Derren Young: the engineer, fixer and HR leader helping others to find great outcomes across multiple industries including gaming and music.

In this episode we are celebrating the career to date of Derren Young.

With almost three decades working in the field of HR, Derren has worked with some of the biggest media & entertainment brands, such as EA Games, Universal Music and England Rugby, across all aspects of people management globally. 

He describes himself as an engineer and a fixer first with an ability to help define and manage critical processes and complex challenges; whether difficult negotiations, employee relations or re-organisations.  But he's also an HR leader who wants to help individuals, leaders and organisations find great outcomes.

More recently he has held senior roles in private equity backed businesses, broadening his portfolio to include handling Environment, Social and Governance (or ESG) compliance and initiatives.  Recently impacted by AI, he has been taking time to research and understand the practical and ethical impact new technologies could have on both HR and on businesses more broadly.

In our conversation we talk about how he managed to navigate his way through a tough school environment in the North East of England and his early aspirations towards a military career which sadly didn't go to plan. Derren shares how it was a chance invitation to join an HR team that set him off on his amazing career.

Along the journey, not every move was for the best and we discuss how he encountered organisations with very different approaches to developing people.

And we end with his current exploration into AI with MIT in order to understand and leverage for good its likely impact on the world of Human Resources.

I enjoyed learning about Derren's life and career so far and am pleased to be able to share his story with you.

Connect with Derren on LinkedIn: Derren Young

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Episode recorded on 29 September 2023.

Transcript

Derren Young: 0:00

But I made a massive error because the people I was talking to I was, you know, Rolls Royce British Aerospace governments. I was party to quite a lot of sensitive information. And they insisted that the university when I published my dissertation didn't put it in the university library. And they did and they put it online. So, someone might come and kill me.

Aquilae: 0:28

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: 0:59

Hello, listeners, Andy here. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate that you do. We're also very grateful for our guests who generously joined me to create these episodes so that we can celebrate their careers, listen to their stories and learn from their experiences. And this episode, we're celebrating the career to date of Derren Young. With almost three decades working in the field of HR. Derren has worked with some of the biggest media and entertainment brands such as EA games, Universal Music and England rugby across all aspects of people management globally. He describes himself as an engineer and a fixer first with an ability to help define and manage critical processes and complex challenges, whether difficult negotiations employee relations or reorganisations, but he's also an HR leader who wants to help individuals, leaders and organisations find great outcomes. More recently, he's held senior roles in private equity backed businesses, broadening his portfolio to include handling environment, social and governance or ESG compliance and initiatives. Recently impacted by AI. He's been taking time to research and understand the practical and ethical impact new technologies could have on both HR and on businesses more broadly. In our conversation, we talked about how he managed to navigate his way through a tough school environment in the Northeast of England and his early aspirations towards a military career, which sadly didn't go to plan. Derren shares how it was a chance invitation to join an HR team that set him off on his amazing career. Along the journey. Not every move was for the best, and we discuss how he encountered organisations with very different approaches to developing people. And we end with his current exploration into AI with MIT. In order to understand and leverage for good, its likely impact on the world of human resources. I enjoyed learning about Derren's life and career so far, and I'm pleased to be able to share his story with you. Hello, Derren, and welcome and where are you coming to us from today?

Derren Young: 2:51

So Andy, lovely to see you. I'm in Twickenham in southwest London,

Andy Follows: 2:55

the home of English rugby of yours, which does feature might feature in your story. It really. So thank you very much for joining me. Where did your journey start though? Where were you born?

Derren Young: 3:09

So I was born in Teesside in Stockton. But I'm a Newcastle fan. So that just kind of we've always had this tension when he grew up in Durham and the Northeast. Are you a maxim? Are you a smokey or a Geordie?

Andy Follows: 3:25

What on earth does that mean?

Derren Young: 3:27

So George is a Newcastle maqams of Sunderland because he used to Mack boats Makeham. And then smog is Middlesboro because of all the chemical plants. So technically, I was born in the area where the smog is a from. I grew up in Durham, which is a beautiful historic city with so much history. But I always identified as being a god and I lived in Newcastle for a period of time as well. My mum was a musician, and then a nurse. And then she worked in the local betting shop to kind of keep us going. My dad's always a musician, and he's Scottish from Glasgow. And so my name derives from the young clan in southwest Scotland. So I always had this kind of proud connection to the northeast in Durham, but also to Scotland. And then I think the one thing I want to mention is my granddad Ted, because my dad was always touring because he's a musician. What did he play? He played drums. He still does, but he's kind of getting on a bit now. And so I spent every weekend with my grandma and granddad Ted and now and my granddad was a my mind. An absolute war he served in the army. He got captured at Dunkirk while he was serving the 330 1000s of other soldiers to escape. He fought with his bare hands and he spent six years in a prisoner of war camp. And I just spent every weekend and every minute I could with him and my grandma they With the richest, the most inspirational people you could have had. Yeah.

Andy Follows: 5:05

And how did that come across? So his experiences absolutely incredible. How did they come across in his character,

Derren Young: 5:12

he was very disciplined. His hair was always immaculate. He always worked Thai and smart slack stuff. And I mean, like anyone who went through the Second World War or any war, he was very reluctant to share his story. And so on a Saturday afternoon, he used to go for a walk with the other gentleman of the village. And occasionally you get like a glimpse into what their lives have been. But it was when I went to school, we had this English assignment to explore the Second World War. And I didn't know anyone who experienced it apart from Ted. So there was one Tuesday afternoon, I got back to school, went over to see my grandma and grandpa, they obviously have a fairy cake and a cup of tea. And he spent two hours just telling me, it's been like this conversation telling me everything that happened. And I wrote it down. And then the following week, I went to my English class. And I just read exactly what he said. But it took me an hour to explain it. I'm the only person he talked to about his experience. And it was, it wasn't quite like the greatest scape. It was, it was pretty brutal. But yeah, I just felt really privileged to have their time with him. But he trusted me with his story. And that's been sorry, it's been my inspiration for like, wow,

Andy Follows: 6:40

I can imagine and you spent because your parents were musicians, they were off performing during stuff. Yes. Yeah. So you were spent a lot of time with your grandparents in Durham. This is Yes, that's right. Yes. Yeah. And just to complete the picture, what did your mom play? Or what was her musical?

Derren Young: 7:01

She was a singer, but having heard her sing now. I think she probably was pretty terrible. Oh, she's gonna watch this isn't she

Andy Follows: 7:15

might have just switched off? I by Barron's mom. Yes. Yeah. So do you have brothers and sisters? Yeah, I've

Derren Young: 7:23

got a younger sister Cherie. It was wonderful. She's six years younger than me, but and then my parents split when I was 12. She was six. And I think she's also going to listen to this, that I've always played this interesting role in her life. So yes, I'm a brother. But I think I'm also a father figure and a friend. I've never kind of found out the right moment which role I need to play with her. So I feel like I always get it wrong. But I get it right sometimes, as well. But yeah, it's a kind of fascinating relationship. And we obviously grew up in Durham. She went to Newcastle University. Then a few years ago, her husband moved here to Twickenham. So they live around the corner, and then we convinced my mum to move down to Twickenham as well. So you all live within a mile radius of each other? No,

Andy Follows: 8:15

that's cool. And what about school then? Derren, how were you? You've mentioned already your assignment for history. But what other subjects did you like doing and how were your school? Yes.

Derren Young: 8:29

So my school was a place called spennymoor, which is near Bishop Auckland. And it was pretty rough. There's quite a lot of poverty, there's quite a lot of violence. So our friends got into scrapes, and ended up with horrible injuries. So I found school, I loved it. But it was a really tough environment to learn. And so I did maths, economics, geography, but I really focused in design technology and electronics. And then I played on the football team play basketball, made some wonderful friends. But it was, it was a tough environment to really focus on your education, because of all of the it was in the kind of 80s this culture of gangs. And so there was always this kind of threat of physical violence, which I kind of just detested. And it just got my head down. But there was some amazing teachers there who, despite all of that, they did a great job, given the resources and the culture that so

Andy Follows: 9:36

looking back now you can articulate that, if you like, at the time when you haven't been to any other schools when you haven't got any other union or your own experience. Don't where you, you know, how much awareness did you have of it? Yeah, it's

Derren Young: 9:53

really interesting. So we grew up in this small village and then we had to get bused to the comprehensive school so it was six mile miles away. So it's, you know, an hour to get there and back every day in in the winter was pretty brutal because we have proper winters in the north. But there was this boy, I grew up with Ian. And we were great friends through kind of nursery primary school, and we went to comprehensive together. And there was this kind of tension, like he was the hardest lad in school. And there was this one family that lived locally, and E and they used to fight regularly. And I just, I always felt really sad that he kind of ended up in this position that he had to prove his strength and fierce business. But as a consequence, I spent a lot of time helping him with his homework and his education. And so we had this kind of really unlikely friendship where he was the kind of scrapper and I was the academic. But it worked. It worked for years. And yeah, we're still still friends now. And it was just kind of paradoxical. I think in many ways. They looked after each other. Yes, essentially, yes. Playing to each other's strengths. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And then, because of my grandfather's influence, I did kind of cubs and scouts. And then I joined the Territorial Army, then, with an aim to finish my levels. Go to Sandhurst join the Royal electrical mechanical engineers as a as an engineer. So from 15 to 18, a lot of my holiday time was spent with the army. So I went to did all kinds of crazy stuff. So being to Sandhurst, and then the regular Commission's board and past trend with the parachute regiment trend with the Royal Marines did all kinds of crazy stuff. And recently, I think, because my kids are kind of growing up, I've just been sharing some of those kind of wild experiences I had while doing my A levels. So I drove a challenger to tank and the challenge of choosing now in Ukraine, I did this crazy thing with the Royal Marines down in your role, where they basically, you fully clothed, you're strapped in, in a kind of simulated helicopter, and they crash you into the water. And we did that for the whole day. And I did the parachute regiment training course. find lots of guns did all of that. And, yeah, I think it'd be at my granddad really proud. And I'm just trying to share that with with the children now, because I think it's when they get to the same kind of point in life, these experiences kind of come back to you. But yeah, I loved it. And I'd failed my final medical because I got asthma during my final levels. And I couldn't get in, and it was heartbreaking. But I had a reserve place at Manchester uni to build microchips

Andy Follows: 12:57

where I had that lets that's thanks. Sorry to interrupt, but I'm just curious, this interest in electronics Where did that because that's going to that's going to be relevant when we get to the end of the conversation, isn't it? Yeah,

Derren Young: 13:09

I can, I can tell you very clearly it was in my granddad's sheds, and he also worked in the woodshop when he retired down down the street. And we built this boat and I wanted to kind of mechanise it. So I got a motor, you know, scale electric so special, they took the motor out connected to to a drive shaft and a propeller. And so we made this kind of mechanised board and I must have been about nine or 10. Then I built a guitar. And then I just really got into electricity, electronics, design, physics, maths, from a very young age. And I remember when I was my son's age, he's 11. Now, on a summer holiday, I really have nothing to do so I built a hovercraft. It wasn't a full size one from a shoe box. I use the same kind of ideas, but it worked. And then all the way through my GCSEs and a levels. I just specialise them. Maths, Physics designed technology and electronics. Right. So when I was 16, because I play guitar, I built your the sound pedals, which you press on and kind of change the frequency or the distortion. I built one of them. I built a microchip, very basic one when I was doing my A levels. So it's always been this kind of obsession, I think, just to figure out how that works. As I said in my profile, I think I'm an engineer first. And I've always used that kind of design philosophy and fascination to fix things throughout my whole career.

Andy Follows: 14:49

So you are you were a guitarist, any ambition to follow in your parents footsteps?

Derren Young: 14:55

Not at all actually. I learned to play drums by going to my dad's for her. muscles, even though he was very reluctant for me to be there sometimes because obviously there had proper work to do. So I learned to play the drums. But drums are kind of quite an unwieldy instrument, so you can't really play them in the house. And then I just decided I wanted to try the guitar. So when I was, again, this my granddad's influence, when I was about nine, there was a market in Durham, which had a small guitar store. And I used to go there, you know, occasionally and talk to the guys there. And I bought my first guitar, it's actually right next to me, for nine pounds of my granddad made me do jobs to save up the money to buy the first guitar. And I taught myself. But then there was another family that we knew in Jeff was a gas engineer, Jeff Anderson, I need to give him a big credit. He used to spend Wednesday evenings with me, just helping me kind of he coached me, essentially. And then, Katie, his daughter is my oldest friend. She's now a producer at the BBC doing music. So we've always had that kind of connection. But I've never had any ambitions to I mean, I've played in bands, I DJ occasionally. But I'm not that creative. I couldn't write a song. But I know lots of people who could. So it's like, I like playing. But I'm always very nervous about performing. But yeah, I mean, I'm I love helping creative people do nothing. Yeah.

Andy Follows: 16:32

And we've talked about that before, which was why I was curious to make the connection there. Yeah. So back to and we're not going to in a bizarre twist listeners, for the first time ever, we're going to ask a guest to play the guitar that he got five years old, it's a, we're not going to do that, because that will be me.

Derren Young: 16:55

So it's really funny, because I just finished off the guitar stuff. So when COVID happened, I was working for a live music company. And obviously, all of that got canned. And we had to kind of homeschool the kids, which, which I loved. And so every week, I devised their programme of learning, because the school wasn't quite ready to help the kids kind of continue education. So I did it for a month and I have energy. But the first one we focused on electronics. And so we built circuits and you know that that thing where you it's like a metal wire and you go around, we did that. And then we built pull it

Andy Follows: 17:37

out just because I've got the benefit of being able to see you talking about those sorts of tests. thing. Yeah, a bendy metal wire and you have to navigate your way along it without touching it with a it's got a hoop brown it has on it.

Derren Young: 17:51

Exactly. So we spent the first week doing that. And then we did structural engineering, we made polymers out of flour and food colouring. But at the same time, I've got, I think 12 guitars, but my wife thinks I've got one because that's the only one on display. The rest are kind of hidden under wardrobes and under sofas and stuff. But I decided to because we did the electronic stuff with the kids. I want to make a guitar because I've never made one when I was a kid, but I wanted to do a proper one. So I did like a Fender Stratocaster made it from scratch. And my friend, Phil, he lives kind of round the corner. Because we're in lockdown. We weren't able to see each other. I just he lost his mom. And it was tragic, right at the very start of the COVID crisis. And he couldn't go and see her in hospital and things. So I was building this guitar. And I just said Be positive. And I showed him a picture. And then he got really emotional because his mum made him go to guitar lessons. And if he did really well, the tutor had a guitar that looked exactly like the one who was building. So I said, Well, you're gonna have it like it's yours, then he broke up bad to fix it. But then there are a few other people who lost people in Colvin and I built them a guitar. So our kitchen became like, a guitar workshop for a few months. But yeah, it was a wonderful thing to do to use my passion and my basic knowledge of electronics, just to give something back and make people feel a little bit better.

Andy Follows: 19:25

Yeah. Now and you're close to music, you're not being the musician, but you're supporting musicians. That makes sense. So back to the unfortunately had asthma, failed your medical for the military, but had this backup option which was to go to Manchester University. Yes. What were you going to study there?

Derren Young: 19:47

The degree was Electronic Systems Engineering and during the admissions process because the school wasn't great. I mean, I met my predicted grades but you have to go and interview everywhere. And I've got rejected by Aston. We've accepted a Birmingham accepted at Sheffield, but a few of my friends were going to Manchester because it was the time of New Order and the Happy Mondays and the hacienda. So I went to Manchester and was only 10 people on the programme and was basically building microchips. But would it be completely honest with you, my heart wasn't really in it, and I did it. But it wasn't what I wanted to do. I want to be jumping out of helicopters and drive and tanks. And then we all used to go to the hacienda, which is just the most magical, amazing time in 1991, when it was just the most energetic music venue in the world. So yeah, I was really pleased to have that cultural experience. But I just fell out of love with the study inside. And I didn't have any one to financially support me. And so after a year, I just said, I can't I can't continue this. And I just didn't feel the love I felt which I would have had in the army. So I dropped out and went back home to Durham.

Andy Follows: 21:07

And how do you feel about that decision? Now?

Derren Young: 21:10

It was the right one. Yeah, it was the right one. And so went back and did a multitude of jobs, worked in garage, I worked in restaurants, worked in a hotel, and I met some of the best friends in my life, I would never have met with that experience of leaving university. But it's always left me with this sense of a need to catch up and recompense for it. And I've always had this kind of insecurity that I didn't finish it, which has led me to all the Mad academic things I've done in later life. But without that experience, I wouldn't have met some of the most important people. And

Andy Follows: 21:50

it's it's driven you then as an expense, it's that lag, that perceived lack. Yeah, that you could say it's complete nonsense, if you like. Yeah,

Derren Young: 22:01

I mean, it's, it's interesting. So we didn't have any money. I had to work. I had to look after my mom and my sister, particularly Sheree kind of going through university as well. I made sure she was she had cash. So I had to work. And then I ended up working in a call centre in Newcastle, Eagle Star Insurance. And I was selling insurance over the phone, very much like that. But I learned some kind of critical lessons about you always pick up the phone and three rings, you smile down the phone, and those kind of lessons really, I still do that today. It was my first proper job. But then in six months, the company was going through a massive transformation. And Chris Foster one by one want to mention, she recommended I went to head office to do a secondment for three months in Cheltenham to go from Newcastle to Cheltenham. It's like it's gone. Yeah. And then there's this wonderful lady called Davina Borat, who they took young kids from Sheffield, Glasgow, Plymouth, Southampton, to go and do essentially kind of system testing on a new IT platform. And I got to meet Davina. And then she said, Well, can you come and join my team, my HR team. And so that's how I got into HR with the these two, these two wonderful women who just saw something and helped me.

Andy Follows: 23:33

Do you know what they saw?

Derren Young: 23:35

I have no idea.

Andy Follows: 23:36

It wasn't meant to be I wasn't like oh, my goodness, I can't think I was thinking as you're saying you were clearly showing up with something every day that was or you know, for the most part that they thought this is good. I'd like him in my team. It's interesting.

Derren Young: 23:54

So the my final day, on the telesales floor, we had daily targets. And so you have your kind of minimum target, and then we call it star players, and you kind of mark it up on a board. Everyone had a different kind of motif. And I always used to use vegetables, so like broccoli, tomato characters, just to kind of lift the spirit a bit. And then on my final day, something must have just happened. But in the normal day, you might have two or three sales. I think they're finally at 27. And then I think, well, maybe I should stay. But yeah, but then went down to join Davina her team. And the original idea was because the company was transforming so much. My focus was to be facilities ergonomics, getting the right workplace struck. I mean, now it's all kind of very familiar, but the time it felt quite new. But then it was a priority that because of the transformation, we had to assess all of the managers and then build up element plans for them. So the three months became a year, we ran that project, I learned so much. They supported me to go and do my CIPD, which is the professional qualification we have in HR. And even I wasn't a graduate, they admitted me onto the master's programme. And then Eagle Star, paid for everything, give me the time off. They supported me. And I always think I need to repay their kindness. So that's faith to people who work for me. But it was quite a shift from university dropout working in a bar in a restaurant to run in these big projects of this massive insurance company within a couple of years. But they, they nurtured they coach, they help they give me the time to do it. I mean, I never intended to be in HR, but because of those two wonderful ladies, if they

Andy Follows: 25:56

picked you, and then you've had a obviously that's been central to your career since then, and you experienced clearly a very positive culture and a good approach towards developing people at Eagle Star.

Derren Young: 26:12

Absolutely. Yeah, it was it was wonderful, I think because we had been living in Cheltenham was fantastic. But we always had you like that Google kind of 10% thing. But you can give back, say, say a bit more about it. Because I'm just so it's just kind of creating space to develop and do innovation do different things. Eagle star, the five years I was there, and down in Cheltenham. I always felt we had probably a day a week just to learn and experiment and do things. And then we're all kind of young people in our 20s brought together from different parts of the country. So it was incredibly fun and inclusive, and pretty wild as well. Because Thursday nights before we went home on Friday back to our different cities. We had this culture of working hard learning, having fun, and then spending time back with our friends and family then coming back on a Sunday night, and it was just this amazing place to develop as a young adult. Excellent.

Andy Follows: 27:20

Sounds really good. Where should we go next then?

Derren Young: 27:23

Yeah, so um, so yeah, I need to kind of weave in. So my girlfriend I met at Newcastle. She graduated I was a year older than her. And that's why I went back to Newcastle every weekend to see her. And then she decided to move down to Cheltenham. She got a great job. She's super smart. And then she got an even better job working for Sony. But that was down in Basingstoke, were in Cheltenham. And we were so happy there. But then I followed her with her career, because you know, after five years working for one company, and we started to think well, what can I do next? So she was working with Sony, Dan and Basingstoke, we moved from Cheltenham to Newbury board house was wonderful. And I started working for a company called Infinium, which was formed as a joint venture between ExxonMobil and shell. And they specialised in making chemical additives for lubricants and fuel, essentially. So pure petrol cams. I was HR support for the kind of research and development laboratories that started looking after other facilities across Europe. So I went from something very small in insurance in Cheltenham, two then covering a whole region, doing something very different and supporting lots of really, really, I think 60% of the workforce by PhDs. So it was it was wonderful. And I, again, I need to give credit to two gentlemen, Chris Pilgrim, and Dec. Richards, who I worked for jointly. And again, I think they just saw something but give me free rein to kind of is there's another guy, Mike Dutton as well I worked with. And so again, I was there for three years, but it just exploded my perception of what HR is and what it can do. And then working in this complexity of a joint venture between two of the world's biggest oil companies, and their cultures were incredibly different. So I don't want this to sound disrespectful to my colleagues there. But when I wrote a dissertation when I was finishing my MA and HR, Exxon, very American, very command and control, very directive, and shell that had been split across the UK and the Netherlands was very collaborative, more negotiating. I used to do things very thoughtfully. But the cultures when they came together, we tried really hard to find a third way. But then, I think because we spent so much time trying to build this new culture We lost sight of the commercial priorities. And the Exxon culture kind of took over. Because it was just more focused. And this is gonna sound horrible. But at the end of my conclusion in my thesis, it was like the sharks taking over the sheep. And I don't mean that in any way bad against my colleagues from Shell because they were wonderful. But the harsh commercial commercial realities were just stark, and it really taught me the lesson is that yes, we can help. We can develop, we can focus on culture, but you still have to make money.

Andy Follows: 30:38

That's really interesting experience for you to have fairly early in your HR career. And you tell that story almost acknowledges what I'm about to say is that sometimes HR might be perceived as failure leading to most towards the people and losing sight of the commercial expectations. So clearly, you had that experience. And then is that helped you then Derren? Yeah.

Derren Young: 31:08

So what that triggered is that again, my my ex wife, then she moved to London. And so I again, I followed her. I left Infineon, which was really sad. Because it was such a fascinating project. After three years, I went to work for Bloomberg in the city, because my wife was working in London as well. And I was head of HR for all Bloomberg TV channels across Europe, and radio and Internet. And I think growing up in the kind of the carrying structure of Eagle star and Infinium, coming from that kind of that blue chip security, going to work in the city for Bloomberg, which is a very heavily financial trading kind of oriented business, I really struggled because I just didn't have you starting from scratch, all of my experiences weren't really kind of regarded or respected, I just have to deliver. And then 911 happened as well. So because I looked after five TV channels, I had five monitors on my desk, so you could monitor the coverage and just keep track of what was going on. And so it was like watching 911, kind of multiplied, then we had threats in London. And so I had to evacuate the office, the TV producers insisted on staying, so I was worried about their safety. Bloomberg lost about I don't know how many people but they were in the World Trade Centre. And so I had to organise a memorial service with other companies in the city. And honestly, I just got burnt out by the whole thing. And I just wanted to go back to the security of a big solid company. So I left after 15 months. I just found it too much.

Andy Follows: 32:55

Can I just jump in there? There? Of course, I think it's really interesting. The difference between those mature established secure businesses and the most startup, agile sort of, well, I'm throwing in attributes there that may not even be necessary, but they are different. And they're very different experiences and they suit different. Would you say they suit different people? Or was it just that you'd had use what you were more used to?

Derren Young: 33:26

Now I think people were really aggressive in tolerance. Some of the decisions I had to implement, I ethically disagreed with, where you know, in Eagle star Infinium, we would never do anything hurtful to anyone. But there was a deliberate culture. So if you disagreed, if you went off on maternity, if you were absent, you were kind of thrown out. And I struggled with that ethical base being an HR professional. At that time.

Andy Follows: 33:55

I'm glad I asked that question. And it's made me think back to you at school and this aggressive environment that you're in. And yet even at an early age, when it might have been easier to sort of fall in with it or not have your own stance, you had a stance then you got your head down, you did the things that you wanted to do. And yeah, that was just comes to mind of this environment being a bit more like the aggressive school.

Derren Young: 34:27

She was pretty brutal, and I just rejected it. And then I got hired by British Oxygen BOC the big industrial and speciality gases company.

Andy Follows: 34:37

Did you go and look for it? Did you decide to leave Bloomberg?

Derren Young: 34:41

No I got actually got approached for that job. But it would kick him at the right time because I wanted to get back into that kind of bought stable, thoughtful, caring environments. And BOC at the time was just it was an old historic company and they they ship oxygen in half Hydrogen around. And yeah, it's just it was just fascinating. You know, I looked after the Employee Services Centre, which was kind of recently established based on the Dave Ulrich model of shared services and business partners out. So it was a highly efficient, highly technological way of delivering HR. So I ran the service centre, which again was like a call centre. So I had a group of people taking calls from employees and managers across the business. I ran payroll, because I had 10 people up in Manchester, running payroll, so weekly, hourly, unionised, salaried 15,000 people. And then I moved into the head of reward roll. So and that's where we met. So you're looking after incentives, pensions, life insurance, health insurance, and obviously the car scheme, where our kind of our paths crossed the first time with Richard and John, we were just, you were just wonderful to work with.

Andy Follows: 36:03

Yeah, it was, it must have been about 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah, good times. 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 ask 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 back 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 as helping us to develop our people strategy, and to identify and bring onboard suitable talent. Clients we've referred to ask I've 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 two 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, 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 ASKE? You'll find these contact details in the show notes for this episode. Okay, let's get back to our episode. Was it an instant relief when you got back into a sort of sensible, less aggressive, more mature and it was,

Derren Young: 38:16

I mean, it was it was still a tough job because it was a step up in responsibility. And I had to learn all bunch of new stuff, particularly when I did the reward role. So that was that was hard. But again, there was people around who helped me. So there's Lindsey who is my boss, and then a chap called Tim hurdle who ran the biggest bit of the business. And again, they just invited me in to help them with their biggest problems. And BRC also paid for me to go to university, again, to do my exec MBA. So I did it up at Nottingham University. And it just matched my work experience perfectly. So I did all of my assignments in this 12 modules in this particular programme, about challenges which the business were facing. And so I focused on finance, economics, micro economics, and then you have to do the kind of compulsory kind of strategy marketing modules are I did my dissertation. This is gonna sound bizarre, Andy, but I didn't know what to do when to write about when I got to the end of my my course. And I was really struggling. Like, what am I going to write about? Because, I mean, I can't write about HR because I've done that. And so I am through this, this chap called Craig Lardner. So he was the Global Head of procurements, right for this massive, multi billion dollar global business. And I just happened to talk to him one day because I just finished my module in international business. And I came across this concept of like barter and counter trade. And I thought this is this is bonkers. So companies, work with governments and resources to sell weapons. and stuff like that. So I just happened to bump into Craig in a corridor. And I said, Craig, have you heard of this, like countertrade, and Bart, and he said, Yeah, we've tried it, we've tried to share oxygen with someone like shell or BP. And they would then provide resources to someone like British Aerospace, to then give weapons to Saudi Arabia. And that's, that's crazy. So I spent my next year writing about bharta and countertrade, in the resources, energy and weapons industry. So it kind of brought in British Aerospace Rolls Royce, BP, Shell, the Saudi government. And again, with Craig's help, he just opened the doors to all of these other procurement professionals. And so I wrote about something which was just miles away from my expertise in day job. But I found it fascinating that these things kind of take place and take place today.

Andy Follows: 41:01

And what was that I'm feeling a bit thick. Now, what was the motivation for the organization's doing that did it allow them to think to do things they wouldn't otherwise have been? Sort

Derren Young: 41:09

of? Yeah, it's, it's all about kind of the price point as well, because if you've got sip, you've got loads of hydrogen, and you can sell it on the open market for X price. But you can trade it for something else for a lower price. So you make more money, essentially, but it kind of works around with other resource companies, manufacturers in golf Nice.

Andy Follows: 41:33

So deal that wouldn't stack up. Ordinarily, it allows you by being a bit more sophisticated in how you structure it.

Derren Young: 41:41

Yeah. But I made a massive error. Because the people I was talking to I was, you know, right, Rolls Royce, British Aerospace governments, I was party to quite a lot of sensitive information. And they insisted that the university when I published my dissertation, didn't put it in the university library. And they did, and they put it online. Someone might come and kill me. Yeah, but it's something I'm incredibly proud of, because it was really, really hard to do something completely different. But I wouldn't have been able to do it without Craig's help,

Andy Follows: 42:21

Very good. So I'm loving this drive to go back and study and to study properly not to just do a tick box exercise, but clearly to really use these opportunities for the good of the business that was employing you at that time, you know, tackling relevant projects throughout the modules,

Derren Young: 42:41

my time but BOC everything went back into the into the company to repay them for spending 10s of 1000s of pounds on education. And so I hope some good came of it. But it was, it was life changing, again, just to have that opportunity to study and the time to do it and the time to use that learning for commercial goods.

Andy Follows: 43:03

And what happened after that.

Derren Young: 43:07

Right, so I got divorced. And I was a little bit you know, when when you have these life changing moments, I was a little bit lost. And so I basically spent too much time in Ibiza on holiday with my friends, trying to get back to the Hacienda were you trying to get back yeah

Andy Follows: 43:24

your happy place

Derren Young: 43:26

it was a Monday morning. It was Monday morning, I was on the beach. And I got a call from a search consultant who I've known for years. And he said, Where are you? I went I'm on the beach in a booth there? Where are you? When I'm in the office in London? Well, I've got something for you. Because you know, you've been doing this reward stuff for BOC, how would you like to be compensation and benefits director for Universal Music. And when it all came together. So flew back, the process went really quickly. So had three interviews with Malcolm might have head of HR. But I had a six month notice period of BOC universal wanted me immediately. So they put a tonne of cash on the table. So if you just get out of your contract, it might mean you walking out and getting dismissed or potentially sued. But we need you and I managed to negotiate between two sides. And so I started at Universal. And the reason reason for the urgency is that Malcolm had just taken over the UK and international role. And their executive bonus scheme was a mess. So I had to go in and figure that out really quickly because there's a there's an expectation when the financial year ends to run the calculations and then obviously pay everyone. So I didn't really speak to anyone for two months. So I just had to get my head down, build the spreadsheets, build the equations, get the financial data. I had my first kind of exchange With Salishan Grinch, who is the chairman of universal and Boyd and then the next big character in my life is a gentleman called Max Hall he was the chairman and chief executive International, for for universal, but Universal Music.

Andy Follows: 45:15

How had you got yourself into a position where universe universal wanted you that badly that they were prepared to put loads of money on the table to sort out whatever challenges might be the way it was? Was it that they wanted you or that whoever it was that started this role was going to have to turn the scheme around very quickly. You were their preferred candidate. So therefore,

Derren Young: 45:39

yeah, I remember because I was working down in Guilford, and then the universal offices in Kensington. And I stupidly decided to drive from Guilford to Kensington, and I was nearly an hour late for the interview. And and BOC, obviously, we wore suit and ties, like we're smartly dressed. And so I get there an hour late, go to meet monks, well, it's about time it's take the tire off. So take my tie off. And then we had this conversation. And he said, We did come around and have a look at this. And it was just a mess of a spreadsheet. And he said, I don't know what to do with it. But I have to fix it quickly. What would you do? And I just solved it there. Because I was doing rewards and looking after 15 1000s People salary and bonuses and everything. So untangled it but then it took a lot more work to actually deliver it. And I think it was just that kind of cheeky spark this connection, right? And no hay for No, at all. First time we met and it was an hour late. Yeah,

Andy Follows: 46:48

but you've solved his problem, or he clearly gave him a lot of comfort that you'd be able to come in and you sort this out. Okay.

Derren Young: 46:58

And I think it was it was a dream of mine too. Again, going back to the theme about helping creatives particularly or innovators, and the chance to work at, you know, the world's biggest music company doing an important job. And I looked after all of the executives pay compensation benefits contracts, globally. And so it was just this crazy opportunity. And the people there were just, you've got everything from people who deal with the artists, people who deal with technology, the leadership, the international team. I mean, it was the time when the music industry was in serious decline said no one was buying CDs, Napster was there. The music companies were suing consumers for illegal use of their content. So in many respects, the right thing was probably to stay at BOC where I had stability in that comfort, going into the music industry where the future was really uncertain. But because of the brilliance of the people there, we figured it out. You know, we we invested in Spotify and iTunes and now Now look, it's just an amazingly strong, influential business. So I was pleased to play a part in that, even though I think from looking externally, it was probably a stupid design, but I loved it.

Andy Follows: 48:20

Okay, so you eventually come back now from the stability because you would have Yeah, yes, you had a lot to learn because it BOC the remuneration, the rewards piece was new, but you've got that under your belt. By now you're you're doing that well. So this was a bit of adventure, then into a bit more risk, if you like, but with this attraction of helping innovators helping creatives, the musical theme, and how did that work out for you?

Derren Young: 48:50

Well, I was there for 10 years,

Andy Follows: 48:53

pretty well then.

Derren Young: 48:56

So I spent the first few years doing the remuneration rewards stuff, got to build some really good relationships with the executive team, particularly Max and Boyd and Richard, the general counsel. And then universal that the fortunes were changing and obviously owned by Vivendi, which is a big media conglomerate. The strategy was, with streaming services coming online, we needed to buy more content, more assets. And so we started buying or the music companies, which I obviously had to do some of the due diligence on the compensation sides. And there were a few changes kind of structurally in the HR team, and I made a pitch to be the HR director for the international business, which is the whole world apart from the UK in the US, which are the two biggest markets, who would you have to partner with closely? See, I was HR director for the International Business partnering with Max and Richard and Boyd the exact man For years, but looking after kind of$5 billion business 6000 global employees, but then that was the easy bit. We kept acquiring businesses. And so you get kind of stuck into the due diligence, the deal, the restructuring the integration. And so I did that job for five years, but it was constantly buying, acquiring, getting involved with all the technicalities of m&a. At the same time, I was working on the London Olympics I was involved with, we sold through a company called bravado, which we acquired and we invested in. We sold all of the programmes for the Olympics and Paralympics, so kind of involved with seeing a muddy field in Stratford to delivering every day of the Olympics and Paralympics, meanwhile, buying these companies doing the day job. And so this, it was, it was a wonderful time, but I was I was stretched beyond my limits. And you're a single man at this point. Yes, I was actually yes, yeah. So you had the time, I think it gave me the opportunity. But then I want to give credit to my team at Universal over the years I was there. They helped me, they backed me up, they we looked after each other, we're a really tight group of people. And even today, we have a WhatsApp group. And there's about 30 of us on this group, and all HR people, but if anyone's got a problem, they just put their hand up, and we'll help. And it's just, it was great to have that ability to build a team culture like that over many, many years and different iterations of our structure. But then it ultimately led to, I met my wife, Lisa through work. And I worked on the acquisition of EMI, which at the time was the biggest media deal in music ever. So AMI were struggling, they got repossessed, from Guy hands by Citigroup, and Citigroup wanted to sell it. And we were number one in the world with 50% market share. Emi was number four in the world. And the math just doesn't work. You know, from a competitions perspective. But we pushed on and Edicions leadership, and we were in hospital having Teddy, my my eldest son, he was born at 11 1111. And that's the day that universal signed the deal to buy EMI. And so the next couple of years was spent going through all the regulatory stuff with every market they operated in, and had to speak to the European Commission about our intentions for the business. I work really closely with Richard, our General Counsel and his brilliant team in finance. Because we had to hold the business separate, then we acquired it, and we had to sell a bit over to Warner Music,

Andy Follows: 52:55

To meet the requirements of the regulator right? for not

Derren Young: 53:00

to meet the requirements. Exactly. So you can imagine you dealing with 1000s of people, 10s of countries, lots of artists who are really concerned and they're the biggest artistic when you're dealing with the Beatles catalogue in Abbey Road and The Rolling Stones, you've got a massive community to care for and make sure they've got stability, and they can still continue to make their music and have a have a presence. So yeah, it was two and a half, three years of pure complexity. But with the team we had, we got through it, and we got through it really well. And

Andy Follows: 53:39

fascinating. A lot of complexity. And were you in your element?

Derren Young: 53:45

Oh, yeah, I looked at Yeah, it was just, I mean, I was working 24/7 Because you need to to go through these things, having a baby. Trying to kind of become a dad at the same time. But mean, we will I was completely focused on delivering the right outcome for the company, and for the artists and for the team. But yeah, I mean, I've never felt so out of my depth, vulnerable, but satisfied,

Andy Follows: 54:15

right. It's great to hear you reference those ingredients all together out of your depth, vulnerable and satisfied.

Derren Young: 54:25

Yeah. But again, we we just formed this wonderful team. And so we had the external lawyers. And I guess another thing I wanted to mention, Andy is that I've seen HR leaders kind of in conflict with other functions. But the time at Universal, I partnered with, you know, legal, it finance exec, anyone who wanted to work with us. So you formed this kind of cohesive group of high trust. And I've always tried to apply Which my HR kind of professional relationships in that manner sense. But I have seen this kind of conflict between HR legal finance it because we'll do the support functions. But I don't think if we're working in concert, we're doing a disservice to our colleagues in the business. And so I've always tried to, you have to give up some of your principles. But then you gain so much more through collaboration.

Andy Follows: 55:31

And how do you go about because that's great. So you're, you're in there, you're the HR function, you're leading it, you've got that mindset? How do you develop that if you've got colleagues leading other functions who might not have come to the table, thinking the same way? It's

Derren Young: 55:49

I mentioned earlier, I think HR has a number of roles. And so yeah, we have the big strategic things, which we're part of a big project on. But then all of these managers, they'll have challenges about recruiting challenges about employee relations and discipline, they might have issues with, you know, absence and well being and people's personal kind of journey and safety. So I always find, doing the smaller things really well helps deliver the big things later. Yeah, because you are a service provider to them, as well. So you have an opportunity to do that well and to build trust and strengthen their relationship and get them onside. It's interesting, some of the relationships made at Universal will last a lifetime. One of my closest friends at Universal is a chap called Olivia Robert Murphy, who ran a business development function. And again, he's one of those people who's had a massive impact on my career, because he gives me the space and time to help him and his team for all. And we did all kinds of amazing projects together. He's just been appointed chief executive of a company called Spitfire audio, who's back in music. So I'm going to go and see him on Wednesday. But we worked so closely together, because he had a really tough challenge to build a team from scratch, which we hired hundreds of people all over the world to sell the idea of brands with artists and content. So it was a completely novel idea. But he built it from scratch. And I helped in any way I could, but to see how people have developed and, you know, they're doing deals with like Lady Gaga, and Coca Cola and Katy Perry and Hewlett Packard labs. And it was all his idea. So innovation, like I experienced and took apart, it was amazing. It was kind of, again, a big next step forward for me. So

Andy Follows: 57:58

I mean, it sounds like you have this really just a one of the way you talk about it so warmly, so enthusiastically the people the experience, you had the learnings, the fact that you were, as you said, out of your depth phone Rubble, but satisfied you. You're clearly growing and being challenged doing it. It's wonderful to have had that phase in your career. Are there other stories from that time? Or would you like to move on?

Derren Young: 58:26

I think the one I want to close with is that I've mentioned Max before. So Max is the chairman and chief executive, International. He is a legend in the music industry. Someone we all respected deeply. He was very kind and fair. But he made us drive and then he fell really ill on a trip to India, and didn't come back to work. And I'd partnered with Max for seven or eight years. And because his presence wasn't there in London, a lot of the kind of the Locus of Power went to LA where Lucien and Boyd was. And I just, I can't, I don't want to start again, here without him. So I really miss him. And I'm missing today. And then an opportunity came up with Electronic Arts, EA games, EA Sports, again, a next step up, where I'd be the global head of all of the game studios, based in Silicon Valley in San Francisco. They've got the world's biggest games product with FIFA, we had the licence for Star Wars. So I meant I would be looking after between six and 10,000 people because he reached a peak when the games are kind of in final development and testing across 20 countries$5 billion business and decide like, that's too exciting to mix so.

Andy Follows: 59:55

Yeah, sounds exciting.

Derren Young: 59:57

Yeah, so I left universal I was really tearful when I left because it had been such a big part of my life. But it was the right thing to move on. So yeah, that I started again. I mean, I'm not a massive gamer. I mean, I've got a PlayStation, but I don't know how. Then he got into this world where you know, FIFA is a three and a half billion dollar business, and you're protecting the Star Wars brands. And we have the Sims and all kinds of other mobile and HD HD means they're on Playstation or Xbox.

Andy Follows: 1:00:31

Right? Let's look before we go there, because it is fascinating. And it's fascinating, you know, the cultural impact of those platforms and those games. And you've just told us how important Max was to your experience at Universal and your desire to be there. And, you know, the whole mission, I guess, wouldn't be the same without him. You then going to work for somebody you didn't know, presumably, it was this? How, how if leadership was so important, how did you tackle this, you know, choosing whether to go and work for someone else.

Derren Young: 1:01:11

So let me tell me about the young again, I don't want to be rude about my former colleagues at EA, but I had to do like 19 interviews, like getting the job at EA became a full time job. Because Patrick who I supported Patrick Soderlund was the head of studios. And then the rest of the team are essentially in San Francisco. But I had to meet everyone. And I went to San Francisco for a day, but did eight interviews. But because of the time difference, I got to the hotel and did a full day's work UK time, then a day of interviews then flew back. So I was back in time to go back in the office on the next day. And I think this goes back to my experience from the army, I mean, to get selected to be an officer and go to Santos, they put you through hell. And he put me through hell. So when I got the job, it was a very deliberate, like, I've earned this now, Mike, it was it was tough was like going into a different world and the scale of it and the complexity. And if you're spending like $150 million to develop a product, and if it doesn't land well with the players, the consumers. It's a massive flop. And yeah, I think coming from the world of music, I got a lot of the need to relate to the creatives and the quality. But in the world of gaming, it's a different level of pressure.

Andy Follows: 1:02:40

Right, let's talk about one more thought, before we get into that, then is has any research been done. And thinking of the sunk cost fallacy, and the amount that you had invested in trying to get a job with EA through 19 interviews and really tough experience? I'm wondering if any research has been done on what the percentage take up of job offers is from your preferred candidate based on how hard you've made them work for the, you know, if you make them jump through hoops, are they more likely to say yes, when you offer it? But

Derren Young: 1:03:19

I guess it's like, like I'm doing this course right now. It's really hard. But I think if you raise the bar to such an extent, you'll get the most determined probably best candidate. You know, I think in any recruitment process, you probably want three to five stages. Yes, you can have interviews, you can do psychometrics and psychology tests and stuff. But you need to see people in action during the job for real. And so in terms of kind of statistical validity, you want to give any candidate a real life piece of work to do and deliver. But that's really hard, because you have to, as a candidate, invest lots of time to prepare, and put yourself in a position where you're doing the job. The preparation that requires to do that well, is a natural filter for people.

Andy Follows: 1:04:09

Yeah, really interesting. And speaks to this point of the irony that often to get to the point where we're actually doing the job or doing the thing that we're good at, we have to pass through this in an interview. It's the selection process where you have to have skills that might be completely unrelated to the thing that you're actually good bear no resemblance, but unless you can do this task, you won't get a chance to show us how good you are at this. So okay, so the gaming industry, then this was as you say this, the music connections, the creatives, there's that you're creating, you know, products, but it was a step up in terms of all the investment in a game, which if it doesn't work out could be potentially a significant loss.

Derren Young: 1:04:57

Yeah. And it was it was interesting, so you have to learn About I was on a plane all the time because the network was so fast. So the powerhouse was in Vancouver where FIFA is made. And that's where EA Sports is based. So it was in Vancouver a lot. We set up a new studio in Montreal, Florida and Orlando where we make Madden, which is an NFL game and basketball. Then the head offices in San Francisco, the men testing facility was in Bucharest, and my boss was in Stockholm, and I was based back in Guildford. So you can imagine that the distortion of time dealing with Asia, bosses in Sweden, my team essentially are all in America and Canada. So it was really hard in terms of my time management. We've had our second child then. So you've got, you've got that you got two kids kind of growing up, my wife's got a big job. And then you're dealing with things of such scale and complexity and cultural importance. It really pushed me to the limit. And then we like in any job, there's always complexity to deal with in HR. And so I had, I had a horrible case of fraud, or happening in one of our offices, which escalated quite severely.

Andy Follows: 1:06:15

How much could you say, how much can you say about that without to? Yeah, I

Derren Young: 1:06:19

mean, I told them them, kind of individuals or countries, but just the

Andy Follows: 1:06:24

nature of it, if you like, if I'm curious what it would be.

Derren Young: 1:06:28

So a universal, we uncovered a kind of decade long fraud in part of the business. And so I had to investigate it, dismissed the individual, reclaim the assets that had been stolen from us, and then convinced the police to prosecute. So I had I've got experience of going through that really serious process where hundreds of people are affected by the fraud and the the criminality. And then EA, we discovered, again, level of fraud. We seized the laptop, suspended the person, and we discovered some horrible things on the laptop, which I had to report to your report. And so you end up in court again. And I guess in HR, it's part of the job. But personally, they take a real toll, because you've got your job to do, you're trying to protect the well being of the business. But then you have individuals causing severe harm to us. And so yeah, I had had a couple of those kind of instances through my career. And, yeah, I'm used to it. But it takes a lot of resilience to manage it. Because he had to know maybe I'm just, I couldn't imagine doing that to anyone else level on the business and working for. So I've got a very high ethical bar, on things like that.

Andy Follows: 1:07:53

I can imagine finding that very challenge.

Derren Young: 1:07:57

But it's interesting, it comes back to my granddad's influence. And I think my time in the Territorial Army gone through everything, you have to answer questions about, could you kill someone, and if you're in the army, then you're a soldier first. And so you have to, you have to have a credible answer. But you also have to be able to back that up, because you're a soldier first. And so I've always held that kind of standards. And I think that's why I've adapted so well to a career in human resources. Because the purpose of the army is to protect and look after it's not to invade or, or not to kill. There is this kind of ethical, deep rooted mindset. And you don't get through officer selection unless you can demonstrate that. But then you follow that all through my business life and when you deal with these cases of sexual misconduct, fraud of all the things that we come up against in big companies, I always kind of go back to that kind of starting position. I'm here to protect everyone and look after

Andy Follows: 1:09:04

that sounds very helpful having that grounded starting grounding.

Derren Young: 1:09:10

Yes. Yeah, it all goes back to my granddad's. Ted was a legend. He never let me get away with

Andy Follows: 1:09:22

a wonderful that he has been influencing you all the way.

Derren Young: 1:09:27

It's funny because my eldest sons Cortes as well, and we've got, we've got pictures of the family and stuff, but I've got this picture of him, I think in 1936. It's black and white, and he's there and he always was kind of had a little bit jaunty with a flag. And I always look up because it's just in our in our lounge and I look at it, I just think, what would you judge of my behaviour? What would you think of me? What I'm doing right now? So um, yeah, he's always there.

Andy Follows: 1:10:00

Excellent. So Derren, yay games incredible impact, you know, you're a little bit younger than me, still going from, you know, having grown up with Pong, I think it was called the way you just had two white rectangles that were bats and a white square. That was a ball that went and we were blown away by this technology. So as you say, FIFA are three and a half billion dollar business. That is,

Derren Young: 1:10:30

the pressure with FIFA is that it gets released every year, which now is called them AAFC. Because they didn't renew the branding licence with FIFA, which I think is the right decision given the level of corruption in that organisation. But yeah, so when I was, I worked for Patrick, he was in Sweden, Matt looked after kind of the FIFA brand, but we had all these kind of amazing leaders. And as part of my kind of onboarding orientation, Patrick is the boss said, we have this annual event called the call Summit, where we bring together the top 250, innovators, creatives, execs, leaders from across the business, to have an experience where we inspire, we innovate, we learn. And think, for months to organise it, we're doing it in Vancouver, I've never been to Vancouver. But we all looked and we had a brilliant external partner business called V for our business for zero. And so Darren and Kirsty in the TIF and have to give them acknowledgement because they helped me through some really tough times organising this massive event where the standard of production and the level of expectation is just off the scale, because you've got people who spend their lives making games, you've got the commercial stuff, you've got the market thing. You've got machine learning, you've got algorithms, you've got API's in these things, you've also got a very high standard of quality, and you've got to hit your revenue target within this budget. And you've got to be delivered on this day, I found at mine that got responsibility for this events where the future of the gaming industry will be set every year. The first one was a little bit kind of crunchy. The second one we didn't Seattle was much better. There's the Museum of Modern Art there, we hired for an evening, and they have an IMAX screen. And so on top of all of the discussions and demonstrations and all of the stuff that you would have in a normal kind of strategy Summit. We had an IMAX. So what can I do with that, so when I made a movie about the company, and so sent a film crew around the world, and I watched it yesterday with my with my sistex. I'm doing something similar for her right now. And it's amazing. So we got the music, we convinced the characters of the mother colleagues to participate in it, wrote the scripts, edited it in IMAX quality, and it hasn't aged at all. And I did this like four years ago. It's just one of my proudest achievements making a film.

Andy Follows: 1:13:20

That sounds incredible. Well, the challenge of the thought that came to mind is it's not you, you've got a convention of Michelin star chefs and you're doing the catering sort of.

Derren Young: 1:13:31

It's basically yeah. And then the the last last one we did before I before we I mean the whole team disbanded for a number of reasons. We did it in this brand new hotel in Stockholm. It looked like a car park essentially. So they've got this really nice hotel, on ground level. And this expensive Conference Centre, which was brand new. And so it was just all grey paint. And so again, with the help of the business for zero team, we arranged for everyone to go and visit an innovative company across Stockholm. And so I went to this company called teenage engineering, and they build speakers and technology bespoke for all these different applications. So some people went to absolute and all the rest of it. So that was one day, but the organisation to find companies of sufficient interest for this group of obsessive gammas and game developers was difficult. But we did, we did three other things. And again, I'd like to like to share them we thought about the physical space. And so what we did, we did loads of quotations messages. We built a gallery in the in the men presentation room, showing the history and the future of gaming. And we're just kind of revealed bits of it as we went through. But you walked into the space and there's like a flags there's quotations from people. So we got this team into this to decorate the place and it just became culturally on message. We got the intentions of the conference across. But I think the other coolest thing I did at EA, we did this piece of work around the demographics of the business versus the demographics of the consumer of the player. And we found that, you know, a lot of the studios were typically men in their 30s, white, but a lot of the consumers are global. And they tend to be between kind of 11 and 2018. And so with the help of the marketing team, we did a series of conversations where we brought some of the gamers in, and you could visibly see the difference between the people who are making the games, and the people who consume them. And then we just let them, we just let them talk. But one of the sessions I attended, they're all kind of teenagers. You're too slow, your support sucks. It's too expensive. The games laggy there's not enough innovation. It was, it was it was a brave thing to do. Looking back, but I'm really pleased we did it. Because I think we all learned so much about each other, and how we work as a corporate entity versus kids who consume what we make, and

Andy Follows: 1:16:16

how well did the people who needed to hear this? How well did they respond and keep

Derren Young: 1:16:26

I think they enjoyed it. And I think having that level of connection with the people mean, a lot of love goes into these products, but to see how people really feel about them to viscerally experience and see it, I think have had a profound transformational impact on all of us. Yeah. And I think a lot of things changed. So during the course summit for three years, I mean, it was hard work. But you know, the messages that we got out, and the change that we saw happen in terms of product culture, technology, commercial outcome was was amazing.

Andy Follows: 1:17:03

Can you think of a change that you could link to that feedback from the consumer, those teenagers giving that feedback and something that then got implemented? Yeah, so

Derren Young: 1:17:16

I think, as I mentioned, the I mean, the studios tend to be in kind of extreme cold places, San Francisco and Orlando. But I think there are a few kind of structural changes in the business, we had this really sharp and about decision making. And we changed the structure of the exec team, which freed up the studio, general managers to be more creative and think about their environments and think about how games are released and influenced so. So right now, if, let's take the new Fifa, this community of kind of influencers, and gamers will get to see the game before it's released. So you get their feedback to refine before launch. Right. And I think that's, it was really smart. It's like, I guess if you build a car giving, given a bunch of drivers the chance to drive it before it's released. It wasn't just that one experience. It was happening progressively. We just grabbed it and shared it.

Andy Follows: 1:18:18

So we've talked about football, and FIFA, and AFC,

Derren Young: 1:18:23

it's great. By the way, I can recommend anyone to get it and play it the definition the quality, just like you're playing football, for real, just plug for either

Andy Follows: 1:18:33

my son plays and if I was gonna say anything about it, and I have no no involvement with it, but what I also noticed is it's been for years, a communication channel for him and his friends, especially as we've moved around the world and then taken him away from his friendship groups and things

Derren Young: 1:18:51

I find that with with Teddy because they play fortnight and he's got a kind of really diverse friendship group from sports and from football and canteen and school and stuff. But then they go online, but they make friends of friends and friends of friends of friends and they become friends. And if they don't have anyone to play with, they've got this enormous network of other kids that will go online and hang out with them. So I think there's a massive positive impact for the social connections through gaming. But there's also some concerns I have as well about the addictiveness the ability to abuse online and the effects on children's mental health from playing too much. And I think in some cases, it's kind of used as an alternative to parenting. So why there's so many benefits from gaming, I do think it can lead into poor outcomes and gambling and things like that as well. So I think our duty as parents and as we certainly felt that it is A, we need to make sure that the player is safe and looked after and doesn't spend far too much time in that world. Because it can be it can be harmful as well as enjoyable.

Andy Follows: 1:20:12

Yeah, definitely plenty of negatives voiced about it. Yes. Had we finished at EA, is it time for

Derren Young: 1:20:22

we've covered everything at EA was there's a big management restructure. My job wasn't really viable to do from Europe anymore. Because power went back to Vancouver in San Francisco. And we as a family weren't ready to move. So I had this really enjoyable six months, we're going to leave as friends. I wanted to leave things in the best possible position I could. And it was quite nice way to spend my final six months there, just delivering and helping but doing it with a smile on my face. And just Yeah, transitioning to the next stage when everything kind of moved back to the US. But after all the travel, all the stress, all the pressure, I just thought I want to take a bit of time. So I took the summer off. And in that summer, I live in Twickenham, tricking them stadiums, you know, 500 metres away, an opportunity came up to be an adviser to the remuneration committee. So I applied and didn't get that opportunity because they hired someone far better. But I got to know everyone, and then the role of HR director became available. And I just thought it'd be nice not to spend my life on a plane, who walked to work, I get more time with my friends and family. And I get to be involved with something I really deeply love, which is rugby. You know, I've been a harlequins member. For as long as I remember I go to every England game I can syrup is a big part of our life here in speculum, and I just thought, well, the real attraction. Yes, you you've got obviously the international team. But the RFU is primarily there to promote rugby in the community, and help kids play help rugby clubs across the country. So it has this enormous social role. And I just thought, well, this gives me the opportunity to have a bit of a break, do something important and give something back. So that was my motivation for joining.

Andy Follows: 1:22:25

And what was it that was the reality?

Derren Young: 1:22:28

Very different? Yeah, so yeah, I mean, I, there's some exceptional people and I got to me, you know, where I went to England training and I got to train with England sevens team got to support Eddie Jones and Steve Borthwick the current England coach. So in one sense, it's brilliant. It gets so close to that international, global kind of performance and that elite sports, and I had some amazing experiences made some brilliant friendships. Again, there's one guy I want to mention his call Richard Hill, who is an England World Cup winner, and England team manager. I mean, these rugby players are terrifying. But then him and then Steve Brown, the chief executive hired me. They were just so wonderful and welcoming. And because it's a bewildering world, it's quite intimidating as well, you know, especially when you're doing HR which isn't. It's, it doesn't really feature on a rugby pitch. So I joined Steve, chief exec and I, we shook hands, we made a contracts. I think me coming from the world of music and gaming. Our ambition was to modernise the RFU. But it's a it's a very governance heavy historic organisation with lots of challenges to change. So you've got the RFU council 68 people, and there's loads of subcommittees, you've got the boards, you've got the exec team. So they're trying to make changes really difficult. And then my first day, so I went in getting the kind of desk ready the chairman came in and said, I've just fired the chief exec and you've been sorted out so it was the worst start to any job you could even know anyone and then you know having to kind of accept my boss who I just thought we're going to have a great time working together. And yeah, kind of all unravelled a bit from then because I was I think I was just too different. And if you're not a rugby player or have a rugby background, you just don't really get that acceptance. So su De the CFO Maggie Alfonsi ran me some people really trying to make things difference. But then on a match day there was always some The semester pick up on Monday morning, and it would take an alliance of like minded people to form the change. And I think we're seeing it now with the collapse of Western wasps and all these clubs across the place. Because the financial model doesn't work well. And there are fewer people wanting their kids to participate because of the dangers. So yeah, I'm I tried my best, but I got off to the worst possible stuff that

Andy Follows: 1:25:26

I'm sorry about that. I'm also glad that you share it and thank grateful that you share it because even someone who's had the exceptional career like yourself, there are bits that don't work out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Don't go to plan. So you spent a little bit of time there. Seven months? And then how did you move forward from that? There?

Derren Young: 1:25:50

Yeah. So um, yeah, I was I was kind of heartbroken, devastated, because I went into it with very kind of altruistic ambitions. So it wasn't about the money. It wasn't about the status, it was that I was trying to do something to give back. And then it took me awhile to find another role. So one kind of interesting thing I wanted to mention is that, you know, I've tried to mention the people who've supported me, without me really asking. And I've found, as I get further into my career, lots of people ask me for help. And so I've been doing some coaching, if anyone's got a difficult employee relations issue, or contract, negotiate, they getting fired through throughout our network, I just get asked from friends and family and friends of friends to help. And so I set up my own little consultancy, primarily, to kind of make some money from that, because there aren't kind of commercial opportunities from helping people. And then I started working with two former colleagues from Universal, who were just out and out are entrepreneurs, they're fantastic. And so when they were building this business to do live music events, connected with Formula One, League of Legends, eSports events. And so I helped them with that project as a consultant. And that kind of led us to early 2020, where we built a stage in Melbourne, to be working with Formula One. Robbie Williams flew over Miley Cyrus flew over, there's DJs, everything was there. And the f1 event got cancelled because of COVID. And so we had to unravel everything, which is really sad, because I truly believed in the idea of a sustainable Music Festival connected to sport, an esport that travels around the world, it was just such a compelling proposition. And because we'd worked together before working with Formula One, I just thought I'd love to do this. So I did that, and COVID Here, then, you know, back on the scrap paper again, and employs teaching the kids how to build games out of electronics and stuff. But I spent that summer just just helping individuals and companies with their HR problems. So I went back into insurance repair work with a wonderful company called Roxy, they again back in music, and just help lots of people in that really, really difficult time. But I don't regret it because I got to spend every day with my children, when they probably needed support the most. So I was building guitars for friends and cooking for my neighbours and making sure my mum was looked after. So I think having the time you're not properly working here in COVID worked out really, really well. And I'll never regret having everyday with the boys. Very good. Yeah. And then, you know, found a found a job at a marketing agency that were really small, but worked there for bet. And then most recently, I've been working for a company called visual data, which kind of brings us to the end of the story. So visual data work for all of the big movie studios, primarily Disney, but also Netflix and Apple, Amazon, everyone. And they do that I like to describe is the very end of the production process where they do quality ship checks of, there's no kind of real coffee cups and a period drama and making sure the audio and visual is right for the method of distribution, whether it's cinema or on or on your phone. And we private equity backed we built a strategy to grow the business through the core offering and improving that and building a team but also sort of acquiring companies that do different language subtitling and dubbing so we bought this amazing company called Eva which is based out of Barcelona but it's also in Berlin, France, Madrid and other places. And so they do kind of dubbing so if you're releasing Top Gun maverick in Spain You need the right actor who is the voice of Tom Cruise in Spain. So when you go into the studio, you're watching the movie, it's not in English, and then it's been re dubbed live, I loved it, it was just such a cool environment to be in. And again, it's that bit around helping creatives deliver what they do, but then Disney imploded. So they've had a big reorganisation. The writer strike happened in America, kind of affected by AI, we struggle as business in visual data where we saw the opportunities of AI, particularly in the dubbing space, or your, your kind of transcribing a script. But we don't think we had enough time, given the commercial pressures to really act on it. So I had to lay off a big chunk of the workforce, including myself over the summer. And I just thought, you know, I'm here, again, my office is on the floor, I need to understand what's next. And I think being kind of faced with a threat and opportunity of AI, I just decided that I've been constantly studying with this company called Get smarter. We're based down in Cape Town, but they partner with all big universities across the world. So I've studied via them, London School of Economics, Oxford, Cambridge, over the last few years is trying to kind of keep my skills up to date. And so I just reached out to them, I did a course on the ethics of AI, it started the summer, and then went through that, and it kind of alarmed me. To such an extent, I signed up for a programme at MIT. So masters Institute of Technology, to build AI eyes. So that's what I'm doing right now. And I guess, to kind of come full circle, it kind of takes me back to my childhood when I was building circuits. And that's why

Andy Follows: 1:31:59

I love it. Because

Derren Young: 1:32:01

of the the ethical side of it, I just thought, I need a purpose, I need an outcome for all of this. Really, really, it's the hardest course I've ever done in my life. And I'm only a third of the way through. So yeah, I want to try and build the algorithms and machine learning tools. But also try to figure out what it means to my profession, because I'm never going to not do HR. And I think the prospect of greater automation could mean a lot of my colleagues in the profession of HR will be affected. So I've got this side project, which we've called Project saref. And so Sarah has a guardian angel. And when I was doing my MBA, because I did so much kind of economic stuff, my professor, Professor Hoffman, who was the last person I'm going to give a shout out to today, when we're learning some really complicated, economical theory. He always used to use movies, so he'd show a clip. So this is the application of this economic theory in a film. Because I've spent the last few months kind of focused on AI. I've been watching movies, which feature AI. And so obviously, you've got 2001, and you know, the AI movie Minority Report, but I'm a massive fan of The Matrix movies. And then the second one, there's this character called saref, who is a protector of the Oracle. And so I kind of picked him as my kind of metaphor for this work. So if I can do anything to figure out the future of HR, in this world of artificial intelligence saref is the guardian angel to do

Andy Follows: 1:33:42

that. Perfect. I love the circularity. Yeah, this, you don't

Derren Young: 1:33:48

move that far, really, from your childhood, and I keep referring to my grandfather, but the things I really like doing and figuring out it's never been far away, even though I do something completely different. Yeah,

Andy Follows: 1:34:03

we see that a lot in these conversations, you see a red line. And it's just very clear in you're particularly clear in this story. For some reason, that's incredibly rewarding. I don't know. It just feels right. It feels if you've got that continuity, then something must be not preordained. Or maybe it's some sort of preordained in the sense of these are the things you're good at these your talents. These are your strengths. These are the things that you naturally gravitate towards what you're curious about and you just kept building and and it's always awesome when you start off with you know, you didn't get the education or start university wasn't right. But then you've just kept building and building to the point where, you know, you've clearly embraced academia said so very fulfilling story to listen to. Thanks, Derren and you've been writing some things as well, haven't you that

Derren Young: 1:34:58

I wrote some an answer. Call just a few weeks ago, and it kind of plays on the educational because you know, you've always got like six weeks holiday and summer. So I've called it seven weeks of summer, which talks through my journey from losing my role at visual data and learning about AI. But trying to write it in a way that can help reframe HR and AI worlds. So that's on LinkedIn, which you will be able to access from my profile. And as I go through the course, it's probably going to be kind of Christmas time, I write a follow up piece about what I've learned and what I've built, and how that can be actually implemented to make real change. The first one is just personal story of fascination and what I'm learning and trying to frame the future. But the second one, hopefully, with some actual machine learning tools, applied to HR will be the next step.

Andy Follows: 1:35:55

That sounds very interesting and applicable to lots of colleagues and friends in the HR world, but ultimately, to all of us, at some point. So we'll put your contact details, your LinkedIn contact details in the show notes. So if people want to reach out to you, they can Darren and find access to to that. Is there anything I haven't asked you? Is anything else you'd like to share that we haven't? Oh,

Derren Young: 1:36:19

no, I mean, I think we've gone through everything. And I've mentioned everyone want to say thank you to to helping me with my career. And you to Andy, it's just it's been a pleasure. And thank you for the invitation to come and talk to them.

Andy Follows: 1:36:33

Now. Thank you very much for joining me, I find it really fascinating having known you for 20 years and not sat down and had this conversation before because typically we don't do this. And now I feel I understand you so much more and feel more connected. Really appreciate you joining me thank you very much.

Derren Young: 1:36:51

Thank you, Andy.

Andy Follows: 1:36:57

You've been listening to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR with me, Andy Follows depending on your unique life experience and where you find yourself right now you'll have your own takeaways from Derren's story. Some elements that stood out for me were that school was a tough environment and he clearly made a conscious decision to keep his head down and do the best he could. There his parents were musicians and how he spent a good part of his career in the music industry. The significant influence of his grandfather Ted, and inspired perhaps by grandfather Ted, he joined the Territorial Army and set his sights on a military career. The disappointment when he failed his medical or had to opt for his backup plan of a space at Manchester University. And whilst he enjoyed the music scene in Manchester in the early 90s, his first attempt at university didn't work out and he didn't complete his course. But motivated by a sense of unfinished business. Derren has embraced learning and academic study throughout his career, and continues to do so studying AI with MIT now, the fact that it was by chance that he found himself in human resources, and how that initial invitation to join the HR team has turned out to lead to an amazing career. And for a large part of his career, a common thread has been that he's been involved in supporting creatives. His experiences with organisations like Eagle star, they were very supportive in developing the people and with other organisations where it was less of a priority. And his experience wasn't valued in the same way. The reality that he shared that not every move worked out, and sometimes he's found himself in challenging situations where he's taken stock and worked out his next move. And finally, the observation that he's now combining his HR experience and interest in technology to explore and write about how the HR community can navigate and leverage the increasing presence of AI. I'm delighted to be able to share Derren's experiences and learnings with you. If you'd like to connect with Derren, we'll put his contact details in the show notes to this episode. If you enjoy listening to my guest stories, please do me a favour and share an episode with someone you lead parent or mentor or perhaps a friend of yours who you think would also enjoy listening. Thank you to Derren 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 stories. And above all, thank you to you for Listening