Speaker 1: I'm David Merritt and I'm Francing Laqua and this is
Speaker 1: in the City, Bloombok's podcast, connecting you to the stories
Speaker 1: and the voices at the heart of the City of London.
Speaker 1: This week a conversation with Nigel Wilson, Legal and General's
Speaker 1: Chief executive. But not for much longer. Yes. Earlier this year,
Speaker 1: Nigel announces plans to retire after more than a decade
Speaker 1: at the home of the financial services giant. Nigel is
Speaker 1: one of the City of London's most recognizable figures. You
Speaker 1: can be seen around town Night died in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two for services to financial services. Welcome to the podcast, Nigel,
Speaker 1: Thank you and welcome back. In fact, in fact, you
Speaker 1: were I think our first francy on our first podcast
Speaker 1: about the leveling up agenda of the government. So thank
Speaker 1: you for coming back. Glad to be here, Nigel. This
Speaker 1: is quite a transition here for you, right you're about
Speaker 1: to step down as chief executive. What are you most
Speaker 1: proud of? I don't really think in that sort of
Speaker 1: way that I'm busy sort of counting the things that
Speaker 1: I'm most proud of and then ranking them or whatever.
Speaker 1: My biggest achievement that a legal in general is having
Speaker 1: you know, an amazing team and amazing culture and who
Speaker 1: are you know, trying to do the right things for
Speaker 1: the right reasons and have a real purpose And it's
Speaker 1: very much a purpose led business which is delivered outstanding things,
Speaker 1: not just here but across the world. You know, in
Speaker 1: the last decade or so, how did you know when
Speaker 1: the right time to step down was? How difficult is
Speaker 1: that decision? Yeah? I think the decision wasn't that difficult
Speaker 1: because you know, you know, you can try and get
Speaker 1: the right time or a good time, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it was kind of a good time and
Speaker 1: a good process in that you know, the company can
Speaker 1: start the search for a successor and I can start,
Speaker 1: you know, talking to people what I do next, and
Speaker 1: you know it's you know, it may take a year,
Speaker 1: which is what we've said in the in the RNs,
Speaker 1: so not something that's going to happen in the short term,
Speaker 1: but it allows the board to really manage the succession
Speaker 1: process with a lot of transparency and if I got
Speaker 1: off to talk to people about some particular role or whatever,
Speaker 1: it's understandable why I'm doing this, rather than sort of
Speaker 1: some clandestine alferative operation in the in the background with
Speaker 1: headlines in Bloomberg. Yeah, we would have got the scoop right,
Speaker 1: you know. We're recording this the day after Nichola Sturgeon
Speaker 1: announced her stepping down as First and Scotland and in
Speaker 1: her speech she talked about this instinctive feeling of you know,
Speaker 1: it's time to go in there. Not enough leaders have
Speaker 1: that sort of self knowledge in the job. I have
Speaker 1: believed that part of serving well would be to know
Speaker 1: almost instinctively when the time is right to make weak
Speaker 1: for someone else and when that takes Do you think
Speaker 1: too many chief executives cling on too long? Well, there's
Speaker 1: not much evidence to cling on too long, but in
Speaker 1: one sense, in terms of a time sense, you know,
Speaker 1: the average ten year of a chief executive is you know,
Speaker 1: three to four years. And I do think people should
Speaker 1: be thinking of more in the sort of eight to
Speaker 1: ten years and going about developing in their business with
Speaker 1: an eight to ten year horizon as opposed to trying
Speaker 1: to get immediate impact. And there's a lot of short
Speaker 1: termism still in business and indeed in the wider economy
Speaker 1: here in the UK, which I think has not been
Speaker 1: helpful for economic growth or creating value for shareholders. Dave
Speaker 1: was doing Bloomberg speak. I just thought that Nichol student
Speaker 1: had had enough. I don't know whether there's a point that,
Speaker 1: you know, do you step down when you've had enough
Speaker 1: or two years before you have enough? Is there is
Speaker 1: there an optimal point? But I think I've gone for good,
Speaker 1: you know, which is a good point. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a good point for the firm to be looking for
Speaker 1: somebody else, and it's a good point for me to
Speaker 1: be thinking about what's my next challenge? You know. It
Speaker 1: wasn't trying to optimize anything, you know. I mean, in
Speaker 1: one sense, I could have gone on for a number
Speaker 1: of years, you know. It was there's no shareholder pressure
Speaker 1: or do you feel a change in yourself? I don't
Speaker 1: know whether not at all? I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean the hardest thing was actually talking to all of
Speaker 1: my colleagues amount that I was going because I've been
Speaker 1: an important part of their life and they've been important
Speaker 1: part of my life for a long time. So there
Speaker 1: were some quite emotional discussions of wearing me out actually,
Speaker 1: and I think gosh lists come to an end and
Speaker 1: let's get the R and S out and so I
Speaker 1: can move on the next years of my life. I
Speaker 1: can't have another one of these meetings, which is so
Speaker 1: emotional because we've done well as a as a team
Speaker 1: for a long period of time and you know, people's
Speaker 1: careers have developed and evolved and not responsibility and accountability.
Speaker 1: It's a big part of being a leader thinking about
Speaker 1: succession then and how much did you time did you
Speaker 1: dedicate to try and trying to groom the people who
Speaker 1: would be ready to take a lot a lot of
Speaker 1: time and so I've mentioned before I moved people around
Speaker 1: a lot. So they've got a wide range of experiences,
Speaker 1: not just in the UK, but they've shared American divisions,
Speaker 1: et cetera. From an internal point of point of view,
Speaker 1: but the board has to look excernentally as well. This
Speaker 1: is a great job for somebody to get. You know,
Speaker 1: we we're doing incredibly well. You know the boundary it's
Speaker 1: very strong, and the sorts of capital to spend. But actually,
Speaker 1: you know, people internally and we've got you know, strong
Speaker 1: internal candidates have done you know, lots of things that
Speaker 1: have made them you know, um, let them have a
Speaker 1: better chance. Plus we've given them specific mentoring throughout the
Speaker 1: last year. So actually it's not like we thought about it,
Speaker 1: you know, three months ago. We've been thinking about it
Speaker 1: for for a while. But again, we wanted the internal
Speaker 1: transition to work, to work well so that people felt
Speaker 1: as though we've given them coaching and support when we
Speaker 1: fired the gun. Well, when did you start thinking about succession?
Speaker 1: That this must be one of the hardest things to
Speaker 1: think about. Even when you started his chief executive. You
Speaker 1: had to make sure that the entity or the company
Speaker 1: is strong. Yeah you yes, yeah, and that's been developing
Speaker 1: internal people and also bringing in some you know, great
Speaker 1: external people into the organization. So was that deliberate, Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: most things I do with deliberate, they're not. I don't
Speaker 1: over think things. Do you think things? Do you think
Speaker 1: there's enough talent out there in Britain to do the
Speaker 1: sort of jobs that you've just done running these foot
Speaker 1: three hundred companies? You say there's there's a search externally.
Speaker 1: Do we have enough stars to platform to do these
Speaker 1: sorts of jobs? I think we answer that we're not
Speaker 1: developed enough talent at a bought a macro level, at
Speaker 1: a micro level across the across the UK. And I
Speaker 1: think that's something that you know, everyone should be thinking about,
Speaker 1: is you know, how do we develop more talent in
Speaker 1: the UK so that people can step up and do
Speaker 1: bigger jobs. Is that you know, we've got some of
Speaker 1: the best universes in the world. People come here to
Speaker 1: have their education, but why are we not developing enough
Speaker 1: to step up to run these big comforcause, I was
Speaker 1: doing a topping out ceremony at Oxford yesterday, which is
Speaker 1: one of our big projects, four billion pound project, and
Speaker 1: we were talking about the same thing as we produced
Speaker 1: this incredible amount of people out of our brilliant universities,
Speaker 1: including Oxford. You know, but how many of them rise
Speaker 1: to you know, really important jobs in business? And have
Speaker 1: we really solved business well enough into university graduates? And
Speaker 1: you know, once they graduate, is that something that they
Speaker 1: look upon as a as a realistic goal that they
Speaker 1: could become, you know, a chief executive of a futsye
Speaker 1: hundred company. But what makes a difference between someone that
Speaker 1: becomes a chief executive and doesn't So is it aspiration
Speaker 1: to become chief executive or is it resilience? I've heard,
Speaker 1: you know, you hear that you can have two people,
Speaker 1: same qualifications, same smarts, same intellect, but it's resilience through
Speaker 1: the tough times that will make one succeed, not the other.
Speaker 1: But that's when you learn as well, you know, success
Speaker 1: as a poor teacher, whereas when things go wrong you
Speaker 1: have to accept they've gone wrong and then really study
Speaker 1: and learn what happened why. And resilience is the most
Speaker 1: underrated you know attribute to people don't really recognize in
Speaker 1: others and they don't teach it very well, although coach
Speaker 1: it very well or make people very self aware. Compartmentalization
Speaker 1: is a really important part of that process because you
Speaker 1: can chop your life into different bits and then you
Speaker 1: know not all things will go well all of the time,
Speaker 1: but you're not sort of cross contaminating other parts of
Speaker 1: your life because one part isn't going so well, and
Speaker 1: you know, nobody's life all the parts of their life
Speaker 1: is going to go well at the same time, so
Speaker 1: you've got to have this sort of cross resilience. You know,
Speaker 1: you're only as happy as your least happy child. Actually
Speaker 1: this I love that basically, but that's true, and so
Speaker 1: you know, but if you worry endlessly about your least
Speaker 1: happy child whilst you're at work, then you know you've
Speaker 1: become unproductive. But you know when you get home you
Speaker 1: really have to worry about at least happy child and
Speaker 1: make sure they're get a bit happier so everybody else
Speaker 1: is happy. Think thinking a little bit about what you
Speaker 1: was talking about the skills gap in Britain again and
Speaker 1: just remembering our conversation last year around leveling up and
Speaker 1: you're very passionate about that subject. It's part of the problem.
Speaker 1: You were just at Oxford. I mean, we have this
Speaker 1: concentration of excellence in this kind of triangle of Oxford,
Speaker 1: Cambridge and London. We haven't done enough, have we to
Speaker 1: spread the skills or the centers of excellence all around
Speaker 1: Preson No, I think that's true. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: in big picture terms were of law growth, law productivity,
Speaker 1: low wage economy fought by political infighting and so you
Speaker 1: know the political genders is massive over here where you know,
Speaker 1: relentlessly on the news it's nearly always negative. It's very
Speaker 1: London centric and you know people don't get out enough
Speaker 1: to to look you know, what's the real potential of
Speaker 1: Edinburgh or Newcastle, law Manchester or Birmingham, and they've fallen behind.
Speaker 1: You've always Nigel given us a lot of time talking
Speaker 1: about leveling up and things that are very dear and
Speaker 1: it's very clear when we hear you speak that are
Speaker 1: very Jersey heart. Would you go into politics? Do think
Speaker 1: it's interesting what is politics? If politics is having a
Speaker 1: you know, functional role in government, then that's not, as
Speaker 1: you know, particularly appealing. But if politics is defined as
Speaker 1: delivering you know, economically and socially useful outcomes a large
Speaker 1: part of the population, then you know, I'm clearly in
Speaker 1: the latter camp and not in the former camp. You know,
Speaker 1: do I want to be you know, the Minister of
Speaker 1: Trade or defense or education city and then the city minister? No? I,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't particularly want to do that, But
Speaker 1: you know, do I want to be a champion for
Speaker 1: leveling up across the UK and various components of that. Absolutely?
Speaker 1: You know. Do I want to write about that in
Speaker 1: a more academic way going forward, Absolutely, given all of
Speaker 1: the knowledge that I have, an experience that I have
Speaker 1: around that that's sort of unfinished business from my previous
Speaker 1: academic career, which I dropped many years ago to pursuers
Speaker 1: and this is where you're going to pursue your energies.
Speaker 1: It's so academia, but with a kind of public policy agenda.
Speaker 1: That's part of what I want to do going forward.
Speaker 1: You know, I definitely want to have a direct impact on,
Speaker 1: you know, the lives of people. You know, I want
Speaker 1: to finish off while I started, which is teaching. You know,
Speaker 1: I love teaching at m I T and previously in
Speaker 1: Essex when I was in the UK. But I now
Speaker 1: have a lot more life experience, a lot more relevance
Speaker 1: I think for the students and can be more ambitious
Speaker 1: at aspirational for them, saying you know, this is how
Speaker 1: you get to these jobs. Do you think chief executives,
Speaker 1: you know foot see listed companies think enough about giving back,
Speaker 1: about leveling up, about making a real difference. I think
Speaker 1: I'd like everybody to think a bit more about it.
Speaker 1: I think there's, you know, the theoretical framework that you
Speaker 1: know Michael and Andy developed with with some help, but
Speaker 1: it is just a theoretical framework. You know, what matters
Speaker 1: is the outcomes, and you measure stuff buy outcomes, and
Speaker 1: you know we haven't delivered enough good, economically sourced, useful
Speaker 1: outcomes across across Why do people not think about it more?
Speaker 1: I don't know what I mean I know what I do.
Speaker 1: It's always you know, how do why do other people not?
Speaker 1: Part of the reason I have sort of long term
Speaker 1: views about stuff, and you know, even when i'm you know,
Speaker 1: and I want to change things over a period of time,
Speaker 1: most people are working on a quartity and thinking on
Speaker 1: a quartity basis. Or look, how numbers are terrible, inquar
Speaker 1: what can we do next quarter to get them back up?
Speaker 1: Or whatever. It's your point about the you know, terms
Speaker 1: of CEO. If you've got three years in that job,
Speaker 1: you've got to do. You've got to deliver shareholder returns.
Speaker 1: You're not going to think about the next decade, or yeah,
Speaker 1: we have to think about the next decade. That's the
Speaker 1: thing that the mindset changed with SIME. For politics, you know,
Speaker 1: I do people players politics where has actually been a
Speaker 1: politicians start with the other way around, the other way around,
Speaker 1: which is wrong. And I think in business, you know,
Speaker 1: short term profits become too important to focus whereas you know,
Speaker 1: you want to say, you know, I've got a ten
Speaker 1: year of you and this is where I want to
Speaker 1: reposition the business over time, and I think that is
Speaker 1: a will result in more success and actually saying don't
Speaker 1: worry I'll get this sorted out in the next six months,
Speaker 1: on amends twelve months. And you want to bring in talent,
Speaker 1: you want to develop talent. That just takes a long time.
Speaker 1: One of the things that the chief executive might say
Speaker 1: as well, I've got to deliver these returns. I've got
Speaker 1: these these shareholds. Of course, you're around a company which
Speaker 1: is a massive shareholder and an investor in corporate Britain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does something need to shift in the way that
Speaker 1: fifty hundred companies are owned and the relationship shareholders understand
Speaker 1: that ironically that actually it ticks ticks a long time.
Speaker 1: It's the it's the marginal shareholder, if you're lying, who
Speaker 1: makes the most noise because they're based so much of
Speaker 1: their job is based on their quarterly performance, and they
Speaker 1: lose assets very quickly, and those are the marginal assets.
Speaker 1: But the biggest shareholders are looking for long term returns
Speaker 1: because we have sticky customers and we're enormous now we're
Speaker 1: all huge companies, and but we want long term returns
Speaker 1: over a decade, not short term returns over a quarter.
Speaker 1: On paper, we've got a very business sort of centered government. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously we've been through this amazing that this week gold Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly this week plaically. But you know, the term oil
Speaker 1: of last summer was obviously remarkable and noted all around
Speaker 1: the world. But we've got a prime Minister who worked
Speaker 1: at Golden Sacks, worked in California. It's talked about the
Speaker 1: sort of startup Briton that he wants to create, and
Speaker 1: we've got a Chancellor who's also a businessman. Do you
Speaker 1: think that's the right team to push through some of
Speaker 1: these big structural changes in this economy that you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I think I think they're a good team. I think
Speaker 1: we're looking at them. Both political leaders are the good
Speaker 1: people and of course apicially and Kia very good people
Speaker 1: and want to deliver you know, good outcomes across the
Speaker 1: UK and recognize that will take here. As you know,
Speaker 1: he hasn't got long is the problem in he's like
Speaker 1: a two year chief executive, right and maybe even less
Speaker 1: maybe Les, Yeah, I mean that's the whole problem is
Speaker 1: that people are thinking, you know, and you can't change
Speaker 1: things quick enough in Britain because the planning and the
Speaker 1: policy changes just take too long and therefore you end
Speaker 1: up doing you know, odd things. You know, we very
Speaker 1: rarely do strategic taxes. We always do stealth taxes. You know,
Speaker 1: if there's a shortage, we never think about, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the right thing to do over a ten year horizon.
Speaker 1: It's what we need to do very quickly to get
Speaker 1: some money money in. You know, the planning systems, you
Speaker 1: know desperately need to reform in the UK. The whole
Speaker 1: of the pensions industry needs reform in the UK. But
Speaker 1: these are multi year projects. And you know, whether you
Speaker 1: get people like myself to work on those multi year
Speaker 1: projects and help get them passed without having to the
Speaker 1: timetable of a political party to support them is is
Speaker 1: a very interesting question. I think, going going forward, what
Speaker 1: would labor do. I don't know what l E talks with. No, No,
Speaker 1: I like them as well. I think they're good people
Speaker 1: trying to do a good job. So we're fortunate and
Speaker 1: we've got you know, people who are quite similar in
Speaker 1: many ways about what they want to see as the outcome,
Speaker 1: and it's the outcome that matters and their pro business
Speaker 1: and their pro business which is good. And I think
Speaker 1: they are pro business, which is good because you know,
Speaker 1: business is the Whether these policies have to be delivered,
Speaker 1: and you know it's the delivery part of stuff that
Speaker 1: has been lacking in so many areas across the UK
Speaker 1: such a long period of time. You know, we you know,
Speaker 1: DC pensions desperately need reforming in Britain so that they're
Speaker 1: competitive with you know, the four or one case in America,
Speaker 1: but also the Swiss system, the Australian system, the French system,
Speaker 1: all of whom have modernized pension system because we've not
Speaker 1: had you know, anybody in government for assicient long, soficiently
Speaker 1: long to drive through read real change. So we need
Speaker 1: long termism that people have collectively bought into and to
Speaker 1: really make a difference. So if you had a seven
Speaker 1: year tenure as prime minister, you've mentioned planning pensions, what
Speaker 1: would be the biggest priority beyond your intron like day one?
Speaker 1: I think those take a tiny amount of time to
Speaker 1: really sort them out properly by getting everybody in the
Speaker 1: room to collaborate whatever. But I would see myself as
Speaker 1: the advisor to the prime minister, not the prime minister.
Speaker 1: That's too difficult a job and it's a very overly
Speaker 1: demanding job. Whereas you know, I can be you know,
Speaker 1: deep subject matter experts on things and actually help facilitate
Speaker 1: change in the UK. But you know, the education system still,
Speaker 1: you know, it's brilliant for the elite but actually under
Speaker 1: really talented, but it's not good enough for everyone else.
Speaker 1: And just recognizing that, you know, we need a massive
Speaker 1: amount of investment, both from internally, from the pension funds
Speaker 1: who've got five trillion of assets, but actually you know
Speaker 1: foreign direct investment that stays for a long period of time.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, our car industry is gradually eking away,
Speaker 1: the city's gradually shrinking, and these things we need to correct.
Speaker 1: Through the years, You've had many headlines and papers. Were
Speaker 1: there any that you were unhappy about? It was one
Speaker 1: in particular where we were labeled as dull but worthy.
Speaker 1: That was the headline, dull still but worthy. So I
Speaker 1: was really upset about what did your wife think that? Well,
Speaker 1: well she knew that was true, but there's not there
Speaker 1: was not my image of myself and so but actually
Speaker 1: a few footy hundred CEOs, particularly in the financial service
Speaker 1: called me up and said, amazing, headlight out. I would
Speaker 1: I would love that dream of that right, dream of
Speaker 1: that was classes, But it was the dulness bit and
Speaker 1: which was really really I never think of myself as
Speaker 1: a dull person, but obviously sometimes I am. I'm sure
Speaker 1: shareholders what were very happy about that as long as
Speaker 1: it was incrementally returned it well, they were, they were happy.
Speaker 1: What would it take for you to accept another big
Speaker 1: foot see one. I'm not going to do that. You know,
Speaker 1: I've decided that not yet. You're not ever. You know
Speaker 1: the unfinished business from earlier parts of my life that
Speaker 1: I that I had intended to go too much earlier
Speaker 1: in my original regional plan was, you know, do twenty
Speaker 1: years in business, you know, go to McKinsey and all
Speaker 1: the rest of its. Learn a lot very quickly in McKinsey. Then,
Speaker 1: so this is teaching, you want to go back to
Speaker 1: teaching of coarencing outcomes. I think it's really it's really
Speaker 1: what I want to do. And I'm going to do
Speaker 1: some more sport. You know, I love playing sports. You
Speaker 1: know I lived university life. You know it's intellectually curious
Speaker 1: and enjoyed sports. This is the perfect take place for
Speaker 1: me to go. Regrets to be you just don't have
Speaker 1: the same influence and I respect one hundred percent respect academics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and policy advisors. But if you're you know, the chief
Speaker 1: executive of the biggest footsy one hundred company, you're you're
Speaker 1: going to have more skin in the game and more influence.
Speaker 1: We have parlticians. Yes, no, I think that's true. I
Speaker 1: do think that's true, But but it's not that, you know,
Speaker 1: can I do another rule where I have a huge
Speaker 1: amount of influence? And that's the challenge I'm setting setting
Speaker 1: myself where I'm not in some ways constrained by you know,
Speaker 1: the legal and general position on stuff because we you know,
Speaker 1: we own you know, every footsie hundred company and etcetera
Speaker 1: is And that's one of my personal goals. What's the
Speaker 1: rule that would give me huge amount of satisfaction where
Speaker 1: I could deliver outcomes, not reports which sit on the shelf,
Speaker 1: but actually outcomes which will result in much better solutions
Speaker 1: for the UK and change the culture so that we
Speaker 1: become you know, this is the vision, this is the
Speaker 1: north start, and this is how we're going to get there.
Speaker 1: And it's not going to be linear, it's going to
Speaker 1: be up and but actually, you know, people have the
Speaker 1: confidence in that you have the capability to get there,
Speaker 1: and you build the team that believes they're going to
Speaker 1: get there. And if you if you're going to advise
Speaker 1: committees and advise politicians, how domestic are you that some
Speaker 1: of these trends you mentioned the dwindling city here, dwindling
Speaker 1: car industry, that these things really can be reversed. I
Speaker 1: think there can be. Ellengy is a good example of
Speaker 1: that is that you know, we would you know, not
Speaker 1: doing well you know, in the after the after the
Speaker 1: financial crisis, and we've done you know very well, you know,
Speaker 1: very well across the world and you know, become a
Speaker 1: globally trusted brand and that having that credential and the
Speaker 1: credibility as a consequence that I think it's very very
Speaker 1: important to me when you're talking about you know, the need,
Speaker 1: the need for change, and you know, even yesterday in
Speaker 1: Oxford or in two weeks ago in Sunderland and Newcastle
Speaker 1: which is where I was. You know, we've been at
Speaker 1: these things for ten years and people see the transformational change.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a million square feet we built in
Speaker 1: Cardiff for regenerating Cardiff. Now, if I'd gone to my
Speaker 1: shareholders ten years ago and said, by the way, I'm
Speaker 1: going to build them onion square feet in Cardiff that
Speaker 1: have been calling the chairman straight away? What does you
Speaker 1: mean by doing it? But it was a you get
Speaker 1: to a doll that leads to a door. You know,
Speaker 1: you become successful and then you you that success breed success,
Speaker 1: You build momentum. Have you mentioned sport? I mean, you
Speaker 1: know one era that hasn't shrunk is the football. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a bit by far the biggest league. What can
Speaker 1: we learn economy? Yeah? It sat out to us the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl at half time? Boy, was there wrong a
Speaker 1: little about American football? Would you run would you run
Speaker 1: a Premier League? No? I'm not interested in I got
Speaker 1: offered that many many, many years ago and decided that
Speaker 1: actually that was just just it's it's not not a job.
Speaker 1: I love watching football, but doesn't mean I want to,
Speaker 1: you know, be involved in the management of a football
Speaker 1: And I was going to ask you that the best
Speaker 1: piece of advice you would give to your successor, but
Speaker 1: actually gonna ask you the worst piece of advice that
Speaker 1: you could give your successor. I think you know, building
Speaker 1: the teams is the is the key. You know people
Speaker 1: we always say people are the key, but you really
Speaker 1: got to believe that people are the key. Um, and
Speaker 1: be confident that you've got you know this, this north
Speaker 1: star and convinced, you know, internally, externally everybody that that's
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. And worst piece of advice.
Speaker 1: Don't know whether I don't know. I don't know whether
Speaker 1: I give worst advice, the worst piece of advice someone's
Speaker 1: given you. Travel more, I don't have more coffee? Yea, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: run a football club, I like, I don't remember like
Speaker 1: bad advice, if you know what I mean. I domin
Speaker 1: out there searching for bad advice around around stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: I was approached about being the CFO of Apple years
Speaker 1: ago and I turned it down. Why it's not a
Speaker 1: bad decision because it's some everybody, my friends in the
Speaker 1: head don't disagree that it's terrible to wait. It's a
Speaker 1: long time ago, So don't go don't don't go there.
Speaker 1: You're asking, you know, the exactly public. It's a long
Speaker 1: long time ago. But I mean, do you wait, do
Speaker 1: you have a pinch in your stomach every time you
Speaker 1: buy an iPhone? No? No, no, no, it's not. It
Speaker 1: was I learned a lot about that, is that. What
Speaker 1: I what I learned was, you know, do your own
Speaker 1: research yourself, and you know when I joined Ellen g
Speaker 1: had done tons of research on it, saw this huge potential,
Speaker 1: and I made my own mind up. But rather than
Speaker 1: sort of listen to people who are supposedly experts but
Speaker 1: actually hadn't done a deep dive on where the company
Speaker 1: could be. Nigel, thank you so much, Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to this week's in the City. We'll
Speaker 1: be back next week, but in the meantime, if you
Speaker 1: like our show, please head on over to Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts, rate review, and subscribe.
Speaker 1: This episode was hosted by me David Merritt and me
Speaker 1: Franci Laqua. It was produced by Summersadi, additional editing by
Speaker 1: Blake Maples and special thanks to Nigel Wilson.