Cobra beer Founder - how to get through crises having nearly lost his business three times | Lord Karan Bilimoria

29:39And one, you realize it takes, selling is hard work there's no shortcut to it you've got to put in those the footsteps the miles the hard work and then the second thing is you've got to convince people to vote for you so you've got to sell yourself and a complete stranger and ask them to vote for you so that's where first thing I learned learned to sell and knew I could sell and the other aspect of creativity. I was told throughout my childhood I was not creative because I was useless at art. I couldn't draw. I couldn't paint. I learned the piano. I passed grade one, but they told me... You did this painting behind you though, right?

30:20No, no. No, I didn't. This is just in the room. I couldn't possibly do something like that. I was hopeless at art and I played the piano, passed grade one, gave up. And I literally went through my whole studies, my university, being told and believing I was not creative. It's only when I started business, being an entrepreneur, that I realized that I'm very creative. And it's one of the most important skills to being an entrepreneur is to have the ability to be creative and innovative. And I think I often get in my lectures will ask an audience anywhere in the world, how many of you think you're creative?

30:59And half the hands go up. And I say to the people who didn't put their hands up. I said, everyone has the ability to be creative. And I just wish in our education systems, we would encourage children from a young age to have that confidence to be creative and unleash that creative spirit that exists in every one of us. And even if somebody goes into the civil service, I'd rather they had the ability to be creative and innovative. I think our GDP growth rate would more than double if we prioritize creativity. I suppose the other thing that you would experience in your entrepreneurship career, We've got salesmanship, we've got creativity, but resilience, right?

31:36At the end of the day, you're someone whose business has almost died three times. Can you give us a snapshot of those deaths? And can you give us a snapshot of how you picked yourself up in those moments to push through? Yes. I think there's one word that sums up entrepreneurs more than any other word, and that's guts. You've got to have the guts to do it. if I give a talk to school children, lower six, there's some annual lectures I give, entrepreneurship days at schools, and I say, how many of you want to start your own business one day? Oh, almost all the hands will go up. How many of you actually will have the guts to do it when you have the other option of a secure job or following the rat race, following the herd into banking or consulting or whatever it is, and then taking that risk to start your own business where there's no guarantee of success and it's really hard.

32:32That takes guts. The second thing is it takes guts to stick with it when others would give up. And I've nearly lost my business three times. Can you actually go through those crises where you nearly lose it all and get through those crises and pick yourself up and keep going? And I think that's a true entrepreneur has real guts. and I've been through not only the starting up phase and then you've got to cross that credibility gap when you start because nobody knows your brand, nobody knows your product. You've got zero credibility. So why do people buy from you? Why do people supply you? Why do people finance you?

33:09Why do people work with you when you have zero credibility? And they do it if you have that passion and faith and confidence and belief in your product and your idea and in yourself and that gives people the faith to trust you, to give you a chance. and then when you nearly lose your business, it's horrible. I mean, each one of the three times is very different and each one came out of the blue. And like the crises we're experiencing in the world, just look back over the last three years, three and a half years where the pandemic, nobody predicted that pandemic. The start of the Ukraine war last year, nobody predicted the start of the Ukraine war and all the repercussions from that.

33:46And just now what's happening, the sad situation in the Middle East, nobody predicted that would happen in the way that it has. So when crises come, they invariably are black swan events that people don't predict. It's how you deal with a crisis and get through the crisis that actually matters. And I found that three things that have enabled me to get through my crises. Although each crisis was different, each one was not predicted, the three things that got me through were exactly the same. One is you've got to have a strong brand. And a strong brand doesn't just apply to a consumer a brand. A strong brand is whether you're B2B or B2C, having a strong brand makes a huge difference.

34:24And the Cobra brand has been very resilient. Even through the pandemic, we were very resilient. When our restaurants were shut because of lockdown, our supermarket sales saved us. And the resilience of the brand, next thing is to have a team that is loyal and will stand by you, even when everything seems to be collapsing. If you have a family, your family support. My wife, who I met one year after I started Cobra. She's been by my side throughout and been an amazing support to me. I wouldn't be here talking to you without her support. And the third thing I believe to get you through a crisis is it is better to fail doing the right thing than to succeed doing the wrong thing.

35:01Can you play with a straight bat? Can you actually practice integrity? When in those situations, when everything's collapsing, most people are not practicing integrity. Most people are behaving very badly. Most people are trying to do whatever they can to save their own selves. So if you can do those three things, brand, family and loyal, team support and integrity, you can get through any crisis. Yeah, and I think that kind of advice actually permeates not just business advice, right? That's just life advice. Yeah, you could apply to life advice. And again, what is an extraordinary brand? When I did my joint venture with Molson Coors 14 years ago, coming up to 14 and a half years ago, when forming the joint venture, and this is a big multi-billion dollar, 15 billion dollar American New York Stock Exchange listed company, one of the biggest brewers in the world, merging with a smaller entrepreneurial company.

35:59And they said, we want to do this joint venture for three reasons. One, we want you as the entrepreneur to stay on as chairman of the joint venture. Secondly, you've got a great team that you've built. We want your team to join us and integrate within Molson Coors, working on Cobra beer. And third, you have an extraordinary brand. And they said we categorize a brand as being extraordinary if it ticks six things. Firstly, it's based on an undeniable brand truth. In our case, the extra smooth, less gassy beer, that platform that enables us to be a really drinkable beer that goes well with all food, including spicy food and Indian food and curry.

36:37Second thing is extraordinary brand has an instantly recognizable and iconic look. and with Cobra Beer, I often say to a UK audience, close your eyes and picture a bottle of Cobra Beer and of course they can. The third is an extraordinary brand never compromises on its principles and never takes any shortcuts. So it always does the right thing. Fourth thing, extraordinary brand provides a relevant and consistent experience. Can you, it's not a one day wonder, a one year wonder, can you, in our case, produce hundreds of millions of pints and bottles of beer every year? And it's exactly the same taste as the one before.

37:20Even those natural ingredients, a natural process, the ingredients change with the seasons every year. And I always think it's very unfair. With wine, with high-priced, fine wine, it can taste completely different than next year. And you still charge 50 pounds a bottle, but it's fine because it's a different vintage. and the weather was different. So it's fine, but it's so much easier to make wine than beer. With beer, you expect it to taste exactly the same every single time and no excuses. So that's a challenge. An extraordinary brand also produces loyal brand champions. That's the most important thing.

37:57That's when people love your brand so much. They'll seek it out. If it's not available, they're disappointed. You go into an Indian restaurant and you order two Cobra beers and they say, sorry, we don't sell Cobra. if you're a lower brand champion, walk out and go to another restaurant because you're disappointed your brand is not there. And finally, an extraordinary brand delivers extraordinary profits. A strong brand helps a lot. And it's interesting because when I was thinking about those are good principles for life, a lot of those stand out. And when we think about brand, personal brand is something, of course, that's become a much more interesting fascination over the last few years.

38:35You know, personal brand probably wasn't so much a thing when you were starting up an entrepreneurship. There was the odd person like Richard Branson who focused everything on it. And he's basically the pioneer in this with a few others, Steve Jobs. You know, there's a handful of that era. But nowadays, everyone obviously has a personal brand. And I think that whether or not you choose to have a public facing personal brand and work hard on it really is a personal choice. but one way or another it's your reputation so you have a personal brand whether or not you choose to actively curate it or not but it comes back to your principle on integrity so long as you act with integrity in your personal life your personal brand your reputation is probably going to create more opportunities for you along the way and then also create opportunities for things like mergers and interesting opportunities with massive companies like Molson Cause was that an exit out of interest.

39:31How was the deal actually structured? What does Cobra Beer look like today? The Molson Co's joint venture, they own 50.1 % and I own 49.9%. And I've been the permanent chairman since the joint venture started 14 and a half years ago. And it's worked extremely well. And the teams are integrated. And it's very well structured in terms of supply chain, finance, marketing yeah and I have my checklist I can check my my the state of my business at any time with my 10 p's I've got my 10 p's of any which you can apply to any institutional business so product have you got a good product is your product right up to where you want to be in my case a super premium product the next is price are you pricing your product appropriately in my case It's an expensive product, and I explained that we charge more because it's a super premium product.

40:27The next thing is place. You've got to have your product available, and I've got my product available in restaurants, in bars, pubs, supermarkets, and exported to 40 countries around the world. Next is promotion. You've got to promote your product. In the early days, I couldn't afford a branded beer glass. Today, we have the full suite of integrated marketing from public relations to point of sale to social media to above-the-line marketing. It's all there. and those are the classic four Ps of marketing and my extra six Ps, every business, we're manufacturers but to me the most important thing in any business is people and that's the fifth P.

41:02The next P is finance spelled PH, you can't do anything without the money and you need to have finance. The next thing is principles, it's better to fail doing the right thing than to succeed doing the wrong thing. Next P is partnership, I believe in a partnership model of working where you treat everyone as your partner, your customer, your supplier, your employees, your shareholders, your accountants, your advertising agency, they're all partners. And the next P is passion. You've got to love what you do and you follow your passion, not your pension. I still can't walk past a supermarket without going in to see if the Cobra beers is there is in stock and being displayed properly.

41:46And the next last P is profits. No point doing any of this unless you make profits. So in terms of like your growth as an entrepreneur, obviously, when you're young, you are this sort of malleable, mistake ridden, very passionate, but arguably not very refined person who's learning on the job. And at your point being a lord and with your position in society and your experience I would assume you are still learning but right at the top of your game and what I'd like to know is over the curve of that journey like how have you honed and crafted your skills as a great entrepreneur because this is the difference like lots of people can be good entrepreneurs but only a few can get to greatness and that's where I'm personally looking to go in my career.

42:39And so when the student is ready, the teacher appears, I'm ready to learn. Tell me how you go from good to great. Well, I'm not sure I could be considered a great entrepreneur, but what I have always tried to do is to strive for perfection, even with Cobra Beer. To this day, I'm trying to perfect that product even more. I mean, you won't even notice it as a consumer, but behind the scenes I'm always trying to perfect. There's also a sense of restlessness where you've got to be continually wanting to innovate and create. I mean, we're just bringing out a new Cobra Zero beer and our Zero beer to date has been a good non-alcoholic beer.

43:23We're now producing the best tasting non-alcoholic beer by far in the world which I'm producing in Serbia at a brewery owned by my joint venture partners, which has the technology to produce a non-alcoholic beer that tastes better than any other and is smooth and really easy to drink and wonderful. So you're striving always to do better and better. You always want to learn. I will never stop learning. I've been to three business schools, although I've already got two degrees and I'm a chartered accountant, but I've still gone to business school and through executive education at Harvard, at London Business School, at Cranfield, I'm an alumnus of all three business schools, and I'm still learning.

44:03I'm doing some research as we speak at Cambridge. So that learning never stops. I mean, as Mahatma Gandhi said, live as if you're going to die tomorrow. Learn as if you're going to live forever. And it's that nonstop learning that is really important. And also the growth mindset, if you want to call the growth mindset, constantly being curious, constantly wanting to learn. And again, House of Lords, I'm so lucky. If I'm in the House of Lords and I'm not even speaking, if I'm just attending, I will learn because I've got world experts in every field there who are just phenomenal people to learn from.

44:37So that learning never stops. And also mistakes. You've got to be prepared to make those mistakes. I mean, one of my favorite things is good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. So it's making those mistakes and learning from those mistakes. And there's no shortcut to that. It's interesting you mentioned growth mindset. I've just taken my team on a week retreat last week. And the theme of the retreat was growing up because we're going from a certain size company into the next stage. And, you know, there are many things you need to do as a company when you're growing up.

45:10And it's growing almost too fast around us without us actually taking stock and being like, okay, how do we all do our jobs like adults now? Because it's entering a whole new stage. And I had a facilitator come in for a day and just host sessions on growth mindset. And that was it. and one of the great um insights and learnings and things that we all practice together by doing feedback um was identifying our blind spots something that is ultimately a quintessential part of having a growth mindset is almost you know being aware that you don't know everything and being aware that um you don't know what you don't know and there are areas where you don't know and someone else doesn't know and how can you identify what those are because they're going to help give you the awareness to go on to the next level.

45:55So the question is, what are your blind spots that you've become aware of in your career? I could give you many examples of when you've got a blind spot. And if I give you one example, when we were importing the product from India, and we imported it for six years. My business partner then decided to leave. He'd had enough of the UK. He didn't like the weather here. He wanted to go back to India. He now lives in the States. Not the first person to complain about that. So he left on his own terms. I bought him out on exactly what he wanted. And to this day, he's one of my best friends. And I then was on my own.

46:44And that took some adjusting too. when you've been living and working with somebody, started a business for six years, and suddenly you're on your own. Took a huge amount of getting used to. And I built a team. I started getting in some investment. I diluted my equity. And then the sales took off. The year after my partner left, my sales doubled in one year. And the problems of importing the product from India quadrupled. I was getting quality problems consisting from, by then we'd become the biggest export beer out of India, and hundreds of containers a year. And containers were not arriving, we'd have delays in shipments, and the brewery were doing their best in Bangalore.

47:27I had a very good relationship with them. So I had this mindset that I am the successful beer, the biggest ever beer exported out of India, and it's authentically imported from India. So it's this extra smooth taste, but the fact that it's imported from India is one of its biggest, most important factors. And that was my blind spot. And when we came up with this problem, the wholesalers, by now we're supplying to lots of distributors, said, look, we're getting all these complaints from our restaurants. You know, we don't, we can't go on like this. And the restaurants are complaining. So I said, well, maybe I have to start brewing under license in the UK.

48:06You do that, you're finished. We'll stop buying from you. The restaurants stop buying from you. The consumers will stop buying Cobra beer because it's only because it's authentically important and I actually believe that but then where are you in between a rock and a hard place how could I carry on and I said but I've got all these consumer complaints and the whole says so that's your problem the breweries tried their best they just could not do any better so that's when I the restaurants had taught me this lesson in the beginning when I used to go to them and say look please will you try my beer and a lot of them would say for religious reasons they didn't drink they said don't does don't worry about us not drinking.

48:38It's our customers that matter. If your product is so good, leave a couple of samples. Regulars like it, we'll put in an order. If our wider customers like it, we'll reorder. And they gave me that chance and they put their customers first. I've never forgotten that. So I said, let me ask the consumer, how much, what matters to the consumer about Cobra Beer? So we conducted surveys with thousands of consumers. We said, is it the less gassy, extra smooth taste? Is it the fact that it's imported from India? Is it the fact that it's brewed to an authentic Indian recipe? Is it the fact that it's a premium beer?

49:11And we jumbled up these factors and we set rank and order of importance one to four. We were shocked by the results. The results showed by a long shot the most important thing to the consumer was the less gassy extra smooth taste. And to our shock and surprise, by a long shot the least important thing to the consumer was the fact that it was imported from India. That gave me the confidence that you've got this blind spot, forget it, trust your consumer and move the production to the UK. And I did that, brewed under license, after seven years of importing from India, it took a year to set it all up here in the UK.

49:47I shifted the brewing here and I've never looked back. World-class quality, great packaging. I could do draft beer, which I could do from India, at my doorstep. and I trusted my consumer. And the same wholesalers said they would never buy the beer from me, bought even more beer from me. And the other good thing there is I left the brewery in India on good terms. I paid them every penny. I didn't claim any credits for all the bad quality and inconsistent quality. I paid them every penny that I owed them then to the extent that that brewery has now sold out to one of the biggest brewers in the world.

50:23In fact, the biggest brewers in the world today. and we are still family friends with the owners of that brewery to this day. They're some of my closest friends. And so we left them on good terms. And so trust your consumer. You can get a blind spot so easily. And what about the time that your business partner actually left? Because you'd been with him for so long. I guess there must have been a question of confidence, of doubt, all the human things that come up. Like, is this right for you? Am I going to still love it? Can you remember that? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I never had any doubts.

50:57I knew the plane would take off. He didn't believe the plane would take off. He wasn't convinced that the plane would take off. I knew it would take off. I never had any doubts on that. I never had any doubts about carrying on on my own. But it was very difficult to adapt to being on my own when I was used to living. And it's only, I think, a year or two before he left that I'd moved out, that my wife and I, we got married. We moved into our own flat. So otherwise, my partner and I were living and working in the same premises. So it took a lot. It was a big shock. It took me a while to get used to it.

51:36And again, you talk to most entrepreneurs, very few start on their own. Almost everyone starts with a business partner. I mean, look, all the famous entrepreneurs did it. I mean, whether it's Bill Gates or Richard Branson, everyone starts with a partner. They always last. Yeah, absolutely. and I think one of the things that you get from a business partner in an ideal world is trust you know it's that they're bought in as much as you're bought in and in an ideal world that relationship you know you can learn skills but trust has to be at the fundamental basis of that relationship and you have to really feel like you're both putting in the same amount of love energy belief confidence all of the things um I'd love to know if you ever like if you felt challenged around trust after he left as in that was your confidant that was your business partner so did you feel like you were sort of um very alone afterwards or there were other people in the company to sort of fill that gap for you the two two things two aspects to what you've just said one is with trust um i would have trusted arjun ready my partner with my life there was complete trust.

52:46And that is so important. Ideally, you should bring complementary skills to the partnership, different skills that you put together. But also more important than that is having that complete trust in each other. And I think that one of my Harvard Business School professors in the pandemic gave a virtual lecture on trust. And if I summarize a one-hour lecture into one minute, she said to get trust from people is like a triangle. The first point of the triangle is you've got to be authentic. Is it the real you people are dealing with? Next part of the triangle is logic. Do you have the capability, the professionability, the knowledge to deliver what you're promising to deliver to the other party?

53:28And the third part of the triangle is empathy. Are you in it for yourself? Are you in it for them? So if you can be authentic, have the capability, the logic, and if you're empathetic, you can get trust from other people. And it's the most powerful thing is to be able to get trust in your business, whatever you're doing, whether it's to get people to invest in you or whether it's to get people to work with you. Trust is absolutely paramount. And the other aspect of getting used to being on my own, what really helped was not only my wife's support, which was phenomenal, but also I built up a team.

54:02By then I was building up a team of people who were, some of them are still with me now, decades later, who have stood by my side. And that makes the world of difference, having loyal team members who you can completely rely upon. Moving into sort of the latter stage of your career, because you said you've been there over a decade. But how has entrepreneurial life actually transitioned since being in the House of Lords? Is it a completely different world? Is it the same? I'm not talking about in the House of Lords, I'm talking about the world of entrepreneurship for you generally. What's wonderful is being a relatively younger peer.

54:38so as the third youngest when I joined, I'm still one of the younger ones because the average age is 70, but a lot of wisdom in the House of Lords, is that I've been able to continue to build my business and carry on being an entrepreneur and bringing that real-world experience into my contributions in the House of Lords. So I think it's been a benefit to Parliament having me carrying on being an entrepreneur in business. But it's also, I think, being in Parliament has helped me a lot because I've learned so much. It really, that growing as an individual has been phenomenal. And to be able to contribute, to make a difference, to be becoming president of the Confederation of British Industry, the CBI, from June 2020 to 2022, two of the proudest years in my career.

55:28I was the first entrepreneur to be president of CBI. Normally it's a FTSE 100 chair, first person relatively younger, the first ethnic minority president of CBI. And then, as luck would have it, well, some people say bad luck, but I thought it was good luck that I was present during the worst global crisis since the Second World War in leading the CBI and British industry through the pandemic, through the start of the Ukraine war. And to be able to try and help save business and save the economy, working with government, was a huge privilege. And I think my entrepreneurial background helped me actually do much better than I think a FTSE 100 chair would have done.

56:05Yeah, I also wanted to know what your experience was being in that position during COVID. So not just running a business, but also, I don't know what the right words are, I was gonna say being responsible for other businesses too in the UK. I mean, that's not quite fair to put that responsibility on you, but certainly a different kind of responsibility to what you're used to. Like, how much of a growth opportunity was that for you? Hugely. And what it also reinforced and reaffirmed was the intuitive leadership that you develop being an entrepreneur, because you're always spotting problems or opportunities and solutions and action.

56:45So it's problem, solution, action. And when it came to the pandemic, I could spend hours giving you all the different examples, but I'll give you a couple of quick examples. Right up front, I realized when lockdown started that businesses would run out of money. And I knew that the banks would not lend them any money because of the uncertainty. Nobody knew how long this pandemic was going to last or how bad things were going to be. And with that uncertainty, banks were difficult enough to borrow from in the first place, would not lend. and I knew the only way that banks would lend is if the government guaranteed the loans.

57:20And I knew that even the 85 % government small firms loan guarantee loans, 80%, 85 % would not be enough because the banks in an uncertain environment would not be willing to take that 10-15 % risk. And so that's when I pushed right up front. I was the first person to say this will only work if you have 100 % guaranteed loans from the government. and then I pushed for it. Of course, government wouldn't listen. Initially, my team at the CBI said, oh, they'll never do that, 100 % guarantee. I said, of course, they'll have to, otherwise the money will not flow and they tried 80 % guarantee. The money was not flowing and then I saw that Germany and Switzerland were doing 100 % guaranteed loans.

57:57I kept pushing for it in Parliament and again, having that advantage of being able to speak on the floor of the House of Lords, as well as being present at CBI, I was able to persuade the government and we had those bounce back loans, 100 % guaranteed, up to 50 ,000 pounds. And the number of SMEs I have met who said those loans saved their business during the pandemic. And yes, of course, there was some fraud, but it saved one and a half million of those loans were taken out. It saved hundreds of thousands of businesses. And that was one example. The other one was lateral flow tests. I don't have medical background, but I could see very quickly, these PCR tests were very expensive, taking a long time.

58:37And I got to know about lateral flow tests from America in August 2020. I started pushing for the government to provide free lateral flow tests to every citizen in this country and every business and to get people to test regularly to prevent isolation and to prevent lockdowns. The government wouldn't listen. Eventually they listened. If you remember, before the pandemic ended, they were available to every one of us free delivered to your house. You could pick them up free from a pharmacy. And every business, every citizen had them. We ran out of them. If you remember December 2021, January 2022, we ran out of lateral test.

59:14People were so used to using them. I say we could have avoided lockdowns two and three if the government had listened earlier to me. But again, there we are. And then Oxford University has had tests that have proven how effective these lateral tests. We could have prevented children from losing out on school, university students from missing out on university. If only government had listened more and earlier and quicker, but at least they eventually did listen. But that's something as an entrepreneur I spotted ahead of the time. Yeah, I mean, it's a great example of why we also need diversity of thought and diversity of experience in these spaces, right?

59:47Yeah. Oh, and by the way, diversity, I launched something called Change the Race Ratio When I was president, it's a great initiative with many of the most famous institutions in this country and businesses that are members of Change the Race Ratio. And I'm just stepping from being the founder chair of the initiative to becoming president. And Trevor Phillips is taking over from me as chair. And this is to encourage ethnic minority participation across all business. And there is no question about it. More diverse companies perform better. And when I talk about diversity, I'm talking about all sorts of diversity.

1:00:27Whether you're talking about ethnic diversity, gender diversity, the more diverse companies are, the better they perform. McKinsey has proven that the top quartile of businesses who are diverse are 36 % more profitable than the bottom quartile. Deloitte have conducted surveys that show that more diverse companies are more innovative. And I know that. I built up a mini United Nations when I started Cobra Beer, from just two of us to building up a team from all over the world. And that diversity of background, of culture, of mindset, you put it all together, is very powerful. It creates a buzz. It creates innovation.

1:01:05And I've seen that firsthand. You know, I've seen that firsthand by accident almost. I started my company Heights in the pandemic. And as a result, we decided, well, screw it, we'll just hire from anywhere in the world. We'll just hire the best candidates. And now we do our team retreat. We fly people in from eight different countries. You know, you've got America, got Asia, got Africa. It makes it so much difference. You get such a completely different culture. And what's even more interesting on that is, you know, you do what you always do in a company, which is you define the values and values are borderless.

1:01:40But the way that different cultures communicate and give you feedback and insights around and what those values mean to them and how they can bring them to life is actually super eye-opening. And that's, to me, been one of the really interesting values in starting a remote company by default through COVID. I guess parting question for you, what, you know, you've done so much already, so you've got a few decades left in you. Would you imagine you're going to be your next achievements? What are you aiming towards? And let's not forget what Mahatma Gandhi said, you know, let's live as if you're going to die tomorrow and learn as if you're going to live forever so yes I really genuinely believe the learning never stops and I'm working on some very exciting research at the moment which over the next few years which I'm very excited about and that's going to be a huge amount of learning and hopefully will also have a lot of impact from what I find which will be useful to business leaders around the world including entrepreneurs I really feel that Cobra Beer has got so much more to achieve.

1:02:47In many ways, I feel we're just scratching the surface. We could be even bigger and we've got so many more countries we can enter and grow in other markets and more products to develop. So, yeah, I just think there's so much more still to be done. Excellent. And I can see the police aren't on your side because they've tried to come and arrest you right at the end of the interview. So, Karen, thank you so much for your time. It's been a massive pleasure and an honour speaking to you and learning a lot from your journey. So on behalf of all listeners at Secret Leaders, thanks for sharing it. Thank you very much.

1:03:18Thanks. Really good to speak to you. Thanks. If you enjoyed this episode and found it useful, please write us a review and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. It makes a real difference and we genuinely love reading what you think. We read every single review. I've been your host, Dan Murray-Surter, and we'll be back next week with more lessons for entrepreneurs and leaders. This episode was produced by Alex Graham, Ruth Edwards, and all brought together by our header podcast, Will Stollerman. See you next time.