Lessons in Leadership, Purpose, and the Power of Storytelling - with Ronan Dunne

34:28Ronan Dunn himself. So thank you for those, Ronan. Now, I just want to go back to exercise judgment as to when to exercise judgment. Talk us through that in a bit more detail because it's not a phrase that I think is commonly said. And what it is in, it's not trying to be clever with language. The thing that I've experienced throughout my professional journey is that people are always trying to make an impact and an impression. and that's a good thing don't misunderstand but what tends to happen as a result is that people sometimes try to force the issue and what I mean by that is they try to move faster than the natural velocity either in their career or inside the organization at the time and the classic example of it is I'm in a room I'm in a meeting I don't necessarily have a key role in it but I want to make an intervention so that the boss and the senior people who are there will say, who is that young lad?

35:39He seems quite smart or whatever it is. And what ends up happening so many times is that people, in order to try to be seen, just pick a really bad context in which to interpose themselves into the discussion. And what they demonstrate is respectfully naivety. And so this idea of exercise judgment as to when to exercise your judgment is really saying it's absolutely correct to be thoughtful about where can I show that I have skill and expertise that I'm, you know, starting to, you know, overflow from my current role and I can take on more responsibility, all critically important things to do. but in my experience the majority of interventions where I've seen people try to do that what they've actually shown is actually I don't have all the context I've probably overstretched in this situation and I've left people who I'm trying to influence thinking this person isn't ready and isn't ready yet so it may seem an odd thing to do but I think every one of us at some stage in our career tries to press the accelerator and there's nothing wrong with that and all I'm saying is I've seen more people crash than necessarily speed up in their careers as a result so it may be self-reflective for me but I've seen it so many times and I think it's rarely spoken about no I think that is absolutely spot on and can you think of a time in your own you said it's a bit self-reflective for your own.

37:16Can you think of a time in your own career where you've kind of been guilty of that yourself, either subconsciously or consciously, I guess? No, no, no, definitely. And it's why I'm so, and it comes on to some of the other lessons, it's why I'm so focused on context. So by background, I'm a chartered accountant. That's accidental. I was going to do law at UCD and the year I left school, the examiners went on strike. And so offers to university were late coming out and somebody offered me a school leaver five-year training contract with one of the big accountancy firms. And my mother thought it would be a good idea for me to do it.

37:59So here I am as a, you know, 35 years qualified chartered accountant or whatever. But the point about it was what I learned through that, which is relevant to this is I'm really good at seeing ecosystems. So when somebody highlights and focuses on a point, what tends to happen is everybody focuses in and says, it's all about that. But in business, almost nothing sits in isolation. It's always inside an ecosystem of different impacts and influences. And I kind of see the blueprint with the cogwheels that are moving. And while the leverage may appear to be over here, sometimes moving a cogwheel two or three to the left might be the best way of actually moving a particular item that needs to be moved forward in order to for the business to progress.

38:46And what I kind of learned was that in my early initiatives, I was one of those people who was caught focusing on one cog and not seeing the bigger picture. And that was where I kind of this learning of, you know, judgment as to when to exercise judgment. A bit of it was, unless you've seen the big picture, don't attempt to be an expert in the particular uh thing and i think for all of us that ability to zoom out and be contextual is is so so important because almost nothing gets solved by solving one issue because that's like symptoms versus cause you know when you go to the doctor it's because you've got an itchy uh spot in your arm but is that a melanoma well you know putting putting cream on it.

39:33In Ireland, we have a thing called pseudocream that everybody uses as a kind of a magical solution to everything. It's for a nappy rash for kids, but everybody puts it on everything. It's kind of like a magic bomb. But guess what? If that is a melanoma, there's no way pseudocream is going to solve it. So that idea of step back, look at the big picture, and then frame back in as appropriate to the issue at hand. And that kind of goes to this idea of work out what the question is before you try to answer it yeah and actually i think as you're talking there i was thinking about leadership and and um almost the the view from the balcony versus being on the dance floor right and so often in our career we're on the dance floor we're jockeying for position and and that's fine you have to do that right but actually when you step out and step up and look out it's a different perspective completely so you've got to be constantly adjusting haven't you between the balcony and the dance floor in business.

40:29And to your point, actually, if you don't take that opportunity, all you're going to see is the small periphery around you and not necessarily the bigger environment of what's going on. And the same for sport, right? You're going to see something different from the press box than you are if you're on the field playing or whatever it might be from the sidelines, right? That's completely one of the secrets of the success of the 2003 men's World Cup winning team was that they put extra cameras into the stadium at Twickenham so that both when they were playing and they were training, they got more perspective.

41:07And the simplest way of describing it is sport is played in two dimensions because that's all you can see when you're on the field. But sport plays in three dimensions. And the biggest dimension that's important in sport is space. because actually finding space is what is the secret, whether that's in football or rugby or other things. And by Sir Clive Woodward putting these extra cameras, what he did was he could match two-dimensional patterns that the players saw while they were playing with three-dimensional views, which were coming from the cameras. And so what was happening is Will Greenwood in the centre was seeing a row of players in front of him and saying, aha, if it's that set up of players, that means there's a big gap over here, which either I can run into or kick into or whatever the case may be.

42:04So Sir Clive changed rugby from being played in two dimensions to being played in three dimensions. And that team, as a result, exploited space more effectively than probably any team previously. And that's why they ran into the World Cup undefeated and went through the World Cup. And it's the only men's team, obviously the women won last year, but it's the only England men's team to have ever won the Rugby World Cup. And for me, that's a perfect example of bringing that. And good leaders operate at 50 ,000 feet, but have the ability to connect at 50 feet so that they can translate the big picture into an actionable insight for the people on the front line.

42:44Yeah, I love that. And actually, the whole concept of space, actually, as you were talking, Ronan, And I think about space in your head as well, right? Because we cram so much in, don't we? You know, this amazing computer that's our brain. And actually, you know, if you ever study something like guest out theory around the fertile void, right? So often we're trying to force a decision. We're trying to force a solution, an answer. And I mean, the whole concept of sleep on it, right? Super simple. Well, that's about giving yourself the space. And then how often is it we wake up and we go, ah, now I know.

43:16Last night, before bed, I couldn't figure it out. I was absolutely overwhelmed. I couldn't do it. And then you give yourself space or you go for a run or you walk in nature, whatever it might be. And you're just giving yourself to not overthink. And then you find the answer because you've given yourself mental space as well as physical space on the pitch. And that goes to this idea of corporates and the behavior in corporate organizations and politics to some extent as well is that the people shouting from the sidelines create an unjustified urgency for the answer. And actually the quality of the answer is more important than the speed of the answer.

43:59And sometimes you get a situation where people trade accuracy for speed and it's invariably the wrong thing to do. And it's why in my, you know, work out the question before you try to answer it, the difference between ready, aim, fire and ready, fire, aim. A lot of organizations end up in a ready, fire, aim strategy because they're driven to I need to respond to a market event. I need to respond to, you know, the CEO has resigned unexpectedly. 15 minutes later, emergency board meeting, and they appoint somebody. And then the market has the time to digest it and say, well, that doesn't make any sense against what you were doing.

44:43But you felt you needed to respond because of acumen, leadership, negative thing. When I first became a CEO, I went to the United States with a group of people who had just taken up their first C-suite roles. and we went to one of the big West Coast technology companies that operates in the telecom space and the HR director there said, better a hole than an asshole. And what she meant was, when you have a gap in your organization, pause, reflect, understand not just the filling of that role, but the context of that role relative to all of the other people who would be peers to that role in the team and build for fit, not just for function.

45:26And so you're better off waiting a little longer and getting the right person. So that's a free takeaway, better a whole than an asshole. I love that. I love that. And then, of course, we have, you know, higher slow, fire fast, right? And I think we've all been in those scenarios where we've hung on to poor performers or people that are just not meant to be part of the future. And then because we don't want an awkward conversation, you know, maybe we we sit on it too long until it explodes and then something happens. So, yeah, I hear you. So so know the question before you try to answer it. I'm coming back to back to that point.

46:04To me, this is about properly listening and understanding. Understand first before being, you know, seeking to be understood. Right. Right. So so how how do you hone your you said earlier on you're a great listener? You're a better listener than people give you credit for because you're a great talker as well. Right. Exactly. So, yeah, listening skills. And how have how have you honed your, I guess, human communication skills when it comes to listening and speaking and being able to get the right balance? Because often if you listen properly, people will give you the answer. Right. But if you jump in, you've missed the opportunity to learn.

46:49Well, I think there's two or three levels to this. The first is be aware of your influence. If senior people speak too early in a conversation, they restrict the contribution of other people. They don't intend to do it necessarily, but naturally they do. first thing. Second thing I would say to you is that the early conversation on big decisions is invariably shaped by people's natural bias. So they come in with a viewpoint. And so two things that I think are critical in that situation, the most senior people should hold back and allow the subject matter experts to at least establish the context in which the decision needs to be made.

47:40And there's two parts to that. One is never debate facts, only debate the implications. So establish and be clear and directional on saying, well, are we clear what the facts are before we move to the debate about the so what? And even just making that intervention sometimes allows people to say, well, actually, we have new data, which we're able to offer into the conversation now, which says, boom, boom, boom. But the other thing is the decision making, particularly in the C-suite, very often there's a confusion between building consensus and building conclusion. And what I mean by that is, consensus is, before we make this big and important decision, it's important we're all aligned.

48:26Conclusion is, before I make this big decision, it's important I hear from everybody who has a view on it. And the key about that is that if you're in the team rather than the leader of the team, you are given a mandate. If it's clear, even though the boss is going to make the decision, if it's clear that he wants to hear from you, you're given a mandate to express your view. If you think this is a consensus, you very often feel disenfranchised because, well, I said that we should go left and you've decided to go right. Now I walk out of the room misaligned to the decision and disenfranchised, as opposed to, I respect the fact that before you decided, you've heard me out.

49:13And even though you haven't chosen that, I feel valued and I feel like was able to make a contribution to the decision. And I used to in my first CEO role at O2, I'd have people whisper in my ear saying, boss, just tell us what you want us to do. We know what you want to do, just tell us. And I would always say, well, why would I when there's people around the table whose opinion I value and I want to hear from them before I would make the decision? And finding the balance between consensus and conclusion and being clear how you label those, I think also allows a situation where you build the fact pack and then you discuss the implications rather than you discuss people's bias, which is very often the case.

49:56Yeah, no, that is such valuable advice for anyone listening. It really is, because I think sometimes we try to please everyone. And of course, we know you can't please everyone. Ultimately, someone has to make a final call. And that's what being a leader is about, isn't it? You have to make a final call. The book does stop on your desk and that's the way it should be. And, you know, I've always had a philosophy with my bosses, because no matter who you are, there's always a boss above you, the chairman of the board, or there's somebody, you know, major shareholder, whatever it is. And my philosophy is you should always seek to earn the right to ask for forgiveness, not permission.

50:32And if you do that, you build a relationship with whoever that higher authority is. it says for so long as you believe me to be the best person to run this business, you leave me alone to run it. Because guess what? The reason I'm doing it is because I'm better qualified than you are in that other role because we do two different things. If the chairman and the CEO turn up every day, both thinking they're running the business, it won't be a successful company. Only one person can park in the boss's spot, plain and simple. And so that's why I'd never worked for an executive chairman, for example.

51:06Now, the US model is different. And so park that. But if I was back in executive roles in the UK, I'd never work for an executive chairman because then there would be two people parking side by side thinking they were running the company. And the other thing is the quid pro quo for that is you've got to acknowledge that the day that higher authority decides you're not the right person to run the business, well, then you should fall on your sword gracefully and move on. And I think sometimes people get confused. they want the complete delegated authority and the freedom and then they get the hump when somebody says your time is up yeah yeah exactly exactly so so of your six lessons then ronan which one is the is if you could only have one if i had to pick get you to pick a you know the most important one or the non-negotiable what of those six which of those six would you say is absolutely the number one it might not be number one by the way well 100 for me is it's not what you do it's what you make happen and I think it's such a liberating principle everybody in the room has the opportunity to be the influence that ultimately moved the organization I don't believe in hierarchy and I know it's easy when you're the boss sometimes to say I don't believe in hierarchy But I believe in this concept of social capital versus the traditional human capital.

52:30You know, if you studied economics 20 years ago, the factors of production are land, labor, capital and enterprise. And it's the blending of those that creates economic activity and value add. Well, labor is more than that. Labor, in my mind, is human capital. It's the opportunity to organize around a challenge or an opportunity. It should never be hierarchical. You place the people with the best and most relevant expertise closest to the challenge. And you don't worry about whether they're the newest recruit or the person who's been there for 14 years. And that's why it's not what you do, it's what you make happen is the most empowering and liberating thing, both in society and in the corporate environment, because everybody has the chance to be the person that ultimately made the difference.

53:20I love that. And actually, if that's the overarching kind of, you know, the big headline, if you like, when you look at the other five lessons, which are also incredibly valuable, they are linked to that. They do. They all enable you to be effective in doing that, doing that thing. And I intentionally didn't put it in as number one because people presume there's a hierarchy in these things. You know, it's the it's the Machiavellian accountant in me. Excellent and talking about the Machiavellian accountant You have reinvented yourself throughout your career right In a natural way evolution You know when you were thinking back to those younger years Did you ever have that clear vision as to what you wanted to be You know sitting here having done the roles you've done Did you know that was the direction or was it just through evolution As you went along that your career evolved So going back to kind of family background, my parents were ambitious in the sense of affording their children choices that they didn't have.

54:24But there was nothing in the family background that set benchmarks in a way that would have said, you know, for you to be successful, you really need to achieve X or Y or Z. So my mum's benchmark was a reliable, pensionable job. That's what she thought, because that would underpin a stable family life, the opportunity to have children and support them. And from her point of view, completely logical, and I got. So there was no kind of push at home for you to try and scale heights for the sake of it. But there was an absolute belief that when you show up, you need to be accountable for who you are and what you do and the mark you leave.

55:12So that sense of purpose was much stronger than any sense of drive or ambition. But purpose-led people in organizations can be remarkably successful. And what I learned earlier on and what shaped me was I had a qualification as an accountant and my initial thoughts were that means to get up the greasy pole, you just get a bigger accountant's job. So you become the finance director in the bigger company or whatever it is. And it was truthfully others, my boss and chairman, the CEO and chairman at O2 back in the mid-2000s, who recognized in me something that I didn't necessarily recognize was that the way I turned up to this point about judgment, went to exercise judgment.

56:00What they saw when I turned up in meetings was somebody who brought a broader context than simply the numbers. So the way I contributed to discussions and debate, they saw a much more rounded, contextual approach, which I now understand is the natural space that a good leader will occupy because they're bringing the outside in, they're bringing a broader context to decision making. and my boss came to me and said, would you take on legal regulation and procurement? And I said, yes, of course. And then three months later, he came along and said, would you take over human resources? So I said to him, can we sit down and have a chat?

56:46And he said, of course. So my initial reaction was, just because I'm the most efficient person on your executive committee doesn't mean I should just get to do all the work. And by the way, you haven't even reviewed my salary? I said, or am I missing the point? And he said, it's a fair point about your salary, but yes, you are missing the point. And the chairman and I think you should be the next CEO. And what I'm trying to do is afford you the opportunity to realize that your management skills work in non-finance functions so that you can broaden out in preparation for that conversation. It simply hadn't occurred to me at all.

57:24So I've been blessed in that sense that I got a set of values at home that meant I was always confident to take the next step because I was on very solid what they call principles or moral or values ground I've never been confused between what's right and what's wrong ever in my life and sometimes in the business world sometimes things can be a little bit complicated in that in that regard but for me therefore I was always ready to try the next thing because I felt I was on good foundations I just didn't know what the next thing was. So long-winded answer, but ultimately I was blessed that people saw in me things that I didn't, wasn't aware that were necessarily the qualities of a general manager, a leader.

58:11And yet I had, you know, I'd been the captain of every team I'd been on. I'd set up a sports and social club for kids who were only five years younger than me when, you know, not long after I left school, because I saw these kids hanging around in the fields drinking cider in the evenings because they had nothing to do so five of my mates and we set up a sports and social club uh um uh i i was on the sports and social club in every business i was in until somebody whispered to me that the ceo being on the sports and social probably discourages some of the other people from joining and i had to stop so there was something about me that was a natural joiner up and very often ended up in natural leadership positions but i'd never equated that to business leadership i just thought i'd be a an effective cfo and hopefully in a large company where i had you know plenty of stretch to my ambition yeah well that's great isn't it because at the end of the day someone else saw something in you that you didn't necessarily necessarily see in yourself and i've had that a few times in my career and i'm always hugely grateful for those people that come into your life at that exact point when when it's sort of just meant to be but also you know they were setting you up for success, weren't they?

59:22They were giving you a chance to try before you buy on both sides and see, you know, gently, gently take on the big job with the full P &L and everything that comes with that, you know, in that role. And so I think that's absolutely wonderful. But let's just talk about BT and BT Cellnet and the creation of O2, because, I mean, this is about a brand, right? So we're coming straight back round to where we started, Ronan, with the point about storytelling, right? and the power of a brand is a way to storytell isn't it and to create the identity. I always think of a brand as being like the glue in an organisation you know and I love it, it's the DNA, it's the values it's so much in a brand, it's not just a logo or a name is it?

1:00:04So just talk about that sort of reinvention really and taking BT Cellnet to becoming O2 which is you know globally recognised brand right and highly loved. So we The honest objective truth was that BT Sellout was a rubbish business, which failed its customers almost every single day. And not because the people were willfully bad. It was just a lack of focus in BT, who believed actually that maybe mobile wasn't the future, and who were willing ultimately, which they did, to sell all their mobile business. and a misconception that BT Cellnet was fundamentally a technology business. And this is where brand comes alive.

1:00:54So to the point you were making, my definition of brand is brand represents the collective ambition on behalf of your customers. It exceeds the reality of what you do today, but represents your ambition of where you want to bring your customers going forward. And so they buy into the vision, the commitment, the ambition. But they also, when customers become fans of a true brand, they also learn to forgive and recognize that everything today isn't necessarily what you want it to be, but you're committed to getting there. And brands therefore show leadership, show ambition on behalf of. I think the other thing is that great brands represent the values of not just the company, but the values and commitment to the customer.

1:01:46Sometimes corporates have corporate values and then they have brand values. And the odd thing is, very often, they're not necessarily the same thing and they're not aligned. So we had an expression, you know, to which I stole from Tim, my strategy director, which was we're a brand that runs a business, not a business that operates a brand. And as well as being a clever kind of statement, which I've had the privilege of sharing on lots of marketing stages over the years, the essence of it is that because of that alignment, people in a call center or a retail store knew what the right thing to do was.

1:02:31because they understood that although O2 had values of bold, open, trusted, and clear, they were commitments toward delivering the brand promise. And people felt empowered to challenge inside the organization. We created a customer promise, and we created a brand that was reflective of our ambition on behalf of our customers because we said we're in the experience business because ultimately customers don't buy technology, consumer customers. They buy the experiences that technology enables, the things that they value, the things that are important to them. And we said the very first ad that O2 produced was O2, a world that revolves around you.

1:03:19So when was the last time a meta or somebody else said, it's all about you? No, no, here's the platform. here's the rules and you cling on like limpets to a rock saying please please can I participate it's nothing about you without being disrespectful it's a matter but O2 was an essence of no no this is all about you and you tell us how you want to interact with great technology enabled experiences it's why we built the relationship with AEG to create the O2 from a failed building the Millennium Dome. Our public board, because O2 was listed for six years after it came out of BT and before it was acquired by Telefonica, and the public board rejected the proposal to do the naming rights at the O2, said, no, no, it's a failed building.

1:04:11Why on earth would you put your shiny new brand on a very unsuccessful building in North Greenwich? And our view was that we believed in the possibilities of technology and by making them open and accessible to people we allowed them to do more and therefore ultimately to be more and the manifestation of that was the greatest experiences on the planet were actually being brought to that building and we were partnering with the world's most successful operator of live entertainment venues we weren't taking naming rights on the building we were partnering with an experienced champion because guess what?

1:04:51We wanted to be the experienced champion in our marketplace. And that story ultimately meant that we moved from being trust in mobile phone companies was similar to trust in estate agents in the early 2000s. And I can tell you that wasn't very high. By the 2012, we won ethical corporation company and business leader of the year. Number two in the Lloyds Bank business leader of the year. And our brand was the sixth most loved brand in the United Kingdom. And that's not Toko brand or category brand. That was across every brand. That's across the Waitresses, the Marks and Spencers, the Amazons, the Microsofts, the whatever, the sixth most loved brand.

1:05:37And back then, it was valued at$10 billion, just the brand itself. So from BT Cellnet, which Frently would have given away free with a packet of cornflakes to a 10 billion brand in a decade. Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. Yeah, I can see the energy. Even now you can see the pride, you know, as you're talking about it. Completely. Just being part of that will always be the thing I'm proudest of. I mean, Verizon is 10 times the size of O2, and I have the privilege of running Port. It's essentially the world's largest mobile phone company. but what we created at O2 and the journey we went on together and the team that and I'm still in contact with most of that same team you know that was life-changing for us and I would say for the people we got to a point where we had exactly zero regrettable churn among staff nobody wanted to leave.

1:06:38Sometimes we had to encourage them to. It was because it was such a great place to work. And we kicked ass on behalf of our customers. We went from like third or fourth in the category to the fastest growing, most profitable, highest customer satisfaction, lowest churn, lowest complaints to the regulator. We rocked for a period of time. Almost nothing we did didn't work. It got to a point where we were getting away with it in the sense that we had become so successful that our competitors presumed that if we were doing it, it must be right. Even when some of our half good ideas went out there, they still followed us because they were kind of saying, well, if O2 is doing it, it must be the case.

1:07:20Now, that never lasts and the world is different today, but it was quite a remarkable journey. Yeah, was it hard leaving O2 then? It must have been a difficult, emotional... Yeah, my circumstances in leaving were built around two fundamental things. One is I still have the self-awareness to realize that going from good to great in an organization, there's always a next chapter and the next level and that it's hard for the same person to keep being that accelerant in the organization. So I had the privilege of running the company for almost nine years. And that's a long run for a CEO in many circumstances.

1:07:57And the other thing was that the parent company Telefonica wanted to merge with three in the UK, which actually Vodafone had just done recently. But we were blocked by the European Commission at the time. And if that deal had gone through, Hutchison, the parent company of three, would have been kind of the controlling shareholder. And I made the decision that this was kind of my baby to be slightly parochial about it. and I wasn't going to take guidance from anyone else as to how to run the thing. I'm not saying there wouldn't have been a good owner. Don't misunderstand. So it was the right time.

1:08:33And honestly, the opportunity to go and run the world's biggest mobile phone company, we were worth$400 billion when I took over Verizon Wireless. I mean, honestly, even as a small child being ambitious, you never expect to turn up on a business that turns over 100 billion, worth 400 billion, has 100 million customers. But it was an absolute privilege to do it. I loved it. My wife and I went out and spent six and a half years living in New York, New Jersey, from a personal point of view, a huge change, culturally unbelievably different from working in the UK and Europe. And so I'll always be grateful.

1:09:15But my proudest moments will always be I was on the team at O2. Yeah, yeah. Well, what a fabulous career. And the other thing, Ronan, that I think maybe people do know about you, and this does link back to sort of your values and your approach. And you were talking earlier about the different perspective of men versus women, right? When it comes to confidence and maybe applying, keeping your hand up. So you've got to keep your hand up, girls. Come on. You know, we've got to we've got to we can't just, you know, you've got to be on the pitch to score the goal. Right. So let's make sure we're on the pitch.

1:09:45But you're also hugely and we met at Balance the Board. You're a huge advocate, a champion for diversity, equity and inclusion. And you really do back female founders, don't you? You invest in female only businesses. So can you just talk a little bit around that as well? Because I know you had very strong, strong female kind of influences in your life, didn't you? With your grandmother, with your mother, you know. So, yeah, talk about your support of women in particular and diversity, equity and inclusion. Interesting. I was at a conference in Belfast last Thursday, which was women in deals and investment and 200 women in a room.

1:10:26I think I was one of the three men and I was talking. And the way I kind of articulated it was, it was only when I went to work that I realised that society was fundamentally imbalanced in the context of access and appreciation and parity of esteem between males and females. Because when I grew up, Ireland's quite a matriarchal society anyway. And even historically, not just in the recent past, but go way, way back. The idea of inheritance used to go through the female line back in the Breton days when we're in our old system. So the idea and we had, you know, female queens who controlled not because they were the spouse of the king, but because their lineage had given them those.

1:11:16So even historically, and I had a grandmother who was an only child and inherited a family business such that she ran just a small pub and grocery business in a mountainside village in Tipperary. But the role of the proprietor of the pub and grocery in that village was she ended up essentially being the credit manager for that community because farmers have very irregular cash flow. so they fatten a calf and they bring it to the mart and they sell the animal and so maybe once every season they go and raise some cash and the rest of the time is really outgoings whatever so my grandmother used to provide tick to those families knowing that they would then bring animals to to the mart and pay it off so she bankrolled and she provided credit and her husband happened to be the creamery manager.

1:12:12So she knew how many gallons the dairy farmers were producing and selling to the creamery and therefore what their credit capacity was as well. So I grew up in a situation where it literally came as a surprise to me that there was a difference between the sort of access and parity of esteem between women business leaders and men business leaders or whatever. And that may sound naive, but it's sincere. My mom and dad both went out to work they were equals in the household my mum was the boss basically I'll be straight about it but so when I then got to the work environment I found it the exception rather than the rule that it didn't quite work in the same way and because I'm a very values driven person not because I was thinking about DE &I or woke or anything else was I just understood it to be different, that you always would have that parity of esteem, parity of access, equality in the broad sense.

1:13:11So I've always been driven by this concept that the opportunity in society is not a shortage of talent. It's our ability to match talent to opportunity. And therefore, what I've tended to focus on is finding areas where talent is ineffectively harnessed and try to work on making sure that I can help that And classically, in the early stage founder business community, only 2 % of the capital raised every year for founders goes to female-only founder groups. If you add in women who are part of a mixed founder group, so that there's at least one woman in the founder group, that adds about another 13%.

1:13:53So that's still only 15 % of the money. So 85 % goes to the tech bros, essentially, to the boys. And that just doesn't make any sense. So even being a wise accountant, arithmetically, there's absolutely no empirical evidence that says that the ideas that women have for businesses are in any way inferior to the ideas men have. So if 85 % of the money is chasing the bros, why wouldn't you invest in the women who will represent almost certainly a better investment opportunity and also in the broader equality stakes is in my experience if I have two meetings with two founders I take on average a male founder will spend 59 minutes polishing their own ego on my time telling me how good their idea is and the average female founder will come with six pages and notes prepared and apologize that they have a few questions they'd like to ask if I didn't mind.

1:14:55I'd much prefer to be in that second conversation than in the first one. And when you pull all those pieces together, I actually think we will always have a more effective community in society if the best talent on the planet is aligned to the biggest challenges and opportunities that our society and our economy has it's kind of blindingly obvious so it's not about woke or d and i whatever else is why would you waste talent and opportunity it just makes no business sense whatsoever so for me it's kind of simple and straightforward it's not because i want to you know preach i just want us to all have better outcomes and if we're going to do that it's a bit like saying i've got a football team but eight of the blokes I don't pick them because oh I don't know they're left handed or they're something stupid you kind of think he's so bloody stupid I am left-handed by the way ever try to go through the barriers on the underground and you realize that the world is made for right-handed people because you have to go and use your left hand and lean across not easy when there's a thousand people in rush hour behind you that's a little vignette for those of who maybe are listening who are left-handed and realise the world is not nearly as equitable as it presumed.

1:16:14But I say that jokingly, but to the serious point of, there's a whole lot of inbuilt unintentional biases in things, like the world is built for right-handed people. And I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying, if you're aware of it, you're perhaps much more thoughtful and considerate of the fact that actually, you know, it's not necessarily done in the way that's consistent with everybody having the same equality of access and opportunity. And I love working with female founders. The other thing I would say to you is, just briefly, is the average male founder will bootstrap in the first instance a little bit, their own resources, maybe direct family, and then they'll do a friends and family round.

1:16:55So they'll ring up everybody that they ever met in passing, plus all their dad's mates, and say, can I put you in for 20 ,000? The average female does not do a friends and family round. And the reason being is that they think that the last people they would want to lose money for are the people who are closest to them. So there's also a kind of cultural and psychological barrier that says early stage funding for women is partly of their own making that they don't actually tap a friends and family community. So for people like myself working in that space, A, I can give advice, B, I can help to mentor some of those founders and C, on occasions, I can substitute a little bit for that friends and family round because I'm willing to take risk a little earlier in the ecosystem than some others might be.

1:17:48Yeah, well, I think it's great. And, you know, the stats are shocking, but you're seeing it through, hey, this is an opportunity. Why wouldn't I do this? It makes good business sense. And there's no female founder that I've invested in that I've lost money on yet. Excellent. There we are. That says it. That says that speaks volumes, Ronan. It really does. So I know you have indulged me with your time, Ronan, and I've taken a little bit of latitude with that. But honestly, this conversation is so amazing for me personally, but also for everyone that listens to your fabulous advice. So I'm just going to ask you a few final questions, if I may, Rodan, because you've shared with us like so much.

1:18:27Honestly, this is just jam packed with with advice, with humility, with grace, with, you know, real open stories that you share. So thank you. But you'll have had loads of advice yourself over the years. Is there any standout advice that's kind of really worked for you over the years or has been pivotal at a certain point of your kind of life or career? So one thing for a man who probably wouldn't have considered himself a mentor, but was my boss in two different companies over about a decade. He taught me a fabulous trick, which was you'll spend 60 % of your corporate life in meetings where you're not either the decision maker or the principal contributor.

1:19:07so why don't you think about those as opportunities to listen and understand how others are making their point and whether or not they're getting the decisions they want are they influencing people right so it helped me to develop not just my listening skills but my engagement skills in a way that I worked out. Certain behaviours rarely get you the outcome you want and some other behaviours are much more effective. So that was probably the best advice because instead of it being a wasted meeting, it's a learning opportunity. Well, yeah, there's always two sides, isn't there? Glass half full, glass half empty.

1:19:52And yeah, that's fantastic. And it's clearly stayed with you for a long time. Amazing. So, Ronan, if you were to describe the last 12 months or this year, I know we're sort of only early in the year, in one word, and you can only have one, what would it be and why? I would say complex. And the reason I say complex is that I'm at a point where I'm trying to rediscover where the channeling of my purpose will be most valuable. Because I'm busy, I'm loving what I'm doing, but I'm not sure I'm making as effective an impact as I would have wanted to and would have believed I was doing when I was leading big organisations.

1:20:37So it's a challenge to me to continue to be relevant because if it wasn't different because you were there, it didn't count. Oh, so a bit of a crossroads, a bit of a sort of self-reflection time for you as well in terms of the next phase, right? The next phase. Great. I love this. And like, you know, that shows incredible honesty as well, because, again, we don't always have all the answers. It takes a while, you know, to figure this out, doesn't it? But the contribution piece and wanting to really, you know, do the best, be the best, help as many people as you can and everything that you want to leave in terms of legacy is all wrapped up into that next phase, isn't it, as well for you?

1:21:18Yeah, fantastic. So we have a playlist, as you know. And I know, well, I'm going to see if you actually give me the same answer as when I asked this when we caught up separately. What song and artist are we going to add to our playlist, Ronan, from you? So it has to be Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody. Believe it or not, when I was younger and a little lighter and had a moustache, one or two people thought I looked a little like Freddie Mercury, whether that's true or not. But the first big stadium concert I went to was Queen at Slane Castle in Ireland. And they've always been my favourite band. And Bohemian Rhapsody is just the most beautiful, indulgent and yet powerful song on the planet.

1:22:11Yeah, and no one has put that on there. So this is good that we've got a new song. Well, a new old song, shall we say. So, yeah, fantastic. I love that. So my final question, Ronan, brave, bold, brilliant. What does that mean to you? I think I've kind of referenced it earlier. Brave, bold and brilliant is making a difference. It's being the person that led others to places they otherwise wouldn't have gone. That's what it is. It's the perfect definition of leadership. Wow, Ronan, what a way to finish. Thank you so much. Honestly, I've really enjoyed our conversation. It's been really wonderful.

1:22:50thank you an absolute pleasure thank you for the invitation i really hope you've enjoyed this episode of brave bold brilliant remember check out our new website www.brave-bold-brilliant.com you're going to find loads of resources on there that's going to help you with your leadership journey and with the businesses that you're trying to scale up and grow so take care everyone and remember there are no limits to your growth but it is by being brave and bold that you're going to unlock your brilliance.