Podcast Of The Decade

37:48I started as a chief digital officer and after that, in the middle of COVID, I became the head of Southern Europe, 1900 hotels in seven countries, and now for the past two years, I'm lucky enough to be heading sofitel sofitel legend m gallery and emblems pinel 240 luxury hotels in the world no linear pass the same passion hopefully the same values and the only consistency which is me well you're more than enough more than enough i'm so you know what i love about that whole story as you were speaking I was thinking wow you're absolutely right it's not a linear path no there are twists and the turns there are things that will go well there are things that maybe don't go so well at certain times but we learn and we grow but energy energy and passion is really I think what it's all about and you know sometimes you're in the presence of someone and they just have this spark you know they have a spark and and I can see that in you and you know very often like all of us we can be tired okay you just can dream to go home and to sleep in your pyjama right very often people were telling me ah you seem so high energy level so guess what guys and this is the scoop of this podcast of janet no i can be exhausted like horribly exhausted but the secret of this constant steady energy is to me around something which i really cherish It's alignment.

39:24The minute you are aligned with something you do with your values, the minute you are fully aligned with your life in all its dimensions, should it be private, personal one or professional one, it's as if alignment was the greatest natural source of energy. In spite of the jet lags, the lack of sleep, the dark people in front of you eating your energy like a, you know, like a horrible sport. But yes, alignment has always been to me one of the recipes of my energy. I can see that. And I think what's really important is your purpose, right? Why do you get out of bed? What's important to you? Be that for the business, be that for yourself.

40:13What do you think your purpose is Maud? Oh, I know it because with age and time it became clearer to me. It's people. I don't think I could work alone. My passion is really about meeting people, getting a sense pretty rapidly of their talent and their full potential. And then I'm scanning them, trying to second guess what they could become and how I can help them to become this and then on top of that about people I love to see someone see her or his full potential and then put this person with another talent who would be completely different but in its extraordinary diversity it would complement the previous talent and then you built a collective team of super diverse talents, ages, cultural backgrounds, nationalities, ways of looking at life.

41:11Super interesting to have a Japanese, a Polish, you know, German talent around you, you don't, and French wrong, you don't look at life the same way. And then you put them together and all of a sudden, these diverse, unique team becomes unstoppable. So what I love to do is to try to elevate teams so that their combined forces are even stronger than their respective talents and i love it which is why i'm also doing a lot of coaching when i have some free time and mentoring you know it's really about people and the minute you see the power of a team it happened to me during covet i was in charge of thousand europe bear in mind that almost 70 percent of my hotels were closed we were about to die boundaries were closed people didn't travel anymore people were scared what made us survive and overcome it people the strength of my teams determined to overcome it together a powerful created diverse team is a secret power This is my superpower.

42:29Welcome to Brave Bold Brilliant. Fergal O 'Connor, you are here in London. Thank you very much, Janesh. Amazing. So Fergal is the founder and CEO of ByMedia.ai. I'm getting it correct. So Fergal, we met quite recently actually, but you've got a really interesting business. Now I thought in the title of the business,.ai, I thought this is a brand new business. it's something that's all AI related and it's brand new but it's not is it? Well the business is not new, the business is 10 years old and the AI piece of it I suppose has been in the business from the start but not because of AI as the technology that we wanted to build a business around but because AI became part of the solution that the problem we were solving AI was the answer to it So my background is in media and advertising.

43:23So I'm not a tech person. I don't have a background in technology. I have a background in business and media and advertising and solving problems for businesses that are trying to get the best return on their advertising investment. And the business came out of and the AI piece came out of, we were trying to build a platform that would help small medium enterprises in the first instance to, I suppose, democratise the advertising industry because small medium enterprises have a big challenge when it comes to advertising. They're competing against much bigger brands, like Coke, Nike, Adidas, with much bigger budgets, with much bigger resources, lots of advertising agencies, lots of data, lots of analytics.

44:04And then the poor SME comes into the same market and they have to compete against those massive global brands. And the challenge that they have then is that they don't have, first of all, they don't have the data to compete with those brands in the first instance so they don't know how to build a persona correctly, how that persona matches against the media consumption or a media plan. Where are the customers consuming media? That's a really difficult challenge for an SME. From that then, how do they actually purchase the media? If you've got a small business, you've got a small marketing team and you suddenly have to be tasked with, I need to buy TV, I need to buy radio, I need to buy out of home, I need to do social, I need to do digital.

44:39Logistically, in the first instance, it's a really difficult thing to do. So that's part of the solution that we try to solve for. And the final piece of our jigsaw puzzle is the learning. So I interviewed probably 600 businesses before we even started By Media back in 2016. And the constant feedback I was getting was we don't know how to learn from our advertising campaigns. We don't have a way of learning. We're spending£100 ,000,£200 ,000 a year on advertising, but we just don't know what's working and what's not working for us. So part of our solution is then can we match the KPIs in the business against the media spend to try and give the business Insights into what's working and what's not working for them and the AI piece of the business then is just as pieces of that journey Where I AI is really good at solving whether that's from an efficiency of buying the media Whether it's from a media strategist with built in an AI media strategist So it can give kind of insights into why we're buying this type of media whether it's predictive analytics So there's pieces of the journey that the customers that we work with have to go on that AI is a solution for.

45:39So while to your point, people are only talking about AI in the last couple of years, AI from a machine learning and an algorithmic perspective has been around since the 60s. Yeah, and what I love about this is you started with how can we solve a problem for a particular target group and how do we disrupt the norm and almost take on the big boys in an innovative way that actually gets a bigger bang for the book for the client at the end of the day right? For sure I think the disruption thing just kind of has to happen if you're going into that bit industry where you know there are legacy players that are big global industries that have a lot of I suppose interest in not disrupting the market so there are a lot of you know long-term agreements between agencies and media companies that they don't want to like upset the apple carton and so when somebody comes in and says we want to build a transparent platform for businesses who want to advertise in the most effective and efficient way possible that's not necessarily the way the industry wants to operate so when you're coming into an industry like that that has legacy players that are in the industry for you know 50 100 years they don't necessarily want their industry upset or disrupted it's a bit like you know you're in the travel business yeah it's a bit like you know we had a slew of travel agents and then suddenly online travel came along and it disrupted the whole industry completely but the travel agency business didn't necessarily want that to happen because they could see that that was maybe going to be you know detrimental to some of their businesses similarly with the media side you know agencies and advertising companies and media agencies and media publications to a certain extent don't want this industry disrupted because they know how it works it's very comfortable everybody's working for the last 20 30 years someone else coming in with a new idea, a new way of doing it, a better way of doing it for a lot of SME businesses is not necessarily good for that industry.

47:31No, I know. And it is. There are parallels. You mentioned the travel industry, Airbnb, great example, where let's rent out your sofa for the night as a concept. And now, look at it. It's absolutely kind of huge global brand. Uber, same. How do we disrupt the taxi market and do it better? and really streamline the customer journey. So interestingly, when you were talking, it resonated with me, Fergal, because you were saying about how do you actually track the effectiveness of your spend? And certainly whenever I was in corporate, actually deciding to do a brand building campaign was always a bit of a nightmare to get the board to agree because they go, well, what's the return?

48:13Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the return? I mean, okay, it looks lovely. But actually, it is a real problem for businesses to be able to justify the spend of any size of business, but in particular as an SME, where every pound, every dollar, every euro, it counts, doesn't it? 100%. So I think that, talk a little bit about the tracking and the KPIs. What are the typical KPIs that your clients would be looking at to see has this been effective? What are the big ones for you? Just to give a kind of context, I suppose, of how the industry currently works, is the majority of the metrics that are fed back to a business are advertising metrics.

48:49and in our opinion advertising metrics to a certain extent are vanity metrics so you're looking at you know we we generated a million impressions yes for you and for in that campaign what exactly does that mean did I sell more of my products and I send more of my service well we don't know we just created a lot of impressions and the the implication is the impressions create click-through and the click-through creates revenue in the business but that's not necessarily the case so you can have a case where you get a million impressions and you get a certain click-through rate and you get a certain amount of revenue coming to the business, you might get half the amount of impressions and actually get more revenue coming to the business because it was targeted better at a better audience.

49:24So just to give that context, that the majority of the metrics or the KPIs that businesses are currently tracking from an advertising perspective, in our opinion, and again, this is just our opinion, is not good for the business in terms of how to grow a business sustainably over time. So what we do from a platform perspective is we ingest all the business KPIs, so the things that are important for the business growth. So that could be profitability, it could be revenue, it could be footfall into stores if they're bricks and mortars retail, it could be impressions, it could be visits to websites, it could be social media engagement.

49:57But what's important, what the business knows is actually a value creator in the business. Because if you can track that over time and match that against the media spend, then you can get really good insights into what's driving growth and revenue and profitability in the business. whereas tracking impressions or click-throughs, while it might give you some sort of sense of what's working, what's not working, doesn't really tell you what's driving the business. So what we do from, I suppose, a business ethos perspective but also a platform and technology perspective is we're tracking constantly those business KPIs.

50:28So we understand then if there's an increase in a business KPI, can we match that to a certain media mix or media spend? and again there tends to be in the industry trying to get in our opinion again too granular in terms of the attribution you know can I match that one pound increase in spend in revenue to this one pound or 50 pence increase in advertising spend in this particular channel which again can be done but I think the challenge for a lot of marketing teams at the moment is that they get too blinkered in this attribution model so they're trying to figure out you know how do I get that point zero zero one percent of optimization in my campaign to get it like a point zero zero one percent increase in my revenue we look at it more from a holistic point of view like what's driving revenue footfall calls into the business because that's what's driving the revenue and that the growth and the profitability of the business over time then if we can match what media mix is actually driving that so rather than looking at individual media titles or particular channels or whatever if we can say look TV here on these channels with radio on these channels which a out of home with with social media platforms here with these type of websites that mix of media is actually driving huge profitability in the business then we just keep doing that mix of media you know so it's not about trying to get too granular into the into the attribution piece it's trying to measure the business KPIs and match them against an overall media mix over time and over time the really interesting thing with the AI piece is if you get 18 to 24 months of really good data from the business into the platform then you can actually not only give historical recommendations to the business in terms of what's working and not working but you can also empower the marketing team to have almost like superpowers into the future so they can look at 3, 6, 12 months into the future and say if I'm going to do this particular mix of media what sort of impact is that going to have on my revenue, my footfall, my impressions, my calls into my call centre.

52:27So you can really get really, really relevant insights into the business rather than just add metrics. So welcome to Brave Bowl Brilliant. Vicky Gosling, OBE, is here in the room in person. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I was excited to be here. I know. I know. We were chatting before we pressed play and I was like, oh my God, I didn't realise all this stuff that you've done. This is going to be quite an interesting conversation i think it's because i'm so old i've done lots well you've had an interesting colorful life shall we say absolutely colorful journey um now 21 years in the raft we're going to start there and then there's a whole kind of long long long long long long list of cool things that you're doing uh today and since you you kind of left the raft right but take us back to when you when you joined up what was it what was it about about joining you know the military Yeah, do you know, I think it has a lot to do with travelling.

53:23I think it was doing sports, really appealed. I had a thing about helicopters growing up. I loved helicopters. And so actually the thought of flying helicopters was really attractive. But, you know, very much also I went to a convent school. Not many people know that. I'm the age of three and a half. So I was in a uniform from a really young age. And that became really familiar. So it's quite structured. It was fairly strict, as you can imagine. But I did like that environment that had the structure. And so for me, joining the military was about, and I studied languages actually at university as well.

53:59So it was all about using my languages, doing sport, travelling, hopefully flying. And that was the big attraction and being in a familiar environment that was quite structured. And was it, was your, did you have sort of a military background in the family then or parents or kind of? My grandfather was in the Navy. um he was in the navy but it wasn't so much that I think it was genuinely I think it was the structure of school and being in a uniformed environment that was quite and I you know I went to to school but as I say three and a half in a uniform in a really stretched environment I was dropped I used to get the bus at a really young age um with my elder sister and and um that put some structure into my life but it was so you know for the minute I you know you got up went to school to the minute you finished there was structure within the day and I seem to quite like that and why so young then three and a half years old to be in what was the back story to you you being in in school so young in that at that age I think because my parents both worked yeah they worked really hard and so they were full-time employed and I guess at the time my mum wasn't that maternal to start with she was she you know as with my children she was the best grandma she was fantastic mom um but she was the best grandmother ever but she was incredibly focused on work um because they had to as well and so i think she was quite happy to put me into that structured environment right okay and actually because she sounds really posh right don't you you sound very well you think i do but i i i can hear the twang on myself when i hear myself back.

55:42Liverpool, Manchester, you see. I was going, this sounds so man compared to you. You don't sound scouser at all. No, I think I probably need to put a little bit more on just to actually irritate you. You know that kind of competition, who can be the most northern? I know, you have to be the good northern women together. Exactly. So 21 years in the RAF. Yes. And so what was that sort of journey like for you during that time? It's a long time in one profession but clearly you you found yourself in so many different scenarios yeah and different positions as you kind of progress your career right and you know it's really funny because it doesn't feel like that length of time and I think because every time you wait when you start in the military you go from um we call it you know a posting to another posting so I started um you know in the military my first um stint was actually I was sent straight over to once I'd done my um initial officer training, I went straight over to Akrotiri, so what we call hold.

56:42So I had a position over in Akrotiri for about seven months. And then I was posted straight to Kin Loss. And in Kin Loss, I then, I think I did 14 months. And then from then on in, each of my postings were quite short. So I never really did more than 18 months. But during each posting, I went from Scotland, I went to London, you know, I went up to Lincolnshire, I went out to Iraq. So So there was constant change within the postings. And during each time I was at a specific base, I had, you know, deployments to contend with. I was also actually one of my postings was called the Joint Force Air Component for a two year period.

57:21And that was a deployable headquarters. So we were never at the base. So you can imagine just how quickly time goes by. So you don't see it as a full 21 year stint because there was so much variety. and my last place being actually at Royal Air Force Benson, the helicopter base as a group captain, so it was just great fun. Yeah, and so back when you started, many women following this career path back then. I'm kind of pre-empting an answer here, but I guess it's shifted quite a bit, hasn't it? It is shifted massively. You know, there weren't that many women. And I think about training, there were, you know, in a flight of 10 people, you'd you'd have one woman if you were lucky if not two um I mean two is sort of you know the maximum you'd never get more than two women on a flight of 10 um people so that was indicative of where we were I think it was 10 percent maximum uh women in in in the royal air force I I think it is shifting it's definitely shifting since then um you certainly didn't have women with three kids like I ended up doing um and I think that's uh you know that was a for me that was a big moment because a lot of people saw it as as actually you know a great thing to be able to see women who had managed to get to a senior position and had three children um but was then very attainable yeah because actually if you think about role models you know we're always looking at with for someone that we can identify with that maybe talks like us, looks like us, has a sort of a background, a little bit like us.

58:56And I guess there weren't that many, if any, role models of working mums in the RAF, and especially with three children. I know. Well, there also weren't, actually, when I joined, there were very few senior women, very few. You know, it seemed that actually if you were going to stay the full duration to get to the top of that period, you certainly didn't have children. And very rarely were you married. I mean, that's that's a little bit of a carte blanche statement or generalisation. But it was actually quite true, if I'm honest. I mean, that has definitely changed. Yeah, yeah. So how did you manage then with that backdrop to kind of, one, have a relationship that actually led to three children being born in the first place?

59:47But yeah, how did you manage to navigate that and still have an incredibly successful career and to get the promotions and to build your career at the same time as a relationship? Where did you meet your husband? On a tennis court, actually, at Wimbledon. So we used to play. We both played for the inter-services. And so we met through playing tennis. But interestingly, back to how did I do that? You know, it wasn't plain sailing. So my first pregnancy, I actually hid. I hid my first pregnancy right the way through to the fact that I was seven months pregnant. Wow. And the large reason being that I didn't, you know, I was actually on the joint foresight component.

1:00:30and I was really, I knew that I was coming up to being evaluated for Advanced Staff College. So welcome to Brave Bold Brilliant. It's great to have you. I'm here today with Sam Sherry, Chief People and Places Officer, Olwick. Bit of a mouthful. It is. And you've squoze places in there. It's not your normal Chief People Officer role, is it? It's not your normal Chief People Officer role. So I look after everything that is places related. So all of our offices that our colleagues sit in, where our drawers take place, that all comes under me as well. So it's an all-encompassing role. But did you know who Orwin were when we first met?

1:01:09No, well, I think I do, but maybe people listening might not know. So tell us the backstory. Yeah, so I work for Orwin Entertainment, so officially. And we are the operators of the National Lottery, which the last 31 years now, we celebrated our 30th birthday last year. has been a British treasure, I would say. I remember playing the first game of the National Lottery back in 1994, just showing you my age there, giving that one away. Spoiler alert. And I remember buying that first ticket and that excitement as to whether I was going to win. I was convinced I was going to win. And then a few years ago, I got a call to be the then Chief People Officer for the operator.

1:01:54It was transferring from the existing operator, Camelot. Yeah. And I was going to take a year off after my last role. And I think when the National Lottery comes calling, you go running towards it. Yeah. And to be part of something that I've loved for so long and that so many people I know have loved it for so long. It just, it was a no brainer for me to come and do this. Yeah. Well, I'm going to talk about your career. I'm going to talk about, you know, the National Lottery, winning it in a lot more detail. but you started off by saying it's a bit of a national treasure. It is. And I think it is, absolutely.

1:02:28I agree with you, but I also think that people don't really understand, and we were talking about this before we pressed record, that what's actually involved and how many people are helped through the national lottery. So I think let's bust some of the myths, shall we? Because actually when the lottery started back in 1994, you know that's really pre-social media pre-internet pretty much yes um pre-digital so the world shifted a hell of a lot during that time and i think that sort of love for the brand back then was probably is quite well known what what they did what lottery did whereas now i think it's sort of a lot of people don't really understand and certainly they might not if you say olwyn they probably go oh who's that what what company is that right i think that's fair Yeah.

1:03:13So talk us through a little bit some of the myths, things that people should know that they don't know. I think one of the things that I would absolutely love everyone to have front and centre in their mind when they play the National Lottery, regardless of what game they're playing, is the impact they're having on society. Yeah. Because I definitely think that is not fully understood. So every time you buy a ticket for any of our games, so if you're buying for a draw based game or if you're buying a scratch card for yourself or a loved one, approximately a quarter in every pound that you spend goes to a good cause and and not a lot of people know that no and I talk to people all the time and I tell them who I work for and they talk about winning and they talk about winners and we can definitely talk about that because it's a that's been a real joy in my role is meeting people who've who've won the national lottery or won varying amounts of money through it but really the the people that really don't understand that the impact it's had as i say in society where money has gone to local community funds heritage sports so i think uh remember the olympics yes we probably have heard a lot of the olympians thanking the national lottery money from that has helped our olympians really focus on their training and being the best at what they are but also it funds grassroots sports as well and it funds people in communities and through the arts and heritage that perhaps need support and as I said I think every postcode in the UK has received national lottery funding it's something that's quite phenomenal and it feels like quite a big secret and I really want us to get that out there because it is it's something that when I tell people it and they hear it they go wow that's amazing and actually even if I haven't won something just now somebody else has won through the money that you know and we call it because of you so every time you pay a ticket somebody wins and either it's through good causes or somebody is winning whatever level of jackpot it might be so it's it's a really fantastic part of of the company and actually it's a really fantastic part of my job I've spent a lot of time with good causes and and I absolutely love the time that we spend out with good causes and it's something we encourage a lot of people to do here at Allwin as well is to is to really understand the impact that their role has on good causes because because Alwyn has a commitment to double returns to good causes by the end of their 10-year license.

1:05:39So approximately£32 million a week goes to good causes. And so it was 30. It's a phenomenal mass of money. Say that again. £32 million a week. Wow. So every course of a year, do the maths for me. What's it for over a year? It's just over£1.6 billion to good causes. and that's all because of people who are watching this today who pay the national lottery so and we have made a commitment that we are going to double returns to good causes by the end of the license so the license started in 2024 and by the end of 2034 we want to be giving 60 million a week to good causes and the idea behind that is that we will grow the national lottery responsibly so that's not our existing players just playing loads more it's actually more people playing a little yeah and we can talk a little bit about the journey that all has been on perhaps in the last three years um in a minute but the changes that we've been making are going to really help us and enable us to grow the national lottery in a very responsible way so it's it's something that i it gives me goosebumps even now when i think about when i first got that phone call thinking about working for something that I've loved for so long and that people in my life have loved for so long as well so and actually being able to smile like that about a job that you do is like that's the that's the nirvana moment for everybody I think oh god yeah 100 % because if you're passionate about what you do I mean how many people just don't enjoy what they do right which is a great waste because we don't know how long we've bloody got in that planet that's for sure so to find that you know in your career with a brand that you love where you're giving back and it's not i don't think it's it's over exaggerating the point to say that literally all winning the national lottery changes lives for the better yeah that's that's not a you know a marketing logo slogan is it that is really fundamentally and we talk about that internally a lot is that we change lives every day and that's ultimately what we're here through either through as i say people who play our games and how they experience playing our games um and you know potentially win as well um but you know we've made over seven and a half thousand millionaires which is just fantastic and and i've met lots of winners and seeing the emotions they go through is fantastic but as i say that money that really has an impact on people who are recipients of of national lottery funding it's not a lot of people get to do that in their roles not at all and like you say we tend to think of the people that are winning the lottery in terms of how it's changing that individual and their family and their immediate kind of you know close-knit group for example but we don't really think about the other side of it which is the charity or giving sort of things so is is all win a not-for-profit no as an organization this is a commercial profits of all just just so nice but it's uh the profit in the national lottery for the operator is very low yeah it's approximately one penny in every pound wow yeah and the rest goes to things like um so prize duty as i said returns to good causes so sorry lottery duty yeah uh prize funds and the operations of the lottery itself but but it is a commercial organization yeah yeah and so what the you know as we go as i said we'll talk about the where the journey we've been on but the journey we will go on uh from 26 onwards is how we grow the national lottery responsible um to be to be able to deliver more money to good causes and you know and to continue to being a fantastic place to work for everybody yeah well and so what i love about this well one um i didn't think there were many businesses that had lower percent ebitda as a percent of revenue compared to travel so you know a travel business that's making about five percent is actually doing quite well so you know it's an interesting sort of middle model but the point being it's a commercial venture it's profit for good yeah right um and you've got two sides of the coin the winners obviously contributing to the tax coffers significantly as well of course and as and then of course you know the good causes so it's really a lot more to it than meets the eye yes And I think that's probably our job as we enter into 2026 and beyond is to really continue growing awareness and bringing back some of that love and magic of the National Lottery.

1:10:04Yeah. And so and he wouldn't want to be part of that. I mean, as I say, when they came calling, I just said, I can't take any time off. This needs to be the next role for me. Yeah. Both because of what it was, but also what I could be part of. I love transformation gigs. I've always done big roles where I'm driving change. Yeah. And this felt like the change. So, and so to be part of it has been, I feel very fortunate to be part of it. Yeah. Well, you can see you're just like buzzing, you know. Yeah. I get talking about it genuinely. I honestly feel the energy. Anybody you hear talking about it, you will hear them talk the same.

1:10:42And our CEO, she talks about when she came and joined the organisation, she felt she felt compelled to go for this role because it had such a made such a fundamental difference and phenomenal difference to society yeah so let's talk a little bit about the the the past three years and let's talk about the journey ahead and then I'm gonna loop back back around to kind of your career and and how this all shows together and there's a load more we want to cover around diversity and inclusion and some of the important stuff you're passionate about as well and you know bringing it bringing a bit of authentic leadership to the conversation as well Sam right like it or not say what I'll be back I can't say what you are it's fine we're friends but it is it's great because to be able to speak with such passion energy enthusiasm and just being you but genuine it's it's a real joy in in to be in an organization like that I think and it does the tone is set from the top it's set from the board um but we're going to look back around to the people side of it because obviously that's critical talk us a little bit around the past the three years prior and then this this exciting roadmap that you've got ahead for the business so i mean first of all i don't know where the last three years has been actually um and when you said you wanted you wanted to talk to me about the last three years i thought hang on a second it hasn't been three years but it has been three years i've been here first week of January in 2023 and boy that time has flown by.

1:12:10So when I joined, Owen had been nominated essentially as the new operator. They hadn't had the license transferred to them at that point so they were in the first, in the sort of, there was a year of preparation ahead of them taking the license over when I joined and there'd been lots of work done prior to that through the bidding process and so at the time the national lottery, the third license, was being run by Camelot then so there are approximately 1300 employees with Camelot and so when I joined I was put in place as Chief People Officer across both Orwin and Camelot okay and actually when you talk about privilege I felt really privileged to be the person that had that role it wasn't an easy role because if you think about Camelot has held the license for 30 years and to imagine how you must be feeling if you had worked for the organization for 30 years and and been part of something that as I said the British public loved so much to then be told that the license is being transferred to a new organization they didn't know who they were that must have been quite hard for people yeah and so for me to be able to take a role where I sat on the exec team of both Camelot and Alwyn it was tough right because it was a difficult period for everybody and everyone's going through their own kind of change curve right but it enabled me to really kind of connect with the organization from Camelot perspective and really understand some of the things that were on their minds and how could I kind of put their mind at rest get them to know me and know all one a little bit more so that I was almost a familiar face to people when the license transferred over a year later so that was the the first year here and really in terms and the only other thing really then was preparations for taking over the license in 2024 and that was a real bumpy year you know sitting across two organizations it was like having two jobs two boards two exec teams um but anyone who knows me knows that I I you know go big or go home right so just if you're going to ask me to do something it needs to be something big and exciting and so I was as I say I felt really privileged to be in that in that role and then the license transferred over in 2024 and so Orwin made a commitment in its bid to as I mentioned earlier double returns to good causes and that meant changing all of the technology that the national lottery was run on so really every single piece of technology and this will make you probably you know your sit down moment is the technology hadn't been upgraded since prior to the iPad being launched wow and that's always like a wow moment yeah you know because we we think about the ipad having been around for so long but it really showed the the need from a technology perspective because committing to double returns to good causes is all well and good right but you need to be able to say how you're going to do it as well and that for us means new games it means new ways for people to play yeah and for people of different generations to be able to interact with the lottery in the way they want it to to get more connected with good clauses yeah but always doing so in a really responsible way and so that meant upgrading the technology and all of our participant protection and how we did it and so we're just in the final stages of that at the moment and so that's what we've been really focused on over the last two years but aside that of course has been the creation of an entirely new culture where we've brought two teams together and that's been the work obviously that I really love yeah I mean I would say I'm a tech girl through and through because I've always worked in I've mostly worked in tech organizations yeah and as I say we'll talk a little bit about the career in a minute but I do love technology but obviously I love I love the being able to influence the people experience at work and being able to help organizations through change and really get to where they want to go and so the last couple of years has been really focused on?

1:16:11How do we bring the organisation? How do we get them to buy into what AllWin wants to do and really understand how we commit to doubling returns to good causes? Winning podcast of the decade from Disruptive Media is an incredible honour. It really is. But you know what? Awards are milestones, aren't they? They're not actually destinations. And what truly matters is the impact. That's what we're all about. And it's the conversations that actually change perspective, the episodes that spark courage as people were listening, the ideas that pushed you to take action. That's what's really what Brave Bold Brilliant is all about.

1:16:56That's why it was built on one simple belief that extraordinary success is possible if you are willing to take ownership, make those bold decisions and do the uncomfortable work. So, you know, to every guest who ever trusted us with their story and with their journey, to every listener who has shared an episode, left a review or sent a message saying that that really changed something for me, you know, to the brave, bold, brilliant community around the world, I just want to say thank you, a huge thank you from the bottom of my heart. You know, and this award represents the last decade. But what excites me most is actually the next one.

1:17:41What's coming next? So, you know, if you've taken value from listening to this special episode, make sure you're subscribed on YouTube, you're following the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, etc. And honestly, share this with someone who really needs to hear it. And if you're ready to elevate your own journey, head to www.brave-bold-brilliant.com and explore how we can help you genuinely step into your next level. because this isn't just a podcast. It's actually a movement and it's something I'm incredibly proud of. And in all honesty, we are only just getting started. The best is yet to come. So as always, stay brave, stay bold and stay absolutely brilliant.