Current role: Founding Partner
Current organisation: Era VC
Last role at PwC: Manager
Time at PwC: 1998 - 2007
What’s the one career achievement you’re most proud of?
I’ve allocated capital to three global consumer brands now worth over $6bn (i.e. Aesop, Swisse and Seed Health) and have learnt so much about the powerful benefits of good brands and the importance of a business model that allows you to reinvest in brand.
However, my proudest career achievement is seeing the subsequent successful careers of people I have managed, including four who have since started their own businesses.
What’s been your biggest career challenge and how have you overcome it?
I can get blinkers on about tasks or results, and subsequently overwork. Whilst my outputs might increase, I can often empty my own fuel tank. When I’m low on energy I become less strategic and more focused on the personal rather than the professional, and my outputs become less valuable.
My constant challenge remains how to keep work in its own productive box and not let it take over the more important things in life - family, friends and my community.
From a technical perspective my biggest career challenge was breaching covenants as CFO of Swisse. We sailed very close to the sun. Juggling suppliers and banks whilst portraying a level of calm to your customers, team members and brand partners was tough.
An invaluable lesson I learnt was that whilst three-way cashflows are great tools when dealing with banks and equity providers, my team and I needed to use other methods (charts, comparable analysis, HML forecasting) to facilitate better buy-in from the more entrepreneurial people I was dealing with.
What’s the most valuable lesson you learnt during your career at PwC and how has that helped you get to where you are today?
It was a privilege to learn from so many incredible people at PwC – the talent pool is so deep. Business lessons about balancing growth and cashflow have never left me.
The value of successful partnerships was also an important lesson. I was very lucky to make my most important, life changing partnership at PwC – meeting my incredible wife Amanda. Additionally, we made many lifelong friends. Both my wife and friends support and inspire me to be my best each and every day.
What was your dream job ‘growing up’ and why?
Head of the United Nations…I wanted to make the world a better place.
If you could have an hour lunch with anyone - dead or alive - who would it be and why?
Martin Luther King and Rory Bremner (IYKYK).
Seriously though – The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) – he gets the best out of himself in anything he chooses to focus on.
What are the emerging trends that you’re seeing in the Health, Beauty and Wellness space?
People don’t just want to live longer, they want a longer quality of living.
Consumers are open to “buying a better world”, but consumer goods companies must meet them most of the way on pricing and convenience.
The next generation of consumer business founding teams are rightfully going to be far more representative of the targeted shopper demographics. Authenticity of founding teams and the thinking behind a brand is very important. Therefore, if you are targeting a certain demographic, we feel it’s important that leadership of the business contains representation from that demographic. We are seeing huge benefits from companies that truly understand their customers.
As a venture capitalist, you not only invest in businesses but also the people that lead them. What are the qualities that you look for in a business leader?
Someone with a strong sense of mission, vision and an unyielding desire to bring it to life. With three nuances – they must have respect for: team, different opinions and cashflows.
You often advocate for the importance of diversity in leadership. How do you ensure that diversity is reflected in the businesses you invest in?
The most enduring businesses I know balance risk and reward the best. Too often we singularly celebrate the reward with not enough regard to the risk taken. I believe diverse leadership teams are the best at balancing the risk and reward equation over the long run.
The current business landscape sees that men predominately are responsible for allocating capital. Women-led businesses are far less likely to receive capital, which makes this a self-perpetuating cycle.
We are trying to change this with four partners in our fund (two female, two male) and we have found this as a positive way to remove potential bias. We all have different skills and this makes us better at hearing and valuing different things as people pitch to us.
We are still learning as we go (we welcome any fellow alumnus’ guidance) and are very proud of the diverse founder group we have backed to date but know we still have work to do.
