Martin Haley: The automotive corporate strategist, medical education entrepreneur and executive coach who is now helping business leaders develop strategies and avoid the pitfalls of poor implementation.

In this episode we are celebrating the career to date of Martin Haley.

Martin was head of Strategy and Corporate Development for BMW’s financial services businesses across the UK; and CEO and co-founder of Red Whale, the UK’s largest provider of medical education to primary care, which was acquired by the Medical Defence Union late last year.

He now works with organisations to develop strategies whilst helping them avoid the pitfalls of poor implementation. He defines strategy as ‘how to get to where you want to get to’ and backs the research evidence that the vast majority of strategies fail because of poor implementation and not because the strategic direction itself is flawed.

He is a qualified executive coach and loves working with leaders seeking to overcome imposterism.

In our conversation we talk about his route into business and into automotive marketing and strategy. Martin shares some highlights and learnings from his time at BMW and his reasons for leaving a successful corporate career to co found Red Whale. We discuss how he and his team scaled and recently sold that business and we explore his passion for coaching and strategy and what the next phase of his career looks like.

I met Martin 25 years ago when he interviewed me for a job at Alphabet. I enjoyed working with him and for him and we have stayed connected as friends and mental sparring partners. I am delighted to have this opportunity to share his life and career story and I look forward to hearing what resonates with you.

If you're listening for the first time, hello, I'm Andy Follows. I'm a trusted advisor to senior leaders in the automotive industry. I work alongside them and their teams to enable Fulfilling Performance. If you'd like to know more about Fulfilling Performance, check out: Release the handbrake! - The Fulfilling Performance Hub on Substack.

Connect with Martin
LinkedIn: Martin Haley

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Episode recorded on 14 March, 2024.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Childhood
• 4:34 School Days
• 7:12 Celebrity School Alumni
• 9:00 Studying Management Sciences at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
• 11:24 Leaning Towards Chartered Accountancy and Joining Arthur Young
• 13:04 Choosing to do an MBA
• 16:44 Mergers and Acquisitions at Ernst and Young
• 21:21 Approach to Entrepreneurship
• 25:13 Moving into Vehicle Leasing
• 30:26 The Launch of Alphabet
• 33:35 Sales as a Process and Assessment Centres
• 38:55 About our Sponsor
• 40:53 Moving into Strategy and Corporate Development for BMW Financial Services UK
• 46:32 The Decision to Set Up Red Whale
• 49:57 Scaling Red Whale
• 55:12 Selling Red Whale
• 56:45 Executive Coaching and Mentoring for Successful Strategy Execution
• 1:00:55 Wrapping up and Takeaways

Transcript

Martin Haley: 0:00

I like to understand how situations have arisen. What is it that has got us to where we are now? Because where we are now is always the start point for what we're going to do next. And so it's always useful to know what's got us to where we are now, before defining kind of where we want to get to, and how we're gonna get there.

Aquilae: 0:20

Welcome to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers to share insights to help you with your own journey. Here's your host, Andy Follows.

Andy Follows: 0:51

Hello, listeners, Andy here. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate that you do. We're also very grateful for our guests who generously join me to create these episodes so that we can celebrate their careers listen to their stories, and learn from their experiences. In this episode, we're celebrating the career to date of Martin Haley. Martin was head of strategy and corporate development for BMW Financial Services businesses across the UK and CEO and co founder of Red Whale the UK's largest provider of medical education to primary care, which was acquired by the Medical Defence Union late last year. He now works with organisations to develop strategies whilst helping them avoid the pitfalls of poor implementation. He defined strategy is how to get to where you want to get to and back to the research evidence that the vast majority of strategies fail because of poor implementation, and not because the strategic direction itself is flawed. He's a qualified executive coach and loves working with leaders seeking to overcome impostor ism. In our conversation, we talk about his route into business and into automotive marketing and strategy. Martin shares some highlights and learnings from his time at BMW and his reasons for leaving a successful corporate career to co-found Red Whale. We discuss how he and his team's scaled and recently sold that business and we explore his passion for coaching and strategy and what the next phase of his career looks like. I met Martin 25 years ago when he interviewed me for a job at Alphabet. I enjoyed working with him and for him, and we've stayed connected as friends and mental sparring partners. I'm delighted to have this opportunity to share his life and career story, and I look forward to hearing what resonates with you. If you're listening for the first time. Hello, I'm Andy Follows I'm a trusted adviser to senior leaders in the automotive industry. I work alongside them and their teams to enable Fulfilling Performance. If you'd like to know more about Fulfilling Performance, check out Release the handbrake! - The Fulfilling Performance Hub on Substack. We'll put a link in the show notes to this episode. Hello, Martin, and welcome and where are you coming to us from today?

Martin Haley: 2:59

Hi, Andy. Lovely to hear you. I'm coming to you from Caversham just north of Reading.

Andy Follows: 3:05

And you're very welcome. As with all my guests, the first thing I'd like to do is ask you where your journey started. Where were you born?

Martin Haley: 3:12

I was born in Farnham Royal, which is in Buckinghamshire, north of a town called Slough. Slough itself is about 20 miles due west of London.

Andy Follows: 3:22

Okay. And I'm always fascinated because we don't get to choose where we're born or into what family circumstances, you know, that's the hand we're dealt. So I'm curious, what was your family situation? Like? Couple of things I like to know brothers and sisters. And what did you see your parents doing? What were they doing for work?

Martin Haley: 3:42

Your younger sister, three years younger than me. And my parents, my father was a schoolmaster at a grammar school. And my mother was a school teacher at a primary school nearby. Wow.

Andy Follows: 3:56

Okay, so quite academic setting, then So did your father teach a certain subject or was he across numerous?

Martin Haley: 4:03

Yeah, he was he's a geography teacher. And I did oh levels, which were around before GCSEs. And he was absolutely thrilled that I managed to fail my geography Oh, level, first time round. So yeah, that wasn't a great moment in the Haley household. I remember, my dad was very balanced chat, but I knew is really hacked off that I'd failed my job level. I didn't really sit it and I did pass it on the reset. And your mum, what was she teaching to talk to primary school children?

Andy Follows: 4:34

And so was there high expectations on you academically as a child?

Martin Haley: 4:39

Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, I think my parents thought I was bone idol, and could always do better. And your nine side I think there will probably write I didn't work as hard as I could have done throughout school when it was only really a level time where I thought oh, yeah, I quite fancy a bit in this university thing. That sounds quite good. I better get my finger out and work a bit harder. So I did.

Andy Follows: 5:03

Right. So that was the motivation. I mean, I often ask what would your teachers have said about you? It's interesting if your parents are also teachers, but would the teachers at school have concurred with your parents view that you pretty much yeah, yeah. Okay. And Were there particular subjects that started to appeal to you? Eventually,

Martin Haley: 5:23

I did maths, physics and economics at A level. And I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Obviously, the maths, maths links, both of them together, physics and economics are quite different. I've always been interested in mechanical things, and electronic things. So that's where the physics and part of the maths came into. And then I've always been interested in economics, both macro and micro economics,

Andy Follows: 5:51

right and out of class, what would we have found you doing?

Martin Haley: 5:54

So I was actively involved in my church. And my Christian faith is something which is very important to me and weaves its way right the way through everything I do, including my career. So as well as being involved with my church, I played the trombone and I played the trombone in two big bands, which was great. And I do like big band music, and the various ways it's morphed over time. And as we're recording this, they march 2024, Jools Holland, with Rod Stewart, their album is at number one in the album charts. And it's the first time there's been a big band of any sort at number one in the album charts for a gazillion years, which is very exciting.

Andy Follows: 6:36

Excellent. So you had music and you had your faith? Yeah. And where do you get the idea of that university from and that that will be good, and that that's why you should knuckle down.

Martin Haley: 6:45

Both my parents went into further education. And they felt I was capable of it. And I felt that I was as well. And it struck me as a good maturing time that I probably needed. And it was to go somewhere different to learn, be in a different environment, be your own person, reset, lots of things. So

Andy Follows: 7:05

where did you go? Where did you study?

Martin Haley: 7:07

I went to the University of Manchester. But before we get to university, yeah, I went to Burnham Grammar School. And I had some quite interesting colleagues, that grammar school. So in my year at grammar school was Ian Elliot, who's one of the founders of monster, the monster brand. I was also at primary school and grammar school with a guy who was born on the same day as me by the name of Mike Ashley. And I can remember when I was in the sixth form, I had a Saturday job in Marks and Spencers in Maidenhead. And Mike Ashley had his first shop, just down the road from Marks and Spencers in Maine had Mike Ashley sports in Maidenhead.

Andy Follows: 7:51

Right and say a little bit about where he went with his business.

Martin Haley: 7:55

He formed what has become well Sports Direct is one of his brands, I forget the name of his holding company, but gone on to be someone who has dominated the High Street and managed to buck the trend in terms of declining High Street business performance by having significant investment in high street brands, as well as successfully online as well.

Andy Follows: 8:22

Yeah, so a very successful retailer in the UK. I'm not sure if he's got Overseas Interests as well. But um,

Martin Haley: 8:29

throughout parts of Europe. Yeah. That was also two years ahead of Ulrika Johnson, she was in my sister's year at school as well. So

Andy Follows: 8:36

it was a celebrity hot pot.

Martin Haley: 8:38

So notable people who've come out of the school. Yeah. And they're all I mean, they're people I knew. And before my time, Tracy Ullman went to my school, and after my time, Jimmy Carr went to my school.

Andy Follows: 8:49

Wow, quite a, quite an illustrious alumni. Yeah. So that's the school piece. What about university and you went to Manchester University, or University of Manchester

Martin Haley: 9:00

Went to University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. So it is now the University of Manchester. Indeed, the science technology was part of the university but it was a separate University's own right as well. And I studied management sciences. So I've got a Bachelor of Science in Economics, which always makes me laugh, because I've always seen economics not really, as a science, it's more of an art but

Andy Follows: 9:22

and you said it was about growing up. And it was an important sort of transformative phase. And that worked out well. Was it a good time?

Martin Haley: 9:31

Yeah, pretty good time, mostly well behaved University made some great pals. Manchester is a city that I knew well, because we had relatives that lived nearby, so I wasn't a stranger to the city. But obviously, going to university you arrived with no baggage in the sort of metaphorical sense of the word people. See you as who you are. You're not carrying all the baggage you've had through your school life, and sort of kind of start to get in terms of the way people perceive you perceive you as a young adult, not a grown up five year old sort of thing, which is what tends to happen if you stay in the same place for at least four years.

Andy Follows: 10:10

Yeah, you do get it's like a fresh start and isn't it? And also surrounded by your peers, living with them. And yeah, totally immersed. And when you're going through your uni days, then did you have ideas about what a career would look like?

Martin Haley: 10:27

I chose Management Sciences because despite its name, only a small part of it was on operations researchers is what a lot of people would seem to be management science, awful lot of psychology and sociology, economics, accounting, economics, social history, all of which I found fascinating. I like to understand how situations have arisen. What is it that has got us to where we are now, because where we are now is always the start point for what we're going to do next. And so it's always useful to know what's got us to where we are now, before defining kind of where we want to get to, and how we're going to get there, not falling into the traps and the pitfalls of the past. Lost knowledge in the strengths that got us to where we are now as well. So yeah, I like the breadth of the course that sorts of attracts me to it. And I, in my mind relatively early on during my university career, decided that training to be a chartered accountant would be a good next step to consolidate business knowledge and understanding and give me options as to where I really, really wanted to go. So I completed my degree, I got a job with an accounting firm called Arthur young, which a few years later merged with Ernst and Whinney to form Ernst and Young, now known as the wife. But yeah, one of the predecessor firms.

Andy Follows: 11:58

Yeah, so a very sensible starting point, as you say, to consolidate what you've learned so far and have something valuable to show for it and practical, practical application of the theoretical that you'd learned.

Martin Haley: 12:10

However, it just didn't like it. That's all. So I've no clue what the setup is now. But in my day, you had to do a conversion course. And I did the conversion course and pass that. And as part of that you do a fair amount of law. So company law, contracts and taught and I love that I absolutely loved it. And so I managed to wangle a secondment, to help out the marketing director of one of the firm's larger clients. And then following that, I was appointed the Marketing Manager for the regional office that I was based in. And I did that role for a few years and then also got involved with some management consulting projects prior to then leaving to do an MBA.

Andy Follows: 13:05

So quite an early start into marketing. Yeah. And what was the motivation for doing an MBA,

Martin Haley: 13:13

just rewinding a little bit, doing the marketing role. It was at a time when accounting firms were incredibly heavily regulated as to advertising. And it was in the time when I started working for Arthur young, which became its was the late 80s. When that deregulation was gradually well back to more opportunity for accounting firms to advertise and be more open about their at their marketing. It seems bizarre now. But that was the case that there were huge restrictions on what accounting firms were allowed to do in terms of their marketing and promotion. So it's kind of Right Place Right Time. And having enjoyed maxing modules whilst did my undergraduate to study, I had a few friends who've done MBAs and I saw an MBA as the kind of stepping stone that would work for me to the kind of career I wanted, that I previously thought becoming a chartered accountant would have been for me, you know, the all the all these things are very personal decisions are whereas for me being an accountant wasn't the right thing. And an MBA is something that I felt would work for me.

Andy Follows: 14:28

See, you had an eye on a career in business and presumably at a reasonable level of seniority and saw either starting as an accountant that didn't turn out and I think this is fascinating, because until we actually try these things, how we don't know we do not know and it's you just got to go and try stuff.

Martin Haley: 14:47

I'm not dissing accountancy one bit. I have plenty of friends who have had rejoined careers who have started life as accountants, as well, but I reached a point where I thought maybe this isn't for me. And so did the MBA route. I did my MBA my MBA at Warwick Business School 1989 1990. And it's we're thinking back of it now. But this is pre internet, pre email. Well, well, well, pre smartphone. And so it's very interesting how the way of way of learning or the pedagogy has changed over the years with those interventions, you know, all the course materials were handed out on paper. And they didn't experiment that you could log in at one of the terminals and read the case study on that one of the terminals available to us within the computer suites. But most people just printed them off and took them home. So yeah, quite an interesting as some of the, you know, the real fundamentals of business that will change one bit, they just haven't changed in the same way, the way that we're humans and our, our psyche, and wherever psychology hasn't changed. We've got deeper understandings of it. But our brains haven't really made themselves over the last 30 years in the way technology has.

Andy Follows: 16:08

Now I also find that fascinating, and perhaps sometimes an assumption, or forgetting that we haven't

Martin Haley: 16:15

boots when it comes to organisational behaviour is fascinating, because the thinking has got deeper and deeper. And the nuances have got more obvious, but the fundamentals haven't changed because people behave pretty much in the same way, the same selfish motivations that they've always had, and how that drives an awful lot of behaviour.

Andy Follows: 16:36

Absolutely. So where does the MBA fit in terms of the chronology of being Arthur young and what happened next,

Martin Haley: 16:44

I left Arthur Young and self funded my way through the MBA. While I was the way Arthur young became Ernst and Young, and when I finished my MBA actually rejoined the then merged firm, but at a different office, this was in Redding I moved to, and I joined there mergers and acquisitions department, this was in 1990. And may well remember that it was a time of recession. And so there was very little normal mergers and acquisition business going on. But I've got involved in an awful lot of sales, that business and assets of businesses that have gone bust. And I find it really, really, really interesting, coming straight from the NBA, we talk a lot about the theory, and you look at real time case studies, to actually see it in action in front of you to see how businesses have been managed in such a way that had led to them going bust and and also seeing the the human impact of that as well, with business owners, you know, upset and staff losing jobs and, and really hard, bad side of it. So I think that had an impact on Yeah, and almost all of that in that time. It almost all of the businesses we were involved in, was sold as going concerns of some sort, which was good, not necessarily with the same staffing levels. But we did find homes for the business.

Andy Follows: 18:12

Sounds fascinating that you had that exposure very early in your career to the reality has that affected your approach to business.

Martin Haley: 18:21

I think it's helped me see the human side of it. I think it's helped me to see that having really good, tight controls within a business are important for me to be relatively conservative with financial control, and cash management. But Be bold with decision making. When it comes to new ideas, certainly not hiding from trying new ideas out, but having a very good idea upfront about how much it's going to cost and how much it's likely to yield in additional revenues or other business opportunities. And to be prepared to take the pump if the numbers add up. So not not risk averse at all, being prepared to have a bash. And in a way actually, oddly enough, it's helped me with my gut instinct. So someone who is quite data driven and factual driven and market information driven. I found particularly in my last role running red whale, which we're going to talk about, just have a sense about an idea that came up as to as he got legs or hasn't it? Or it's a bit marginal, say hypothetical idea is a bit marginal as proposed. However, it could enhance something else and add value to it and making a decision. Not ignoring kind of gut instinct.

Andy Follows: 19:52

Does an example come to mind?

Martin Haley: 19:55

Yes, we'll presumably talk about Red Whale later. Medical Education business that trained about half the UK's GP doctors in terms of keeping them up to date with all of the clinical and policy and guideline information that they needed. The business was entirely face to face and it's education. And in about 2017, we felt, yeah, there's perhaps more that could be done on the digital front. So we piloted some what we wanted to be highly engaging webinars. And to do that we built a small TV studio, we had no guarantee we get any revenue from this at all, but felt that because the way the market was going, that it was more and more of a need to do things online, but it had to be done in a way that was engaging. The rest is history, as they say for that because we built a TV studio, we then got a corporate customer to sponsor some paid for webinars, we progress with that. And then when COVID hit, we were able to pivot the entire business to be online, with a good quality TV strategy with good equipment with presenters who were trained to present to a TV camera rather than to a live audience. And with a technical team, who knew what they were doing in order to kind of make it happen at the appropriate level.

Andy Follows: 21:22

So your experience in those in the early 1990s, seeing the impact of the recession, the human impact, the business impact, it was valuable, it didn't stymie, it didn't constrain you, as an entrepreneur, or as a decision maker, or make you risk averse.

Martin Haley: 21:41

It's interesting, in hindsight, because oddly enough, I'm one of the last people I would have ever thought would be an entrepreneur, I thought that my career would be in the corporate world, but be in situations within the corporate world that allowed enterprise, the term that was used at the time was intrapreneur, that I've not heard it used at all, recently, and I did, I did have a certain degree of that, and I dealt with someone and talk about that. I'm an entrepreneur means risk taker. And I knew that in business, you have to take risks, but it was striking that balance between what the data was telling you and never having certainty. And so being a marketing man as well, you know, I took marketing decisions based on levels of certainty that around the 70% mark, whereas, medics and reports and research into medical procedures and pharmaceutical products, you know, they're up at, like, 99% confidence level. So I was used to making decisions based on 70 75% Plus gut feel plus, if it doesn't work, how much is this going to cost us?

Andy Follows: 22:55

Yeah, so you'd worked out what the impact would be, yeah.

Martin Haley: 22:58

But also keeping it light as well as the thing and really just doing very, very high level calculations to get rough ideas. I've seen so many times mega detailed business plans that go down into the last 50 P that are bonkers, because you're dealing with 10s of 1000s. and 50 P does not make any difference at all. But it's taken away that just general fear and sense of is this a good idea or not a good idea? If something is so marginal, it comes down to 50 p, then something's wrong. Somewhere, there should be a real sense of will that something is a good idea with talking in round 1000s than down to 50. B. Yeah. And I think I think a lot of organisations will tie themselves in knots over the depth of data, when what is required is a general sense that, yeah, I think that looking at the general data, I can see a trend in this market moving to there. And therefore, let's take a pan, and let's see how it goes. What what goes with that is the agility and the adaptability as well. So, you know, some of these companies that I've seen go bust for those that haven't adapted. One thing that has changed massively over the time of my career is the time that you do have to adapt is reduced massively. But with that, large organisations like Google, for example, have built agility into their old business modelling. And so I don't buy the argument that large major corporates can't be agile, because they can, but what it takes is being prepared to make decisions based on sensible direction of travel data, as opposed to in this analysis down to the last point 001%

Andy Follows: 24:54

I can imagine some entrepreneurial intrapreneurial corporate listeners nodding furiously and feeling somewhat frustrated if they're not in an organisation that has got that level of agility and adaptability built into it's decision making processes right now.

Martin Haley: 25:13

So erm one of the businesses that were involved in selling was in the vehicle leasing sector, and ended up getting a job with one of the less sores of vehicles to one of the companies were involved in, in dealing with and I worked with them for a while then worked for another vehicle leasing company, then joined BMW Group for quite a long stint 12 years I was at BMW Group,

Andy Follows: 25:43

because I was thinking people are listening to this and thinking, okay, so it was a why and ends up in our medical education, business. If they think that's quite unusual, they might not know you were an automotive guy in the middle.

Martin Haley: 25:59

Yeah, it's for me, it's completely logical process, you know, you sort of start off working in finance and advisory, then move into automotive then move into medical education. It's completely straight

Andy Follows: 26:12

the classic trifecta.

Martin Haley: 26:15

Yeah, it is so interesting how the basic principles of business apply, right the way through. And I do wonder if we lose a lot by being too sector specific. Sure, within any industry, there are contacts and networks. And that is important. I'm not ignoring that for one moment. But I think by the same token, some of the business basics can end up getting overlooked. Because of it being too sector specific. For example, I was on a call earlier today about a project I'm involved in, which is looking at strategy across complex systems. It's aimed predominantly at the healthcare market. Now, I've got some experience of a very small part of the healthcare market. So I can't speak with any authority about complexity of systems throughout the healthcare market. But I can speak with authority about complexity of systems across the automotive market, because manufacturing and funding cars is an amazingly complex process. And to actually see effective strategy implementation across that is almost like poetry in motion. And it is doable. And the principles are completely analogous to the healthcare sector, even though health care has a very different driver behind it, that it's in the UK, it's a Thai government funded, there's a passion on the individuals there to make people's lives better. So it's not a for profit organisation. However, the challenges that strategic level that are faced are exactly the same as they are in any major organisation. So yeah, remembering basic principles, whatever sector you're in, I think is absolutely fundamental. Hence, moving from these very different sectors to other sectors.

Andy Follows: 28:15

Yeah and a couple of points that you've made them really stuck with me so far, Martin, or this idea that humans haven't evolved, particularly, certainly not in the last 30 years. And business practices haven't really changed. So I'm wondering, when we think everything's changing, there's a certain core that isn't changing, and what percentage is left? And if we were able to establish that, then, yeah, I think there's probably some incorrect assumptions around how much is changing? That's a bold thing to say. But if we get carried away, because AI is, you know, rapidly developing, but human beings aren't actually developing at all, no, not on a noticeable pace, then that can't Stein these things. Potentially,

Martin Haley: 29:00

It does. but it means that the solutions at any point in time are always going to be different, because of the context that is around. You know, there are three elements. There's the context, there's the content, and there's the actual process. And some of those things will not move much over the course of several decades, others will have moved enormously. But I'll give you an example of something that hasn't changed. Introvert chief executives consistently outperform extrovert chief executives. There's a lot of studies on this, but what it essentially boils down to is that introverts are actually much better at listening to ideas from everybody. Whereas extroverts listen to themselves and tend to listen to the loud other people. And there's good evidence to say that good ideas within the organisational setting come from introverts and extroverts in equal measure.

Andy Follows: 29:56

Yeah, don't necessarily get heard in equal measure.

Martin Haley: 29:59

Don't get heard. They don't get given the space and they're get ignored and overlooked. And there's a huge amount of creativity which is just not used. And and further, the quiet voices just getting fed up and leave.

Andy Follows: 30:11

Very interesting. So it was through some of the work at what is now EY that you identified the first leasing opportunity or that first arose. Is there much in that early section? Or should we go to when you started at BMW or what what kind of

Martin Haley: 30:27

I worked for two vehicle leasing companies, I was headhunted to join BMW Group because in 1994, BMW bought Rover Group. And there was a thinking within BMWs corporate sales operation that a multi Mark leasing company could gain customers and offer any make or model of vehicle. But because BMW and rover had between them a pretty good range, that that could be the catalyst for opening up another sales channel. So I joined around that time as the second employee for business which became alphabet, which some people may be familiar with. So already in place, there was the managing director, I joined as marketing manager, there was a chap on Sir Coleman from Rover Group who can offer sales. And we built UK business from there. In my time at BMW, I work work within alphabet, both in the UK and then rolling the business out across Europe. And I had some great bosses that BMW Group, one of them is a very well connected German lady who said that in order to develop your career, you're going to have to do a sales job. It was a marketing man and business strategy, man. So I was given this this sales job, I did it for a year. I don't think I was very good. But I had a very good team. I had a team of people who probably knew more about what was going on, and how to do it than I did. But I was very grateful for having a good team and for having that that experience. So Andy, that was a time Euro BMW Group. I wonder if you could remember anybody who might have been in that team.

Andy Follows: 32:10

That would have been myself and Nigel Staniland I think.

Martin Haley: 32:14

It was. Andy worked for me. And he was brilliant.

Andy Follows: 32:20

I'm liking the direction this goes this is going in.

Martin Haley: 32:26

As was Nigel. I had these two great people who really knew what was going on and me trying to learn and follow very, very quickly. I think the single skill I brought the table was being able to manage upwards, because I knew quite a lot of people quite well upwards to allow Andy and Nigel to get on with selling and account management.

Andy Follows: 32:47

Yeah, there was a reason why you were put in that position, and not not Nigel or I. So there was a leadership and a strategic contribution, I'm sure. And I remember you being a continuous learner. And I remember you approaching it as a learning exercise. And not only would you read a book, but you would read a book in chapters, and you would pause after each chapter for a week or so to practice that chapters, content and the suggestions which I found unusual and admirable, and inspiring and interesting behaviour. And that stayed with me ever since. So, you might not have felt like that was your natural place to be, but you threw yourself into mastering it. And

Martin Haley: 33:35

I learned a lot in that time because you learn so much more when you're challenged, and so much more when stuff goes wrong. And I thought we worked very well as a team. Probably there are several things I did learn there. I learned that sales is a process, really at firsthand. I also learn to challenge conventional wisdom as well, which I think is very important. I do not accept the argument. We do it this way, because we've always done it this way. It may be absolutely right that nothing changes. And in any change discussion, do nothing is always an option. However, it must be considered as an option, not as mandatory. And one thing stood out and I haven't you may reminisce Andy when we when we recruited. We had these really quite extensive assessment centres, and we had people doing team and group work. But we had these psychometric tests, looking at various different things. And I remember there there was an overall psychometric one, there was a maths one and there was an English language one. And I was intrigued as to how effective these were at predicting future performance. And so I've got everybody who was in the sales and the account management teams he'd been with the company longer than a year to do these tests. Again, I've got the test results of those who had done it within the last year. And I look at these test results, combined with their individuals actual performance, and the correlation, or lack of it, I found astonishing. And then I started pressing back and saying to the HR department, well, why, why don't you this maths test? And I thought it's obvious because it's vehicle finance, etc. And I said, Yeah, but what's it really testing and they said, this, this, this and this, and I remember discussing it with you and Nigel, me agreeing that what this was testing was less than 5%, of what someone's job was. And yet we'd rejected people on assessment centres because they'd failed that test. And to sort of thinking otherwise, no one looked at this before, I also remember it. So in the psychology tests, they did not quite know which one it was, there were, I don't know, 25 measures that you've got an indicator on. And there was something like five of these measures, were consistent across all of the top performing people in the sales team. And when you drill down, you can kind of reason why. So we then started using that as our basis for recruiting going forward. It's a pretty concrete example of challenging the conventional wisdom. And again, looking at the human factor, there are people who we'd rejected because they'd failed this maths test than who probably would have been very good. I also remember I'm not. And you may recall them, they're not going to mention the name. But there was one individual who were all really, really, really, really impressed with the assessment centre, who failed the maths test. And we said to HR, no stuff it, we're recruiting that person, and they were brilliant. And so you felt vindicated? You're so later when we did this exercise to realise that the maths tests have no bearing on the job whatsoever.

Andy Follows: 36:59

It's such a Martin thing to do to actually get the people retested a year in that's your your way of thinking. You're data driven. So you must have had a hunch, yeah, hypothesis, and then to then go to the trouble of actually,

Martin Haley: 37:15

It works, it works at all levels. Well, you know, we weren't going to fire anybody because they did rubbish on the test that they'd done well, year before. But I like looking for trends. And again, you know, I'm not a pure scientist, because a pure scientist would want 95 or 99% confidence. Whereas if something looks like about 70% ish, as I've said before, I think you're I think that constitute a trend, really, and what it also did, we are going back to these five measures on the psychology test, indicated certain behaviours that we could then reverse engineer into some training for people as well for the people who didn't have it. And so it wasn't a you've got this or you haven't innately It was these things are trainable. And then when you point out, you know, these are the qualities that the top performers have got. So looking at it purely from an evidence based point of view. I've also found this approach really good when working with doctors when it comes to change management as well, because doctors are intellectual. If you challenge them with a verbal argument, they can easily win circumstances, if you challenge them with the data, they're much more likely to buy into the argument, not to say, this is the data. So we must do this, but this is the data. What do you think? Or if you can say that, organisations that outperform others do this, then you think that's worth a go? type thing. So it is hearts and minds? You know, you have to use the mind a bit with the data, but the heart bit when it comes down to how you actually sell that idea.

Andy Follows: 38:55

Let me take a moment to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by ASKE Consulting who are experts in Executive Search, Resourcing Solutions and Talent Management across all sectors of the automotive industry in the UK and Europe. I’ve known them for almost 20 years, and I can think of no more fitting sponsor for CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. They're the business we go to at Aquilae when we're looking for talent for our clients and for projects that we're working on. ASKE was founded by Andrew McMillan whose own automotive career includes board level positions with car brands and leasing companies. All ASKE consultants have extensive client-side experience which means they bring valuable insight and perspective for both their employer and candidate customers. My earliest experience of working with Andrew was in 2004 when he helped me hire Regional Managers for my leasing sales team at Alphabet. More recently, when Aquilae was helping a US client to establish a car subscription business, ASKE Consulting was alongside us helping us to develop our people strategy and identify and bring on board suitable talent. Clients we've referred to ASKE have had an equally positive experience. Andrew and the team at ASKE are genuinely interested in the long-term outcomes for you and the people they place with you. They even offer the reassurance of a 2-year performance guarantee which means they have‘skin in the game’ when working with you. If you're keen to secure the most talented and high potential people to accelerate your business and gain competitive advantage, do get in touch with them and let them know I sent you. You can email Andrew and the team at hello@askeconsulting.co.uk or check out their website for more details and more client feedback at www.askeconsulting.co.uk . ASKE is spelt A S K E You’ll find these contact details in the shownotes for this episode. Ok, let’s get back to our episode. So you said you did that for a year? And then what what did you do after that?

Martin Haley: 40:57

I moved into a role that was looking at strategy and corporate development across all of BMW Financial Services businesses within the UK. So this was a step away from the fleet finance to corporate customers into much more into the retail finance arena. So at that time, BMW had its core business of funding BMW vehicles at this time. rover was in the process of being divested. So it was there for the entire life of rover, being part and then not being part of BMW Group. So it's the core vehicle finance, also some retail finance products and personal banking products. Still some overall responsibility for fleet finance, but also retail finance of non BMW vehicles as well. So a number of different business areas, and having the strategic oversight for those, which was a fascinating job.

Andy Follows: 41:56

Can you remember how you viewed your how far ahead? Were you looking along your career journey? Did you have a longer term vision? Or were you happy as long as you are engaged and fulfilled and getting growth from what you were doing and finding it stimulating? Were you looking sort of one job at a time? Or what do you remember from that?

Martin Haley: 42:14

That's a good question. And I think in answering that, for me, I also have to take into account other factors. So at that point, adverts for young family, to boys and daughter, the boys both at university and my daughter in the lower six now. And I'd become aware that in order to progress in the organisation, some form of international assignment was probably going to be necessary. And I didn't mind that I had done short term overseas placements. But at routing a family at a time when children were going to school more often, I felt that wasn't the right time. So that's ultimately what led me to leave BMW Group and family medical education business. But at the point where I took the strategy role, I did that role for him for years, I thought this is a great role and a great opportunity to do something I've kind of wanted to do for ages. Because you know, when you do an MBA, there's a lot of talk about strategy, and organisational direction and all this sort of stuff. And yet most people leave and go into line management jobs, because you don't really hands on influence strategy till you've had a bit more experience. So to get to a point where I could try some of this stuff that I'd learned at business school, I thought there was a great opportunity, I really, really relish that. And the guy was working for at the time, I really, really liked his management style. And that was a key part of it for me as well, because I remember him saying to me said, Look, you know, you're the expert in this field, you tell me what we should be doing, you advise me, they will ultimately take a decision. And if it disagree with you, I will, but I'm going to take your counsel. And I know he said that to all of his direct reports. And I thought, Wow, what a leadership style that is sort of that kind of humble, servant leadership style, really, you know, I think that had a huge impact on me, because definitely running red whale, I would describe what I did, as at one end of the spectrum, setting the vision and this where we wanted to get to enthusing about that and getting people to buy into it. But at the other end of the spectrum, making sure they have everything they need in order to help achieve that vision. There's a wide team and that could be a laptop, or it could be management training, or it could be the right team or all of those things. So I really felt I was operating at both ends of the spectrum there. And I am quite sure that was inspired by a chap who was my boss when I was doing the strategy role because he saw himself as surrounded by experts who were all much better than him. Their individual bit but his He wants to lead the team.

Andy Follows: 45:02

And we like to celebrate leaders like that we like to name them.

Martin Haley: 45:06

Keith Dye. Fantastic bloke. I'm sure some people who listen to our podcasts will know Keith Dye.

Andy Follows: 45:12

I'm pretty sure they will, too.

Martin Haley: 45:15

I could come up with a whole list of good leaders, I had to work with a BMW. But in terms of shouting out, Keith, I think he was the one that had the single biggest influence on shaping my leadership style. Keith was also a calculated risk taker within the corporate environment, he would be prepared to push boundaries he was a great believer in, it's easier to get forgiveness than permission, which is a mantra I've definitely taken on. Not not in not in all terms at all. Obviously, we get into deep trouble. But in fact, that was only relatively recently that my children realise that it's easy to get forgiveness and permission isn't in the Bible is obviously used so often, that within the context of encouraging people to push boundaries, and be aware of what could happen as a result of taking a risk is fine, is it people take risks without really thinking through what the consequences are that I do start to lose a bit of patience. And likewise, with people who work for me always encouraged people to learn from mistakes, someone makes a mistake, that's fine. Learn from it. If people make the same mistake consistently, I then tend to get well irritated.

Andy Follows: 46:33

You said, it was realising that you'd have to have an international assignment at some point if you wanted to progress within BMW Group, and that not fitting with your family situation that ultimately led to you moving on. So should we go there now and the thought process and how

Martin Haley: 46:50

I spoke to begin about my Christian faith, and how I can see my faith weaving its way through my career, I can recall quite clearly driving up to a BMW conference with someone more senior than me in BMW. And that person had worked internationally for BMW, both in the regions and in the headquarter in Germany. And they were saying that you really have to do an international assignment to move on. I mean, I kind of knew that. But the timing of this is interesting. And I had been considering these things in a prayerful manner. And on the way back from this conference, I travelled back on my own, and it's beginning of the school holidays, and that my wife and my children were at my sister in law's house, which was on the way back from where I happened to be travelling. So I just called in, and my sister in law said, I've been thinking about starting a business doing medical education for GPS based on some other work that I've done, to which I replied, okay, then I'll help with the business side of it. And that conversation was the essence that gave rise to what became Red Whale. So it was on the same day or the day following having this discussion with someone who had basically said that if I wanted to progress, I'd students not an assignment, which I wasn't particularly excited about doing. So I think, I think the timing of that was something not to be ignored. So we founded the business. This is in 2007. And again, I owe an awful lot to Keith Dye because he had to give me permission to be involved in a another business, which I'm not sure I would have got from other managers, because I was working for him at the time, he gave that to me, which meant we could start the business. And then 18 months later, Financial Services Division announced a voluntary redundancy programme. At the time, I'd realised that the medical education business could actually get quite big. It was announced in the morning, I just happened to be meeting my wife for lunch, I think probably the only time because of young children that I had arranged to meet her for lunch, while I was working at BMW Group, because she was travelling past without children. And so basically, at lunchtime discussion was, Do you think I should take it and she looked at me, as if I was completely stupid for even asking the question. She said, Yes, of course, she shifts. So those two things that happen and the timing, I just couldn't ignore that. So I left BMW Group under the voluntary redundancy programme, and then really launched full on into what became Red Whale.

Andy Follows: 49:35

And you started a does sound the timing was all very helpful, isn't it? Really, very complimentary set of circumstances. And then we talked about how you pivoted the business during COVID. But there's 13 years before then isn't there of developing that business? What were some of the notable learnings and moments from that?

Martin Haley: 49:57

I clocked very early on on how scalable our business was very high investment, intellectual property to develop course materials meant having to eke out as much of return as that as possible. So basically chopping content and packaging it into various different shapes, various different groups that have been courses in kind of different ways introducing new courses around the core general update course. So, understanding return on investment, be it in such property investment was very important. I also, from the beginning, I was very blessed with the two other shareholders, it was my sister in law and GP partner in practice. And basically, we divided the responsibilities that they're in charge of the content, I'm in charge of the commercial side. And so we didn't kind of get involved in each other's areas, and so played to our strengths. And obviously, controls and balances had to be in place on both sides for the financial controls, and their quality control in terms in the search box we were producing. But at all, because of the scalability, I'd always set out to run the business as a small, big business. And I'll give an example of that, that we outsource as much as possible, I learned a huge amount about outsourcing from BMW, an enormous amount. And so when it came to inbound telephone call handling, where I think a lot of small business, we would just think about recruiting someone, I went out and found a very niche telephone call handling agency and got them to handle all of our inbound telephone calls. And bearing in mind, this was 2008 2009. So online booking and stuff was nowhere near what it is now, people would ring up and want to click on courses. And all of that had to be handled. And I did a training session for the team that were allocated that call handling agency for this, because that's what we did at BMW, we trained about maintaining the brand values, how to handle a customer and how to use how to do that. And it was a half day session. And at the end of it, the manager of that department said none of our customers have ever done anything like this before. I don't think you'd be How on earth can you put your public face of the business to someone else and not give them that training to do. And so that I'll give that as one of the several examples of how we outsource we outsource our conference management to a company that were very specialised in it. Because the events tended to happen in batches through the year rather than a consistent level or to the year because then people don't go on courses in December and beginning of January. They don't own courses, ovaries don't go in courses over the summer holidays. And so it was a bit bonkers to have the team of people whose job it was to manage the courses to have them in house because they'd have to have other jobs to do. And then those jobs wouldn't happen when they were out doing the courses. So we outsourced it to specialists who had a whole team of people who, again understood our values and could do all of this stuff. When it comes to the presenters. And that's presenting face to face and latterly, to TV. I wanted that to always be a core competence of the business. And I also wanted the old TV production to be a core competency of the business that didn't want that outsourced. Because it was such an important part of what we did. We wanted to have control over it, not just the control of making sure the output was good, technically, but that the creative control was optimised as well, by having people who were vested in the company.

Andy Follows: 53:41

On that topic. I think there's we we've talked about it a number of times, Martin and I suspect, you know, I imagine this is something you brought to the business was the real desire for the content to be engaging, absolutely, and even entertaining. And we've discussed the original video arts business that John Cleese owned and sold, which was all the management training videos when I was a lad. Were from there. So you had that idea, didn't you? You wanted to be bringing that to GPs.

Martin Haley: 54:11

I kind of really wanted us. But I wanted the business to use humour in education to help make it engaging in the same way that video Arts did. And bearing in mind that the courses we ran on, still run there six hours long, and people will sit at home glued to their laptop for six hours or three hours out for lunch three hours afterwards, because they're engaging. And there's an awful lot of lessons that we learned through that. I think the overriding lesson was Do not think in terms of how do you make your face to face coursework online. But think how do you make good TV? So we thought, right, what long TV programmes are they're the only things we could think of were grandstand as was and things like comic relief. And they're all a mixture of pre recorded segments, live segments, and studio segments. We thought, right, that's how you make it interesting, then you break it up, you know different things. And that's what we do,

Andy Follows: 55:12

and very successful. And is it too soon to, or is now the right time to talk about recent events towards the end of the Red Whale story as far as you're concerned?

Martin Haley: 55:22

Yeah, it's public knowledge, we sold the business to the medical defence union, who are one of the indemnity providers for doctors within the UK to become a benefit to their membership. And we were particular about who we wanted the business to be sold to, we use it that's not meant to sound at all arrogant, it's it's, we use the phrase curated. Because there are a lot of special things that make the output the way it was, that we wanted to be quite sure that any future curator of the business got that because if they didn't, there was a risk, it could be destroyed. And absolutely, certainly, the new owners aren't maintaining the way content is produced in pretty much exactly the same way. And so I completely believe the business will continue to go from strength to strength, I thoroughly enjoyed running it for 16 years, but there's always gonna be a time to move on and time for younger talent with more energy to take it to the next level. The CEO was recruited from within, and those who studied the arguments will know that CEOs recruited from within outperformed CEOs who are brought in from outside.

Andy Follows: 56:40

So it bodes well for the future of Red Whale,

Martin Haley: 56:43

Sure,

Andy Follows: 56:44

Under new ownership, and what about.

Martin Haley: 56:48

So now I've over the course of the last year took a course in executive coaching, because I'd always been fascinated by coaching as a skill. I had experience of management consulting, early in my career, and so had some skills in terms of advisory, but coaching is quite different. And I now work my area that I love working in is to do with effective strategy implementation, and coaching or mentoring managers and leaders in that area. Because the definition I use the strategy and I use this strategy when I was at BMW was, it's the how we get to where we want to get to. And most strategic failings are because of the implementation, not because the strategy itself is flawed, but the seeds of strategies failure are sown at the kickoff meeting, the off site with the team are even going to start thinking about it. And I will very happily go through the evidence for that with anybody who's interested, because there are so many pitfalls. But once you know them they're easy to avoid.

Andy Follows: 58:03

And it is again reminding me of the human element.

Martin Haley: 58:06

Sure.

Andy Follows: 58:06

in that implementation, and the psychology, the behavioural preferences, all these things that, like it or not, they're going to have a significant impact.

Martin Haley: 58:16

They will, it is both hearts and minds. And I think something I'm able to do is operate and be quite literal, which is a great way of cutting the rubbish out of the way. But then also, looking at it from a human point of view, as well. And trying to understand why some of the rubbish is there in the first place. You can't do one without the other. But understanding the factors that stop things happening or make things go wrong, I've found incredibly interesting. So I'm gonna give you example, actually, if you've got a senior management team, and you have eight people on your team, so you're the chief executive got eight people on your team? Would you like to hazard a guess that how many of those people you need to have on side for the strategy to succeed?

Andy Follows: 59:07

Oh, wow, I'll hazard a guess I'm going to say six,

Martin Haley: 59:11

it is actually just under seven, you can only have one person against if you have more than one person, again, sort of strategy will fail. And so early on in the strategy process, if there is one of the senior managers oviya eight isn't buying into it, they need to buy into it, or they need to seek external career development.

Andy Follows: 59:34

It's an interesting message for people in that situation now who might not want to face the difficult conversation with that individual or tackling that problem. But if you know for sure that your whole strategy is going to fail, you will fail

Martin Haley: 59:48

it will fail. It will fail. It sounds harsh, but it will and this is where I mean Andy and I have had several discussions about the Lencioni model and how important trust is amongst teams. And this kind of plays into this as well very, very much. But then don't ignore these statistics. If you have got a management team of less than eight, and one is against them, it's even worse, you pretty much have to get to consensus. And if you can't get to consensus, people have to go. Because at the end of the day, you're the chief executive, you're the one who's got to make it work. And if if you've got people who are against it, then that means we dealt with, I mean, let's put this into context. This is someone who's against it, having been through all of the analysis, and the data, and the concepts and everything is still against it. And everyone else is persuaded that it is the right thing to do. So yeah,

Andy Follows: 1:00:46

very interesting. And a very valuable point.

Martin Haley: 1:00:48

There are a lot more pitfalls from where they come from. And I'm very happy that anybody will listen about those.

Andy Follows: 1:00:55

So if people we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes to the episode, Martin, and if people having heard your story, are getting a sense that actually here's is a pretty sensible chap, who has had an interesting grounding in different disciplines and has then stepped out of the corporate world and been a successful entrepreneur built up a scalable business and pivoted to online, done all of the topical things, if you like, and then successfully exited from that business. If they want to get some of your guidance and advice, then they can reach out to you. Yeah,

Martin Haley: 1:01:32

It was it was working with my clinical colleagues, that demonstrated the value of using evidence in business arguments, or business proposals. Because, you know, if you're dealing with intellectual people, they will look at the evidence, and it may help them change their mind. But medics do this all the time. You know, the whole world of medicine is based on the latest research and innovation that says that, you know, if you combine this drug with these other two drugs, it has an effect that is a bazillion times better than the three of them added together individually sort of thing. And so the whole world of medicine is about the clinical evidence. And I thought, Well, why not use the same process in the way we manage the business as well, that's pretty much that's what we did at BMW. A lot of the academic papers that I quote today are ones which I was using when I was at BMW. And an interesting I spent, I spent a day in the business school library last week, to see if there had been any later publications of some of these things or other other pieces of literature produced that kind of contradicted or enhanced any of these old papers and their arm. This goes back to what you're saying right at the beginning as beings, and the way we operate psychologically, not a lot has changed over the course of the last 30 or 40 years, our understanding of why we do it has changed enormously. But the way we do it not much at all.

Andy Follows: 1:03:08

No over the air updates for us, I'm afraid

Martin Haley: 1:03:12

Absolutely

Andy Follows: 1:03:13

Still on the same operating system that we we came with.

Martin Haley: 1:03:17

Yeah.

Andy Follows: 1:03:18

Is there anything I haven't asked you, Martin, that means I've missed an opportunity to uncover yet another jam.

Martin Haley: 1:03:24

One thing that comes up a lot, in particularly strategy work, is the word culture or organisational culture. And I really dislike its use. We produced a management education programme for medics, eight or nine years ago now, and I banned its use. The reason I banned its use was that culture is almost always perceived as something that individuals have no influence over. And the truth of the matter is, it is the combined influence of everybody that creates the culture. And using other phraseology like the way we do things, is a much more positive way of framing it in such a way that individuals feel they can shape it rather than be dictated by it. So beware of the term organisational culture. Something that's linked to that is that organisational structure must always be driven by a strategy. If your strategy changes, you have to change the structure. Because what's the point of having a structure that's in place to serve the previous strategy, and within structure, culture is part of that. And so, it could well be that you have to as a manager, engineer, a form of culture change in order to retrieve your strategy. You can't assume that the existing culture is one that will work with the new strategy. So use terminology Do you then have actions and measures in place that actively drive a change in the way things happen? And that has to start at the top. And so we mentioned Keith di, earlier, using the strategy reporting that we had, that the time, and kids very humble servant leadership style, we found that the business management meetings became much more focused on helping the members of the team who were behind with their strategic objectives, and working as a team to solve those problems, then everybody just reporting on how well everything was going in their areas, even if it wasn't quite as good as perhaps they wanted it to be seen. So Keith's style, help drive that culture change.

Andy Follows: 1:05:58

That makes a lot of sense. And because you are obviously so passionate to the extent of banning yet, I was wondering what you were going to say, because in our model, the the Fulfilling Performance framework, we have one of the fundamental contributing factors to performance being Culture. But we're very specific as we are with all of our fundamentals. And the question that we use to explain what we mean by the label of culture is, how is the behaviour of the people around you supporting you to perform at a high level?

Martin Haley: 1:06:34

I'm completely fine with that when that's clear, but it's interesting that you asked someone, what is culture? In the same way if you ask them what is strategy? And they kind of struggled to define it. And I think that vagueness doesn't help if you put a label on it, like for me, strategy is the how you get to where you want to get to, which is not my definition, it's one that I've read. And I think yeah, that's I can sign up to that, that makes an awful lot of sense to me, in the same way, that your definition of culture is quite empowering. It's the use of culture in a disempowering sense that I just didn't like and felt had no place in a strategy driven organisation.

Andy Follows: 1:07:18

And as is also able to change because if your strategy changes, and then you ask how is the behaviour of the people around you, supporting you to perform at high level, clearly, that behaviour might have to be different from what it was before, because we now need it. We're on a different strategy. Anyway, fascinating conversation been an absolute pleasure, Martin, thank you for sharing so many things. I mean, not all that you've learned over the years, because you will have learnt heaps more as well. But thank you for sharing those highlights. And, yeah, thank you very much again for joining me.

Martin Haley: 1:07:50

Thank you very much for having me, Andy.

Andy Follows: 1:07:56

You've been listening to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR with me, Andy Follows depending on your unique life experience, where you find yourself right now and your personal goals, you'll have your own takeaways from Martin's story. Some elements that stood out for me were that whilst he had academic parents, he was not as hard working as he could have been at school. He got his act together when he decided he would like to go to university. He thought he'd like to be an accountant. But once he tried it realised that he didn't although he did enjoy the law content. His realisation that if he wasn't going to be a chartered accountant, having an MBA could present another route into business, having the opportunity to learn the realities of business in an m&a role in the early 1990s. Getting into marketing as the opportunities for accounting firms to market their services expanded. From there finding a way into vehicle leasing with a couple of different businesses and then into BMW as Alphabet's employee number two, Continuing in marketing until being advised that he'd need some sales experience to progress. Thriving under the leadership of Keith Dye the then CEO of BMW Financial Services in the UK. The reality of needing to go on an international assignment to progress, coinciding with his sister in law's idea to start a business educating medical GPS, and with a voluntary redundancy programme at BMW Financial Services, founding Red Whale in 2007, and using his capabilities to scale that business, and eventually make a successful exit in 2023. Now Martin is making all his experience and capability available to others who want to avoid some of the potentially critical but easily avoidable pitfalls when implementing strategy. If you'd like to connect with Martin we'll put his contact details in the show notes to this episode. If you enjoy listening to my guest's stories, please could you do me a favour and share an episode with someone your lead parent or mentor or perhaps a friend of yours who you think would also enjoy listening? Thank you to Martin for joining me for our conversation. Thank you to our sponsors for this episode, ASKE Consulting and Aquilae and thank you to the Career-view Mirror team without whom we wouldn't be able to share our guests' life and career stores and above all, thank you to you for listening.