S2 Ep7: Colm O’Brien — Strategy, Leadership & Playing the Long Game

[00:00:00] But it probably was just a really good lesson in either you've won the right to play and do it properly or don't do it at all. So either fail fast or just don't do it. So that was a good lesson. And that turned out to be a huge events business. Yeah, that sort of transformed the business along with the digital side. I'm Matt Cooper and this is Bite Sides. Welcome. Thank you.

[00:00:25] This is the latest edition of the Ausfine Bite Sides podcast. Great to have our guest in the studio today. He's been hassling me and hassling me to get on the guest list. Ever since we started, he said, when am I coming in? And I had to batter him away for a bit, but today's the day. Now, in all seriousness, he is somewhat dubious of these types of promotions, but it's great to have him on board.

[00:00:54] He has been an incredibly important figure in the Ausfine journey over the last few years in particular. He's sage advice. He's very welcomed. He works for a company called Carrington's and they provide us some really great advice into the structure of the business and strategy, etc. I'd like to welcome today Mr. Colm O'Brien from Carrington's. Colm, welcome. Thank you, Matthew.

[00:01:23] Now, before we go too far, everyone will notice quite quickly there is an accent there. And like all good Irish folk, you can't just have a normal name. What do you... Spell out your name to everyone. So it's C-O-L-M. I pronounce it Colm, which I'm not 100% sure is correct. All my family call me Col because they're not too sure either. So I know, Matt, that you just reduced it to C. So, you know, you can go with that or not. It's all very confusing to me.

[00:01:52] Very efficient of you. Unless it's Colin. Yeah, which I don't like. So we'll just go with C. Colin, welcome, mate. Thank you. You have been a really important figure in my world in particular over the last few years. Your advice and guidance, I really do value very highly.

[00:02:13] You're a big support who I lean on quite often, particularly in those times when it's a little challenging, shall we say. As I said, you give really great advice. And the reason you're able to give great advice is because you've lived a pretty amazing life and lots of experience. So, like all good stories, we begin at the start. Why don't we give – are you able to give us the origin story of Mr. Colm O'Brien? Well, I don't know how far back you want to go.

[00:02:43] All the way. Where did it start, mate? In the 14th century. Maybe not that far back. Look, I suppose the best place to start is, you know, post-school, university. I always found the academic side a little bit of a good endeavour but a distraction to the real world. So, I very quickly went – I think I just want to get into something meaty, moved to London, went into – Can I just interrupt just two seconds? The very beginning, so County – County Cork.

[00:03:12] County Cork. Yeah. Oh, don't say County Down. Oh, there's that. Geez. Let's pick that one up later. Okay. I wasn't aware that was in my field. Yeah, so County Cork, born and raised there, went to school there, went to university there and then left more or less like many Irish people of my generation. Moved to London, worked about five years in London, Barclays Bank. Then a mate of mine – this is a traditional Irish story – we're in a pub one night, something different. And he said I want to go to Australia and I said I don't. And he thought, oh, well, that's a bit of a dilemma.

[00:03:42] I said, but I will go to Australia if it takes us a year to get there. And he went, deal. So, we shook hands in it and kept drinking. And about six months later, he and I went, let's go to Australia. It took us a year to get there. The plan was to get here for the Olympics, which we did, and year 2000 did that. My plan was to keep going, but then fell in love with Australia, then fell in love with my wife-to-be in Melbourne at a Jimmy Stein's charity night, Reach Foundation. And she was from Perth originally and then I ended up in Perth.

[00:04:10] So, that's the sort of journey of my movements around the world. Now, I ended up here, been here about 26 years. And, yeah, I love it. Going back just a smidge, you were with Barclays Bank. Yes. Late 1990s? Let's go with mid-1990s. Mid-1990s. What were you doing at Barclays? Did you come through a – So, I came through a graduate program, which I think was probably the original grounding

[00:04:39] in probably a love of consulting, if one can love consulting. Because what they actually did was, when you're in a graduate program, they rotate you around the group. So, I spent time in corporate finance, in corporate services. I was sent on a country deployment, which was interesting to me, to Ireland. That was for personal reasons. Spent two years there doing amazing projects around introduction of the wholesale euro currency.

[00:05:04] So, before it became a cash item, it actually went through the banks as a wholesale digital aspect first. There you go. Coins and notes came in. Okay. That was interesting. There was a bit of Y2K. I could be net cynical on that. But maybe that also gave me an insight into the consulting model and how it can and can't work. Funding in Barclays, where the group of people in it were from all different walks of life. So, my current business partner, Mark, also came through that same program.

[00:05:32] But there was 55 candidates from all over Europe with all manner of backgrounds. There's people from the army. There was a lady there who'd done equine studies. So, just a really mixed bag of people and cultures. And there was probably in that 55 people, maybe 10 different nationalities across Europe. So, pretty cool experience at a young age. Sure. And you also got, I remember working at Clapham Junction, which is now quite gentrified. Apologies to anybody who currently lives there.

[00:05:59] The running a sales force of maybe 25 bankers at the age of 23 with no banking experience and no management experience. And you just learn pretty quickly. That is a deep end. Yeah, but that's what they do. It's deep end, but actually incredibly enjoyable. And you kind of go, yeah, I've actually got some skills in this space and sort of went back to something that I've always relied on, which is work with the data. You know, always work with the data. And we kind of went back.

[00:06:25] And the example I always use is way back then it was the old dot matrix printing, where you just print all reams and reams and reams of customer names. And I just said, well, why don't we have a pizza night? We'll start with the person with the highest term deposit and work our way down, ring them. This is kind of pre your start of internet and see how many of them we could convert into using their money for something else. So, it's kind of interesting just to follow the data. I think no matter how much things change, they stay the same.

[00:06:51] Because I think the underlying fundamentals of sales would probably be still the dot matrix system. And follow the data. Follow the data. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So, that was really good grounding. Came to Australia. Wasn't sure what I wanted to do. And then joined here in Melbourne. What was then called Anderson Consulting, which is an interesting organization. I really enjoyed it. It's kind of up or out in those businesses. So, in the younger years, they literally will call 25% of their staff.

[00:07:21] That was back then. Might have changed now. So, it's really a pyramid of up or out. And it's all about spending time with client. And got huge experience there across all, particularly in banking, across all the banks in Melbourne and Sydney. And again, I suppose one thing I've always enjoyed is having exposure above my own pay grade. So, exposure to C-levels, maybe not C-levels in the bank, but very senior managers where you're not necessarily making a decision, but you're in the room where the decisions are made.

[00:07:47] And that's interesting because being a fly on the wall of somebody else trying to deal with the problem, you actually get a really good insight into the politics, into who's who and who's trying to protect their own patch. And in banking, that's particularly like a lot of industries, but banking particularly has got, it's pretty rife in that sense. So, that was a really good grounding as well. So, it's just before we move on further. So, that was Anderson Consulting. Yes. So, you're essentially going into banking mainly. Yeah.

[00:08:15] Banking, as in, yeah, I'm going to the names, but nearly all the banks doing transformation projects, a lot of them were digitalising particularly, a lot of them were offshoring. That was a very early stage of the BPO, particularly the Melbourne banks, a lot of their IT departments. So, yeah, very transformative time for the banks and a really interesting time to be in banking back then. And how old were you then? I was 27, 28.

[00:08:43] So, a question that's kind of been bugging me a little bit because in the sense of with consulting firms, the extent of consulting, my exposure to consulting really is you guys. You know, you come in, let's not say old, but a lot of experience under your belt. And therefore, take your advice, you know, with that history, that known history behind it.

[00:09:10] But you see the likes of McKinsey and other big consulting firms also hiring very young people to come in and then go out pretty much onto the floor pretty quickly and start consulting. The way these companies work, do you think that someone who's 27, 28 can provide genuine consulting insights that are valuable without having that experience under their belt?

[00:09:40] The short answer is no, having lived it. The longer answer is that's not what they're there to do. So, what they're there to do, if you sort of think what I'm saying about it's a pyramid structure, is they're in there as a business analyst. They're in there to gather the data, do the interviews, do the discovery, work the spreadsheets, work the business model in there. That is the sort of grunt work, but that's no different to doing an apprenticeship, basically. So, it's 80 hours a week, possibly 100.

[00:10:07] There's days you go into an office and you might not come home until the next day. And I suppose the flip side of it is at that age, you're getting exposure to people in an organization. And we did a lot of work with McKinsey in Boston, those who are maybe twice the age. 100 times the experience. And then on the client side, you're getting exposure and access to meetings and people where you go, I shouldn't be in this room. So, you're not allowed to say anything. Okay. Well, it's kind of that old one of, you know, you can sit there and say nothing and look

[00:10:36] dumb or you can open your mouth and prove it. So, you know, life lessons. Which I think I just did in asking that question, to be honest. Not at all. But that's just, so it's not, you're not expected to provide the advice. You're just there doing the grunt work, but you're understanding how advice gets provided. And probably the biggest part, again, going to data is data is useless unless it's got an insight. Yeah. And distilling it into an insight and into digest messages is probably even from the work we've done over the years still hangs together from how we go about things. Yeah.

[00:11:06] No, that makes, well, that makes perfect sense. I've often wondered, but that makes perfect sense. They're there to gather the data and very much. Yeah, just learn the ropes. Shut up and observe and gather the information. Exactly. That makes a hell of a lot of sense. So, we jumped off the train at Anderson Consulting. Let's jump back on where we're getting. Well, then we had a sort of slightly different dilemma, which we wanted to move to Perth because it represented just the lifestyle over there.

[00:11:34] I was at an age where we're going to settle down, have kids and do all that. The problem was I'd spent most of my life in banking and management consulting, and neither of those two are big industries in Perth. A lot of people own banks, but that's just a guy and a mate raising money for a junior exploration company. So, I joined a small consulting firm there trying to figure out what I would do. And then I broke the golden rule of consulting, which is I jumped ship and joined the client, which might have been part of the long-term planning anyway.

[00:12:01] And the client was an ASX-listed media business specializing in resources. So, I kind of always liked a challenge. So, I was the youngest CEO on the ASX at that time. And again, didn't have a clue what I was doing, but managed to hire it quite well. And we had a really, really interesting time. We took a small Perth-based mining print magazine and turned that into the largest mining media play in the world in about 10 years.

[00:12:31] Nearly went broke about three times. I can say that now because I'm no longer CEO and it's no longer relevant what happens on the ASX, but which is really interesting how you grow a business, survive a business, raise capital, build a team around you. We probably acquired six, seven businesses. Some went really well. Something didn't go that well, but we always had a sort of a vision, which was we'd earned the right to play. And I use that phrase sometimes probably even with Oz Fine, which is we had quality content,

[00:13:00] quality editors. We purchased a business in London, which is the second oldest publishing magazine in the world called Mining Journal. It's been around. It's continuously published weekly since 1835. And in my mind, I went, if we bought that, we've just bought the platform for the world. So we did that. And back then, this is before digital became really hot. And we put together the first paywall in Australia for business to business in terms of subscriptions.

[00:13:26] We went, well, if we buy that, we're buying it at a multiple, which was cheapish, not expensive at the time for print magazines. We were able to deploy an events business off the back of it and a digital business off the back of it. So the price of purchase wasn't actually, it was relevant because we had to go and raise the money from banks and from the markets. If it was more important, what could we do with it? And we leveraged that into a very, very large events business that went around the world. Based in London? Head offers in Perth because we're ASX listed.

[00:13:55] We had a management team in London. We had offices all over the world, basically wherever there was mining areas. And then we sort of cleverly launched a whole load of events and every event, which probably brings together, you know, work hard, play hard. Every event was aligned next to a major non-work event. So it happened four days before the Rugby Sevens. It happened in line with Christmas shopping in London. It happened just before Spring Carnival. It happened before the Kentucky Derby.

[00:14:21] Whatever it was, we always made sure that back in those days, at least 20 years ago, particularly in the mining and finance sector, that junket wasn't frowned upon as much as it should be. And no doubt, some strong attendance as a result. Very strong attendance, huge attendance. But I learned a lot of lessons in that. We ran an event in Hong Kong. And, you know, my boss, who I'll sort of might come on to a bit a little bit later, we're sitting in the room in the Four Seasons, most expensive hotel at the time, in the IFC, which is financial services.

[00:14:51] And I said, I think we've just lost a quarter of a million. His comment was, I don't think we've lost enough. I went, OK. And if you knew the man, and Mark, my business partner, knows him very well as well, I said, how do you mean? He goes, we've got to make it bigger. So the next year we did and we lost half a million. And the next year we made six million. And that's just the way the world worked for him as well. But it taught me a lesson. Now, you're also playing with other people's money because you're a CEO representing shareholders and managed by a board.

[00:15:19] But, you know, I don't think I'm exaggerating the numbers too much. It might have taken a bit longer to get to six million. But it probably was just a really good lesson in either you've won the right to play and do it properly or don't do it at all. So either fail fast or just don't do it. Sure. So that was a good lesson. And that turned out to be a huge events business. Yeah. That sort of transformed the business along with the digital side. And with all those acquisitions around the world at its peak, how many employees or people were you responsible for?

[00:15:48] 250 people. So not huge, really. But there was, we had offices in Belo Horizonte in Brazil. We had a satellite in Toronto, London, Sydney, Melbourne, maybe Australia. So Hong Kong. So it was probably less the amount of people and more of the time zones and the moving parts. So we ended up having to centralize. What I really wanted together was put together a sort of C-suite who could manage that. But I couldn't find those skill sets necessarily in Perth.

[00:16:16] So we ended up moving the head office to London and then sort of recruited there where there's a lot more depth, particularly in media businesses and B2B and digital transformation and all that. So it was really, really, it was a tough time. A lot of people reflect on their life and they remember the pain. I remember the good parts. I just thought it was an amazing journey. I had a boss who was sort of a little bit mad as a cut snake. He'd be proud of me saying that. And just it was very, very interesting times. Fantastic.

[00:16:44] So I actually had some questions around leadership and you've, over a glass of red late at night, you've regaled me with, you know, some advice on leadership over the journey. But going back to Barclays where you were a leader at 23. Yeah, I mean team leader, but yeah. Team leader, leader of people. Yeah. At a very young age. Now you're late 20s, early 30s, youngest CEO of an ASX listed company, responsible for 250 people.

[00:17:14] I mean, you're very young to be having these roles. Obviously some of that has become, must have been quite a natural fit for you, naturally okay with it. Probably you wouldn't have had too much training or learning in that space up until that point. I think I probably, leadership I think there's an innate attraction where you go, I want to be a leader. I think I can be a leader, which is probably the same sentiment in some respects. So I've always had that.

[00:17:44] But I did have a lot of grounding in Barclays with formal training because it was a management, credit management program. I probably had to learn on the job during the CEO piece, but also we were scaling a business from 8 million that ended up going to about close to kind of 40 million. Market cap went through sort of the 100 million category, which is a big benchmark on ASX for juniors. So I sort of learned, but also I was quite honest with the team that that's what I was doing and I was learning with them. So we were kind of in it together.

[00:18:14] We probably failed on more things than we succeeded with, but the ones we succeeded with were much bigger events, much bigger kind of pieces. So we tried a lot of smaller stuff. We would try that. We would look at how we could do it better and we would try and improve upon that. And also we tried to surround ourselves with really good people. So Mark, my current business partner as a sort of slight digression, great guy, met him in Barclays. He and I are very similar, very different at the same time, but probably represent exactly

[00:18:43] leadership in a business if you combined us both, where you've kind of got one who's slightly risk adverse and one who's slightly not. And you can make up your mind who those might be. I've got an inkling. Yeah, yeah. Look, he's not here. Knowing the other character. He's not here, so he shouldn't talk behind his back. What I would say is bringing in people who are like-minded was more important than necessarily the underlying skill that they may or may not have that was specialized in that area. So I brought Mark in and I remember sitting with him in Sydney. He had been banking in Sydney for a while.

[00:19:12] So I'd like you to join. I need some bench strength. I need some brainpower on this. He goes, cool, what do you want me to do? I said, I haven't figured that bit out yet, but it sort of just involves, you know, helping me with this M&A, helping with growth and just kind of being my eyes and ears around the business. He goes, well, maybe it sounds like head of strategy. I went, that sounds perfect. I said, I think it's catching falling knives, but let's go with head of strategy. And he and I, to this day, still work together. But I think the lesson there in leadership was don't be afraid to bring people on the journey

[00:19:41] who align with your values, who align with the vision, who don't necessarily have direct experience. He never worked in media, neither had I. And that's probably also something we've continued through our lives, which is we're not afraid to consult any business because it's all about the people. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. So if you, just as a recap on that, I don't want to keep laboring this particular point in your journey, but it is super interesting.

[00:20:10] So not only have you come in as a young CEO and a young leader, but also in a company that's growing incredibly fast, scaling, you're taking over companies, plus you're in however many different geographies around the world. So there's a lot of complexity that's getting built into that business on top of a person who's learning leadership along the way. What was, what if, when you walked out the door for the last time in that company, what

[00:20:39] would you have said to the person walking in the door for the first time? What did you learn across that time? The, the person who took over for me had been working with me for about eight years prior. So it was a sort of managed transition. Uh, I think what I said to him was interesting. Maybe it comes with sort of being younger at the time is recruit people who are clever, but also got the scar tissue.

[00:21:07] So all my team at that time, I was mid thirties, probably just close to 44 or left. They were all at least 20 years plus. They had a lot of experience. We balanced that with junior staff as well. So all I said to him was, I said, look, the knowledge that we have built is actually older than the magazine that we bought in terms of number of years of experience. It just, just don't throw that out too quickly.

[00:21:31] And to this day, he's still the CEO, the incumbent CEO, and that team is still there. Fantastic. They're all probably slightly older again, but that's a separate issue. That's his issue. But yeah, so he's kind of kept that together and you bring in new blood. But I think a lot of people can come in and think they need to scorch earth or they need to kind of create a new regime. And it's kind of not really. There's people there who understand the business a lot more. And that relates even to a lot of the work we do today where people might have a knee jerk

[00:21:57] reaction on going, we need to not just cost out, but we kind of go, we just need to change things up. And they'll then go, well, that's, we could, it's almost like it's really basic maths that goes wrong. We could, we could change that salary for that salary and save money. Yeah, but you've just lost 30 years of experience. So it's kind of just balancing that a lot and don't need to ration some of those decisions. So that's still probably some of the stuff we bring, we bring to the table in terms of the current consulting model.

[00:22:26] And ultimately our consulting model is built entirely on our own lived experience, basically. Yep. Which is incredibly valuable. So stepping out of that role, is that when you establish character? Well, I think I got, I basically got burnt out at the end of that. Yeah. So I resigned on St. Patrick's Day in 2015. And went straight to the... I was ready. I was at lunch with my boss that wasn't that silly. And it was a Monday, so tough day to have a long lunch, but we managed to make it.

[00:22:55] And I did that sort of deliberately outside of it being a sort of contrarian Irish thing to do. It was kind of going, oh, well, then I'll always remember to celebrate. Not that I left with my time there. Yeah. And this sort of step to the new adventure. But I resigned on a Monday. I'd sort of thought about it for a long time. I was quite burnt out. And I didn't think, to be honest, I was going to be effective for another three, four or five years. And I didn't have a job. So I went home to Fiona, my wife, and said, I've resigned. And we had three kids.

[00:23:24] And she said, what are you going to do next? I'll figure it out. Yeah. So I... It's a hell of a... Yeah. Probably that was a symptom of I was quite burned down and just needed to... You had done. Yeah. You just had to... You know, you get Stockholm Syndrome in roles where you just continue doing it and continue doing it and whether you're getting any better or not. I just wanted a new challenge. I've always had new challenges. And often, sorry, the role of a CEO is about seven years is the usual tenure. And I'd probably gone to 10.

[00:23:52] And it's interesting how the theory becomes practice where you go out by the 10th year and go, I'm done. So I think it was off the back of that. I just went, I'd like to be my own boss because I'd been somebody else's boss for a long time. And that was the genesis of Carrington Partners. Fantastic. It's really interesting insight around that point of just I've had enough and the conversation that you and I have had over the time that you said, basically, I never want

[00:24:19] to lead people anymore because of that experience, which must have been incredibly intense to arrive at that point. I think when we set up Carrington, Mark and I, we had two main objectives. One was not to take over the world and two was never to employ anybody. And we've achieved both. Well, the first one's pretty easy to achieve, let's be honest. Yeah, no, I know. That's why we thought we'd stick with the second one, which is much harder. But yeah. Set hurdles that are pretty much like that.

[00:24:48] And I think we both went, oh, no, you know what? Let's just see where it takes us. Yep. And yeah. And then I suppose we had the ability to give back in terms of all of our knowledge. Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. So we come to the present iteration, I guess, of your journey where you've been working together now for how many years? 48. Oh, no, sorry. Not feels like. That's what feels like. Oh, yeah. Not feels like. Yeah.

[00:25:18] Yeah. So that's kind of where we come in and we get to know each other a bit more. And as I said in the intro, you know, you provide really sage advice. And sometimes that ability to come in with fresh eyes is really invaluable, I think. Did you have someone like that when you were in a similar role or someone who could come out in that, I guess, in that consulting role of fresh eyes and that really independent view of the business and you're working within it?

[00:25:47] I sort of had the opposite, but sounds like the same. So let me unpack that a little bit. And my old boss was quite contrarian, but was very good at what he and I would call quantum. So he understood the long game, not the short game, long game. And therefore, you know, that was probably in a world 20 years ago where mentors and coaching wasn't necessarily an industry. So I suppose I had to look to use my chairman. So he's also my boss.

[00:26:16] And he would provide generally in an annoying manner, but trying to be positive is kind of going, well, have you thought about this, this, this, this and this? And all what he was always trying to do was going, you're getting stuck in the weeds. You're not understanding the bigger picture here. And if you understand that, the pathway becomes clearer. So a lot of what he did in teaching me about quantum, I'd use quite a lot. So a lot of my sort of joke that I struggle to live in the present and which I prefer the future because you can impact it as well.

[00:26:46] But also it's kind of going for CEOs, founders and the sort of level of people we deal with that is trying to make them make sure they're not, you know, wide awake at night wondering who left their lunch in the fridge for five days or more what's the next business opportunity. So I think he taught me that in a sort of in a harsh way, but in a good way because he's also supportive of the mistakes that were made on that journey. And there was a lot of successes as well. So I think he, his name was Andrew Kent. He passed away about two years ago.

[00:27:15] It was his son who's now the CEO of Asimont. So it was a very family driven business. And yeah, a lot of what he provided me was probably in that formative years of understanding my kind of leadership. I took a lot of good from what he did in those aspects that I wouldn't do either. So that was good. But the one thing he did teach me was quantum and understanding that. And once you understand that, coaching and mentoring becomes easier. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's really great advice.

[00:27:40] Coming on to, I guess, broader themes in your world. And you consult a number of different companies across different industries. So you get a pretty great idea of what's happening out there. What are the main trends that you're seeing out in kind of M&A world and private capital? What are the big drivers, both good and bad? It's still very, very busy.

[00:28:09] And by busy, I mean it's active in terms of M&A. There's probably a private equity was sort of flavor of the month for a decade or so. And it's probably settled into a stratified world where you've got a smaller private equity will do a small roll up and a bigger one will roll up a bigger one. And on it goes until you get to BlackRock, KKR, sorry, and some of those and some of those ones. So I think that has sort of matured as a market. I think what's come into the market a little bit more is private capital, which isn't lazy. It's just patient.

[00:28:38] And there is a very big difference. And I think a lot of that has come through family offices, limited partners out of the US and that kind of space. And I find that's really interesting because companies, and we do a lot of companies who, whether they sell or not, is sort of irrelevant to us because our business model doesn't work on success fees because it compromises our independence. But we like businesses to be sale ready. And it's actually just a health check. It's a discipline internally to go, well, there's no point in fixing yourself up the day before you sell. It's a bit like painting your house.

[00:29:08] And you go, oh my God, this house looks great. We should never sell it. And you've only painted it because you're about to put it on the market, right? So I think that sort of space, I think the great thing about some of that private capital is it is more patient. It is more passive. It does have deep pockets. It often comes from that family office environment, which has probably exited money to begin with. So they can appreciate it a lot more. And usually they are putting X percent of their portfolio into something. And why isn't something safer or something riskier?

[00:29:37] So you're kind of in a good spot where they can get a good return on dividends. They could sit there for five, 10, 20 years. The doink of that market is Sol Paterson's, which is actually a listed entity. And that's all the way back to when it was a pharmacy business and all that. And they're still known as a sort of a passive patient investor. So I think that space has probably matured. And I'm seeing a lot more of that out there. And a lot of people seeking that rather than, you know, there's an inherent fear with some of the private equity models where it can be quite aggressive. And a lot of people, they just don't want to be taken over.

[00:30:07] They just want to sell a small bit and then wait and see. Do you think that private equity summaries is accurate? Because that would be my view as well. Well, aggressive, come in, strip out, either load up the company with debt or whatever it might be, or make it, get it to the point where they can flick it on as quickly as possible with little regard for the health of the company long term. I don't think it's accurate. But I think perception is reality.

[00:30:36] And there's probably a taint in the market because of it. So we'll do a bit of work with private equity firms. And we obviously see a lot of private equity firms as people go through sale journeys. And they're just really good bunches of people. And all you need to do if you're the exiter in that sense, or you're the seller, is you just got to understand a bit more what their journey is. Yeah. So I sit on a board with a company that is private equity backed and has had private equity sitting on the board for eight years. There's no chat about exit just yet.

[00:31:06] I'm sure if a good opportunity came up, they, like the rest of the shareholders, would jump at it. So I think it's the advice would be more don't taint that whole industry with one brush. There are a lot of different players and it's finding the one that suits you is probably more important. And the only way you find one that suits you is where there's an alignment in the journey. Yeah, sure. Great feedback. What makes a business investment ready? Right. What makes an investment? Oh, God.

[00:31:32] I mean, it's I think it's looking at it through the eyes of the buyer and of the seller is the first step. And that's a very, very hard thing to do. Very hard thing to do. And then I think it's it's just a variety of what we call. You've probably heard this too many times, Matt, the balance scorecard. It's the view of it isn't just the money, but it is the money to begin with. So it's almost the financial health of the business.

[00:32:01] This is if you want to extract a good premium for the sale. If you don't, then that's called a fire sale for a reason. But let's talk about getting business business ready is having a healthy financial business is just one on one that gets you on the dance floor. But the health of that doesn't necessarily mean it's super profitable. It needs to be profitable. It needs to be very well run. It needs to be very well run. The finances, the people having their finger on the pulse for cash flow, for P&L, for everything.

[00:32:29] That is probably a huge one in terms of business ready is, you know, is a finger on the pulse right across the finances and is being used to provide insight to run the business. So that's sort of one side. I'd probably call that 50 percent of it. I'm sure people call it more or less. The rest of the balance scorecard is, well, what am I inheriting? So I'm inheriting people and I'm inheriting assets and I'm inheriting opportunity. I'm inheriting risk. And all four of those all need to be properly fleshed out. The opportunity sometimes you can convert it and get value for it.

[00:32:58] Sometimes you can just prepare for it to be converted and then allow somebody else to do it. So you sell the house, but you haven't done up the shed next door. And the real estate agent says, oh, you could put a second bedroom in there. Fifth bedroom. Go, OK, cool. Weirdly, you can extract a small premium for that and you haven't had to do the reno. That's probably just bring it back to basics a bit. I think the people is hugely important and taking them on the journey early and something, you know, you and I have spoken about as well is getting people on that journey for sale, sale ready and business ready is hugely important.

[00:33:28] It doesn't matter whether they're selling or not, but also means should that occasion occur, they're not scared of it. So I think that's important. The risk side is critically important. A lot of companies don't look at that. DD and due diligence. People will look at your everything from your board papers through to your risk registers, through to all that. And I sort of jokingly say to companies, be a bit careful with some of that stuff because it's sort of a love letter to a buyer you haven't met yet. And that can be a love letter or hate letter, depending on what it says. So I think all that risk side is hugely important.

[00:33:58] Probably not always the sexiest topic in any business, but hugely critical as well. And it doesn't mean you don't get a sale. It just means you might drop a multiple because the numbers are the numbers. So it's sort of, it's interesting. I was working with a company only two or three years ago and they're being bought by private equity as probably more of the aggressive side. And I think they were in DDT, due diligence, and prices were really behind the set.

[00:34:23] And the selling company has a cyber, Australian private equity, said it'll take 5% off the price of the customer company. Purely because, no matter how you're saying that the elbows is a bridge to your confidence is a bridge to something and prices are going to a big deal. But there's a lot of examples of people going, well, that was something that happened. It wasn't a huge breach. There was no major remediation, but under the impact of the price by 5%. Which is just a lot of money. Yeah. I mean, it's good advice.

[00:34:51] And having a good house or whatever and always really is a good analogy. What are some of the common mistakes I always make when preparing for growth or what makes it? Well, there are two separate things. So, my area of growth is probably, we would discuss some of that, and I thought we were around managing the upside and the downside. It's a cost of energy than that. It's sticking to the journey, not worth spending. Not worth spending to my story. I don't know what it means. I'm not going on.

[00:35:19] I think in terms of exit, probably the common theme I see, the trap that people fall into, and I probably fell into it when I was buying as well, as people trying to sell, is you fall in love with the outcome and forget about the process. So, you end up going, oh, this is really, really exciting. It's going to be fantastic. And you almost get sucked into, now I have to take it. I'm so excited about, I'm going to be able to go surfing for this.

[00:35:48] I'm going to have to travel the world. I'm going to start my own business or do whatever. That you kind of forget the only thing that's going to get you there, which is the process. And so that's where people get into our own price, screw up all the negotiation, or the deal doesn't happen at all. I think there's an element to that. There's an element of greed that comes into it, and that's the QMA trust, I think. And there's an element of people don't, they hear the price and they don't understand the terms of decision that can come with it.

[00:36:15] And they can be, you get brutal or really good, but you just don't run across. Whether it's turnout, whether it's Google Manic Custom Staff, whatever else it is. Whether there's laws in there, what they call them, your MAC laws, those material versus conditions where a stock market goes down by 10% by some event. And they come back to you and go, oh, what's that? I'll finish 16. I'll finish 15 pages. So that's not a true story.

[00:36:44] So I think that's the stuff that people probably get distracted by. I look at common rather than sticking across the process. Really great insights. This is someone who's been through it many times. The way we've got a lot of time is getting away from us pretty quickly, which I 100% expected. This conversation is going to be super interesting. Just a couple more questions. One is, again, pretty broad.

[00:37:11] But the AI revolution, you've been around for a long time and come across many iterations of technology that's going to be truly disruptive or was definitely delivered into disruption or promised and failed. Is this truly revolutionary in what it's going to do, in your opinion? Or is it just another technology that's coming in and will find into place?

[00:37:40] I think it's interesting that you use the term revolutionary rather than evolutionary, because I tend to agree that it is revolutionary. Not evolutionary. I sort of reflect on it this way, which is, if I was around the ancient Egypt and it took 10 men or women to lift a boulder and something came along and they lifted a wheel or a pulley or something.

[00:38:06] The 10 men who are lifting a boulder don't lose their job. They just decide whether they're going to work on making bullies or whether they're going to become stonings. So there's enough skilling that comes with every revolution, industrial revolution included. So I think AI is actually going to take a huge step for humanity in a way that instantly makes a time of action to change the world where there will be enough skilling. I think that's going to be on balance. I think that's a good thing.

[00:38:34] I think from what I'm seeing in AI and I work a system board now, I can't believe, on this, it's a moment. I work with other AI businesses. I think it's very, very transformative. I think it's very, very exciting. There's a lot of development still, but if you're not on the journey, you're ready to do it. So get on and get going. Make your mistakes.

[00:38:56] And probably the most compelling aspect in the last three months has been the release of AI and Tropic of Claude. And that, I think, has taken from the sand bit of business into the art business. And whether Claude ends up being the right product in five, ten years, five years' time or three years' time. Who knows, it's a bit like Asgis or Yahoo or NW and Google, so it is what it is. But the concept will remain.

[00:39:26] So I think there's a huge opportunity for businesses to take a view on it. I think if you take a view on it that it's cost out, you've missed the point. If you take a view on it that you've got the size of your business with the same amount of resources, you're on the right track. So the advice we're providing on it at this stage is really going, you know that growth piece you want to do? You can probably do it differently now. And they're not as expensive. A little bit of the best risk of course. And adults in general staff are particularly doing very menial tasks. By giving them, you know, my consent as well.

[00:39:56] You know, they can get to build up. You might be able only there isn't a logical casualty and some of that, but there's also an opportunity for people to decide whether they want to scale up or move on. That's sort of life. But I think it's revolutionary and I feel like we're only seeing the first 10% of it. But then, yeah, we only use the 10% of our brains, so maybe that's where we are in life. True. True.

[00:40:21] I think that's a really great take and very much align with what I'm seeing as well. Yeah. We're incorporating it in an increasing amount on a daily basis. We are seeing some real returns on some of the endeavors that we're actually impacting. It's not just an asking a question that comes back with a question, but embedding it within some of our processes, which has really, really helped.

[00:40:49] And it's actually nowhere near to replacing a person. It's doing tasks that we've been meaning to get to for a long, long time. It's been way down to a to-do list or just too hard. Yeah. So it's in your thought process of upskilling. I think that's true. All right. We're coming to the end. And as you look forward for you and Carrington, is it more of the same?

[00:41:19] You're enjoying what you're doing or is there more challenges in the future? Where to for you? I think, you know, facetiously the two sort of objectives, the big area, audacious goals, whatever they are, we're not to dominate the world, not to employ people. If you can succeed in both those, why wouldn't you continue doing it? So I think we're pretty committed to continuing it. And we've got such a broad range of clients, broad range of industries and a broad range of advice across those.

[00:41:47] You know, if you've got a curious mind, it's a great place to be in consulting. You get to learn a lot about other businesses. I sort of see the next five, ten years being a little different. You know, maybe the pace won't be the same and the travel won't be the same. But I don't think people retire anymore. You know, I think they just want to go on along one way. And that's probably a far more healthier way than sort of certainly my dad and my parents kind of just retiring and waking up the next 30 years to pay a bridge and do nothing else. It wasn't a great offer.

[00:42:19] Hopefully not this day. So I think, yeah, so I think that long runway is probably where it's at. And I think there's a lot more we can give back. Like we're already seeing, you know, providing advice to companies that are where the leadership is a lot younger and they're sort of still respectful of the body of knowledge and scar tissue we bring to the conversation. That's certainly where I started off. That scar tissue and that knowledge is certainly welcome here and with me individually.

[00:42:45] But also just that point around that curiosity, that's what I love is I love. I'm a curious person and I like hearing about other people's experiences and other industries and companies, you know, that you're able to bring to the table. So that's, you know, that's what I love about our engagement and have loved our chat today. So as always, thank you very much for everything, Colin. Much appreciated. Thanks for coming in today on today's podcast. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

[00:43:15] And, you know, it's hard on the wait list, but I got there in the end. Thanks, Colin. Give me that.