The 2025 CEO Year Book! | A Reflective Episode

23:30Daniel Priestley:Wow. No, that's great. Hey, listen, we're going to get into this, Daniel. And, you know, I'm interested, actually, because when you talk about personal brand, how much do you encourage the people you work with? And you said you've worked with some incredibly high profile personalities in the world of business, sport, media, etc. But how do you how do you encourage them to really be congruent with their values? And yes, want to come across to the world in a certain way, but be be real, be authentic, you know, be clear about your purpose and what you stand for. because there's a lot of BS out there, isn't there, in the world of social media, et cetera.

24:07Daniel Priestley:So I'm just really interested in that, how you keep it real and still be a key person of influence.

24:12Jeannette:It's actually a fine balance. And I'm not necessarily on the side of the fence of saying that you should be authentic because authenticity means different things for different people. So, for example, there was a celebrity chef that I worked with who had millions and millions of followers. and he really wanted to get out there and talk about some big conspiracy theories that he really believed strongly in and and I said look if you do this you're going to absolutely crash your brand and have to start from scratch people want to hear from you health and wellness and I said health wellness food all of that sort of stuff I said if you bring some of this stuff in but if you use it as a spice not an ingredient you might do well but ultimately if you start bringing it in at the level you authentically want to bring it in this is not going to end well for you and sure enough he didn't heed my advice he went for the authenticity approach and absolutely crashed his brand and so I'm not necessarily you know authenticity is a really strange concept because as a leader of an organization there are plenty of times where you authentically want to fire everyone and start again.

25:26Jeannette:That's what authenticity says, you know, well, there are plenty of times where you authentically just don't want to do it that day. Or there are plenty of times where you don't want to listen to, you know, the 13th person complain about this, this, and this. And, and you kind of just authentically want to say, here's an idea, shut up and work. But if you, if you go with authenticity, you're not going to pitch into existence, the thing that you have to do. So there's a balance and there's a dance that you have to do, which is really considering how you're going to be received and thinking about what does your audience authentically need to hear in order for them to get on board with what you want them to get on board with?

26:04Jeannette:What's the bigger picture? What is it that you really, what's the bigger goal here? And sometimes as a leader, you've got to park short-term authenticity for long-term authenticity. And it's very hard for many people to know the difference between the two. So it's not something I talk a lot about. I actually say, unfortunately, if you want to be a leader, sometimes you're just going to have to park your feelings and suck it up and do what's best for this particular moment. And, you know, so I don't know how that lands, but that tends to be my advice to most people. I've worked with a lot of celebrities.

26:40Jeannette:I've worked with people who've got 15, 20 million followers on, you know, social media. and we've got to be really careful that when they want to zig we've got to steer that car around the corner carefully we can't just yank the wheel when they're traveling at the speed of having

26:58Daniel Priestley:millions of followers yeah no that's fascinating and who are some of the the big sort of celebs that you've really enjoyed working with Daniel I'm sure there's lots of them but you know when you think about the clients who are the big ones that you've enjoyed with my big ones I don't name

27:12Jeannette:names, but I've worked with some of the biggest celebrity chefs. I've worked with people who have massive YouTube channels where they're involved in either sport, where they're talking about a particular sport or technology, meditation, mindfulness, business, entrepreneurship, that sort of stuff. So I've worked with a number of these people who have millions and millions and millions of followers and also people who are celebrities. I often get referred to me people who, you know, and when you work with a celebrity, you have to sign an NDA because they want to be able to open up and talk about what it is that they, you know, what they want to talk about.

27:57Jeannette:They always come to you with a particular problem. But I can tell you some of the problems. Some of the key problems is turning celebrity and fame into a business and making sure that it actually is sustainable beyond just their time for money. And actually, how do they pivot into having products and services that is a product and service ecosystem that sits around them? A lot of them are very, very worried about things like what if I get hit by a bus or what if I get ill? You know, how does all of this work without me? It's an incredible pressure. it sounds like a pretty cool idea to earn you know five to ten million a year through your time with almost no overheads but it's also an incredible pressure because everything and everyone it's all sitting on your shoulders and the feeling that a lot of these people have is that if something happens to them they let everybody down so you know it's a it's an enormous amount of pressure that they put themselves under yeah no actually it's interesting

28:56Daniel Priestley:because often when I advise businesses, whether it's large corporate brands, you know, or whether it's sort of smaller SME businesses, often a founder's looking for an exit, I'll always look at the team and I'll be saying, have you got any single points of failure? And what you've just described there is almost the ultimate single point of failure, haven't you? Where you've got, you know, everything is on that one person. So yeah, I can imagine that the pressure is immense. And just in terms of mindset then, Daniel, you know, when you're working with people that have that amount of pressure and they've reached almost the top of their game potentially in some scenarios.

29:31Daniel Priestley:Do they still have the doubts, insecurities, imposter syndrome that most of us mere mortals have, do you think? Because I think everyone has it regardless of who you are.

29:41Jeannette:Yeah, the thing with high leverage is that little mistakes can cost a lot of money and getting it right, getting it at 10 out of 10 can hit big for someone who's got a big brand. and a nine out of 10 can leave a lot of can leave a lot on the table so there's definitely a commitment to excellence and and getting stuff right it varies so most of the people I've worked with at the very core thing that they're very good at they're very confident and they really it's their domain of excellence and all of that sort of stuff but what you'd be surprised by is that just slightly outside of that sphere of excellence it drops off a cliff so I've worked with people who are earning millions and millions and millions from what they do, but they don't know the answer to very, very basic business questions.

30:34Jeannette:And like even just talking about the basics of productization and product partnerships and how to turn their brand into something that pivots into equity value. It's like, I have to really start at the basics and talk through, just in some cases, how does equity work? What does it mean to own shares in other companies and what would a product partnership look like. So there are certain things where you would expect the knowledge to be there, but it's not. But in their domain of excellence, they know absolutely everything and they're brilliant at what they do. As far as things like imposter syndrome, I don't know.

31:16Jeannette:It's a funny one because depends on how fast and how hard they've worked to get there and how fast it's come. I think imposter syndrome is one of these things where suddenly you've got new power and you're not quite sure how to wield it. You've been promoted. The origins of imposter syndrome were that you've been promoted very quickly into a senior role. And now you feel that you're not worthy of the role, that other people could have been a better choice. And there's a lot of responsibilities that suddenly are on your plate and you're sitting there going, my goodness, I don't know if I'm the right person to make decisions that affect people's lives and mortgages and families.

31:53Jeannette:So there's that. Strangely, imposter syndrome has come to feel or come to mean a much more watered down version of that, which is I'm just not feeling confident or I don't like the way I look on camera or something like that. But I think we should get back to the origin of what is it, it means that you have been put into a position of massive responsibility, and you're struggling under the weight of that. To me, that's a, you know, that we should stick with that as a particular thing and teach the other talk about the other thing of just confidence and self esteem, being being different wheelhouses.

32:35Daniel Priestley:Yeah, I think it's a great perspective, actually, Daniel. So when you think about your career, we're going to we've been talking about some of the people you help, we're going to talk about you. So you don't get off the hook, may I say but have you ever suffered from those feelings yourself through your career because you've had huge success but I'm sure you've had highs and lows where you've been catapulted into amazing positions quite fast and other times where maybe it has developed kind of more organically and slowly but have you ever had those feelings yourself Daniel?

33:02Jeannette:I had a very fast growth business when I was before I was 25. And I started a business at 21 before the age of 25. It was doing a million a month in revenue and sales. And I had quite a sizable team and all of that sort of stuff. It actually happened too fast. And there were too many things to think about for me to go and introspect at all. Like I just didn't, there was no thinking about how I feel about it. I just had the tiger by the tail. So I was just holding on for dear life. And I kind of wish I had have had something like imposter syndrome, because I probably would have sought out some mentors.

33:44Jeannette:And if I had have had more of a crushing self belief about whether I could do this or not, I would have probably made a few smarter moves. You know, there was a there was a massive deal that was put on the table for me when I was 2425. And I ended up walking away from it and walking away from a lot of money. And, you know, had I had imposter syndrome, I might have had the good foresight to actually talk to someone more experienced about it. So I think imposter syndrome has a lot of benefits. You know, it probably takes people who've got imposter syndrome, you know, it gives them the impetus to go and seek out a mentor, seek out a coach, seek out an objective third party to talk through, you know, the situation that they're in.

34:33Jeannette:And I I wish I had done that. Yeah.

34:35Daniel Priestley:What was the business at the time then, Daniel? Because I know you've had so many businesses. Yeah.

34:39Jeannette:So I had this business in the early days called Triumphant Events. And what we did is we specialized in bolting on a front-end lead generation strategy, which was an event strategy. So we were really good at working with financial planning and franchising. And rather than them selling their core product or service, we would do introduction events. And introduction events, basically an hour to two hours, people turn up, we would promote it, do all the bookings, and then coordinate the sales meetings into their existing sales strategy or even take over the sales process. So I was doing this with about three or four clients per year, and we took an equity stake in everything.

35:23Jeannette:We took a commission on everything we were selling. The big deal that I had was that one of my clients wanted to buy me. They were about to float on the stock market and they wanted to secure their sales channel. And we were their sales channel. So they wanted to throw a lot of money at us to buy the business to basically have a secured sales channel because it was identified as a weakness on their documents when they were floating that they had outsourced their sales channels. So they wanted to bring them in-house.

35:54Daniel Priestley:And now Shane Jameson on Leadership, Pride and Impact. So welcome to the Brave Bold Brilliant podcast. I am your host, Jeanette Linfoot, and I'm here today with an incredible guest. Talk about a man with a big personality, a big smile. What he doesn't know about sales and marketing isn't worth knowing. it is the wonderful Shane Jameson who is the area director of sales and marketing for the Intercontinental Hotels Group in Thailand welcome Shane well thank you Jeanette that was such a

36:31Allan Kleynhans:such a welcome and I hope now I'm not underwhelming because that was so huge you've made that you've bigged that up a lot so I I just hope that people stay to the end but thank you for having me amazing

36:39Daniel Priestley:thank you oh no it's great to have you Shane and you and I have actually known each other for a few years now. That is true. So we do go back a little bit but I know that everyone listening is going to want to know a little bit more about your story where life started so let's kick off there Shane and then we're going to go on go on from there if that's all right.

36:59Allan Kleynhans:Thanks Jeanette. Yeah look I mean I guess I was an Aussie boy with a dream so grew up in Geelong Victoria originally from Perth but we kind of glaze over that because everything kind of important happened after I moved to Victoria and uh the accent's a little bit misplaced so please you know listeners don't hold that against me either it's uh it's just from never living in Australia really for any serious length of time after I you know left my team so um so basically studied uh started with a commerce degree fell out of that thought that was a bit terrible and well actually it wasn't terrible I was terrible at it and uh and I was bored and I was like so I had one of these real ego moments and said no I I need to be surrounded by people.

37:40Allan Kleynhans:I need people in my life. And what I really want to do is hospitality. I have to be in hospitality. So sort of as I was tumbling out of that commerce degree, I sort of forward, you know, forward tumbled into hospitality. And that was my groove. That was my thing. And I did a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Australia that took me to sort of me being a very average waiter in the Whitsundays, but really high levels of, you know, customer satisfaction. So that was kind of interesting, you know, in the PDPs and stuff. You're a terrible waiter, but they love you. It's an odd kind of balance. And then came back and did sort of a bit more of the degree and then went to Dubai.

38:19Allan Kleynhans:That was sort of 2004, where I got to Dubai. And again, in sort of conference and events, which was, you know, for anyone who, I guess, is starting out in hospitality, that's seriously hard work. You know, when you're talking about big events, carrying plates and platters and all the rest of it. but I kind of love that because it's it's got a bit of spunk and Dubai's got a bit of spunk hasn't it it's kind of a it's you know my first event I think was for the Belgian Beer Society out in the middle of the deserts or a bit when tents and you know drunk Belgians everywhere that's obviously not uncommon but you know it was kind of fabulous and then I realized like oh my goodness I have to do this um but before that I have to meet a girl you know so I kind of had this like yeah so then I kind of like a message my my stepmother's Chinese and I said hey you know when you get a hook met with a foxy Chinese bird and she sent me a message back literally 10 minutes later this is well documented so this is no BS Jeanette and she says how about Friday and I was like well super efficient unlike you know not unlike the Chinese and and sure thing this stunning batting way above you know my average I mean I mean you can't even imagine how beautiful my wife is well you can actually if you follow me on social you'll be able to see her but so she sort of like walks in sort of baseball caps sort of like kind of dressed and I was like oh my god I'm like if she lasts this date with me like I can't possibly let this woman go um not like in a creepy kind of way and uh we had this really almost 24 hour date my father was chaperone was kind of weird I was like 21 and uh and it was kind of a bit awkward um but it that kind of tumbled over and I and I remember dropping her off at 4 a.m and I said to the taxi driver at that point I said you know what I'm gonna marry that girl and he said uh thank you very much uh can you just pay you just can you just pay me for the fare uh because I've dropped her and now I'm dropping you so um true you know I guess we're getting almost 15 years later two kids and uh that was the romance that was but it she was also in hospitality so it kind of all was swinging around the same things that was sort of 2004 I was a trainee it was a Jebel Ali group in Dubai David Thompson you know these are legacy legends if you will in the Dubai scene so it was so great and then I had to come back and finish the degree so I thought I would do the sort of you know the very chivalrous thing and I started a bit of Mandarin at university it was it was a great sort of talk around the table it was that was all bs because i was absolutely terrible at learning mandarin at university it's it's it's bloody hard today i'll be honest with you all of this is not ready for that and uh but i tried and i did have the at that point the chinese fiance so i'm like i'm gonna do something here and uh so i did and i got a little bit better at it i'm like all right into asia into asia ended up back in the middle east so the asia dream was was there to start i was ready for china i was ready for macau i was ready for hong kong none of that happened that didn't happen and uh instead i went back to jebel alley so this is sort of like circuit number two uh as a salesperson and uh loved it loved everything about it i was your quintessential young and we're sort of 21 22 sales uh manager you know into by internet media city carrying coffees for all the secretaries I mean I'm talking old school sales you know and I sort of I look around today and sales has changed somewhat over the years and I'm not that old in 38 as I think you said once you know I'm not young anymore Shane that was a Jeanette Lin foot quote um but uh but I sort of so I did that for a bit then I got into mice and I kind of loved that and I thought that was the best thing of my life you know dealing with groups and managing a bit of congress for Jabal Ali uh and then I sort of went well they sort of said to me look let's go into the leisure realm and let's see how you do in leisure sales which is of course a couple of years later where I met you and I think that sort of wholesale that leisure segment especially for Dubai which is just so so bold and crazy and crazy average rates and I think you know it always made me laugh that I you know I could when I was when I Mauritius came later but in Mauritius I had UK tour operators going oh it's way too expensive I'm like but hang on in Dubai you're paying four times you were paying four times the price for a lot less so dubai just had this carrot of gold i mean seriously a golden carrot for me and so i spent more time in dubai um that was amazing dabbled as a dmc wasn't great that was another one of those hit and miss things uh then got very ambitious which was um both i guess personally endearing and then kind of a rubbish decision as well at the same time and I moved to Qatar to take on my first DOSM position uh and I was 27 so I had this in my head 27 was a really pivotal year it was kind of like where great rock stars die I'm alive still so that's that I'm not the great rock star either but you know that you'd like your Kurt Cobain's and a few others that you know they're all going in sort of at that age and I desperately wanted to be a director of sales and marketing so I took a job in Qatar that was bad news.

43:18Allan Kleynhans:That lasted nine months. I was out of a job. Completely, like, fired. And I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. What do I do? What do I do? This is terrible. And I do remember years later telling this story to my team, and they're like, did you just tell us that you got fired? I'm like, being fired is okay. That's an okay thing. It's not a – I didn't take it personally. I hated Qatar. And no disrespect to anyone who loves Qatar. But I hated it. So from there, I went to Mauritius, which was incredible. So second DOSM position. 27, 28. And then eventually I remember waking up my 30th birthday on a sales trip in London, you know, just seeing Rock of Ages out on the Terps a bit and was living the DOSM luxury life with IHG.

44:00Allan Kleynhans:So it's a continental hotel group. You know, that also brought me back to Dubai eventually. So we've sort of gone Katara, Mauritius back to Dubai in a really business hotel at Crown Plaza. That was interesting more from the standpoint that I'm pretty rubbish at business sales so I'm not a very good corporate salesperson that was sort of my junior years and then I kind of went on this a little bit hard isn't it and that is true by the way so anyone in corporate sales you work really hard and you know full props to you but then then the big ticket came I guess or the big win came where we met each other and I did get a Facebook messenger from my very dear friend Andy Nightingale who you also know and it was simply would you take hi it's Andy we didn't know each other but hey it's Andy over Facebook Messenger how all great jobs are given uh would you take a job at Leisure of Leisure Sales I don't know Jamira and I way overcompensated there I like called him a hundred times harassed the poor guy I'm like yeah do you want to see me what can I do and uh in the end he was like it's okay like we'll catch up Shane don't don't worry and then long story short got that job Jamira had sort of clustered its operations I then got that job so Then I became the Cluster Director of Sales for Leisure for the Jameera sort of owned estate.

45:15Allan Kleynhans:So I was gone from sort of like back in the day not being allowed into Virgil Arab, a bit rock star, to having a past that allowed me to drive into Virgil Arab, which was always really just to be in the heads of state. It was all kind of, it was so amazing. And I loved it. And Jameera was like the most incredible thing. So yeah, I was doing that. And then one day I woke up after a few years with Jameera and I said, wow, things are actually going really well. Things have never been better. There was no COVID. There was no world economic crisis. There was none of that. And I just didn't know if I was happy anymore, but it wasn't the job.

45:53Allan Kleynhans:It definitely wasn't the job because I think you know of all people how close I am to the company still to this day. But it was me. I needed to do something different for me. And IHG acquired Kempton in 2015. I remember sort of watching the press and I knew about Bill Kimpton. I knew what he stood for and equality and people and pets. We'll get to that, I guess. But, you know, and just really owning who you are, which is also something that you and I have spoken about a bit, like really knowing who I am and really. So there were so many things there, you know, obviously from an LGBT standpoint, Middle East has its challenges, which is, I mean, I think that's well documented.

46:37Allan Kleynhans:I don't think that's a revelation, but obviously to sort of get an opportunity to come to Thailand. And again, it's not specifically LGBT, but it's people being allowed to be who they are and being respected for their choices. And that's a huge, it's a huge part of my belief system. And I just think still today, whether it's, you know, women in leadership or whether it's the LGBT Q plus community or whatever it might be, I still don't think we're there yet. and Kimpton was at least the first the first stand I took to open you know the first Kimpton hotel in southeast Asia then COVID bang like just like that so while it was going so great it was all amazing and we sort of remember I remember I was in the states and they were like oh you have you brought that you know Chinese disease with you I'm like a little bit rude Chinese wife but um but we kind of I kind of got back and well anyway 18 months later here we are but I I'm extremely proud of what I've done with Kimpton.

47:35Allan Kleynhans:Sort of less than 12 months into that, or maybe right on 12 months into that, IHG offered me the position to be the area director of sales marketing here in Thailand, which means I picked up sort of 10 other, 10, 12 other hotels. And while I've got amazing commercial leaders on property, I'm there as a support network for them to, I don't want to say push them, but, you know, really just be their shoulder, if that makes sense. And I think growing up, it was the shoulders that I had and the people I could lean on that actually got me to where I am. Because sales is a bit of a lonely world, Jeanette.

48:10Allan Kleynhans:Like, it sounds super glamorous. And some of the positions that I've held have been more than glamorous. But there's also quite a lot of isolation there. We should use the word isolation. I think that was the word I said I wasn't going to use in 2021. 21 but you know you do feel isolated from the world because everything's a number and everything is you're very driven and it's very personal um and while it's teamwork it's still very personal it's still a very personal journey for you so um I don't know that that's me I think that's that's everything did I tell you was that quick did I go I probably just filled it all out

48:46Daniel Priestley:there's a lot in there there's a lot in there Shane but no brilliant I mean you've had an incredible career and you know what I absolutely love about you Shane well there's lots of things but what I really love is your energy and you know you have such enthusiasm you throw yourself into something you know you really do give it your all and that just absolutely shines through anyone listening can hear it in your voice anyone watching this can see it in your face and that is that is such a such a great approach to have I think to life um but let me let me take you back because we're going to go we're going to dig into quite a lot of detail there's so so much that we're going to cover and let's go back to those sort of childhood really and growing up growing up in australia and and really where you got the travel bug from and the sense of adventure because you've lived in multiple places you've thrown yourself into lots of different roles you've you know been incredibly successful you have you know you've been fired from jobs and bounced back So you've got this great resilience and this passion for travel.

49:46Daniel Priestley:Where did that come from? Does any of that link to childhood and kind of growing up in Australia or not?

49:52Allan Kleynhans:No, no, definitely. I mean, look, Australia is, Australia really is for me the most wonderful adventure. And that can just simply be going to work because everything is distance driven. So it's very rare that, you know, I mean, I can come to in Asia with an hour's flight. you can hit five different countries you know uh well in Thailand you can get to Phuket or but generally speaking within an hour you can fly to many different places in Australia that's not really the case I mean you can change states but Perth for example sort of like four hours on the way back from Melbourne to Perth and I've also driven the Nullarbor which is a couple of times actually so that's again for most people probably the UK they'll be like well that's the most ridiculous thing you'll ever do because it literally takes days it's not something you can do in a 12-hour trip.

50:39Daniel Priestley:And Rob Moore gives us his playbook for bold strategic growth.

50:44Rob Moore:It's Rob Moore here, and I am with Jeanette Linford, and Jeanette Linford is with me. You might be seeing us on Jeanette's profiles or my profiles. I am very privileged because Jeanette is interviewing me for the 100th episode of Brave, Bold, Brilliant. Her podcast, brilliant podcast, called Brave, Bold, Brilliant. and this will be the 100th episode. So I'm going to bring it. I'm going to bring it for your podcast. The show is yours. I am your victim. Hit me.

51:16Daniel Priestley:Excellent. The first time Rob is my victim. I can't wait. I can't wait. Now, honestly, thank you so much, Rob. It is brilliant to have you on Brave Bold Brilliant, of course. So 100th episode is quite a milestone for me. Yeah, it's big. So I'm excited. I'm excited. But, Rob, you have been interviewed so many times by many people. I've done this a few times. So what I'm really interested in is the hidden gems, the bits behind Rob Moore that maybe are not so well known to people. So normally, I would start these podcast interviews with people talking about their journey. Your journey is pretty well known.

51:55Daniel Priestley:So what I would like you to do, if you don't mind, is if you could pull out a few things of your journey that are not so well known to the outside world and how those aspects have kind of influenced you through your life, career and business that people might not know so much about.

52:12Rob Moore:Okay. Am I one face of Peterborough, 1999?

52:15Daniel Priestley:I pin up.

52:17Rob Moore:Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Right. I've got 100 % GCSER, according to my tutors. I don't know how you get 100 % of GCSER because it's subjective, of course, but I've got 100 % of GCSER. um so sometimes people pick up that I'm quite creative and I've got quite a creative background I'm into into a lot of creative things yeah um which maybe a lot of entrepreneurs aren't necessarily known for um so maybe people don't know that about me uh I'm a massive fan of data so I guess people would probably perceive me to be quite um shooting from the hip sharp quick shooter you know start now get perfect later um beg for forgiveness don't ask for permission being disruptive which I think are all important values if you want to make waves and make things happen but I don't just do that without thought um and I think that you cannot master what you do not measure and so I've been obsessive over the last 15 years on getting data for everything we do and as we've got bigger it's got harder to get the right data sets because you've got layers of levels of management and wastage and people who hide and cover things up or don't track things or you just have so many assets that are built that you take your eye off the ball testing them so I mean there's certain metrics I've always taught people lifetime client value maximum acquisition cost um which a lot of people don't even know what that means everyone knows about cost per click cost per lead cost per conversion um you know how to make a self liquidating offer or ROAS return on ad spend um but I like to track all the data down the line like for example there's a lot of our assets online that aren't being a b split tested every single ad page should be a b split test and you should always be trying to beat your best ad and i learned this 15 years ago from perry marshall and now that we have 92 staff up there in our training company before the lockdown i think we've got 76 now but then when you have the letting agency over there which is ours we must have nearly 90 and a lot of this isn't necessarily being done but then a lot of the team are new or newer when i than when i was you know, marching on this.

54:44Rob Moore:And right now, and this has been taking a long while, but it's only because of resource, we're having a fully bespoke dashboard written, which pulls data from all of our fractious systems and software onto this one dashboard, where I can get a number of calls each person's doing in our sales team, you know, number of leads being generated minute by minute for all the different verticals. We have dozens of verticals, business models, courses, programs. So I guess people would perceive I'm a bit flippant and quick and maybe not careful on the data. I spent four hours on Sunday reading about a 60-page marketing report.

55:27And I've taught myself to enjoy that because I think, you know,

55:32Rob Moore:being able to go through and read all the data in your company, like you'll know from balance sheet, profit and loss, budgets, forecasts, um you know i've been reading profit and loss statements management accounts for 10 years and i still wouldn't don't fully fully understand them and some some line items that are in them or whatever um so people definitely don't know that about me and the great thing about tracking data is it takes away opinion and people covering their ass and conjecture and wastage and even the ability or the need to manage. Like if we're looking at a report, you and I, and the report, we talk about the report, we comment on the report, and the report shows what the report shows.

56:16Rob Moore:I can't defend it if it's there in plain sight and data. So it stops all that posturizing and time wasting between us. What else do people not know about me? I think they don't understand how much I care. You know, you probably do. I'm very quick to respond to all my clients you know think about them a lot try and help them a lot not perfect of course um but um you know I don't need don't not say this to sympathy but I had a completely wipe out migraine yesterday and I still did my interview with Michael Kalisparas because I knew that that would have um ruined his schedule if I'd have changed that even though I I couldn't fucking see how one, I couldn't see on one side of my face.

57:04Rob Moore:And you asked me, how am I feeling now? And I'd be like, wow, the teeth are a bit numb and still feeling a bit sick. But I think you get the opportunity to show the world who you really are when it's difficult. I remember interviewing Ed Milet and he'd just been told that his dad had got cancer and he still showed up and did the podcast interview when he could have easily just cancelled that. So I care a lot, sometimes a bit too much. you know on the other side of that i've sort of shaken off over the last year or so or years concern for what people think about me because the ultimate freedom is not caring what anybody thinks about you but also if you don't care about what people think about you you also don't care about your customers your clients your followers and your fans and therefore there's distance between them so getting that balance right of really caring and looking after your clients your followers, your fans.

57:52Rob Moore:And also, I don't need your approval to go and do what I'm going to do with my life. So then maybe there's a few things people don't necessarily.

58:01Daniel Priestley:There's quite a bit in there, actually, which is cool. So let's talk about the business side, because you're right, sometimes everyone's focused on the glamorous stuff, the marketing, the new product launches, the service delivery, and all that kind of activity. But you're right, a lot of the sometimes the most important things are having the foundations right in the business, you know, the data, the stats, the systems, the processes to be able to scale and grow. And you're all about growth and scaling up, as am I, actually, in my businesses as well. So in order to shake up a sector and disrupt as you, you know, the disruptive entrepreneur in your brand, And I think sometimes what people mistake is that you can't scale up or disrupt if the foundations are really rocky to start off with.

58:49Daniel Priestley:So I think that data point you made is really, really valid, Rob. So if we're thinking about scaling up a business or disrupting a sector, let me take disruption first, actually. What sectors do you think, from a business point of view, are being really disruptive at the moment? It doesn't have to be in your space that you sort of think, oh, yeah, actually, they're really shaking things up. because I think that's where opportunities often come in particular at a time like we're facing during COVID or recession. It's the disruptive businesses that look at things differently, that have the opportunity to scale up and grow on the back of those solid foundations of data that you spoke about.

59:27Daniel Priestley:So disruptive sectors.

59:29Rob Moore:Okay, so there's about three things in there I'll pick out. I don't necessarily agree that you can't disrupt if you don't have solid foundations. In an ideal world, you'd have solid foundations to disrupt. But I don't think in the early days of Netflix and Uber and Airbnb that they necessarily did have all the assets and systems and processes in place. I think you know that that's the panacea because, you know, you've got massive corporate experience. At the end of the day, sometimes you have to start before you're ready. And sometimes you have to make waves, even though you haven't got those solid foundations, because I'm a believer that sometimes opportunity comes when you're not quite ready, but you need to be ready.

1:00:24Rob Moore:so if you're waiting for those foundations to be in place you may miss very timely opportunities so i just challenge that and i know what you meant but honestly when we've gone into new areas we've not been ready start now get perfect later um i think having the confidence the volition and the belief that you can build things as you go is a good quality to have as an entrepreneur because sometimes that's what you have to do because you don't always know what you're building you know that there's an opportunity a niche a sector but you haven't figured it all out yet and you've almost got to build it as you go rather than build it before you go um of course that's not an excuse for being careless I think something my team misunderstand like going back to the initial question something else I'm a very forgiving person.

1:01:23And I can move on pretty well if you fuck me over.

1:01:30Rob Moore:Because one, you've got your reasons. Two, I'm no patron saint of martyrdom. those who judge have a look in the mirror and I know I'm a human being but also I'm the one that suffers if I don't forgive someone or and what right have I got to forgive them if I've got to forgive them I'm the one that's trapped so I move on quickly from stuff usually you know sometimes we'll have things which last a bit longer than we'd like but but sometimes I think my team mistake that chaos or that speed of moving on for things for it's okay to make mistakes I am pretty forgiving of mistakes but then sometimes I go that was a stupid fucking mistake you didn't need to make that mistake don't throw my words back in my face yes work quickly but you can you can be good and quick some you know you can there's so many myths out there rules um and you can be good and quick and some mistakes are okay but but not too many so um if any of my team are watching just because we're quick doesn't mean you can fuck up all the time um so right so now back to your your question on industries being disruptive well look there's a lot of industries i'm just not interested in so i'm sure there's a lot of industries out there that are ripe for disruption or being disrupted but i can't study the whole world in the world that the worlds that i'm in obviously most of retail is being big time disrupted and i remember gerald ratner who had the biggest jewelry business in europe he's a friend of mine um and i know you mentor with him on um business mastermind academy he said to me quite a few years ago when retail looked like it was started to be in trouble next to online and um he had an online jewelry business at the time and he said retail will have to develop by creating experience not just you know selling stuff in a shop and like if you go down bond street now like the amount they've spent on upgraded bond street and you're going to mcqueen which is my favorite and it's it's an experience that you're given champagne and you're treated like a vip i had to sign a waiver um i had to sign an nda to see the new collection and that's just freaking marketing that's just like giving me It's fucking clever, actually.

1:03:50Allan Kleynhans:It's like, I can't say anything. I'm MDA, but I'm a queen.

1:03:53Daniel Priestley:I'm a new collection. But, you know, it's an experience.

1:03:59Rob Moore:And some of the big brands are absolutely killing it. You know, you write about Lamborghini. Lamborghini, absolutely killing it. You do your business reports each week. And so retail, probably the high end, has probably been disrupted. And creating a brand and a luxury, I think you probably circumvent any lockdown or recession. So retail, that's been disrupted, online, social media, well, media, actually, because if you think about it 30 years ago, a couple of old white men owned most of media across the world. And if you think of people like Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch, massive media control now a 10 year old can go on youtube 10 million views put that in your pipe murder and smoke it nothing against those guys by the way just making examples but a 10 year old kid or a six year old kid there's um he's probably eight or nine now but that kid ryan on ryan toys review i mean 27 million dollars last year on a youtube channel mr beast mr b my son watches mr Beast.

1:05:10Rob Moore:And he's like, Daddy, you're YouTube's as big as Mr. Beast. No, it's not. And it makes tens of millions a year. Podcasters, killing it. Joe Rogan got$100 million to basically license his content to Spotify. Now, by the way, this is not just celebrities. I was going to say Meghan and Harry. They've got, you know, decamillion deals on Spotify and Netflix, I'm sure. But Stephen Dubner, who wrote for Economics. I think he sold out for£6 million. My friend Johnny Dumas, I've been on his podcast, Entrepreneur on Fire. He's been on mine. He got a seven-figure deal on HubSpot. And these aren't household names.

1:05:48Daniel Priestley:And finally, Fiona Jeffery, OBE, shares her vision for responsible leadership and global impact.

1:05:56Shame Jameson:So welcome to the Brave Bob Brilliant podcast. I'm here today with Fiona Jeffery, OBE.

1:06:01Daniel Priestley:and Fiona is the founder and chair of Just A Drop, but also long history in the travel industry, she's been the chair of World Travel Market and loads of other interesting things.

1:06:12Shame Jameson:So Fiona, welcome, nice to see you. Lovely to see you, Jeanette, and thank you so much for having me on. Oh no, you're very welcome.

1:06:19Daniel Priestley:And actually we managed to erase this in record time, so we were super, super efficient, which is quite a miracle given how busy we both are, But no, it's absolutely fantastic to see you. And we've got an exciting lots of things to talk about, Fiona, haven't we? Hopefully. Fingers crossed. I have no doubt at all. Now, listen, Fiona, I've known you for many years. You are a legend in the travel industry. You're very, very well known. But obviously, for everything that you're doing on the global stage as well, it's really important, the impact you're making. but for someone that might not have come across you do you want to just give us a bit of plotted history where life started for you how you've ended up doing the great things you're doing and then we're just going to dig in from there if that's all right okay thank you um well maybe you

1:07:09Shame Jameson:can tell from my accent but um i'm scottish i was born in scotland um and brought up in scotland and my parents were a doctor and a nurse and i just mentioned that because actually i think without me realising it that that background really shaped a lot of how I view life and what I've ended up doing in my life um my original plan was to go into medicine um but I also recognised in my latter years at school that I probably wasn't scientific enough but fundamentally I actually wasn't tough enough and to be a really good doctor you have to be quite tough as well as having that that um that sort of quality bedside communication manner so i suddenly changed course and and ended up studying languages french spanish and italian at edinburgh university and from uni i then moved into the world of retailing because i fancied being a international buyer and i started a graduate training scheme with the house of phrasing group and ended up being an assistant buyer for lingerie and corsetry which meant bras and knickers basically and a bit of nightwear and I was based in the northeast in in the bins group and in Scotland but that moved me down to London and whilst I was down in London I realized I was actually part of a huge huge big corporation with 26 ,000 employees and I decided that I actually wanted to operate in a smaller environment where I potentially had more impact and that ended up by sheer luck as we'd have it I ended up joining Read Exhibitions and I started right at the bottom as a promotions executive marketing executive at the time and responsible for promoting a whole host of different business to business events in different parts of the world.

1:09:13Shame Jameson:Fortunately I got some of the girly stuff so I was doing international jewellery fair, I did salon for hairdressing, I did stationery, um i did food and hospitality but in that portfolio was also world travel market and world travel market was really young then it was only five six years old it was still a very uk focused event um but as things evolved and we were it was the mid 1980s and the industry was really starting to take off and that was a huge opportunity to really build develop grow the purpose behind world travel market um and so i suppose i grew as the industry grew and as the event grew and and that ultimately gave me quite a unique opportunity of being in a global international position with the organization which also gave me a global international voice and it was then a question of sort of recognizing that at a certain stage and in the development of world travel market in my personal development and deciding okay what is that voice going to be what what is world travel market going to stand for within the industry what's its role what its purposes um how do we really make a positive contribution um and I think a lot of that again came from a being a woman and b and b um the social responsibility that my background had given me that I started to bring into the business world wow gosh I mean and actually you were

1:11:04Daniel Priestley:a travel market a world travel market for what 26 years or 27 years 86 to 13 for a long time isn't

1:11:12Shame Jameson:it yeah it it is and you know it was a fantastic period to be involved with world travel market Jeanette because you know the low-cost airline industry was just evolving um in destinations were opening up all over the world you know it was at that time when it was unusual to go and visit Vietnam people hadn't heard of Myanmar um traveling to Africa oh that was it that there was a question and now you think about it now and and it's just not like that anymore is it you know the world seems to be you know not for everybody by any stretch of the imagination but you know the world is often seen as our oyster and you know whilst we're very very privileged to travel and I still see that travel is a privilege it's not a ride um it's the world has opened up and that really has influenced how we view things and also the impact that the industry can have as a consequence and I suppose it was that side of the industry that I began to when I took over world travel market in 94 I started to seriously see and recognize that the industry was growing so exponentially that if it continued to do that it if and if it didn't do it responsibly it would start to destroy the very product it was seeking to promote which was the world that was the planet and actually if we didn't protect that planet then the industry would destroy its own business model uh so that so that led me to create um an initiative called Environmental Awareness Day back in 1996 it was an educational forum and the first year I ran it there's 45 ,000 people coming to World Travel Market and 30 people turned up so it was good to definitely be a challenge and I recognized it was going to be a challenge but fortunately I had also an advisory board and only one of the board members he was he was the CEO of Apt at the time a guy called Ian Reynolds and Ian was the one that said Fiona don't give up on it my whole team thought I was mad they thought I was absolutely nuts to be doing this but and I had issued everybody at World Travel Market with it we were in the house court at the time and I issued every exhibitor with three bags to recycle their glass, their waste and their plastic and at the end of World Travel Market as we broke down all I could see were thousands and thousands of empty bags just sitting on the floor because it really hadn't hit people's radar in any way whatsoever so I didn't give up and it's now become World Responsible Tourism Day and it's the largest gathering of responsible tourism practitioners in the world now but it was that that it was a struggle with getting the industry to respond to an environmental agenda that made me think okay Fiona you've got to come up with a better idea and something that will touch people more significantly and that made me think okay a lot of us are parents I've just become a mum and I thought okay let's look at something that is still environmental in its reach it's global because we're a global industry but it impacts children and their families and that's when I learned that a child was dying every 17 seconds because of dirty water It was the biggest killer of children under the age of five.

1:15:13Shame Jameson:But I also learned quite incredibly at the time was that just one pound could deliver clean water to a child for nearly 10 years. So in my naivety, I thought, OK, I've got 45 ,000 people coming to World Travel Market. So if I can get a pound off everybody, then that will give me 45 ,000 pounds and we can do a lot with that. and so that's why I called it just a drop because the principle was if everybody in our industry that was coming to World Travel Market gave us a pound then collectively the industry could start making a difference and so that's how it started but then I soon realized that actually you don't get a pound off everybody coming to World Travel Market and you have to evolve and change and and and do things in a slightly different way so wow gosh so much in here Fiona wow I mean

1:16:09Daniel Priestley:to be honest I love doing these interviews because I get to learn loads as well so you know I didn't know a lot of this stuff around around sort of you know how you got into it in the first place but you know what strikes me Fiona when you were actually talking how incredibly purpose-driven you you were even at an early stage of your career and as quite a young woman starting now actually kind of knowing that you wanted to do good in the world in the context of the you know where you were in particular world travel market and then setting up just a drop where do you think that came from do you think that came from those early informative years with your parents being in the sort of the health care profession etc or where did it come from yes I

1:16:52Shame Jameson:did it's interesting Jeanette it was only and when I left world travel market and my CEO sort of was saying you know goodbye and he thanked me for everything that I'd done and how professional I'd always been and this that and the other and I sort of looked at him a bit aghast because I thought why are you saying this I am a professional and then I had a light bulb moment because I realised that actually the way I'd been brought up had been in a professional background and which was which is what you get from doctors nurses lawyers you know it's that it's that culture but I moved because I I wasn't I was going to I would have been a failed doctor I moved into the business world but I sort of brought the professional approach it was the ethics it was what is good business about you know and why are we in business you know why are we doing what we're doing if it's and is it is it just to sell a product or what else can it do and I suppose what I was interested in doing was you know I really valued being in this dynamic changing evolving industry and it was fantastic that people could have wonderful experiences off the back of it but I actually also felt as an industry we could do so much more and it was trying to identify and explore what that could be and it also gave me a sort of appreciation that there is a lot of power in business if it is directed in a really positive purposeful way and that you know business can help contribute to changing what we do whereas other sectors can find that very difficult and so I sort of tried to bring the business world that I was able to influence into another dimension which was bringing it into the third sector I didn't set out to run a charity I didn't set out to create Just a Drop as a charity Just a Drop evolved because I wanted to put purpose back into our travel and tourism industry and encourage them to give back and to make that meaningful so that they really understood what they were contributing to and the rest sort of evolved um so I think definitely my upbringing but I didn't realize it at the time I just followed my I just followed my instincts basically

1:19:38Daniel Priestley:yeah yeah no I did so much in this because I think you know obviously the world of business and travel has moved on significantly and I remember being at Earl's Court you know I I first got into traveling 95 when I was a young fret well relatively young fresh-faced graduate it and um yeah i mean like you say the parts of the world that are so accessible now were were the stuff of dreams um back then and and you're right that impact but some of the stats you were talking about fiona are really shocking um you know in terms of a child dying you know every 17 17 minutes did you say 17 17 seconds seconds 17 i was about to say minutes i thought no you said second so i mean that is shocking i don't know have those numbers shifted fiona because obviously a lot has been done and we're going to get into a bit more detail but if you were looking at that today in today's world water is still incredibly important and we take it for granted don't we in the western world um but what would be some of the stats that are sort of up to date in terms of

1:20:38Shame Jameson:today's um scenario that you're working with okay we now it's shifted from every 17 seconds a child dies to every two minutes so it's improved a lot but it's still still it's still a really shocking statistic, over 771 million people don't have access to safe water close to their homes.

1:21:02Daniel Priestley:So if you're finding value in today's conversation, I encourage you to take a moment to subscribe to Brave Bold Brilliant. By doing so, you'll receive insights from top leaders and entrepreneurs every week designed to help you grow your business, sharpen your leadership and create impact that lasts. And if this episode resonates with you, please leave us a review. Share it with your network. Your support genuinely helps us bring transformative stories and actionable strategies to more people, which is why we're here. So thank you for joining me on this December episode of Brave Bob Brilliant. I hope today's conversation with Alan Kleinhans, Daniel Priestley, Shane Jameson, Rob Moore and Fiona Jeffery OBE has inspired you to reflect, plan and take bold action as we head into the new year.

1:21:54Daniel Priestley:Remember, closing the year with clarity, purpose and vision sets the tone for everything that comes next. And from the heart, from me, always lead with courage. Embrace your unique brilliant and never settle for anything less than your best. and of course we'd love it if you would subscribe leave a review and share this episode with a fellow leader or entrepreneur who's ready to make 2026 absolutely extraordinary so keep dreaming big leading with purpose and as i always stay it is by being brave and bold that you will unlock your brilliant let that guide you in business in life and in creative impact that lasts