we did then, back in the 90s was, was around this theory of stakeholder capitalism, which you know, John Kay and will Hutton back in the day, was speaking about, and I was really drawn to it. This, this idea that actually, society and businesses are responsible to a broad array of stakeholders made a lot more sense and than this idea that we just motivated and driven and act for one purpose, which is money, and I guess that was an intellectual base, but accidentally, or on purpose, I ended up running purposeful organizations. I mean, the venture capital company I set up in 1999 going back a bit here, but it was the first wave of the internet, and we had a strong purpose, which was to bring the energy and excitement and power of entrepreneurship, which I'd witnessed in the US in my days at business school, there, to bring it to Europe, because it looks like it was such a positive and energizing world. So I had a business with purpose, and then I got this job at innocent, tiny little. Smoothie business, and I was running their UK business. And that really changed everything, because innocent wasn't just a business with purpose. It was a business that cared and wanted to leave the world a little bit better than it found it. And I'm afraid sort of, it's as simple as that. You know, amalgamation of experiences, I went on to dalesford, which was all about sustainable farming and sustainable food. And, you know, it's then it's in your blood and DNA by this point. So yeah, today's, today's tub thumping has a long history.

Yeah, no, that's brilliant. Just on a dare Turner, but just a little shout out. He's got a great lecture at Johns Hopkins, which you can find on YouTube. It's something like 90 minutes on the future of work, and it's brilliant. And it speaks to a lot of these, these factors. So I'd really recommend, I haven't seen it, and I will, yeah, it's lovely. It's a couple years old, but it's brilliant. He's, he's,

yeah, look, I remain his. A great fan of his, and you'll remember after the financial crisis, he was one of the few people that really called out what was wrong with the city and how, you know, 30% of the work that the city does was, was, was irrelevant and not added value. I mean, it's, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's a true progressive,

yeah, something that struck me as you were talking through your background there, and what's led you here, and sort of reflects my own experience. I kind of feel that once you step back from business, and as you sort of alluded to in your introduction, once you see it as a construct that we've made, and you can see the impact that it has on people, I think it's really hard not to be an advocate of responsible business.

Yeah, I mean, you're entirely right, once you look at the impact it has outside of its day to day, and particularly to begin with, you look at the negative impacts. I mean, let's be clear, the movement today is a movement about positive impact, but the movement used to be a movement about mitigating our negative impacts, making up for the bad things we sort of did by default, because it wasn't in the business model, but now it's moved a lot. But yes, you can't, you can't help but, but see it that way. Look that the alternative point of view had a 30 year run. And the alternative point of view, which is very much embedded in trickle down economics, is that if individuals and business focus on their own self interest, from a money point of view, it flows down and everybody gets richer and better off, and that money makes everybody happier, and all the rest of it, and that's just been blown out of, out of the water, you know, for the last 10 years, looking at inequality stats and data and the, you know, the failure of trickle down economics. And it's part and parcel of the same thing, right? It just, it just simply, is you can't you? I don't think there is a counter argument anymore that the best thing business can do is only focus on profits, particularly when you have the world, world burning as it were.

Yeah, absolutely. You know that rising tide analogy, or a metaphor? You know the rising tide rising all ships. You know it's it's not the case. So it's good to good to see some of those ways that we think about business being challenged and accepted more into the mainstream. One of the things that comes up sometimes when we speak about the responsibility of business does go back to that, you know, that profit motive and and I guess the question is, can you be a responsible business, a business for good, and still be a business that's driven by profit? How do you balance those, those two things? What are you using? Well,

first of all, let's take time frames into account. My my firm belief is you can't have long term sustainable profitability unless you are a force for good too. Let's, let's take two examples, the planet and our people, and if you think about the planet, there is no way business can survive and and generate profits if we let the planet be destroyed. It will. It will affect every market, every industry. You know, there is such a clear self interest in the long term for business to sort out climate change. So they go hand in hand. And then think about your employees, and particularly, you know, I see you have as much hair as I have, actually, you've got a little bit more. But younger, young, possibly, possibly, yes, yes, I've got years to

go. But frankly, the millennial community too. They will not work for a business that isn't mindful of its impact and preferably looking to change the world for the better. So if you want the best talent and you want to sustain a high quality, high quality workforce, you're going to have to do this stuff too. So the long term is, it is a commercially self interested concept, getting there sooner, being a leader in the space, I think, is also of commercial benefit, particularly in consumer markets and consumer brands, where where customers are increasingly. Choosing brands based on their their impact. But the truth then comes. I think the speed with which you as a business wants to have impact in the world is a trade off with short term profits. No doubt about it, I remember vividly, too long ago, the decision we took at innocent to move our banana supplier to Rainforest Alliance, absolutely core to our values, that we would be having sort of the most sustainable supply of bananas. But it was a half a million pound decision for what was a 15 million pound revenue business at that time. But it was probably one of the shortest decisions, one of the sort of discussions once we'd found a reliable supply at quality. But there's no doubt you've got to take some short term, short term hits. You can't do this at the expense of profit entirely, because then you risk going under you look at Danone and the fuss about Faber, the CEO there, who's been fired, essentially, and the press has been saying if because he took too much of a responsible business approach, that's not true. He didn't take enough care of the business, or for some reason the business was really underperforming and needed fixing. It's not because his eye was off the ball doing all the good stuff, but his eye was definitely off the ball on the profit stuff. And I think that comes down to the crux of this problem. It's hard work to do both. It really is,

yeah, and I'd like to touch a little bit more on that role of a leadership in a couple of minutes. But your point about the attraction and retention of talent, I think is really powerful. And the other day, I was speaking to somebody who is on the cusp of partnership in McKinsey. They're, you know, an associate partner, and they're looking to leave. And they're looking to leave because they want that responsibility. So they're trying to find, where are their organizations or sectors that they can go into, where they can use their skills, their specialist to do good, right? And this is a young, upwardly mobile, eminently successful person who's just sort of reaching a stage where they can't balance that sort of moral turmoil between what they're doing and what they want to be

doing. And I, you know, it'd be interesting watching. And you've got a an eight an eight year old, and I've got a seven year old, as they get into the workforce, what are they going to be like, I suspect, even more extreme on this, to be perfectly honest. And let's not pretend this isn't cycles. You know, there were periods of the early part of the 20th century of great, paternalistic, albeit civil leadership, civic leadership from business and and real care big, manufacturers took of their communities and of their people and and we need, we just need 20 or 30 years of of that moral agenda again to balance out the last 30 years. And I have no doubt, I'm sure, some form of the the alternative viewpoint will become Vogue again in the future. Just don't, I don't want it in my lifetime or my working lifetime. Well,

you know what, right next to us, I'm up in Edinburgh, is this is snow, and right near us is New Lanark, which I think is something like 1730 is a cooperative movement that was all about responsible business, right? I mean, this is a fantastic place to visit. You can see that community there. And clearly that's in and out of fashion. But like you say, you know, I'm hopeful that the oscillations of opinion change that sort of trend direction towards more responsibility, and I think they need to, well,

let's, let's just take a moment to realize how much movement we have seen on this pre COVID The last three or four years before, before COVID, have been amazing for the progressive business movement. You know, you had Larry Fink come out BlackRock, you know, the largest investment manager in the world, saying business needs to have clarity of purpose. You had the business round table in the US, which is the equivalent of the CBI here in the UK, saying the purpose of business is and a beyond profit statement and and you had suddenly had this groundswell. You had a huge money flows into ESG, investing, etc, etc. Then COVID happened. I was a bit worried. Actually, I thought COVID was going to take a step make take a step back, because we we did in business all have to focus on our bottom lines. Of course we did. But the truth is, actually we saw an even bigger shift towards more progressive business values as business helped out, as businesses volunteered their time, their energy, their capabilities, their skills to solve the problems and help the most needy. And they found a whole new we found a whole new sort of civic leadership come out of that that you know is being sustained today. People want to sustain today. So I think it's an extraordinary, exciting moment. You know, it is really hard to find someone who's willing to argue against progressive business, values, practices, responsible business. That doesn't mean there aren't people sitting there thinking, this is all a woke agenda gone too far. But, you know, they are at least quiet for now. So we have a real moment to seize and make permanent shifts and changes.

And you know what, in that disruption of COVID, which has been such a global thing, I think there have been shifts, not just to those in business and the way that business is working, but also shifts at a more of a societal level and at the consumer level. So so people have taken a step back, and they've said, You know what? We are connected clearly within our communities, and we can see the impact about viral level of our actions on others. And I think with that has come more of an awareness of the impact we have in other areas of our lives, and also through the sort of withdrawal and seclusion aspects that come with the lockdowns, I think people have had time to reflect on what really matters to them, and that pause and that breathing out as a globe, to just take a moment has helped us reassess a little bit, and I'd love to see that, that the great momentum that's been achieved in this past 15 months in terms of people's thinking and the changes that have been made at Civic levels, if we look at Our cities and the changes that have made in business, in businesses, to have that momentum carry on. And I guess that's a question for you, how do you think that that we can help that momentum carry on, or do you think it will naturally? What are your thoughts on that continued change? Well, first

of all, can I just say you're so right about that pause that communities, society and individuals have had as a result of COVID, and a moment of mindfulness for everybody, in forced mindfulness, for so many people, not everybody. There are plenty of people who had an awful, awful, stressful COVID, and we should, we should relate to it, and very hard to take the time to rethink your priorities when you're juggling two full time jobs and two kids under five, as a lot of people in my community were doing. But look, I completely agree. How do we how do we make sure this is a permanent shift? How do we make sure business to use that phrase leans into this and makes it makes it permanent. Well, first of all, I think it will naturally be. And the question is just one of scale, we're not going to go back to to the way things are. That is, that is for sure, you can just feel that in the conversations you're having, I have with business leaders on a daily basis, but there are things that can be done. So I'm part of a campaign called the Better Business Act, which is calling for a change in the law. Very technical detail, section 172 of the Companies Act spells out company directors responsibilities, and currently it says a company is run for the benefit of its members, ie, shareholders. Comma, but please take into account society and planet stuff. So not many people know, by the way, that the Companies Act actually does ask you, as a company director, to take this stuff into account. But we have a moment now where we can scrap the scrap the comma, and bring real parity to why a company is running the purpose of business, and say it should be run for the benefits of its members, yes, and for society and for the planet. So a simple change in the law would be hugely, hugely important. So things like the Better Business Act, which any businesses listening in now I highly, highly recommend and plea to go and join the coalition and sign up calling for that change. So I think things like that help. But then there are plenty of other movements and organizations around that are trying to bed this stuff in. And I think we can celebrate that. There was an organization recently that announced 14 FTSE 100 members, which is called the purpose full company, or purpose company, something set up by or with will Hutton's involvement. I mentioned him earlier. There are lots of businesses that are helping companies define and develop their purpose and their how they're going to do impacts. And of course, let's not forget, every business is addressing its net zero challenge, and the government is demanding more and more of this from business. I mean, the government's investigating new reporting requirements around how you're going to get to net zero, etc, etc. So there's a lot of pressure anyway, all in the right direction here. So I'm the most optimistic I've, frankly, I've ever been, that we are seeing this shift, and we're seeing this shift at pace.

There's I echo all those points, and there are a couple of other things that I've seen happening over the last 18. Months that I think have been quite interesting. And one of the things that I've liked about the examples, I'm going to give it a bit they're fairly public, participatory and and sort of civic involvement and pushing for some of these. So obviously, I'm sure you're aware, Amsterdam, as a city, is moved to embrace the donut, right? So we've got the donut city, which is lovely, right? So, so seeing that come through is great. And then another one that I really liked was the Canton of Geneva and Switzerland basically voted through participatory direct democracy that companies should be accountable throughout their supply chain for the actions of everyone throughout their supply chain. It's about legal accountability. Felt like a really great thing. So that sort of public opinion and pushing towards those things is great. And say here in Edinburgh, the city is doing some, some really pretty good things about the access and travel and all those factors that I consider beneficial to well being and environmentalism, again, as that part of you know, consultation with the public so

you you can't have systemic change if it's just one part of the system moving. And so the fact that governments are being innovative, like the Amsterdam one, I'd like to come back to donuts, the fact that public communion is shifting in this, in the way it has been, but you also can't have it unless business takes its lead. So that's why that you know this, this, this business led world of change is really the most exciting bit for me, because normally you have to drag business kicking and screaming, right? So the CBI this week, published their 2030, vision for the UK economy in a document called seize the moment. And I kid you not, I could have written it. It felt so progressive, brilliant. It had, it had this concept of business in the service of the nation, which is as close as I think we can get the CBI to saying business as a force for good and and stipulated in no uncertain terms, a business needs to play its part in net zero, play its part in leveling up, play its part in The diversity agenda, and that this can't be something that we wait for government to regulate on and we have to take a lead on it,

right? Yeah, brilliant on that point. We haven't even brought in the conversation about equality and things like that. If we look across the US recently, where this is may 2021, I just had to check, can you believe it? I've lost your date. Hey, 20th, almost June. Um, unfortunately, when we when we look across some of the US political action recently, we've seen what is being billed to some extent, as efforts at voter suppression to some extent, and some of the state legislators and and in response to that, we've seen a fair number of large organizations stepping up and saying, We disagree with this, or we'll move our business elsewhere, or moving sporting events to different places. So stuff coming out of Georgia, stuff out of Texas, what's your view with that? I mean, what's your view of a role of business in that situation? It feels like such a nuanced, complicated action, and it's an awful question. Well,

no, but it's also just so America that if you if we'd been talking a few years ago, we'd have been talking about how America is so behind the times on on progressive values and activism and then and now, it's like every business has adopted it as a as a matter of friends, and it's just moved so quickly, doesn't it look I think it, it's probably never going to happen To that effect in Blighty, moving out of structure.

But I think there's a lot to look at in what is happening America and and to be inspired by. And I'm particularly interested so you mentioned the inequality piece. I think if there's one charge to make against British businesses, we're much more interested in the planet agenda and our own people's well being as an agenda, because that makes total sense to focus on that than we are about can we play or do we have a responsibility to sort out the inequality issue? Now, the easiest place to look because of Black Lives Matter is diversity. And again, look to the US. The financial services industry, last week in the US, got together and put together this extraordinary plan of upheaval in their own organizations, significant investment in underrepresented communities. I mean, it was a it was a blueprint for, how do you move something fast? Because they know they need to, and they know they've got the power to do it. And far more is being done in the US on this today than we're seeing here, with the exception. I think I'm a big fan of Lord Bilimoria, who is also the president of the CBI at the moment, the Cobra beer founder, who is leading and tub funding the diversity agenda in big business in a huge way. But I think we've got a lot more to do here. And I think we're a bit shy as business on this stuff, partly because, let's face it, inequality exists in business, that all the increasing inequality exists in business. It's not just something that happens in the outside world. It is happening in our organizations. The the increase, ever increasing pay of CEOs drags up the leadership team, but we haven't seen the pay change at the lower levels of the organization. So we are as guilty as as the economic model around us in this regard, and it needs it. That's one area where I think we've got a lot more work to do. There's no doubt in my

mind. And sort of just building on that, and maybe circling us back a little bit, one of the things that I think comes out to me from donut economics as a concept. And when I've heard Kate speak on this is the sort of readdressing or the reboundering of externalities in business, right? So when I was doing my economics degree, we'd talk about externalities, positive or negative impacts outside the domain of your business, effectively. But when you hear Kate speak about this, she fundamentally says there are no externalities, because the circle is so big that we're all in the same systemic votes together. Now, when we think about inequality, I think one of the jumps that I don't feel that we've necessarily made yet is that inequality is itself, to some extent, the broadening those circles so where others have a better existence that translates through to a better outcome for me as an individual, because that circle is drawn so wide around us. And I'd like to think that things like public health are a great example, right? If we can improve public health across the world, we help everyone have better health. It helps for self interest of those privileged few who are at the top end of that unequal cycle. And it just doesn't feel to me yet as if we've quite made that conceptual jump in relation to inequality, what do you think about about that? I

couldn't agree more. And actually, let's just take a moment and celebrate Kate Ray work. Absolutely. I maybe you've talked about Kate's work in previous podcasts, but I you know it's not just for those of us who study the wrong economics when we went to university, like you and I did, but if you studied economics at university, this is the book that answers all your questions of what, of why you couldn't, why didn't make any sense. But you know, she has this very simple framework in the in the donut that brings together everything you know that we've been getting excited about for the last few years in trying to figure out what's wrong with economics and what's wrong with the capitalist system and all the rest of it. And I just recommend it as a read to everybody. It has become my blueprint for the businesses that I work with. Actually, it just is the easiest way of explaining impact. Choose how you are well understand how you are negatively impacting on planet and society. And that means not just looking at climate change, but looking at the seven planetary boundaries. Look how you influence impact negatively or not, on the the inner circle of the donut, the UN Social Development Goals. Take a step back, look at it and now say, How do I want to make a difference? Because I do want to take this, this moment, to talk about the difference between purpose, social purpose led business, and normal, normal, everyday business right? There are so many amazing and exciting and motivating relatively new businesses, and innocent was one of the earliest ones that had purpose and responsibility built in from their founding principles. And it's so exciting, and they're going to attract the best people, and they're going to make great waves in the world for the vast majority of businesses now today, they struggle with this question of, how do I become a bit more like that? Because I wasn't founded with a social purpose in mind. I was founded with a very simple business idea and and we've been very profitable, and we've made etc, etc. So how do I pivot into a more purposeful organization? Is it's a much more difficult challenge. And I think the first thing to say is you're not going to redefine your purpose, because that should be clear already. And if it's not a social purpose, that's fine. Every business has a purpose, you know, even if it's just the, you know, making your customers happy, you've got to you've got a purpose. That is the reason everyone gets up in the morning. But you've got to choose how you want to impact the world now, and and finding ways that make sense for your business to make a difference in the world, whether it's the planet boundary or in the in the society boundary of the donuts. And and then make some targets and measure your progress. Treat it. A financial target, and sit them alongside your financial targets, and live and breathe a more human set of values in your organization. It isn't as easy as it sounds, but it's really it's really important to do it and sort of go through that process. And so many businesses are, and I got a very good friend who is a partner at a city law firm. I'll say this because I'm not naming him. He's also probably the only person I know who just doesn't buy this stuff at all. Okay, wow. Okay, he will, but he won't say it publicly. But you know the purpose of business and make money, and make money, get out of my way, yeah. But his law firm is currently doing its what is our purpose? You know, engagement work, which, you know, frankly, this is a city law firm that does corporate transactions. I can't wait to see the outcome of it, but it's, it is hard work to go through this stuff and decide how you want to have impact and how you want to play your part in a world that needs business to be contributing. So, yeah.

So two thoughts straight, straight back on that, and I think your experience probably helps you speak to both of them. Well, one, if you are in a senior position or in a leadership position in an organization and you're looking to exert some influence on these leaders of change, to help your leadership team move towards more of this embracing and you face skepticism. Where do you think those inflection points are? What do you think your arguments are to convince your peers in the C suite or other levels of leadership that this is the right thing to do? What are those mechanisms? Well,

first of all, I'm delighted to say you don't need to do a huge amount of persuading today. It's more how do you figure, how do you put a plan together, than how do you how do you persuade people? But you know, if you have to persuade people, then we went through earlier, didn't we, sort of we've got to be a great place for our employees. Otherwise we're not going to have the talent. We do need to be playing our part in the environment and net zero, because otherwise our business is going to suffer in the long term or in the short term, because customers will move elsewhere. So you can make your commercial rationale to get everybody on board with it. I think it's much harder though to figure out how to do it and what to do it. I mean, even on net zero, it's really easy to make a big statement that in 30 years, we will be net zero. The question is, what am I going to do today and what am I going to do this week in order to get me on that, that journey? And so there's a huge amount of work and encouragement of all businesses to measure their carbon footprint and to do the easy wins. That's this year's job. If you haven't been on this journey already, that's the job for this year. Measure it, know where it is, do the easy wins and write the plans for how you're going to innovate the rest of the carbon out of your out of your chain. Now, one of my businesses is I run a I'm chairing a steak restaurant, right? Gaucho is a steak restaurant. Steak is not the food du jour for the environmental movement. And two years ago, pre COVID, we when we reinvested and revamped the brand in one of our restaurants, we made a commitment that that would be a carbon neutral restaurant while we started to figure out the rest. So we took one of our restaurants so that's going to be carbon neutral. If we haven't reduced down enough of the carbon we will just mitigate the rest, but, and we know that's not the best way of doing it, but we've got to, you know, we've got to be on a journey. And in the next year and during lockdown, we've been spending a lot of time researching and working with our supply chain to figure out, how do we stop cows burping so much, right? I mean, yeah, this is what you've got. You've got to figure out the feed stuff. And you it's really hard. It's really hard. You got a supply chain in Argentina that doesn't buy this stuff, doesn't get it that much, doesn't realize why, why this is so important. So you've got, it's a long process. It's a long, long process. And you know, it doesn't mean we can't, you know, be a steak restaurant. There can still be a small amount of steak that we eat in the world, and there's no reason why that can't be in the hospitality industry. It doesn't, it doesn't mean we de facto should close down shop and and get out of town, but we have a responsibility to do it in the best way we can and the most sustainable way we can, and that's where we get to really invest our time and energy. And as I said, you can argue we have to do it, because customers will stop coming to us if we don't, or you can just see it as the moral imperative,

yeah, yeah, and that weighing of a two right in so many different things. We we speak about, and I think so we do. There is the moral case, and there is the, you know, the numbers case, and sometimes both of those arguments have a place to play. I was recommended a book the other day that I've not read yet, but it's on its way to me, which is called the good ancestor, right? And so the language around the good ancestors, how are we good ancestors? And that that sort of metaphor for who we are in business feels really good to me. I would like to be a good ancestor come X number of years. And if there's one sort of phrase that encapsulates that, I really like it. I wanted to. I like that too. It's a nice phrase, isn't it? It's wholesome. What

it is. It's all very well for us parents with kids to say, what are we handing over to our children? But for everybody else, I think you need a broader metaphor. Yeah, so good ancestors, that's nice,

isn't it? I wanted to, like, delve into a little bit more broadly some of your background in relation to this. So I believe you've worked in venture capital or private equity, or one of one of those, one of those fields early on, both in many ways, but yeah, and so that's a field, or a part of the world that sometimes has a negative reputation when it comes to this. That's me putting it lately. So what I guess I wanted to ask is, how does one go about financing these responsible businesses? What do you think that relationship is with venture cap and the VC community and that early startup funding. And how can you tap into resources in a responsible way when you're looking to grow and develop?

I don't have all the answers on this, but let's just take a second and celebrate the good stuff before we tear down the venture capital and private equity industry on the good stuff. Look, in the last two or three years, how many new venture capital funds in the UK and in Europe, and I suspect the US, but I haven't looked at it, are purpose LED. I can think of two, bloom and giant. They may be small funds at the moment, but they are will only back businesses that have impact.

Yeah, and on this, I'm one of your one of your mentors is from Cook, and I know that one of a cook co founders has set up snowball. I don't know if they're still going,

but snowball very much which, which is an investment. It's not a private SEO, it's an investment management vehicle, but very much creating a fund that is that is impactful, absolutely, and of course, a huge amount of the investment management industry, surprisingly, is buying into environmental and sustainable investing. In private equity. It's been slower. So I was about saying the world of venture capital, they're doing that partly because most startups are set up by young millennials for whom this is in built. So the VCs are catching up. Because maybe the VCs are doing because they want to change the world. Maybe they're doing it to appeal to the outcomes, or outcomes, right? Yeah, outcomes, private equity has moved less quickly, but is beginning to move so I would have said, before lockdown, before Before COVID, that this was the last element your middle, middle tier businesses and private equity industry that sort of plays in the mid market. It hasn't grabbed this agenda. I think that's changing a lot. There are new funds, like the future business partnership, that are only driven for impact investments. And I think again, the private equity industry, just like big corporations, gets it now, and is is far more. In some cases, is driving their portfolio companies to be more progressive, and in some cases, is just saying yes to their portfolio companies agenda. But it is, it is changing that said, there is some fundamental flaws in both private equity and venture capital. They drive the inequality agenda, no doubt about it, because it's a very big amount of reward for a small number of people in that industry. And we have to be aware of it. They are taxed unfairly. I mean, you know, they still taxed. Their income is taxed as capital gains, so they don't have to pay that much tax. And so there's a lot of, I think, issues in that space, and yet there's also a lot of good that can come out of it. So I think it's a very murky, issue this one I'm and I don't, I don't pretend to know where the future lay, lies on this, but there's no doubt that that there are issues that need addressing.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm one of my friends up here in Scotland is involved in social investment and trying to create new products that emulate more corporate products to support social investment, so community bonds or revenue fixed, sorry, revenue dependent debt for social enterprises that are trying to emulate equity and things like that, but they're very much in the. Social space. Yes,

it's, it's interesting. I think the social enterprise space is being usurped by social purpose driven businesses, and I think that's okay, because I think, in fact, I think we want them to mix. If there's one argument against the long history of social enterprises is that they've tend to come out of the charity sector, and they tend not to have enough of a business mindset. You know, growth, the growth mindset of business is as applicable to impact as it is to profits. So you know, if you have an impact, you want to have a big impact, how can you do it in a self sustaining way where you don't have to beg for the money? Is a that set of business mentalities is good. However, you need more patient capital, and many more sources of that patient capital, the more progressive or the more purpose led the business is. You know, I'm a big fan of an organization called the London interdisciplinary School, which is one of the first new universities, as in a university that's been awarded its own, a startup university that's been awarded its own ability to award degrees, and it's built around the concept of interdisciplinary studies that the world's so complex we can't solve the problems if we're just a physicist. So we're going to learn a little bit of physics, going to learn a little bit of math, we're going to learn a little bit of of history and social, all the bits of each subject we need to to solve big problems. And the coursework is based around solving problems. So it's just it's just genius, it's just its investor base is not looking for venture capital returns or even private equity level returns. They are aware that they're going to get a very low return to their capital, and they're doing it because they know how good and impactful this organization will be. And we just, we just, we're going to need to see more and more of that, I think, to support the entrepreneurs who do want to make the bigger changes. Again, if there's a problem I have with a lot of the social enterprise out of the venture capital community, also, I should say the purpose led business is they're solving middle class problems. Fine, that's where the money is. And maybe we solve them first, and then we move down in the old fashioned trickle down approach to the really meaty problems. But you know that you probably need more entrepreneurs who've come from, for instance, society, parts of society that have the problems, rather than the heavily white middle class community, a venture capital community. So you need people who've seen the problems, who've been at the coalface of the problems, to want to solve them, and then you'll need longer term capital to help, to help address but I think business and startups and entrepreneurs have such an important role to play in this, and hopefully we're seeing more and more finance available for

them. Yeah, brilliant. Um, I'd like to move on. And you spoke a little bit there about supporting these entrepreneurs. So one way, obviously, to support these purpose, purpose driven entrepreneurs, is through that allocation of capital, that patient capital, to help them do this. But but also something that you're focusing on now is support through knowledge and mentoring and providing some of the insight that you've gained over your career. Could you just say a little bit about how that works within altogether? Because it would be good to learn a little bit about how that mentoring works. Yeah, I

mean, altogether was an accident and a lucky accident. I think if I'd come up with the idea of altogether a week later, it wouldn't have happened, because I came up with it a week before Boris locks us down for the first time. I think if I'd have actually realized that the school's not to close and my life is about to yell, I wouldn't have done it so very accidental. Look, it was of the moment a Oh, sugar, this is going to be really tough on every business we need to help out. I've got some experience. I've just done crisis management at this business. I can I can help. Why don't I get a few friends together and we'll offer ourselves out to help other people. It was part of that great volunteering momentum. So I was very blessed that hundreds and hundreds of current and former CEOs all offered to volunteer to this organization. And to begin with, we didn't really have a theory here. We just, we just wanted to help out. So I didn't, I think we called it mentoring, coaching and advice from leading CEOs for small business CEO but very much at its heart, if I'm honest, is this, is this concept that being a CEO can be lonely at the best of times. I've been one four times in my life, and I confirm that it can be very, very lonely at the top of an organization, and if you are a smaller business, you are unlikely to have the. Network, the Board of Directors, the investors, and even if you do, they've all got their agenda during crisis. And so, you know, that's where all together was born. An external sounding board from someone who's been there, done it for you to talk to where we are today is a realization that we, you know, we have so much skills and experiences and capabilities in this community of people who have run larger businesses, if you like, and we should share that widely and help help other businesses who could benefit from that experience. Without thinking I have to charge for it, and for an hour or two a month to give my time to another business, seems like an easy thing to do to help and to make for better businesses. And I mean for better businesses in the broadest way, of course, because, as you know, we we fundamentally believe that all businesses need to be moving into into a business for good model. So we're also very, sort of very keen on how we help businesses with that transition to a better business model. But, you know, at the end of the day, this is about spreading best practice experience and ideas to businesses, so that we can all bounce back better, build back better, rather than it just be a phrase that's relevant to bigger business at the

moment and on that. I mean, you've talked about the different scale of businesses, the types of organizations that you mentor, the scale of organizations who's chief executive mentor? How big are these? I mean, some people might say your experience has been in medium and larger organizations. Would would you be willing to mentor somebody in a small organization or in a charity sector, or what types of chief executives work with? Very

important, because what we offer is five hours of free advice, and we do cap it because we're trying to have impact. What we have found is is keep it close. So for instance, I am chairman at a 80 million pound revenue restaurant business that is very applicable to the owner of a five to 10 million pound restaurant chain three sites in the south of London or South of England, for instance, one of my mentees from the summer, we very much kept it to vertical. So we connect people who've got the right experience in that industry. So it is like a big brother or a big sister kind of relationship straight away. You understand the problems. You know the problems. It will not work as well. I think if it is big company, so I don't have, I mean, I'm blessed on my my own advisory board to have my friend Sebastian James supporting us, who's the CEO of boots. But I'm not asking him. Actually, he'd be great as a mentor, to be honest, because he used to be, used to be an entrepreneur and run small businesses. But on the whole, the CEO, the captains of industry, have grown up in their functional roles through through, through big business, and it isn't quite as easy for them to convert their understanding in a short amount of time, I think, to the small business problem. So so with medium business leaders of medium sized businesses, however, get it and understand it. And it's very, very similar to the to the smaller businesses, we don't help startups. There's other ways and other organizations to support the stock pure startup. We do sort of look for a minimum million of revenue to be relevant to our community of advisors and volunteers. Although some of our businesses are smaller that we help. It's a bit of horses for courses here.

Yeah, brilliant. Okay, that's really helpful. Just to paint that picture of a type of people who you guys help. I guess, getting to the end of a conversation, we've covered loads, loads of good stuff, I just would like to ask your thoughts on one thing. If you were to give sort of one free personal piece of advice to CEOs out there who are maybe feeling a bit lonely and trying to do a good job in trying times. What would that piece of advice be to them? What's, what's maybe one, one reflection that you've taken away that's helped you in those moments of difficulty and loneliness as an exact Well,

I mean, it will play into the concept of altogether, but let's be more specific about it, the times where I think I've been the worst version of myself as a CEO is when I haven't given myself the space and the engagement outside of the organization to think about things and and to bounce ideas off other People who aren't inside the business, if you're too singular minded, focused inside the organization, which you have to be, because there's always 100 things to do in a day. But I think that's where you I think that's where you you start to struggle. The benefit of a conversation with someone who understands being a CEO is. Even if it's over a pint, a coffee, lunch, or in a formal setting like a coach, coaching session or a mentor, or indeed, in five hours with altogether, is invaluable to give you the space to think and the space the plan and the space to be better. So you have to give yourself that you have to give yourself that space and that gift if you want to be a really, a really good, I use the words advisably good leader, brilliant.

Okay, well, that's some, some great closing thoughts there. And obviously, altogether is something that we think is a great venture, doing great stuff, and we will share the details of that afterwards. I mean,

if you're sharing, the website is altogether dot company with 2l all together, but you'll be sharing that. Look No. Thank you for having me, I have to say, very stimulating conversation today. Thank you for inviting me on a genuine