Leading with Purpose: How Will Butler-Adams Scaled Brompton into a Global Icon

Chris Whyte (: 00:01

We are now recording.

it's gone. It's a great start. um, well, welcome to Why Design and thank you so much for having me in your factory to record. my pleasure. It's great to great to sit down with you. So we first met in person at Eurobike a few months ago. It's great that mixer. Obviously I've known the brand for a long time. I've worked with the brand on and off over the years as well. So great to finally sit down with you. I'm going to do my best now to introduce you.

and some of the themes that we're gonna dig into and then we'll just kind of crack on with the episode. do feel free to jump in as I wanna get something wrong. So Will Butler Adams OBE, CEO of Brompton. Your story is pretty unique. It started off in the chemical industry as a mechanical engineer, ended up meeting Brompton's chairman on a London bus and somehow found yourself running one of Britain's most recognizable bike brands.

s well. So when you joined in: 2002

purpose-driven, yet still pragmatic, and how you found and kept the right people, and how you stayed focused when there's hundreds of new shiny things you could chase. So before we get into all of that, let's start as we always do on why design. And that's the question, Will, why design? Or in your case, why engineering? What pulled you into this world of product development? So I, like most young people, didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. And sadly,

Chris Whyte (: 02:03

we have this weird thing at school where you're either arty or you're mathsy, sciencey. And it seems to be you're put into these buckets when actually incredible design is about art and science together. But somehow schools haven't worked that out. I tend to be more science and maths. My parents, my uncle is an accountant, so my parents decided I ought to become an accountant. I didn't know much about anything, but I decided

accountancy wasn't for me. I thought numbers all day long spreadsheets forget it. I'd heard about this thing engineering didn't even know what it was but I decided that sounded better than it then accountancy so I said to myself no I'm not doing countancy I'm doing engineering and not even knowing what it was and I set off down that road and I had no idea where I was going what I was gonna end up doing and it's been a riot I'm very lucky I took that choice. certainly Aaron we're gonna dive into some of the luck as well.

spoke a few weeks ago. has played a big part of it but you kind of create your own look. I think there's a lot to do with that. Yeah absolutely. So let's go back to Look and Serendipity. You bumped into the chairman on the book. So talk us through that moment, how that came about. How you got end up talking to a stranger on a bus in the first instance? Well I was heading to Henley and I was on a bus and chatting

to this guy who I didn't know. And yes, he was the chair of Brompton, but that makes it sound a little bit grand. Basically, he was a mate of the inventor. They were at Cambridge together. The company was tiny, and he was helping his friend out. I he was called the chair, but really it was a sort of help your friend out job. And I'd said, we were chatting and he was in banking and I said, I'm in engineering. And he said, well, my God, I got this friend. And it happened that we were driving out and we went past.

the factory, because if you drive out of London, you drive down the M4 and the factory at the time was just there. He's like, the factory's down there. And I think any sensible human being would have just gone random bloke on a bus, was like, the middle's miles away, forget it. And in those days, it was But it's this luck you're talking about. Opportunity passes us all the time, all of us, there it goes. And most of the time, you just go...

Chris Whyte (: 04:22

challenges whether we're prepared to get off our ass and grab it. And I thought, well, what have I got to lose? And I was trying to go to Insead to do an MBA. I thought my CV was a bit boring. So I thought all the cool people in London, maybe I'll work for a company a couple of years and then do my MBA. So I arranged to go meet Andrew. I had to get all the way back down from Middlesbrough again, five or six hour trip. I met Andrew and I joined the company.

nothing to do with the product at that time, just because I thought, my God, I can help this place run more efficiently. I'd worked for Nissan, ICI, I knew about lean manufacturing and the place was very disorganized and I thought I can get involved and help here. I'm still here because the bike changed my life and changed the life of many of our customers and that's a different story. But initially I just thought engineering wise, operationally wise, I can help.

think about kind of bus and train journeys today and compared to just over 20 years ago, people are sitting with their earbuds in, they're playing on some word game on their phone or on social media. Those opportunities to have conversation, they're sitting there right in front of their faces, but they're closed off to you say that, but again, funnily enough, I was just coming back from Brussels this weekend and there were a

Couple I was with my wife so I was busy chatting to her but there were a couple next to us They were they didn't know each other chatting away. All right when I travel by plane I chat to people particularly when I'm on business. I don't think it's gone again It's confidence is whether you're prepared to reach out of your comfort zone and speak to somebody who don't know and I think Very few people regret taking risk. Mm-hmm Most people towards the end of their life regret not taking enough risk

not doing enough stuff, not pushing themselves. So you can only say no, they can only be turned out to be furiously boring, in which case you tried and it wasn't worth it. But to not bother, you should always just make that little bit of extra effort because you never know where it might take you. Who broke the ice between you and Chen? remember. It was only 20, 23 years ago, 24 years ago. No, I'm afraid. You've been fairly young.

Chris Whyte (: 06:47

27 at the time. 27. So yeah, it's that kind of, I think it's unknowing that kind of that the risk of failure or rejection has put a lot of people off. failure rejection of what? It's a random person. You even know them. Get real. Yeah, mean, come on. This is why a lot of our staff, you know, they're worried about making mistakes. Really? How bad is it? You know, there are really important things that you must not get wrong.

But this is not one of them. Most things in life are not that important. So don't worry about it. There are very few things that you'll come across in your life that are really important and they matter. Most other things, health, wellbeing, that matters. Most other things are not that important. And the sooner you put life into perspective, the sooner you can operate better. That's fantastic. Yeah. I've read a lot of books of the years on that kind of mindset of...

embracing kind of failure and embracing challenges and one came up actually the course was that Last week a book called and I've just started listening to a book called let them I've heard of the let them principle and so it's about You know, you're in control of your own destiny you can't control what other people do or say or feel and yet many of us will try to control situations where we

legitimately don't really have a control over. So with the two words, let them, so if someone's annoyed with you, let them be annoyed. If someone doesn't want to speak to you on the bus, let them not want to speak on the bus, but don't let it affect your mood or your kind of, you know, your attitude to life and chasing stuff. Like I say, I'm only just in there, but it's also, there's tons of stuff around that, just that positive mindset. Yeah, mostly, you know, we're in on planet earth for a very short period of time, as long as you

trying to do things that positive and you know that and you're not a sort of egotistical, you know, megalomaniac, then you're trying your best. And if somebody doesn't like it, well, that's fine. No hard feelings, but you give it your best shot and get on with it. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you mentioned that you walked into the, well, you looked at the business and saw it was fairly chaotic. You saw an opportunity to improve things, add value.

Chris Whyte (: 09:11

When you actually walked through the door though, were the first things that stuck out? What did you see? So if you're an engineer, we have something called stock turn, which is how many times you use your stock. I mean, actually we are being a bit naughty because when you go around the factory, you'll see there isn't much stock, but actually we have a whole load of stock hidden somewhere else. So it's not perfect. But at time, Andrew, all of his stock was in the factory. I mean, literally the thing looked like a warehouse. There was just tons and tons and tons of

of racking pallets and squeezed in the edges where people actually adding value and making stuff. And I think at the time there was a stock turn of one. So if the company was turning over, you know, 2 million quid, was there or thereabouts, then they had 2 million quid's worth of stock. That is no way to run a business. So less stock, more value add, more space to add value, more organization, and also

Andrew and without this we wouldn't have the Brompton was a sort of obsessive Control person and He controlled everything he designed this incredible bike. It took him nearly 15 years of detail and every detail he cared about Well, that's fine when you're designing something But when you're beginning to employ people and run a business you need to learn to let go and he found that very difficult So he tried to control everything everybody had to do what he said in exactly this way

Well, you don't have enough hours in a day. You have to start learning and empowering your team and letting them bring something to the party. And that was needed. At what point did you recognize that and have that conversations? And I know that you, it was only a matter of years, wasn't it, before you stepped up to be a director and then CEO a few years after that. But at what point did you have to take into one side?

It didn't really work like that. I just did it. You just did it. Yeah, I just did it. Most of the time, know, like I, when Andrew went skiing, I organized, organized a skip. And then I'd literally get rid of pallets and pallets and pallets of stuff. And of course, they were covered in dust. And then about three years later, I to go, where's that? Where's that? Where's that stuff? I think, I've no I can't remember what you're talking about, you know, you know, you just tons of it. So I just

Chris Whyte (: 11:35

did. I got stuck in, I rolled my sleeves up, I started changing how we operated and because it delivered better outcomes, Andrew sort of just went with the flow and he was so busy worrying about the fifth decimal place down here, I was just getting on with stuff. I rolled up and got in there and again with my staff, I've always encouraged them to do stuff and ask for forgiveness later. You know, I'd rather if you did it with the best intentions, you know, if you're

If you're not doing it with the best intentions, that entirely different. But if you're doing it for the best intentions, I'd rather have a load of people who would do us and took a bit of risk and asked for forgiveness than everyone who sat there doing nothing and waiting to be given permission to do anything. So that, that sounds great. But I imagine it's got opportunity to go dreadfully wrong because one person's view of, you know, what doing stuff for good versus other purposes.

It's got an opportunity of going wrong, dreadfully wrong, no. And that's the problem. People think everything can go dreadfully wrong. Everything is dreadfully going to be a dreadful disaster. But life isn't like that. If it was, we'd have all died at 30 and we'd be miserable. Things are not nearly as dreadful as we think. The anticipation is far worse than reality. We're making bicycles here. So if we're talking about stuff that might kill somebody, it matters. Do not mess about with that. That is serious. Everything else in the business, quite frankly, marketing campaigns,

retail, you know, there's an old truckload of stuff that you get a bit wrong, you learn it's not the end of the world, you get a little grazenine, you might get a bruise, other bits, they matter. And you don't mess with that. And so we need to be clear about what matters and give people freedom to play in the other areas. I guess what I was coming to or getting out was really the guiding kind of the North Star or the kind of the values that

what's communicated to the business, to the team, to make sure that those experiments, those kind of give it a go and what's worse can happen. I'm sure they're pointed towards To a but again, I mean, we have a North Star. We're here to create urban freedom for happier lives, make the world a little bit better. But you've got to be careful that you assume, I mean, which person wouldn't realize that don't mess with a thing that might kill somebody?

Chris Whyte (: 13:58

I mean, that is not the problem. The problem is people worry too much about everything. The problem is most people are over concerned. They want to cover their ass. They want to have 500 procedures to ensure that in case they make a mistake, it wasn't my fault. So most of all, as a leader in a business, you need to give people the authority and the confidence to try stuff and protect them if it goes wrong. And really, it's not that bad.

You know, it's a bit like I talked before about people thinking that the role of the leader is to create order. I disagree. I think the role of the leader is to create disorder. Half the problem in businesses is they become so ordered, so much bureaucracy and so much, you know, form filling and no one could do anything unless the system tells them. Disaster, no innovation. So actually, as the business gets bigger and more systems, more processes, you need to say no.

take decisions on yourself, take some risks, step outside your comfort zone. Most people are sort of overly cautious and they will definitely know that I'm not gonna mess with that because that's gonna kill somebody. So it's about giving them the confidence in the rest of that business. That's fascinating. But you've got multiple management layers now, haven't you? Is it a steep learning curve for someone coming into the business where maybe they've been kind of constrained? Yes.

Yes. but you know, I don't, I don't even know the depth of that. I mean, that used to be the case where we'd people who joined the company and they'd say, um, you know, what would you like me to do? And I would say to them, well, that's a very, very, very odd question. I've got no idea. can tell you where we're trying to go. I can tell you what we're trying to achieve, but I haven't just spent three months, you know, looking for somebody who has the skills, knowledge and experience that we don't have to join the company.

and then tell them what to do. How can I tell you what to do when you have the skills and knowledge I don't have? I can tell you what we're trying to achieve. Your job is to tell me what we need to do to get there and what you need from me to help you get there. But please don't ask me what you need to do. I don't know. If you knew, you wouldn't be hiring that. Exactly. But that is not normal. And so people think when they join a company, they ought to be told what to do. And we say no. But we don't.

Chris Whyte (: 16:24

have challenges in the business as it stands today in sort of de-procedurizing. We do need more procedures and we do need processes, but equally you can go too far and we need to optimize those. Absolutely. I want to move on to the next section in a moment, but before we do that, looking back, were there any moments where you thought this isn't going to work?

join this business and kind of throw yourself into it. So, thousands, your self-confidence is permanently being knocked. I was very fortunate to have had a fast career progression when I was working in the chemical industry. By the time I was 27, I had 35 staff, I was managing a million pound budget, looking after a

150 million pound chemical plant or whatever it was at the time. And if that chemical plant went wrong, mean, really did kill people. And I was there to maintain the chemical plants, all the machinery and everything else. And then I worked for an eccentric inventor who signed every check. I wanted to buy some digital weighing scales for 20 quid. And we were using scales that came out of his kitchen that were, you know, little tiny red thing with a

you know, like a sort of a little dial. And when he discovered I spent 20 quid on digital scales, he nearly hit the roof. He went mad. went exploded. Who ordered these scales? We don't need these. Who's ordered this? I stick my hand up and like, what am I doing? You know, was running a hundred and fifty million pound chemical plant with more staff than in the whole company here. What am I doing? And then a lot of friends over the time said to me, Will, what are you doing? You you were on a sort of classic career path and now, you know, it's a tiny little business.

And lots of other challenges and even today, you, self confidence, you think, I made the right decision. but I think if you believe in something, you need to not worry too much about the day to day and just keep focusing on the, where we're trying to get to making sure that the, really important things like what's the customer experience like, are people enjoying the bite? Do they love it? Is it making their life better? If we're doing those things, right. The other things are permanently needing to be optimized, but the

Chris Whyte (: 18:50

critical stuff is the experience of the customer. Absolutely. Which leads us on very nicely onto the next section, which is purpose before profit. Well, be careful. Okay. If you say purpose before profit, then a business won't exist. It needs to be in parallel with profit, because without profit, you have no business. So if we start dancing around the fire with our open toe sandals saying purpose before profit, then all the businesses that put profit before anything else,

will exist and there will be no purposeful businesses left on planet Earth. So purpose is really important, but it needs to be in parallel with profit. So purpose with profit. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. That was a great correction for my title there. But you you've said many times that Brompton isn't about bikes, it's about freedom. So let's unpack some of that. what does that idea mean selling kind of freedom, not bikes?

mean to you personally. So you, you're buying something, not because you're not buying a phone, because it's a rectangular metal aluminium thing with a circuit board in it and two little round sort of camera things on the back, you're not buying it because of what it is. You're buying it because of what it does.

It allows you to do things. That's why you're buying the phone. That's why you love the phone, not because of the phone, but because it allows you to talk to your parents or your friends. It allows you to organize your life, to take pictures, have memories. That's why you're buying the phone. The bike is no different. I'm not selling a bike for the bike's sake. I'm selling the bike because it changes your life. It delivers a sense of freedom in the city. It delivers a sense of freedom.

when you're cycling through the Children Hills, it allows you to explore, to meet friends, and it gives you this health and wellbeing. mean, if I didn't have my bike, I'd have gone mad by now. You know, I need that time on the bike when I'm, I can't be on the phone looking at the millions of emails and God knows whatever else is coming in. I'm just de-cluttering my brain. I've got a bit of me time. So, and also, you know, it keeps me fit. I like eating and drinking. And so cycling allows me to,

Chris Whyte (: 21:13

still enjoy all of that. So what we're really talking about, and that's why you'll see it up on the wall, urban freedom for happier lives. That is what it's about. Most people now live in cities and cities actually, in many cases, deliver worse health outcomes than living in the countryside. So how do we change that? How do we look at cities in a different way and put the human being first before the car and design cities around the human being and actually the most efficient

mode of transport ever invented is and still is the bicycle. So think about cities in terms of walking and cycling, creating space, clean air to make people flourish. Yeah, absolutely. I've got to say some of my favorite city moments have been riding the bike or on a scooter, you know, just getting outside of the car and I'll just stop wherever you want and you can take the taxes, but then it's A to B, whereas

on the bike. You just go exploring. can explore. Yeah. Fantastic. how do you keep all that front of mind though, when things are challenging financially? Obviously it's been widely publicized last year was very difficult for Brompton, as it has been for the entire bike industry. So how do you maintain that purpose? When? I mean, it helps that we're 50 years old and

the business that's doing really well is not that difficult to manage. You you need to manage for the medium and long term, not just for the short term. And that's particularly important when you're dealing with long design cycles and, you know, we're developing products three to five years out and you need to invest in those three to five years out and you need to continue to invest in those through downturns. So for engineering businesses,

Having an ownership structure that is long term is really important. mean, take for example Rolls-Royce. People two or three years ago were writing Rolls-Royce off and now it's got a valuation of 100 billion. I mean, you so you need to slightly take those things with a pinch of salt and be thinking long term. Turnover is vanity. Profit is sanity. Cash is queen. So our profits have gone down, but our EBITDA was at

Chris Whyte (: 23:40

five and a half million last year, our PBT was at zero. But PBT is a reflection of depreciation on investments you made previous years. So, you know, our pot, our cash flow was about zero. And we have cash. So it's not, it's not ideal, but the sector's going through a really tough time. And we've chosen to continue to invest through the downturn, rather than overreact. It's not easy, it's challenging. But that's my job, you know, if you can't navigate

few difficult periods, well, you're not you're not in the right person for the job. And the business is still privately owned, isn't it? is bit of equity given out over the years. But it's so zoned by the the inventor and his mates, Andrew, me and my mates, our staff, staff own about 20%. And then we've got BGF, which is a business growth fund, which is basically a British investment fund. And they've got about a 9 % stake. So nobody has control.

we're, we're, we're all interested in the long term success of the business. Yeah. So you haven't got a big chunk of private equity or venture capitalists kind of. It wouldn't work. No, it just wouldn't work. We're too long term. Brilliant.

And we spoke a weeks ago, I think it was, you've said, and it leads on nicely, know, businesses are obsessed with raising money too early, raising capital too early. And downside of that, I'm guessing is, you know, the pressure to deliver too early as well, but perhaps you could expand on that. I mean, it depends what you're doing. mean, if you are a software company, where you can copy and paste

you've developed a product and you need to get market share. Maybe you need to raise capital and maybe that's the right way to go. You have to move fast. You need to get market share. If you're an engineering company where you raise lots of capital, a really good example was VanMoof. So they were a bike brand. They raised well over a hundred million pounds and that put huge pressure on them to grow top line. As a result of that,

Chris Whyte (: 25:55

They were prioritizing turnover, vanity, over sanity, profit. And they hadn't developed the product. They hadn't finished the engineering. But they were under so much pressure to sell more bikes. They were selling bikes, knowing that those bikes weren't good enough and they were going to lose money. So for every bike they sold, they were losing even more money. But they were pushing to sell more bikes to make the top line look good, to help the investors.

feel confident and eventually the company went bust. And actually compound growth, Warren Buffett, for a long time one of the richest people on planet Earth, I think he delivered 20 % year on year compound growth for 60, 70 years. That'll do. Anywhere between 15 and 20 % compound growth is insane. Be patient. And a business, an engineering business can sustain.

15 or 20 percent. Try and grow an engineering business by 100 percent a year because you've got loads of cash. Well, you bring in so many new people, they don't know what you're doing. Half your guys on the shop floor haven't got a clue. You're growing too fast. So I think, you know, being sensible, retaining control in an engineering business where there are longer lead times makes sense. And certainly from an equity perspective, you want to make your mistakes when you're small and

and you will make plenty of them. And when you get the money in, you're under such pressure to scale, you want to scale when the thing is rock solid. And if you put the money in too early, you give away too much equity at too low evaluation, and then you're forced to scale something that you haven't completely bottomed out. yeah, compound growth, be patient. And most of the businesses, you look at great businesses around the world that are still here after 15, 20 years.

and the vast majority of those had a slow incubation period. You think about Apple, you think about Dyson, you know, so many great brands, they had a period of learning. And then yes, they've gone bananas and you think, wow, aren't they amazing? But if you look back in the early years, initially, it was relatively steady. Yeah, I'd say that even brands like Apple,

Chris Whyte (: 28:18

wasn't all rosy was it? certainly was not. And Steve Jobs career is, know, him as an individual kind of has been through rocky times, but you see all the all the good stuff makes the press, doesn't it? So now, there's a lot of competition kind of leads on to one of the questions that one of the community has asked. So I may follow up with that later on. yeah, you know, the the business has been around for 15 years or so. And there's a lot of competition now from

not only from China, but European based kind of folding bike companies. Give me the name of three. That's a very good point. I can't. So if the competition was that strong, if I asked you to name three brands of cars, you could do it quite quickly. There is competition, there's no doubt, but it's still relatively low. Yes. From a visibility point of view, know, whilst I couldn't name three viable comp,

today I could quite easily go on to eBay or Amazon and tap in and you're going to be presented with a myriad of options. Brompton famously refuses to discount or chase volume. Given the market conditions, why is that so important to Brompton in time with the purpose of things? So I think, I mean ultimately

We need to make a profit and we didn't make a profit PBT, we didn't make a profit last year and it would be probably something similar this year. But that's not so much of an issue when you're looking at it over, you know, three, five, 10 years. We need a business that is sustainable and when you invest in a Brompton, you're investing in the next 10, 20, 30 years and we are looking after bikes.

Today, there are 20, 25 years old spare parts, keeping them going. VanMoof, we talked about earlier, well, people spent three, 4,000 pounds with that bike. It's now gone bust. Well, who's looking after those bikes? Who's giving them a software? No one. So that investment was a bad investment for any of those customers. So it's trust. That's a brand is, is trust. So if somebody buys a Brompton, they're buying it for the next five, 10, 15 years.

Chris Whyte (: 30:43

And they want to know that we're still around in five, 10 or 15 years. So we're not going to get involved in short term, you know, selling product at a loss to be able to make our top line look rosy for some short term valuation purposes. We're interested truly in sustainable long term business. You know, I'm not floating in the med on a great big yacht. I'm interested in urban freedom for happier lives, my staff and the planet that we live on. So

A lot of that is part of what you're buying, but also you're buying a technical piece of kit. We've been around for 50 years. When you buy the bike, it looks great. You might see the other one, the competition that's a couple hundred quid cheaper. It looks great. That's not an issue. The issue is once you've owned it for five years or 10 years, you're whizzing down a hill and your bike breaks that you bought off eBay from China.

with no regulation, no brand, and where is the company today, God knows. And it snaps and you smash your front teeth and break your pelvis. You'll be suddenly going to yourself, was it really worth saving a couple of hundred quid? And it's trust. That's what we are, trust. We've got over a million customers out there. And if you meet a Brompton owner, ask them, was it a good investment? Are you regretting the purchase? And I would argue the vast majority, even more than the vast majority, the absolute

very very large majority would say, I freaking love my bite, I love my Brompton and it's been brilliant. And that is the test.

Looking back to when you joined the company to now, was there a moment where you felt that the quality and the trust and you know what it means to be at Brompton because Brompton was relatively unknown 20 years ago, wasn't it? So was there a moment where you thought this is it? No, no, it's never been like that. All we care about is just keep making something useful and using anything that's available. Material science.

Chris Whyte (: 32:44

you know, 3d printing, more powerful computers, AI to make something even better, more useful. Because ultimately, that's what it is. How useful is it something that's pretty and looks sexy? That that fades. It's use its real value. Does it add value to your life? And we are searching engineering solutions optimization to deliver better value and better performance for you the customer.

So it's just through those guiding principles, just the drive to innovate and do a great job and delight your customer, keep them coming back. That kind of evolved into, over time it's built about Josh, just because you've been in the game so long and because you've built brand recognition and you hear those stories. It must be great to look back and think, yeah. I know we talked about, it's...

is later on in my notes here, but we talked a few weeks ago about always being frustrated as a leader as a CEO, or a founder and that you're immensely proud of what you've done, but you're never happy with correct. That is a very weird dichotomy. You are very proud, but totally frustrated. Yeah, look back and Oh, yeah, we did some awesome stuff. I'm not like God, no way. No way. There's a lot of things to get better.

Well, let's talk about something that's obviously my background so I can hopefully talk with confidence around it. I like the way you framed it, building your motley crew. talent, culture, retention. You've said before that hiring people with the perfect CV can often be a mistake. Perhaps we could dig more into that, especially Perth and now with the age of AI and

whether you've seen or whether some of your team have seen the perfect CVs that have been written for the JavaScript because have been put through trying GPT. But I think I'm always wary of perfect. Anyone who thinks they're perfect, any product that is perfect, nothing is perfect. And actually, it's the imperfection that delivers innovation. It's the grit in the oyster that creates the pearl.

Chris Whyte (: 35:11

And so we need to be permanently uncomfortable. We need to be surrounding ourselves with people who are different to ourselves, that challenge the status quo, that look at the world differently. And that might be cultural, it might be where their life experiences have taken them, what their career has done. But you just...

you know, I can walk into some businesses and they tend to be in the service industry, lawyers and bankers, and you just think it's a sort of, it's a sausage machine. This is a little sausage on the in front of a computer next to the next sausage. And, you know, and they're churning out, you know, the same stuff. Well, that just wouldn't work for us. And I'm so proud of the, like furious diversity inside this organization. And actually, you

If you look too hard for the perfect of anything, you're going to pay a premium because you're competing against the rest of the world of employers who are desperate to find a perfect employee. Whereas if you're prepared to spend a bit more time and look beyond that and invite people who maybe don't fit but have something a little bit different about them and their CV isn't the way you thought and it isn't chat GBT and it's got some left-of-field odd things in it that make you go, that's a bit...

that's a bit different, different. interesting. And maybe they come in and maybe they can't sit up perfectly and give you a firm handshake, look you straight in the eye, but there's something about them that's just interesting. Others will overlook them. They may not see that. too, they're too, they're not prepared to take a risk on anyone unless they're perfect. And if you can back somebody who maybe isn't obvious and maybe is a little bit different, then they will thank you for it. They will be more committed.

and they're probably better value. so I'm, I am odd. And lots of people at Provington are odd. We're all a bit fricking weird. Great. Come on board. And but together, I think that diversity in thinking and approach delivers a far better outcome. But you know, we have our challenges too. We're not perfect. I'd never like to suggest that. It's

Chris Whyte (: 37:33

must make it terribly hard though for you for your recruiting team. If you know you're looking for for impact in imperfection, you're looking for kind of also there will be trained to look spot kind of imperfections like I guess but I know that a lot of recruiters internal and agency side you know, a lot of them are looking for that kind of the the the comfort blanket of a checklist. it's the same thing. It's this endless obsession.

with not taking risk. You won't take risk on anyone that isn't the perfect CV because if it goes wrong, but the CV said they were perfect, know, but forget it. And it's this whole business about risk. And that's why we do need to do more recruiting internally, because then our team understand our culture. And we don't, you know, go with the agency who might not have that confidence. So it is the same thing.

repeated this theme of taking risk. And you know, when you're up against it, innovation comes in thick and fast. I'm sorry to say during war, innovation comes in fast. I mean, look at what's happening tragically in Ukraine, but the speed of innovation with drone technology, drone innovation, because they need it. And they're not spending ages mulling things over. They're freaking getting in there and trying it. It's life and death stuff. And same in the Second World War. know, gosh, so

Bring a bit of that risk into the business, allow people to make mistakes, try stuff, recruit people who are a little bit different and see what they might bring rather than just the absolute perfect individual. You know what you're going to get, but it's not going to take you that big step forward. Yeah. And looking back to your own career, chances are, know, had you applied through standard kind of practices, you'd emailed your CV in, you know,

You would have taken one look at it go, why does this person from the chemical industry, doesn't even compute? Yes, yes. And I've seen that countless times throughout my career where I've kind of chats with colleagues where we've looked at someone's CV or LinkedIn profile, how did they make that move? But then from my side of it, I've had plenty of occasions where I've just met someone at a networking event or a conference and we've been having a really good conversation and then something in the conversation then clicks. It's like...

Chris Whyte (: 39:59

this person is going to get on really well with this person or that business. Yeah, because we're human beings. And it's tricky. You know, I'm in a privileged position. I speak to awesome designers and engineers every day. So I put myself in that position. Whereas if you're internal, especially if you're you don't have an internal recruitment, recruiting team, you're a manager that's under pressure to absolutely something's got to give.

I don't know what the answer to that is, other than use recruiters, but that would be very crass of me to say. But you need both. You need a bit of both. But if you're going to use recruiters, you need somebody who understands your business and your culture and isn't just literally churning out another, you know, know, peg for a hole. It has to be considered thoughtful and be prepared to be different. Yeah, absolutely. And I think other examples as well, you know, where I've had to coach

clients or hiring managers, because the feedback would be, Chris, I didn't interview very well. And then I have to remind them that they're not interviewing someone to be an interviewer. Completely agree. I totally, utterly agree. And that's where a lot of it falls down, because somebody might be brilliant. That's why when you interview people, you need to give them room to come out. And they may not be strong in this area, but what are you actually recruiting them for? Yeah. I think my experience of

working with you guys over the years is that one, your team do an excellent job of that. But I think the fact that you've got a factory, you brings a lot of walk people around the longer you're spending with some less that interview, you know, personas on and we get, yeah, agreed. It's difficult not to get excited about just walk around as questions. So, one bit of advice for anyone listening, just just have a factory. yeah.

In one regard, yes, in many other regards, maybe not. Yeah, perhaps not. in terms of, you know, what good looks like, or what kind of, it's probably gonna be difficult based on what you just said. you know, what do you look for? Kind of what does a Brompton person look like? It does a trait or characteristics that. the technical

Chris Whyte (: 42:22

ability is a sort of given. You need to have, let's just say it's at university or any other qualification, you need to have delivered that. experience, which has some relevance, is important. those bits, people spend far too much time, in my humble opinion, on sort of those bits.

The bit I'm interested in is the human being. What makes you tick? What have you demonstrated in your life? Not necessarily in your career, but in your life. Whether it's supporting a charity, whether it's coaching a team, or whether it's being really interested in a hobby or some sort of activity. A determination.

a commitment, a prepared to stick your head above the power pit and take a bit of shit. I think it's in somebody's personal life that you understand who they are and what makes them tick and whether they're going to fit. The other bit is just an easy bit. And then it's for me in my interviews, it'll be 80 % of my time is who are you? What are you? What do you want in life? know, what makes you tick?

And can you align with us? And are you sufficiently different that you will bring challenge and perspective to what we're trying to achieve? Love that. What makes you tick? Well, I feel, as so many of us do, we are very, very fortunate in where we popped out on planet Earth. We could have popped out somewhere else and are

life chances and our life in general would be so, so very different. And I feel that comes with a responsibility to, in our life, give back, you know, through just pure being born in, you know, the UK as opposed to another part of the world, we're at an advantage. And, you know, I went to university and, you know, that in those days cost nothing. I mean, that's a huge privilege. So you

Chris Whyte (: 44:44

have a responsibility to give something back. And that responsibility is very, very strong in how I look at my life and my career. And so I'm permanently sort of measuring myself against my own personal ambition to continue to try to contribute in whatever way that might be. And then the second thing is your own family.

You know, you have a responsibility to your family to try and do your bit. that's exciting. We haven't been moving them out around enough. So, yeah, that's I'll go back to the family bit. Yeah, the second bit is your family. You know, you have a responsibility to them, you know, to try and engage, inspire, care for.

So those two elements, and I would say on both, you're never doing a good enough job. That doesn't mean you're not proud of what you've achieved on either front. But I'm permanently giving myself a hard time, and that's a balance when you're in a leadership role. It's good to give yourself a hard time, but don't beat yourself up too much because otherwise, you know, knocks your own self-confidence. You are your hardest critic.

And sometimes you need to pat yourself on the back because you it affects your self-confidence So, you know, it's it's challenge, but I don't You know people will say, you know, are you super proud? I haven't got to that moment yet I am proud but I'm definitely not relaxed. I've still got being my bonnet and I'm still fearful

A of personal question, if that last one wasn't, but do you have a coach? No. Have ever had a coach or contemplated getting a Well, I don't have a coach, but I mean, have many, many friends who are friends, coaches. have friends who have been very successful in business, friends who have done all sorts of other bits and bobs in their life. I also have my wife. So, and I also have colleagues at work.

Chris Whyte (: 47:03

So I sort of get by the, would say, you know, I potentially I could consider a coach, but, know, I have so much time with interesting people and depending on where I am at any particular time, I'll lean on different friends or different colleagues for advice. I'm not afraid to ask for help. So for the moment, yeah, it's not been something that I feel I need, but you know,

Maybe I would like it, but I mean, there are lots of things I'd like. It doesn't mean I need them. Yeah. But it sounds like, um, know, for me, the key thing about that, I'm a coach, someone to challenge you, support you, would challenge you and ask you the questions. And especially when it comes to the family versus business is the course I was on last week that they had a coach and he talked about, you know, work life balance and, everything else about what you want to get out of life, not just business as a, as business owner. I am, I am slightly wary.

You know, we can read a thousand books. We can go and have endless coaches. know, we, we just if I can get on with it. I've got a wife. She'll soon tell me if I'm, if I'm screwing up, you know, we, can lean on, we need to, we, well, we, we're not going to know what to do unless we read 20 books or we're not going to know what we're going to do unless we get the life coach. Actually, what we need to get stuff done. Most of my challenges, not, not knowing what to do is doing it. most of my staff know what to do.

Get on and do it. Have the confidence to take a step over. I might just chat to somebody a bit longer. Let's have another few meetings just to mull it over and decide whether we should or we shouldn't. Fucking get on with it. Trust your gut instinct. Get on with it. Do it. And the more we can do. So I think we are, I do think there is support, but you can go too far. And then we, you know, I'm not sure I better just ask my coach, you know, and actually I know what I need to do. Most of the stuff we need to do is very clear.

and it's about getting it done. It's the time I have. you know, over 50 and it's a blink of an eye and I got here and I've got a lot more I want to achieve so I to move faster. wonderful. Kind of went off on a bit of a bit of a tangent but it's, I often do that. So, I want to get back to Motley Crue because I introduced it for the section and I haven't actually said it again. So, you described your team as a Motley Crue. Yeah. What does that actually look like in practice?

Chris Whyte (: 49:26

Well, we sort of touched on it, but it is diversity and it's what most glorious form. And I, to me, a motley crew is an absolute, it's a compliment. It's a place where people are not perfect. And particularly leadership, you know, if the leaders are perfect, everyone else has to be perfect. But no one is perfect. That's the point. And if you're not perfect, you need help. That means the people who work for you can help you do a better job.

If your leader is so perfect, they need no help because they're perfect. Well, what job do their employees do? Nothing. Because that person is so perfect, they don't need anyone's help. The opposite with the way I see the world. I need their help. They need to help me. And that vulnerability allows them to add value and to feel really proud that they've helped. I think to get useful help and insight, you need different perspective.

which is why the Motley Crue matters. It's a sort of great description of diversity in all its forms. And how has recruitment changed over the years for Brompton as the business has grown? Well, actually, that's a question for which I would struggle to answer because I haven't been recruiting anybody for such a long time.

not actively in the way that I used to. mean, funnily enough, yes, the tools have changed and yes, you've got LinkedIn and you've got other diagnostic tools that you might decide to use, but it hasn't changed. mean, ultimately, you're taking a risk. You're taking a punt. The employee is taking a risk on the business. The business is taking a risk on the employee. And you don't quite get it right.

Sometimes you get it wrong. But it is about human people and ambition and understanding what they want to achieve. And it's also not about overselling. mean, that is a risk that we have at Brompton because the brand is so strong. People imagine that we're somehow some perfect company. We're not. are, you know, we've got all the same challenges and problems as other businesses and we need help to get better. So

Chris Whyte (: 51:53

honesty is important in that interview process as well, because you don't want to mismanage expectations, they turn up, no one's really dancing around having a wonderful time. It's still hard work, and there are still challenges. But the fact that we by and large believe in something so strongly really does help how we go about our work. know when we spoke before, you mentioned that it's gone through a bit of a journey in terms of the brand recognition as well as the brand earlier days.

you had to really fight to get talent. no one had heard of us. Now it's you're having the big names in London, Paul Talent from like Poach from, not Poach, but recruit from you. Well, yeah, Poach. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, and that does happen. And in some respects, you know, that's, that's fine, because it puts more pressure on us to ensure that we're delivering to our staff. And we're very fond of, we've had quite a few boomerangs in Brompton where people have left us and come back. And we really love that because that

really shows that we're not doing too bad a job because they'll go go somewhere else and then they'll come back and work for us again. We're really rather proud of that. Yeah, and I imagine it's because the place they went to in the interim didn't really get what made them tick. So yeah, grass isn't always greener. Yes, very, very much so. Yeah, absolutely. So. And brilliant. I'm conscious of time. So I want to want to dive into the next section.

leadership. Now you've led some massive changes from a tiny team to a complex global operation. How has your leadership style had to change along the way? Yeah it has had to change. It changed from very much operational literally rolling my sleeves up and getting stuck in to

very much leading the ambition, the culture of the business and actually not really doing anything. And it's quite weird. I don't really have any budget to spend. I have to nick everyone else's budget when I do anything. You know, my job is this and other things, but mostly setting the direction and the tone for the business and ensuring that people have the confidence

Chris Whyte (: 54:17

to be themselves, the confidence to take risk and have a good understanding of what we're trying to achieve. But it's a challenge and it's really important when you're in a business at any stage, it's sort of more important to know what you're not good at than to know what you are good at.

You probably think you're good at more things than you actually are. So focusing on knowing what you're not good at. And there's nothing wrong with not being good at certain things because then you fill those gaps with people around you who are very good at those things and you complement each other. And so I have spent most of my time, not difficult in my case, knowing what I'm not good at, which is most things, organization, structure, you know...

report writing and all that sort of stuff. I'm just not good at it. And so I need people around me who are very good at that detail people. I love the big picture and they're charging off. But you know, this is a litany of chaos behind me. So I need people who compliment me in that regard. And I've been very, very lucky to have brilliant people support me on this journey, because it's been a massive team effort. I think most most leaders and founders and obviously, when you join the business, you joined a

bit of a control freak, know, the control freak in all of us. How difficult was it, you know, as you recognize that there was chaos or that there was stuff that you didn't actually like doing so much, but still controlled? Was it difficult to give that up? did you find that? unlike Andrew. I mean, Andrew, the founder was a complete opposite to me in the sense that he was an absolute obsessed with control. But the business by the time I joined, even though it was small,

you're trying to control everything, even if it's a small business, it'll kill you. And it was killing him. I'm the complete opposite. Yippee-yi-yay. Get on with it. Yeah, delegation. Woohoo. You can have it. Whereas Andrew found it very difficult to delegate anything. I'm all for delegating. But it's, you know, and it is also about trying to recognize

Chris Whyte (: 56:38

how you build a business that's independent of you. That's also very important. cannot, I don't think it's right for anybody in a business to sort of be a linchpin. You just don't want to be a linchpin. You want to be the complete opposite. You want to be nearly surplus to requirements and then you're doing a good job. The business, if I'm not here, the business will not bat an eyelid. We're not really doing anything. It might affect the growth in the next, you know, three, five, 10 years.

But in short term, everyone's off doing their stuff and I'm surplus to requirements. Sounds like a dream. Yeah, very much in the stage of my business where we're tiny. I am knee deep. But you know, that's the highest coming in, in the next kind of six to 12 months, very much a view of how can I kind of free myself up to do more impactful stuff rather than being stuck in the weeds.

step at a time. in terms of, you know, motivation, you've got stacks of energy, but how do you stay energized and motivated kind of 20 plus years on? Go for a bike ride in a city. See someone riding our bike. See the smile on their face, chat to somebody at the traffic lights, talk to our staff, meet our suppliers. You know, if I spend too much time in board meetings,

bike that Andrew invented in: 1975

Um, so yeah, getting out my bike and, and, and seeing people on our bike. I was, I was in Brussels at the weekend. I was in Lille, you know, I saw a G line electric in Brussels. Oh, it's bloody awesome. First one I've seen, um, outside the UK, I had no idea who I was. And I was very, very happy to see that bike whizzing along and they were having a lovely time. Amazing. That makes it all worth it. Yeah. Also, I did have a go on the G line at Eurobike.

Chris Whyte (: 59:05

I thoroughly enjoyed it. That's great fun. Yeah, I've ridden Brompton's before but not the G line so that was, yeah, just felt like a good solid normal bike if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, it's different. It's a different job. Yeah, for a different, it's a different tool for a different job. Yeah, and it will take you on great adventures and it's fun and it just adds to the things you can do with your Brompton which is great.

Fantastic. I want to try and wrap things up in terms of the interview now, just kind of talk about perspective, resilience and reflect on what's next. So when we spoke a few weeks ago, you just learned of your good friend passing away. It's quite obviously a tough moment, but it made you feel differently about life and work. Has that affected you as a leader? I mean, I think

I have had an interesting journey in life where through entirely self-made, I was involved in expeditions into the Amazon climbing high mountains. You know, I climbed a mountain, two people died on the mountain while we were climbing it. There was a lot of things quite scary going on. I went into the Amazon, nearly died there. So,

We are very spoiled in many respects in the world that we live in, in the bubbles that we might exist in. And we forget how short life is. And by the time we work that one out, it's often too late. And, you you need to be realizing we are living in paradise. Every day we wake up, we are waking up in paradise. We've got to take it for every little

bit it can give us. And that means when you're doing work, go for it, enjoy it, know, celebrate it and use that moment in your career to add value to yourself, to the community and to the planet. And also, your family is the bedrock. If that's wrong, if your family is not in good shape, kiss goodbye to work. ain't gonna be, you're gonna be useless. You're gonna be gibbering about and

Chris Whyte (: 01:01:36

attending your work when you're not, your mind's somewhere else. of course, work home is numero uno, has to be for every member of staff. And it swings and roundabouts and there'll be times when home needs you more. And there'll be times when it's home is steady away, in which case you'll put in extra time at work. So, but I just think there's no radical change in my approach, but it's just you need to keep being reminded.

of that balance and ensuring that even in your work you are giving it your best and you're not sitting there just watching your world your life go by and you're not giving it your best and having fun. Absolutely yeah. I partially regret leaving this till the end though because that's such a kind of a deep thought but yeah I like to let people know to listen to the end because that's I think that's

great perspective, let's talk about something a bit more positive and optimism. What gives you optimism or what you're optimistic about for the next generation of designers and engineers? Well, what I remembered when I was at university was that innovation was a privilege for only the biggest organizations. was only massive organizations that could afford the computers that did the processing.

to allow them to innovate. was only the biggest organizations that could afford these incredible prototyping machines and 3D printers. So there was this huge barrier to entry. And therefore, big companies had a monopoly on innovation. That has gone. You can design, prototype, innovate. You have powerful AI, powerful design technology that you can run off a computer that any of us could buy.

So in many respects, real innovation and design has been totally democratized. And I think it will create better solutions for planet Earth. And we need that because planet needs caring for. And I actually think all the technical solutions exist for us to coexist happily on planet Earth.

Chris Whyte (: 01:04:04

The application hasn't entirely been sorted yet, but the theoretical technical solutions are there, whether it's desalination or whether it's photovoltaic cells or any of these hydroponics. You know, there are some really big things that will transform how we live on planet Earth in a positive way. But we haven't implemented enough and we need more innovation to help us scale that implementation at a global level. Sub-Saharan Africa,

you'll be implementing it in a different way to how you might implement it in Europe. you know, I think engineering has such a part to play in solving these problems that we face on planet Earth. And, you know, we are contributing one tiny little way, but there are an absolute truckload of other ways of going about it. Yeah, massively. Okay, we'll wrap up. We've got a few questions, actually, if we've got time. But before I get on to the

the community questions. first off, I could go terribly wrong. But what's next for Brompton over the next kind of 12 months, two years time that you're able to speak about what you're excited about? I mean, we are. We've just launched our G line. You know, it's been a phenomenal success. People are loving it, doing mad things. Me, one of them, I'm going to

Hopefully, if my legs hold up, cycle across Africa next year, midlife crisis, have some fun on a G line. And our customers are doing the same and really loving it. So when you launch something new, the day you launch it, you have a load of other things that you know you could do, but there comes a point where you've to get the thing to market. So the unlocking of the evolution of that product, and there will be some quite big

step changes in performance and it's always the same when you launch something, you get this opportunity to have quite a rapid development and then it stabilizes. So there is some pretty cool stuff going on in that area, which we're really excited about. And then we're doing some other stuff that's more wacky, more radical, more high risk. And some of those things look like they might pay off and some of them really are right out there.

Chris Whyte (: 01:06:27

So, you know, and they will, you know, they're nearly into the, you know, somebody else taking them on beyond me. But but I'm so excited to see them beginning to come to life. And it's, you know, the things I get most excited about are really deep engineering innovation in design and performance manufacturing. If we can keep doing that, the rest is relatively straightforward. Exciting.

exciting times. On that one of the community questions is any future plans in terms of extending past the core product? are we going to see a Brompton scooter, for instance? Well, we've developed an electric bike, which was a massive shift. And we've just now developed an off-road Brompton, which is also a massive shift, but they're very much of a theme. So if you think about Dyson, he was doing Hoovers,

was about half a billion. And you want to be careful that you don't diversify too early. We haven't unlocked a potential in front of us by any stretch. We have all sorts of ideas for thousands of other products, but it is about focus. And we've got to learn to do a brilliant job with what we're doing before we jump into the next. Dyson did hand dryers at about half a billion, and then he went into hairdryers at about a billion.

So it will come, but we're not in a rush to do it because we've got so much to do with what we've got and we haven't done that well enough yet. Yeah, you definitely don't want to get into cars. That's not the plan. Even poor old James couldn't pull that one off. I think Apple have had a go as well. know that's been canned as well. yeah, so in terms of another question, so I'm just going to read these as they in. So evolving versus protecting the classic elements that define Brompton.

that's kind related. Yeah. Evolve, evolve, evolve, evolve, evolve, evolve, evolve, no sacred cows, nothing. Performance, performance, performance. If it makes the product better, if it allows the customer to have a better experience, no sacred cows. Awesome. Another one here, just a simple yes or no, I guess we'll do for this. But do you think Brompton will ever require other businesses?

Chris Whyte (: 01:08:51

We sort of have done because we acquired distribution in Germany, in Japan, in China. We bought out our JV partner with titanium. So yes, we have. But again, put your money, focus on your core, you know, going and acquiring businesses for the sake of acquiring businesses doesn't really make sense. But it's not off the agenda. It's just, it's just not a priority. We've invested our money into buying distribution and JVs, but we have bought effectively bought businesses. Yeah.

Because you've done like brand kind of partnerships, haven't you? Yes. crikey. The names escape me now. across the board, really, would you bring an apparel brand in-house? We have an apparel brand in South Korea called Brompton London. Not by us. It's a license. But again, be careful.

stick to knitting, do a brilliant job, get to half a billion and then before you start rushing around. we're more inclined to do it ourselves than to buy. How do you feel about all the folding bikes emerging? was lots there. Great. I mean, I'm all for it. know, the more competition you have, you have more people raising awareness, more people bringing people to the fold. And it also means we have to pull our finger out and, you know, makes us have to go faster. You know, it's a bit like we're talking about with

When you're under pressure, be that in a war situation, you innovate faster because you can't have the luxury of spending ages having millions of meetings. You've to get on with it. So, yeah, I think it's fine. The thing I'm not happy about, is the poor quality control of regulation. And particularly with e-bikes, we have containers of illegal, unsafe electric scooters, electric bikes.

and they're damaging the reputation of that sector, which is bad for the industry. if it's good competition, quality competition, bring it on. But if it's cheap, badly made, unsafe competition, that really is the government needs to do a better job in controlling and ensuring the product that's offered in the UK meets the correct standards. I may have got this stat slightly wrong, but I'm sure I read recently that e-bike fires are the leading cause of

Chris Whyte (: 01:11:12

home fires in New York, for instance? I think none of those are true, to be honest. But there is no question New York particularly had a problem where they had a period where they had three or four fires, but there certainly wouldn't be the leading cause of fires. But, you know, and that was all due to illegal imports and couriers and people charging up 20 batteries and batteries themselves were completely illegal. that, you know, government has a role to play.

You know, if you can stick 20 Tesla's and each Tesla has got a thousand times more batteries in it than a Brompton and you can stick them underneath a building and they're safe. Yeah. I mean, if one of those went up, the entire building is going to come down to get a bicycle. Then surely we can get to a point where bicycles are safe. The regulations exist. It's down to government to regulate to the standards. that is not happening. And it's the retailers as well. Yeah, yeah. actually enforce it.

And, well, the other questions got kind of a weave into the same one. So we'll just kind of leave it there. Thank you so much again for my pleasure. I've really enjoyed our conversation. It's been we've kind of somehow blitzed through everything that I've written down. So really appreciate it. And yeah, thank you again for being on Why Design. Absolutely my pleasure. Thanks, Chris. No problem.