Leopold Visser

Leopold's motto is passionate pursuit of the extraordinary and unrivalled. He's a Senior Director at Carvana in California. He spent five years at Tesla as Senior Director of Financial Services and Insurance in both California and the Asia Pacific region and he has over 12 years experience with BMW Group in multiple roles across the globe. 

 In this episode of Career-view Mirror we talk about Leopold's career journey so far, to learn from his significant experience in treasury, automotive financial services, electric vehicles and disrupting automotive business models. Along the way he also shares with us a little about what it's been like moving his family around the world.

This episode of Career-view Mirror is brought to you by the Aquilae Academy. At the Academy we turn professional development into a team sport. We bring together small groups of leaders of comparable seniority from non-competing organisations to learn new concepts and grow together. They share experiences and challenges, support each other and hold each other accountable.

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Episode recorded on 4 December 2020

Transcript

Leopold: 0:00

And then you know, out of nowhere comes a call from a formal former CEO CEO and said, You need to talk to this guy called Elon Musk.

Andy: 0:10

Welcome to Career-view Mirror, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you with your own journey. I'm your host Andy Follows. Leopold Visser. Ladies and gentlemen, Leopold's motto is passionate pursuit of the extraordinary and unrivalled. He's been a colleague and friend for about 15 years and I'm very excited to share his career journey so far with you. He's a senior director at Carvana in California. He spent five years at Tesla as Senior Director of Financial Services and Insurance in both California and the Asia Pacific region. He has over 12 years experience with BMW Group as Managing Director of the Asia Pacific Treasury Centre in Singapore, CFO and Chief Risk Officer of BMW Financial Services in China, Director and CFO of BMW Financial Services in Australia, Managing Director and CFO of BMW Financial Services in Japan, Head of Controlling for the Asia Pacific and Middle East for BMW based in Munich, and Leopold began his BMW career as Controlling and Risk Manager in Toronto, Canada. In this episode of Career-view Mirror we talk about Leopold's career journey so far, to learn from his significant experience in Treasury, automotive financial services, electric vehicles, disrupting automotive business models, and he tells us what it's been like moving his family around the world.

Aquilae Academy: 1:55

This episode of Career-view Mirror is brought to you by the Aquilae Academy. At the Academy, we turn Individual Development into a team sport. We bring together small groups of leaders from non competing organisations to form their very own Academy team. We build strong connection between team members and create a great environment for sharing and learning. We introduce the team to content that can help them tackle their current challenges. And we hold them accountable to take the actions that they decide are their priorities. We say, "We hold our team members feet to the fire of their best intentions." We do this internationally with teams across the world. If you'd like to learn more about the Academy, go to www.aquilae.co.uk.

Andy: 2:41

Hello, Leopold. And thank you very much for joining me today. You've had a career journey that spans many countries. And I'm looking forward to talking to you about it. Where are you though? Now? Where in the world? are you today?

Leopold: 2:57

Yeah, so it's good to be here. I mean, I am now in Huntington Beach, Orange County, Southern California. So about 45 minutes, south of Los Angeles.

Andy: 3:08

Very good. And I can see behind you, you've got a map on the wall there of Africa, which is where it all started? Yeah.

Leopold: 3:16

That's true. Yeah. I mean, I could say it's funny, you know, my family has always been a what are we now? I am 16th or 17th generation. So my family's been in Africa since 1659, when you know, some terrible sailor got kicked off the boat for misbehaving. And then probably about five years later got kicked out of the colony for even misbehaving even worse.

Andy: 3:37

And that's just carried on, that's just continued

Leopold: 3:42

exactly. So I think whatever, whatever. I'm going to tell you today about how it's all come around, I'm gonna have to blame my ancestors for because clearly, you know, I did one of those DNA tests a couple of years ago. And I am officially there's like 17 different ethnicities in my DNA profile. So it is everything in anything like pretty much if you follow the Silk Road all the way from Norway, so like seven, I think that's where it all started. It's about 11 or actually include all the Nordics is about 17%, you know, Nordic in me, and then from there, it goes all the way down to the stands of people that have contributed to it. And then there's like the odd little bit of Amazonian that crept into it somewhere there. So, so definitely, yeah, that's my history. And that's why the maps out there actually reminds me a lot of like, where it all comes from. My family's been in Africa, that's home for me, even though I've lived in all these different places and countries that definitely result from the Africa.

Andy: 4:37

Yeah, and wow I'm learning about you even more already, so I'm looking forward to this. And you know, the drill I explained, what we like to do here is you want to hear people's stories, their career stories, and so our listeners can understand a little bit about how you come to be where you are some of the challenges That you've faced some of the decisions you had to make and how you arrived at them, the transitions between countries and jobs and companies, and you've got some interesting, you know, the listeners are gonna find out, you've got some interesting businesses you've worked in the comparison, for example, between BMW and Tesla will be quite interesting. But so where would you like to start? I mean, we touched on Africa, do you want to start back in the in the day there?

Leopold: 5:30

Yeah, it's probably better to start from the beginning to sort of sort of try and set the frame of how I ended up where I am today. Because I think if you ask the 16 year old Leopold will he be sitting in your house in Orange County, I definitely would have said over his dead body, that's never going to happen. But that's probably the best place to start. And I'm gonna have to blame I think my mum for the fact that I've been moving around so much, because she always told me like, you know, don't marry the local farmers go out to see the world. And my dad always did this for us. So you know, I grew up on a farm in Africa. It's an interesting story. So you know, my family's been, you know, in farmers or been farmers, their whole sort of, you know, time leading up to us. My grandfather, forced his four sons to really go and get an education, it was a big thing for him. He was taken out of school after the after the wars in Africa, at the age of 11. So he always regretted not having a proper education. So he pushed his kids into education, which ended up my dad is somebody that has a degree in actuarial math and science, but farms for a living. Right. So that's sort of the, you know, the dichotomy of what we ended up with, like this, you know, staunch Afrikaans farmer with, you know, you know, 1000s of sheep and cattle and stuff in the middle of Africa, but actually is educated to work in the top echelons of the insurance industry. So he always pushed us to go do some things. I mean, I actually wanted to be an engineer, I always love doing things in my hand, I love working on cars, you know, which is probably why I ended up in the car industry, the whole of my career. But I always love doing things in my hands, I still do carpentry. And you know, my dad said to me, Listen, if you're gonna be good at stuff, you always couldn't get into business. So if you want to go study something, go study business, go do something that's going to, you know, sort of teach you how to turn what you like to do into a commercial enterprise. Which kind of why how I became an accountant. So yeah, so take that leap from somebody who wanted to work and build machines. And you know, those days weapons for the, for the South African military into somebody who became an accountant. So that's sort of the roots of it, all right. But I was sort of, you know, growing up during the time where Namibia was going through independence, or in order for me to get a proper education, I had to go to South Africa. So actually, you know, I've never really lived at home, I went to boarding school when I was five, I went to South Africa when I was 13. So that meant I was going and going home about you know, three, four times a year, and then ended up in a university in South Africa and Stellenbosch as well. And that always

Andy: 8:00

Yeah, do you remember much about going off at age five to boarding school?

Leopold: 8:06

Yeah, I think nowadays and I talked back at night explaining to my kids and we talked about it everybody thinks it's such a big thing. But that for us was just the norm my dad did the same like so we grew up on a farm there was 140 kilometres from town. So like, you know, why gravel road so and that was a town that was you know, the size of probably like something close to you in England, like we talked about three 4000 people when I say town, I use the term deliberately right. So we always had to go somewhere to go get something right. So that was always so now you got to go get an education. Here we go, gonna go drop you off at five. You're gonna go, you know, spend your time in here, we're gonna come pick you up on the weekends. And you know, you still get to live these both life, but you got to go get an education. It was drilled into us from the beginning. There's a lot of kids that I grew up with who didn't do it like they flunked out of school at the age of 15 1612. Sometimes, just because the families were focused on running the farms, right? These were big, you know, I, I guess sometimes I have to explain to people what a farm meant back in those days in Africa, when we were on close to 50,000 acres of land running somewhere between 12 to 16,000 sheep, so it's not you know, a little smallholding with 100 sheep it is a proper enterprise. It is a proper enterprise. And you know, so that we always had this thing that you you are running part of this, this sort of you know, family business, but at the same time, you got to get an education, I still go back and think some of my best managerial education came out of you know, working on the farms like it at the age of 1213. And my dad would say this is your responsibility they yours a Landrover and here are, you know, four guys is going to help you go fix this windmill that as you know, 40 minutes drive in that direction, go get it. Right, and you had to learn how to manage people manage time, take the responsibility and fix things. And I think those are the things that still taught me even worse. No, all the educational programmes that we went to later and you know, some of them that BMW, specifically. Those are the things that came back in terms of how to understand who people are. Right. And so it was a great foundation. It sounds all, you know, very dramatic, do we have shipped off at five to the boarding school and all that type of stuff, but that was just the norm for us. I got I look back at it.

Andy: 10:23

And then South Africa at 13.

Leopold: 10:26

Yes. So Africa, 13, finished high school there and young foundry back in Cape Town. And then, you know, grades were good that I was able to be accepted into Stellenbosch University. So you know, and that was always sort of, there was never a question for me about all the other ones, there was always a trajectory. That's the trajectory that my dad did. And that's the trajectory that you know, his brothers that my grandfather approved, that's what you were gonna do. You go you go do a proper, you know, high school, you get good grades, and you go to university, and then you go study something, and then you go, and you conquer the world, pretty much like go figure it out.

Andy: 11:00

Right.

Leopold: 11:02

So, yeah, and that that was always I mean, when and I think the reason how I ended up internationally is this was still so I lived through the Namibian independence in, you know, 89 to 90, they moved to South Africa, and while I was doing in my high school and beginning of university was the fall of apartheid in South Africa. So I went through that transition as well. So I went through two major transitions, you know, both in sort of primary school and then in high school of how countries change. Seeing elections, seeing the protests, you know, the the movie, Invictus Liberty sees about, you know, Mandela, we were there. We watched all of it. Like we went to the protest, and we saw the running, you know, that helicopter scene of him taking off and gardens. That was our rugby field that we used to play on. And so we were part of it. All right, so I saw all that stuff happening. And I think that's what sort of gave me this impetus, when I finished my education to go and go international. Right. So I did a bachelor's degree in accounting, and then an honours bachelor's degree in management, accounting and commerce. And that opens me up to the international world, like I got my CIMA designation and my ACCA designation through that. And that allowed me to sort of look at the world to go Hey, listen, I gotta go. I gotta go see what goes on out here. Like this part of Africa. It's just very small. I gotta go see. So it's a big transition. So I did my high school, Afrikaans, my university, Afrikaans. My honours degree was 5050 classes in Afrikaans and I had to write my tests in English to prepare for for CIMA. So when I left University, after four years with my two degrees, I could barely speak English, but I could write it really well. Yeah, and that's how it all started. I even, you know, back then, when you were good. In University, there was very few employers in South Africa, it was sort of the last years of apartheid, especially if you wanted to go international, because sanctions have hit the country pretty hard. Like, you know, all the big international companies are not there. So like, you can go get an internship at, you know, Coca Cola or something, and then you'll get taken to Atlanta in the US. So I ended up actually working in the tobacco industry. I got a job with do with the Rothmans group, which was, you know, they were the big conglomerate back then they owned everything, like they own everything from banks to cookie factories, to oil tankers to aluminium, windows, whatever it is. And I got a job with him to go work in the UK, because I wanted to go to the UK. That's the first thing that a two year visa, I was going to work for British American Tobacco in the UK. And, and literally about a week before I was supposed to get on the plane, and you know, take off, they called me and said, Listen, we need somebody to help us out in Canada. Are you interested doing an internship in Canada? I mean, I was 21 years old, which helped lead with an internship in Canada because we just need somebody there. And if you're okay with it, we'll help you get there. Sure. Sounds okay up there. And so I ended up spending only two weeks in the UK and then flying off to to Toronto, Canada.

Andy: 14:05

And yeah, I didn't have the UK I tried to do a list of all the places I knew you'd lived and I didn't have the UK on there

Leopold: 14:14

as the UK was ever it was always supposed to be like this old big stepping point for me to go from the UK into the rest of Europe. I mean, at that stage, Asia wasn't on the radar at all North America wasn't really on the radar until Canada came up. And it's gonna see what Canada looks like, you know, 21 year old kid with a backpack and an education. So let's go. And yeah, so I ended up you know, only spending a brief amount of time in the UK before heading over to Canada. And that was supposed to be a six months assignment with then going back to the UK and taking my official sort of job with British American Tobacco. And then, you know, probably was about two three months into my six months stint in Canada. The rathmines Group diverse All tobacco. That's when they went into, you know, the Richmond group. And you know, the Rupert family sold it all off. And you know, British American Tobacco bought the majority of the tobacco interest but the Canadian operations was going to be too big. So the merger was not allowed in Canada. Okay, which means the the Rothman side in Canada decided to go out on their own and become their own company, which then put me in this position. I don't really have this job back in the UK, I can go back to it. But what I want to do and my manager that thing came to me and said, Listen, I really like what you do we really understand all the things you say, but we like to do. admitted that to me six months after I worked for him, he's like, Listen, I like what you do, but I have no idea what you're saying. JOHN Pitts always remember john, he was like this classic Canadian hockey. Really cool guy really liked john, but he was like, I don't know, your accent was not an understand. So I had to work on my accident, trying to be understandable. But so he came to me and said, Listen, if you want to stay, you can stay, you don't have to go back to England, we'll get you a job. And you know, we'll help you with getting your visa extended, and all that type of stuff. And I know, you know, this age, I have not gone through a winter in Canada yet. So I thought was pretty cool spot. This is great. Let me stay here. This is right after the summer in Canada. And so. So I decided to sort of take they offered me a job and Treasury, you know, and I was like, What is this Treasury thing do like I mean, I got a little bit involved with, you know, calling brokers and trading money and you know, buying bankers acceptance and CDs. And I'm like, this is pretty cool. Like, I like this stuff, you know. And so I said, Fine, I'll take the job. And I gave up the opportunity to go back to the UK. And I took this full time job as a treasury analyst in with rathmines, in Canada. And I mean, looking back, and it was a really cool opportunity, because it was just great. I got thrown in 20. That's a 22 year old kid getting thrown into tobacco that has money galore. Right. We were investing in anything and everything we were had billions of dollars, throw through my hands. And we were two people in Treasury and we were just, you know, pretty much paying tax bills and investing money. That's all we were doing. And but it opened me up into this world of dealing with financial services, like I got in touch with what is bank? What How does the securitization market work? How does the equity markets work, housing, investment, all the stuff that you learn in university until you actually really sit there? You know, I had one of those old school, you know, Treasury jobs. I was in the office at seven in the morning, you had your trades all lined up, you're on the phone, making deals, calling people you know, putting a billion there 2 billion, they're borrowing this like issuing and then you spend the whole of the afternoon faxing all the confirmations. Right. So those are my days, and I really enjoyed it. And it allowed me to, you know, work early in the mornings, and by three, four in the afternoon was done, and I could go play rugby again. Yeah. So that that was pretty much my life from 22 to 23 years, I would just, you know, do Treasury in the morning and go play rugby in the afternoon. It was pretty fun. And yeah, but it was but it opened me up into this whole world of like international commerce, because, you know, before South Africa was pretty isolated, you didn't really see any of this stuff. And then I really started thinking like a financial services is something really cool, like, what do I do with this? But the old school tobacco companies were neat, like they would once they hire you, they put you into these sort of, you know, rotation programmes like you, you're going to become a tobacco guy who's going to train you. And you year for life, like people were there for 30 years, 40 years, like you know, in terms of loyalty that made sense for me. And so they started rotating me every six to nine months to a different department. So he went from Treasury to sales and marketing accounting, and then from sales and marketing accounting to marketing. I was a brand manager, I ran Dunhill, and Rothmans as a brand. I was interesting, you know, this, this sort of, you know, Namibian farm boy and putting him in front of, you know, camera people and, you know, photographers and all this stuff of stuff, trying to run a brand, you know, no idea what marketing was no concept of how it works, but it was pretty cool. And they rotated me around that I spent, what, three, four years of my career there just really learning the basics of how the different departments within a large organisation run, right? We had international consolidations. We had Treasury, we had sales and marketing. We had accounting, we had marketing, we had sales volumes, and, and it really gave me a great foundation of understanding how a big international conglomerate should run. What I did learn is that I'm not a tobacco guy, don't smoke never smoked. You know, I grew up with farmers who smoke their whole lives, but I don't so hated it from day one. And there was a point where you just became You know, this is when tobacco was going through its real sort of attacked by the world, right. It was lawsuits. Even when I was a brand manager, I was not allowed to write anything down, no minutes of meetings, no memos to confirm anything. We had lawyers sit and go through all our documentation every week, to make nobody says anything wrong. We were in constant lawsuits with, you know, and rightfully so. Right. I mean, the tobacco industry was found out to have done a lot of things, right. And it was just for me became like the industry went from this big, massive conglomerate industry that had access to everything became this really narrow focus on how do we get people just to smoke cigarettes, right? And that for me, just became too constricting. And so I said, Okay, well, I really enjoy financial services. Let me see if I can get a job in financial services. So I started looking around interviewed with Deutsche Bank interviewed with a couple of their local Canadian banks, like Royal Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Canada, you know, a bunch of financial companies. But, you know, I was really worried it was gonna be just like another big monster there to deal with. And then out of the blue, a headhunter called me, I think someone got my name. And it was they were in the entertainment industry, movies and television, and they ran this company that was owned by, you know, Paul Bronfman, and they do financial services for the movie and television industry. At that stage, Canada was offering a tonne of credits to people coming up to the Canadian markets and using Canadian talent to actually generate your produce movies like Lionsgate and Universal Studios, everybody did all their movies up there, and they would get these tax credits back. So that offered me the opportunity to work with guys that provided like, you know, accounting services for the production company, they would set up the Treasury and the shell company to do all the tax, you know, credits for them. And then they would also provide all the the IT services just to have How do you run a production house, you have to have an operating system, you have to have all that data management, timecard management. So it's pretty decent interview, got the job from these guys, crazy world going from tobacco, old school, you know, very hierarchy, or very political, very traditional, to the movie and film industry. Like, I'll never forget my first day on the job. I started in November. And two weeks later, I think we had a Christmas party in the office. And you know, I didn't know what to expect to Christmas party, I would show up. And we just went you know, people around and be wearing costumes, but the costume is a little bit different to what I was used to, like, normally somebody has a Santa hat on now talking with people that have you know, assless chaps on how do I deal with so it's just like this flame boy in industry versus like what I was used to, but it was actually pretty fun just to see how it works. And it was neat business, like it was growing crazy. We were acquiring companies we were, you know, growing and it sort of gave me my first insight in terms of how industries just developed where there is an opportunity, right because I got to be got to be involved with everything I was, you know, for all intents and purposes, you know, the the chief accountant, Chief accounting officer, what do you call it? I had to deal with anything and everybody set up Treasury systems. But it was I started off with just me and two guys in accounting and we started building it up and we bought an accounting system up and and then you know, but after after about a year and a half, I was like Neil, where does this go? Like you couldn't just do the same thing you can just continue to do the same thing. And it just happened to be the same time that do a different headhunter reached out to me and said you know, BMW is hiring and immediately all my antenna went off you know, car guy, you're like big German car names especially you got to go look at this right so so I went for the interview with BMW and I was interviewed by South African maybe somebody you know Ursula and so originally interviewed me and we're going through the interview process I'm like God, I really liked this job I really liked this job like as a risk manager. No, no no idea what a risk manager does. Like I have like I knew I met some risk guys and I had all the Treasury meetings but this was a job for Miss manager like I had studied up like you know, what is you know risk or credit risk is that your body risk was really a thing yet you know, so I could I could work my way through the interview in terms of what risk management was but near the end of the day, like I was a car guy I love cars and this is no financial services all this cool stuff that I just learned about you know, trading money and then the whole car thing and and i think you know later on personal admitted to me that she she wasn't sure if she wanted to hire me because you know, she was from South Africans I'm just gonna hire this African kid to do all this work so she could understand me that was probably the biggest reason Yeah, but you know a couple of guys you know know Walter shower and all this Walter really like me and so on. And so so I got the job, right. So that's it. That's it, going back to my roots, you know, German company much more traditional, much more stable. But the main reason why I joined BMW, it's just you know, wonderful because it was cars in two because it was International, but this time now I realised that I really wanted to work International, right. I've not had enough exposure through my time in the UK, and my time Dealing with rathmines. And for the guys that, you know, at the bullet group, that I want it to be bigger than just you're working in Canada, I wanted to go see the world, so to speak, and somebody's gonna have to take me, right, because I don't have enough money to do. So yeah, so I took the job and BMW, when I was pretty clear to our stuff from getting to this, I'll do my time here. But eventually, I want to go somewhere else, like Canada is great, but this is too bloody cold here. But this time, I've survived a few winters. And I was like, I'm not going to grow old in this cold, I got to go see something else. And I was pretty clear, like from beginning BMW said, you do your two to three years here, you do? Well, we'll move you somewhere else. I mean, you remember back in those days, you had that traditional, right? You met you on Falcon, you unfelt gave the nod and said, you can go or not go right. And, and that was the start of, you know, almost 15 years at BMW, and it was, I still look back at it as probably some of the best times in my career in terms of things that I was exposed to. The group was large, the group was growing at that stage. I mean, this was 2002, you know, 2003, we were launching residual value leasing. So I got to know what risk management really was, you know, having to experience what risk is he got involved with the US, which is this big, massive market that you know, nobody knew about. And I got to meet people from all over the world, Europe, you know, people from Asia, remember the controllers conferences, you go to you meet people from Korea and Thailand, I got exposed to what ages but until then, it was just, you know, something I saw on a on an economic report somewhere. And, and yeah, so I did three years in Canada with BMW as a risk manager, and then eventually took on controlling as well, because you know, the nature of an accountant comes up, eventually, you can have to count the numbers. But that gave you an insight into the whole organisation, because as a risk manager, you have to see everything that happens, you have to understand the car side, you have to understand the product side. And you have to understand how the group as a as an organisation functions, and I was massively intrigued by how the group functions, right, because this is this big, huge thing that, you know, this farmer from Africa never sold. Like, he was just really interesting that, you know, they were a guy sitting in the four cylinder in Germany that only had a job this big, but they were part of this big, massive thing. And you had to learn all of it. Right? So, so yeah, so when I did my three years in Canada, then was, you know, finally tapped on the shoulder and said, I'm allowed to go to Germany now, because you can't go international until you come to Germany and said, Okay, fine, I'll come to headquarters. And I'll come in to learn what it looks like there. And you know, but be very clear. This is just for me to go somewhere else. Like I was that adamant, like I had that, you know, form filled out with all the countries about where I'm going to go, because now now I was intrigued, right? This is going to be interesting. So I went to Germany. And I still remember my first meeting with Johann Felch, I came and actually my first day was my birthday, when I started in Germany. Now this age, I checked my family and my two small kids and, you know, big fat black lab into a hotel room. Because it just got off the plane. And I went, I went to to, to the office, and he sat me down, he's like, Okay, I know, you're going to be really super eager to come in here and change the whole world. It's not gonna happen. And I'm like, what, like, I'm ready to, like, you know, turn this whole thing inside out, like, I'm gonna, it's like a juggernaut that's gonna come through the year, like, I've got all these ideas of watching you guys from across the ocean about what you should and should not do. He's like, I want you to go and learn German, and we're gonna have this conversation in two weeks. I'm like, Well, what do I do in the meantime? It's like, no German, like nothing going on German. And I was just like, fabric last, like, What do I do? Like, where do I go like, so I went to learn German. Because I nothing else to do pretty much like you wouldn't give me any other job to do. I was in some controlling team, but that's it, like you got nothing else to do. So just go no German, and probably one of the most. I mean, it's like two weeks later, I was able to have like some broken words here. Luckily, Afrikaans helps me with it. But you know, about six months later, we I was doing fluent German meetings, right? So you just have to go do it. Right. And then with that, that sort of got me into really seeing how the group works, right? You've been there and again, you get to see how the group functions and understanding how decisions get made understanding how, you know, corporate politics work, understanding how the organisation trusts and distrusts and those are truly valuable times. I mean, did I enjoy my first six months at headquarters? Definitely not work was boring work was you know, not that exciting, but it allowed me the opportunity to be home at four o'clock on a Friday and go travel with my family in Europe, right. So it also got me the ability to live and see the world of it. You know, we were in Italy. We were in Austria, so you got to understand what the world was really like a little bit as well. But it was an Interesting time and career just to be able to be exposed to how a big international organisation operates, did I make some mistakes for sure, like, a lot of times I was impatient. Now, if I look back at my career, that's probably the biggest thing that I would tell people is Be patient, sometimes, you know, you can't force things, especially in big organisations like, like a BMW group. Don't understand that, you know, people sometimes are, you know, resisting changes, because it's changed. So I had to learn those things, right? I mean, I grew up with, you are responsible for change, if something breaks on your farm in the middle of nowhere, you got to fix it, if you don't fix it, it's nobody else's gonna do it. Whereas a big corporation, sometimes you have to watch the broken thing for a while and see, right? You know, right. Sometimes you have to sit there and watch and say, Okay, well, who's gonna actually fix this? And why is this broken? Right? You got to spend a bit more time looking into it. Whereas, you know, I was just the first guy who suddenly grabbed the tool and started arranging. Yeah, so those are things that I that I definitely learned about my time at headquarters. And I started meeting people who were, you know, that stage responsible for the Asia region, Allen crooks, you know, people like yourself, people who will then work in a completely different side of the world, right. And that was interesting to me, like, I mean, hang on what's happening out here in Thailand, and Malaysia, what's happening in Hong Kong, and what's happening in China. And, you know, somebody who I think had their first Chinese food meal in 19, you know, suddenly got exposed to, you know, going for budget meetings out in the Far East. So, going to see what the hell goes on there. And it was, it was really interesting, just to, to get into it, and be aware of it, you know, so much so that, at the end of my three years in headquarters, you know, my options were South Africa, or Australia, or the last one that came on the table was Japan. And I took the opportunity to become the CFO in Japan for the financial services side, just because it was going to be so different. Right. And, and, you know, looking back now, in terms of, we talk a lot about cultural and cultural training and cultural adaptation, but that was probably the smartest decision I did was to go for that Japanese role. Because it taught me that, you know, this guy who just wants to start wrenching and hammering and stuff should probably go and listen a little bit. And in Japan, I had no choice but to listen, right? Because there was language barriers, cultural barriers, and the organisation is just such that you you're not going to change this massively archaic, old, traditional culture, this is the way things do happen in Japan, and you had to go sit and listen. And I was really good for my career that I could go there. I mean, it was not fun walking into a major fraud discovery. And then six months later, the financial crisis, when I moved, this was 2007 2008. So I moved to Japan, right in the financial crisis. And that was not fun. You know, but it was definitely an opportunity for me to take all this massive external input, and try and match that to the organisation, its capacity and learning what real management style was, because at the end of the day, whatever you have skills as a, as an executer, becomes irrelevant, because you're now just trying to influence a team. Yeah, so your knowledge about you know, International Accounting means nothing to the Japanese accounting system, your knowledge of tax means nothing. And it helps you understand things when you see it, because there's a similarity. But ultimately, you're a year to try and motivate and engage a team into something that they believe in. And that was probably my biggest biggest learning from my three years in Japan was just how to how to understand and work with a culture that is not your own.

Andy: 33:58

Yeah, and those transitions where you no longer are the expert in the room, you don't have the expertise. They can be a severe transition, but it works because you can't interfere. You can't. You can't you have to let go of doing the job and start stepping up and being a leader.

Leopold: 34:17

Yeah. And it was even because even in Germany, like why you were good, because you were needed, because you knew North America. So if anybody had a question about Canada or the US, they would come to you. So you are valuable for what you are. Because of this intrinsic knowledge, you understand, you know what the Canadian system does, and you know whether it works and you had knowledge and you could use the language, but if anybody needs to do English, they would come to you because you've even though I did, which wasn't a very good language for me, but hey, it's better than most of the guys from Bavaria. So, you know, I had a leg up. But when you get to Japan, it's exactly as you say, you are not the expert anymore. You are just you don't have to truly move out of the trenches and become somebody who leads a team that first of all doesn't trust you when you come in. I walked into an organisation that was fairly browbeaten by a lot of expert managers leading up to it right? So there was a, there was a callus across the organisation of like on your terms, another guy that's flown in, and is going to come tell us how to do it and scream at us about what needs to happen. And you had to break that down first. And then you have to start going, Okay, well, what do we need to address here? Then you got something like the financial crisis hitting, you've got some internal, like, we were doing massive system change over the people didn't believe why we were doing it. We were getting rid of outsourced Japanese outsource provider, you know, bringing it all internally, like, why are we doing this? Like, this is how we've done it for the last, you know, 15 years. And just because somebody in Germany said, it's good, why are we doing so. So it really taught me how to, I mean, school of hard knocks, I had to learn because I made some mistakes. I mean, there were some days where you could see like, I have lost the team and the route they are in the most new people are very Japanese culture is very polite, but there's a time and you realise you've lost the room where nobody's looking at you anymore.

Andy: 36:02

If anybody could do that Leopold, my money would be on you to turn the Japanese impolite.

Leopold: 36:12

think I've lost that. I think we will have to end this and I'm gonna have to go back and I'm gonna have to go have lunch, and then we'll come back to a different type. But yeah, so So those were, I think that was probably my biggest cultural learning in terms of moving to Japan. But but it was exciting, right? I mean, I got involved in really understanding how culture work, I learned quite a bit of Japanese when I was very adamant about you know, doing my Japanese lessons. Every Friday was a good I spoke probably more beer in taxi Japanese than the commercial Japanese. But you know, because of the way that the syntax work, I could read a speech. So every time I had an opportunity, when I was in front of dealers or for the team outlet a little bit to open up, I would have enough to make sure that I can make a connection. And it was just a focus on really trying to, to influence people, I spent my whole three years there. I think if I look back at the organisation, we get some really successful numbers, but not a good out of really good business decisions that I made. mostly out of the ability to get people to feel that they can do it. And this is actually one of the biggest things that I learned from you know, as they're that motivation wasn't about getting somebody excited about something. motivation was about changing the environment. So somebody can get excited themselves. You know, and that's probably the biggest learning I had there as motivation is all about changing the environment. And I spent three years working on changing an environment to where people felt engaged to do what they wanted to do.

Andy: 37:40

Can you go into a bit more detail on that just give us another layer to help understand what that looks like?

Leopold: 37:47

I think a lot of that has to do with, you know, because the first few months, I realised that I wanted to make all the decisions. I'm a CFO, now I've got see in my title, that means I gotta do stuff, right? I got I got not I got to be stronger than that I got to make decisions. And then I realised that I actually don't know the decisions like so if I make them, I'm gonna just screw it up. And then people are gonna just keep losing faith in me. And then I started just asking people what they think I would just ask my managers like, what do you think? And then it took me a while to get a Japanese manager to actually really tell you what they think takes a long time, right? And, and then eventually, I realised that they know this stuff way better than I do. They understand it way better. So all I got to do that is give them space to do it. And that's when I knew I was at a training course that says, you know, how to become an experienced manager, all this type of stuff. And it just dawned on me. And it was edappally that said, motivation is about changing the environment. And I went back and I just started changing the environment. I started sitting in that room and going like, Well guys, what do you think? And I would just, you know, put on my best possible, you know, Japanese face of just sitting and waiting. Then what do you think? And eventually, people started coming up saying, Well, you know, we have this idea. We have that idea. That's alright, let's try it. I'll back you up. I'll support it. I'll find the money. I'll find the time I'll find the organisational structure, I'll find the people and I realised my job as that, you know, big old See, job I was chased was to enable not to do or to push or to pull people through it. My job was to enable them.

Andy Follows: 39:25

Yeah, I think that's so important

Leopold: 39:28

I realised that, you know, my time in Germany now allowed me to pick up the phone and call some bigwig in Germany and senesin I believe this is what we need. I need this. And then to go back to my team and say, guys, I got I got this. What are we going to do with it now? Let's talk about your ideas and let's find the best one. And that was that was important that stuff came together. For me in Japan about your role as an international manager specifically in a big international organisation is to help the local countries be as independent than As strong as possible, and what's really for them, while building the trust in a larger organisation of what they can achieve. And that became the foundation of my old approach when I then moved on to Australia, and you know, Australia, New Zealand, supporting the guys, when we did the acquisitions and all the other countries moving on to China moving on to Singapore, that was all about them becoming this person who come into this, and I'm here to help. What do we got going on? What are the things that you've dusted off and put back in the drawer 20 times over the last few years? Are they still relevant? How do we make sure that they're relevant, because you know what, you know it better than anybody else in the organisation, anybody who sits in an office in any place, whether it's in a regional office or headquarters, just give me your opportunities. And let's be, let's find a way to apply it so that it works.

Andy: 40:49

So you understood you'd discovered where your real value to them lay?

Leopold: 40:55

Exactly right. And that's where I found that it also made my job a lot easier, because now I knew I didn't have to go and find the solution. The solution is here. I have to just allow the solution to come up and create that opportunity. And that became extremely important, especially when we went to China and China went from nowhere to everywhere, right? I mean, in my time in China, the BMW group sold its first million cars, right? I mean, it's like it's and then we sold the next million in like 10 months, like it took us 10 years to sell a million and then 10 months to sell them two years to sell the next volume. It was crazy. Like we hired you know, when from a team of 150 when I took over, and then we were 750 people at the time I left like it was crazy growth. And that growth couldn't come from me sitting there hammering nails into two tables. had to come from me just saying this. And hey, guys, what do you think? What do we do? How do you do this? Because I mean, there's anybody who knows how to run massive, massive organisations, it's the Chinese right? Think about it, everything you do in China is as big right? If you think you got 10 customers, you've got 10,000. So it was a massive turning point in my career to be thrown into that sort of shark tank in, in Japan because they were very slow sharks, but they were sharks. And great opportunity. And it was it was fun. I mean, like I had to say like, I really enjoyed my time in Japan, I look back at it, there's probably a pivotal point in my career, you know, made some serious mistakes in the beginning like you know, cultural foe pause, decision foe pause about trying to put decisions through realising that you can't force decisions in this environment, you have to go and find a way to they changing it all and coming back and creating an environment. You know, my last two years was really enjoyable. We saw volumes pickup, we saw opportunities pickup, we saw engagement become higher. We saw success in our, in the dealers using our products. It was it was really, really, really positive. And so when I left Japan, I felt really good about what I did. If you asked me in the first year there, I'm like, What the hell am I doing here? I should head back to the middle of the world, right? I mean, this whole eastern end is not for me. But But, you know, it's it taught me then and that, and that started off me. And he spent almost 12 years in Asia. And got me to move on to Australia, New Zealand, which was a completely different ball of fuzz on its own. It was a, it was a very, you know, protected organisation and functioned really well. And, and better gave me the opportunity to take those engagement skills and go and apply it to a team that was functioning well. And we went from not just taking the team was depressed and sort of overvalued, but take the team that was really working well to the next level of working well. And that was really enjoyable, because now I could build on it like I could I could sort of take engagement and circle how do we get this better? How do we get people and it took me out of my comfort zone, you know, the Australians are outgoing, they're a lot more, you know, open with their approach. But it was an opportunity for me to put these sort of really difficult practices that I learned in a oral experience, I'm not going to say learn probably experienced in a in a very opposite culture into a very similar culture and see how this adapts. Because now we speak the same language we have a very similar background, Anglo Saxon, you know, colonies, South Africa versus Australia. There's a lot of similarities. We do the same sport, we have the same sort of approaches to things we all have Christmas and religion and there's a lot of similarities, but we're not the same. There's a very distinct culture to Australian business. You know, this New Zealand's even a bit different. Then you had to find a way to get that same sort of engagement with the local culture with what people believe is right. You know, there was a massive disconnect with Germany as an organisation trying to control them and In saying, well, it's okay, we know what to do on our island over here, you guys stay where you are, and try to make that connection opener. So I really enjoy it because it. And I think if I look back at my career now, it was a real good progression for me not to just go and forget everything I learned in Japan, but to take it into a debt and to apply it to a different mindset into Australia.

Andy: 45:21

And, obviously, you've got, interestingly, I don't know how common it is for the HR function to sit in the finance area, but in your BMW roles it would have done here.

Leopold: 45:34

Yeah, it's actually one of the things I really enjoyed. I mean, it's something that happened when I was in Japan, where we had to say, what do we do with you? Because we had such a people problem, right? What do we do with getting people engaged and all that type of stuff. So I started working with our HR team. You know, I hired this lady called Nikita, he was this and she was really, really good. And opened up this whole concept of like how this human resources really work, you know, and I had a very, very interesting CFO, CEO, Sarah, she was, you know, very French and very old school. So it was this weird mix of this really sort of traditional French guy with the other sort of Africans mismatch, farmer, and we had to figure out how to how to get the Japanese team on board. And we brought her in, and she was really, really good. I mean, she ended up working in sales company. And that got me really excited about how to deal with human resources, the power of human resources, I thought, by the time I left Japan, I realised this was more and more important than, you know, the budget team. Like we had to go figure this out. So when I when I was in Australia, you know, alibi agreement will do the same thing. And, you know, how do Human Resources report into into me, you know, hire Jackie, and Jackie, I think is still there, if I remember that correctly. And it was it was just a tremendous impact to have somebody to make sure you get an HR team that really works with, with the organisation that became sort of the blueprint for my career, because when I went to China, that's the same thing. I I immediately agreed with Kirk that I would want to run human resources. And we hired Maggie Shen, which is, in my opinion, still one of the best HR professionals I've worked with. And it just changed the organisation. You know, we moved away from having your HR contact to having your HR VP, human resource business partners. That's why those names came from. Like, they are people that go and sit in every meeting and they learn your business, they understand some of the time you hire by the time you promote by the time you engage people you do it, right. And we fought for, for salaries, we fought for promotions, we fought for recognition, you know, and that, I think, made a fundamental difference to the success of the organisations.

Andy Follows: 47:50

And so what, how long were you in Australia?

Leopold: 47:54

Australia was only two years. And it was one of those sort of things in my career. Oh, actually, when I moved to Australia, I was ready to be there for quite a bit over this. They just was country number seven for me by now. Like I mean, now all my kids were born, my latest one was last one was born in Japan. So we were you know, a young family, children ages 3... 3 6 and eight. So everybody was fairly young.

Andy: 48:22

If any young if any young person is listening to this and thinking, Wow, that sounds like a hell of an adventure. I want in on that some of that international career. And just let's take a moment just to talk about the partners. What would you advise if if someone's tempted to follow in your footsteps about the relationship they need to have with their partner?

Leopold: 48:49

Yeah, that's one of the ones that you're gonna really have to pay a lot of attention to. My wife signed up for going to Europe. I think that was probably the thing that, you know, when we got together, she was always, you know, because I from the beginning, I was open, I said, Listen, I'm not going open Canada, this is it like my wife's Canadian. And I said, we're not i'm not growing old in Canada, this is not going to happen. So I'm going to leave sooner or later. And, you know, are you open to that, and she's gonna be getting sent us. She's open, it's go international. She always travelled internationally before and was open to moving internationally. And so Europe is an easy one. If you're excited about a country, it's always easy to settle into it to go get there. Moving in eight months pregnant, partner to Japan, that was difficult. Because we, you know, the decision time at the corporate headquarters came and said, that's it. You know, you can wait for six months before you go to South Africa or we need you to go to Japan now. And I'm like, Well, my wife is seven months pregnant. So she's got about a month left to fly. So we're going to do this. We've got to do this. Now, go or I'm stuck for the next six or seven months, right? I'm not moving. There's no family. So they said, That's it, you're going now I mean, I actually went there when the the other CFO was still there, we had like a two week overlap, he was like, What the hell, I'm like, I got a comment, like, that's it, like your choice like is it. And so that was, that was a difficult transition to move in there. If you do this, make sure that you do take care of your family. Like, that's the one advice I can give you is like, make sure that the house that they live in is the best place they can possibly be, make sure that the support structure they have is the best possible they can be. Because your job is going to take a tonne of your time. Like if you're new, and you're having to do lucky, the old cultural stuff I just explained with Japan, that was 10 hours of my day, just trying to figure out how to get accepted. So by the time you come home, you have to be prepared to do to run a second shift, so to speak, you have to be prepared to come in and say listen, okay, what do I need to do, because sometimes people were isolated for that whole day, because there's no community, by the time you get into the community, it gets a lot better. And you have to make those efforts to get involved in the community, whether it's local community, or the expat community, or some hybrid version of it. And, you know, you have to continue to follow your hobbies, or your sports or whatever it is, so that you can create an environment outside of your work environment, because otherwise, you're absorbed, and your family is completely separate. So you have to find those things that's going to bridge it. But it's not, it's not easy. Like it sounds very glamorous, but you have to make an effort towards it, you know, the same way that in Japan, or sorry, in Europe, every weekend, we would go somewhere, like I said, we back the car, and Friday afternoon, we would you know, play cards in a hotel floor in Zurich. But we're in Zurich, just to say that we're doing something versus just somebody sitting at home, right? In Japan, the same thing, you know, we got involved in the community, you join the clubs, you create an environment, you help support people, you have to have to support your family. And for your kids, it's hard, right? I mean, when they're young, it's easy, because, you know, My son is now 17. And he's lived in eight countries in his life, pretty much every two years, he's lived in a different country. So you know, my daughter, same thing, you know, she's, you know, almost 16. And same thing. You know, my youngest son tells people, he's Japanese because he was born in Tokyo. So they have an interesting story, but it is difficult for them because they don't necessarily belong somewhere, right? So you have to help to create that belonging, you have to help to create that sense of which is you know why when we moved to Australia, I was like, I was gonna stay here for a bit. Yeah, because we already had seen some of the strain of moving so much come in, it was difficult to keep everybody engaged, and we want it to be somewhere comfortable. Like it's difficult, you know, simple things like, you know, when your wife calls in centres, and nobody understands me, because you're in Japan, nobody speaks like somebody comes to the house to fix the plumbing, but you can't tell him where the plumbing is. So you always have this sort of distance between you and the reality what happens into it. So then when you come to a country like Australia, where it's like, oh, my God, I can talk to people I can, I can show them where things are, I can engage, I can have this comfort level. So you have to make sure that those are those breaks in between where people feel more returned to normal, if you're going to do it. Because otherwise you just end up you know, being too isolated and actually growing too far apart, because you're consumed with your work, whereas your family is consumed with everyday life, right. And you have to make a concerted effort to keep those two closer together. But it's not easy. You have to find the right people that are willing to do it with you. So be careful in who you choose. If this is important to you in life, and let it organically grow and make it part of the decision, we were very adamant every time you know the company asked me to do something or I had offers on the table I came up with discuss it with everybody. All right. All right, guys. What do you think? Let's go do some research and see what do you guys think of Melbourne? When see what do you guys think of Sydney? What do you guys think of you know, the Moscow was on the table a few times? What do you think of Moscow? Nope. All right. Well, I go back and say no. So those seats do come up. And you can always say no, you can always you know, walk away from it. But it's not worth risking it if it's going to be for your family. So you have to make sure they're engaged and they say okay, yes, we'll do it. And even if they say yes, they'll do it. Make sure you support them in doing it. Right. Yeah.

Andy Follows: 54:29

And what about the kids let's just spend a moment on the kids because I know people wonder about moving their kids around and you got a cracking example there with your your eldest son being in so many countries and what what are your thought on that? Yes, I mean, he it doesn't sound like it stopped you growing the family, even the dogs been on the, on the journey with you.

Leopold: 54:53

So I mean, our lab made it to Germany. He did not leave Germany. And then because of We have no dogs and most of Asia, we've got a dog again in Singapore. So can we now have a French Bulldog? Who's probably the most expensive French Bulldog in the world? Having travelled from Singapore all the way through the world? Yeah. So they do the you do have to take care that it does become ridiculous. But you know, they bought it. And you know, I did it. Because I grew up with dogs. I wanted my kids to have dogs, right? Yeah, you if you start cutting those things off, that are important to you, then you sort of lose who you are, right? Like, it's important to make sure that you focus on trying to maintain what is normal for you maintain your traditions, like if you do a Christmas and do a Christmas, I don't know, if my first Thanksgiving was in China, for God's sakes. You know, so you do these things, just because they part of what you are, because that's what makes the kids better. Right?

Andy Follows: 55:46

Yeah, your traditions. And so when, if people say to you, I'd love to do what you do, Leopold, but, you know, my child's not sure my child would deal with it. What are your thoughts on that?

Leopold: 56:02

Um, I think I mean, I think it was easier for me, because that's just the life that my kids was born into. Like, I didn't, they didn't, they weren't born in Canada, and they lived until they were 10. And then I rip them out of their environment. So I'm gonna have to preface that by saying listen, for me, that was the norm the kids, they started asking me sometimes like that, what am I moving? Where are we gonna go next? That gets to the point, like when we just did the recent move down from the from the San Francisco Bay area to down here and onto the beach, I actually had them pick this move, I said, you guys pick we can live anywhere with especially COVID. You can live anywhere in the country, you pick you go research where you want to be, we can go live there. But that's where we are now. Back then it was it was more important just to, you know, I think you have to do it, if you have the opportunity. I think my kids are more aware because of it. Like we get this comments all the time when people talk to us like what they sound like adults, like they know, stuff that I don't know, well, they've seen some stuff they've been around. And it's interesting now that especially with technology, they have a network of friends, my son is talking to friends in, you know, pretty much every country in the world that he has a connection with. There's no he's open to languages, he's looking to go study political sciences in, you know, in international affairs. And you've created sort of this sort of this sort of different structure for them. And I think it helped because my kids are third culture, kids, I mean, leaving Afrikaans my wife being Canadian, so they already were born into sort of this mix of languages and cultures, and then we took them and put them in eight different cultures and languages as well, just to confuse the whole thing. And so I'm sure they'll have a field day. And I always said to them, by the time you're 18, and you want to go, you know, live in a small town, and you know, just yeah, just want to work in the post office, or whatever it is, go do it like, but at least I know that you have experienced everything you want to and it's for you to decide what to do with it. And that's sort of how I justified myself. Is it always right? Probably not, you know, do I sometimes think they would have they, they missed that connection to a local group of friends. And I do I mean, I and we try as much as possible to make sure they have those connections, and they hold it up. So you know, the kids are in sports, they have to do sport, because that gets him into a team that gets him into people they know. So you have to make a concerted effort to make sure they are outgoing people that are in part of the society. It might be an expert society, but it needs part of a society. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't take it away from him. I think if you ask them, they love it. They enjoy it isn't the easiest sometimes. No. I mean, it's tough when you go to countries that are the same, like for instance, when we moved to Australia in the beginning was really tough because all the kids had their groups, their friends and their families. And we probably had our lonely as Christmas in Melbourne, Australia. Because we moved in and we were the ones that didn't have family to go to, that didn't have friends. And they've known since they were five. So it was like a great time. But Christmas he later expecting us to go with our group of people, but we were like, we're Billy no mates, we got nobody. Like, okay. Whereas when you're in Beijing or in Tokyo, it was like, Alright, well, I got nobody Let's all come together like in Yeah, for you know, you got a group of 50 people, but in countries like Australia, it was like, guys, so but by the second year round, we were into it like so. And that's the thing is you will always have these sort of flat spots during these moves. Yeah, when you hit one of those flat spots. It's your job as the person that really in sort of instigated this to go back and help them fix it right and help and get through it. Like, spend your time pick up that thing that you wanted to do. Make sure that you balance your work. Make sure that you, you you don't forget where your family is, right. Yeah, because it's easy to forget them when you're in your career driving bolding, fixing, dealing with everybody else's problems right.

Andy: 1:00:00

It is easier, it is easier for the person who's got the job, isn't it, they've got their day is already taken care of they make connections in the job, they got plenty to do. And it's those at home, who've got a challenging job to integrate, and work our way forward. And Excellent. So then you get a year in and things start to the calendar comes around again, and the things they do in whatever country you're in, you recognise, oh, yeah, we did this. This happened last year, we know the ropes. Now.

Leopold: 1:00:37

We get ahead of this little thing, like we can figure this out, we can make sure that we invite people over even though we don't know what we're doing. But we're doing it right. And you have to do that, right. I mean, we became the people that would always just have some kind of a dinner party or a barbecue or whatever it is, like I mean, I mean, if I asked my kids to sort of explain to me, we had, like, you know, bacon sandwich parties in China, just to have six families over here. Like you do these things, just to be able to make sure that you get people involved and get them engaged. And, and it's the same sort of philosophies that you have, with with with work that you end up having to bring home, but you have to make it more personal, right, that you have to be way more vulnerable and accepting that, you know, people are lonely, so you're going to be an accepted vulnerability and be brave about what you're going to do. Like, I'm not an outgoing person, maybe I sound like it. But I'm not an outgoing person, I'm way better on my own fiddling around with a, you know, a piece of carpentry and doing that. But I couldn't do that I had to go out like on Saturday, we were gonna go somewhere, we're gonna go to a sporting event, or we're going to participate in this like, I mean, then we're going to be doing it because the rest of the family spent the week pretty much you know, focusing on their day job. Now it's my time to help support it, right?

Andy: 1:01:54

Yeah, bro, proactive about it a

Leopold: 1:01:56

break, break breaks. Yeah, breaks your uncomfort sent your sense of confidence? Well, right. And we've talked about this, you're never as, as as good as when you are when you're at the edge of your comfort zone or slightly over it. Right?

Andy: 1:02:06

Absolutely.

Leopold: 1:02:08

So you got to go do it.

Andy: 1:02:09

So we were taught two years into Australia, you thought you might settle there for a while longer, this could have been a long distinct for you. But yeah, things changed.

Leopold: 1:02:21

Then, you know, the world and the group had a different idea. And, you know, these things always happened, somehow, I mean, so two years, and it was a hard settle, it probably took us about a year to really settle in Australia. You know, for a lot of personal reasons, and just, you know, also just for, for just the fact that it was familiar and yet completely isolated. And I didn't realise how far away Australia is from the rest of the world and that I live there. Yeah. And, but it's a great place to live and we settled in and, and then it was actually on Valentine's Day, about two years and that you know, the question was asking you to go to China and I always had China on my list isn't no go. China and Russia was always a no go because I never got the okay for work from home the silos that I go.

Andy: 1:03:12

Yeah, it's about a similar list.

Leopold: 1:03:14

Yep, yep. And so the question came, listen, hey, China is taking off. It's booming. Now we've broken through. We need people that can do this. And I was like, I don't even want to go home with this. I was like, nope, you have to go home and go off this one. But then in the system, you know me by now like I was intrigued, this law right, this sounds this sounds juicy, right? Like I can't I can't back down from the challenge. I'm too I'm too much of a you know, got to prove the world that I can do anything type of guy right. And so the question came to think about China, I went home you know, waited until the end of the evening and said Listen, I

Andy: 1:03:56

didn't want to ruin all of Valentine's day

Leopold: 1:04:01

the questions been asked and it was over my dead body. Never do we go there. I went back the next day and I told you guys it's a no go. Like we're now six five countries in we just settled two years, all that type of stuff. That's a no go. And the response came back. You need to rethink it. And I'm like, oh my god. Anyway, long story short, it took about a week until we agreed we're gonna go have a look at it went to cloudy.

Andy: 1:04:29

Let's not long story short, that because that sounds like a really good story

Unknown: 1:04:35

whoa.

Andy Follows: 1:04:38

How did what happened in that week, then?

Leopold: 1:04:42

I think we just started sort of tug, started talking about it rationally. And looking at it, listen to what makes really sense for us as a family and career wise, you know, is this this big career break that we all thought that has to come sooner or later is this that one thing that we got? I have to do in order to move to the next stage of settling down or life or whatever it is, right? Where are we really that happy with everything in Australia? was it? Was it this, you know, be all end all where we want to be for next five years? And when you start looking at things critical like that, yeah, they asked this question, right? Is this 10 years? Is this like? Or is this just another year, and then we missed out on this opportunity to be part of something that is big, right. And the consensus was, okay, you know, what do we do with this, the biggest decision came down to pollution in China because of the kids, right? So at this stage, we had, like, all everybody was under 10 years old, I think my oldest was just just just there. So what do we do? Like, is this worth it? Do we go and eventually agree, let's gobble up like, that stage. I was in China once like, I've never been there before. Like it was once there for a brief visit? Like what is Beijing really look like? What are the offices look like? What is the living conditions look like? You know, is there compounds? Or does it make sense all that type of stuff. And so I think when it came down to as releasing this admits they call the emotion society, let's critically Look at this, let's make a business decisions about this. Right? I sometimes I get there all the time, and take a bit longer for my wife to get there. But you know, any other day, I'm a pragmatic person. So let's take all emotions and look at as clearly job one to life one to like, put it all down and see if we figured out that, hey, we should look at this. It's worth it. If this is going to be that massive career change. And this is going to be the opportunity it's going to show us you know, from from a resume perspective, China is the hottest thing in the world right now. So if I can chalk up a few years in China, this is going to open up career opportunities from anywhere because at this stage, I was trying to select like, you know, how long do I ride this train with a BMW group as well, like if I ever want to get off this, I am not German, there's a point where I want to hit a ceiling in the organisation. Like, where do I go with this? And so we started looking at China, not just as another step in the BMW career, but as a step on a global career. And I think that's what made the difference for us in terms of the decision, like if I want to be somebody who's going to go out and change what I want to do, like at that stage, I was 35 years old. Like, what do I do? Like I got, like, I've got still 4050 years of career left, do I need to do something for that career versus something for this BMW career. And that's what made the decision for us to grab a locker. And we went to go have a look at it. And, you know, it came down to detail stuff where eventually, like, I pretty much just had to BMW group support as much as possible, make sure that my family is in the best possible housing, best possible schools. And it was familiar, it was international schools, it wasn't local schools. Again, it was an international compound with international people. So this thing started appealing to my family and especially to my wife. And and eventually, we said well, to that, I like this sort of expat lifestyle. This is one of the reasons why start getting on. And let's let's do this. If, and I think that you have to understand I'm going to be like 1012 hours a day on my career. Because this is you know, we're going from nowhere to everywhere with China, right? We were opening up a new dealer every week, we were selling, beginning with 1000 cars a day, when I left, there was no more than that. Like, it was crazy, right? It was just like growing, the company was growing tenfold. And it became a decision of we're going to do this as a pivotal point in both our lives and our career. And it was always two to three year max will do it. But we will not say yes after this. And, and you know, looking back at it now, it was a good decision when we were in it. Some days it was tough, like the pollution, the environment. It was a different culture to Japan completely different in terms of how its approach to business is. But I realised that for my career, I had to say that I actually worked in China, not just I studied China, or I was involved with a or I saw what they did or I travelled there for business. No, I actually saw it every day I went and sat down with the People's Bank of China. I went and sat down with the, with the Chinese banking, regulatory Regulatory Commission, I wrote their tests, I made the decisions. I was involved, I lived in it. That was a career. pivotal for the next which became tremendously important for my career at Tesla, right. I mean, when I met Elon, the first time he said, just go fix China. Like I hired you to just to go fix China. That was it. He was like, just go do it. And it helped me do that career step before and this is the reason why I made the decision in the end of the day, it turned out that way. But sometimes you have to take those once in your career, right union, but you have to go into them eyes open, don't try and lie about them and see if I can give people advice or, you know, from my experience Don't sugarcoat it as this is going to be this really fun time it is hard. It's a slog, it is, it is tough work, and but you're doing it because you're trying to achieve something. And, and that's and that was what China was, for me, it was a, like, I'm not somebody who is very attracted to Chinese culture, or Chinese history, or anything I knew nothing about growing up in Africa was the Far East for me. Like, we don't know anything about it. But it was it's looking at where China is going to be as a world sort of superpower, it is important to understand how it functions if you want to be successful. Right. And that's what I learned from it. It was it was a learning experience. For me. It was a difficult decision. Definitely. You know, and you regret it. But nine months in, I walk my daughter to the school bus One morning, and at this stage, we're like on week 10 of 400 AQIs, the kids up and outside, all sports have been cancelled. And I remember her taking her mask off and looking at me and go, Dad, why are we here? Putting your mask back? Oh, yeah. So, so yeah. So there are those days where you go, like, Oh, my God, why am I here? But you know, and we knew it by the time we got to sort of MONTH 18. We said, that's it. We're gonna have this over. So I needed two years in China. And but it was two good years, I learned a lot. I got to see what China really is what China does. And so what you know, and then you get out at some people stay there for a lot longer and people enjoy it. And people do it. Great. For me, it was only ever a learning point in my career.

Andy: 1:11:47

And talk us through the the the transition then from there. You went to Singapore, was it after

Leopold: 1:11:53

that? Yeah. So Singapore is an afterthought that happened.

Andy Follows: 1:11:57

Yeah. That wasn't the

Leopold: 1:11:59

Yeah, my whole plan with the BMW group was to actually get out of financial service. Well, it's I always sort of done with financial services. I was on my fourth CFO job and like, Okay, I gotta do something else. So I really wanted to move over to the, the manufacturing and distribution and retail side of it, you know, and I had a couple of jobs lined up for that to be able to read to go. But you know, you know, US unfortunately, you know, all good things come get, you know, Bobby used to because of my time in China, I built up a really strong relationship with our joint venture partner, and was really trusted by our joint venture partner in terms of how to deal with financial services and Treasury. And they then requested that, you know, at that stage to be able to encompass multi meeting the Treasury functions for the joint venture versus the local companies. And in order for that to work, they wanted somebody they can trust. So as much as I had these intentions of going to South Africa, or wherever else to go, rabbit sales company, the group needed me to go and do Treasury so that the joint venture can trust them with the body. And that's probably one of the things that I think end up making the decision for me to leave BMW as well as that. Now, the group is telling me what I need to do, versus I get to do what I wanted. So yes. And yeah, so the group said, That's it, your only choices, you got to go to Singapore, you know, and it made sense for my family. It was a safe spot to go, you know, especially post China, it was, you know, very safe, very comfortable, great weather, very clean. Everything. It's not China. But yet still very international, very convenient. So family wise, Singapore made a lot of sense. We end up staying the longest in Singapore, we stayed in almost four years. Just because it was a really safe place for my family to settle when my kids were in our early teens, making some relationships. It was good international families. So we ended up going to Singapore. Personally, for me, it was too small. I needed to get out of it, which I did. But it was a it was a good I needed a landing ground for my family. While I decided what I did in my career. That's what I ended up accepting Singapore. So I only worked for the BMW group for six months while I was in Singapore, I pretty much landed and two weeks later started looking for a better job.

Andy: 1:14:17

Okay. Yeah.

Leopold: 1:14:21

Me and just and that's so it was a plan transition for me. I didn't know how long it was going to take and know when the right opportunity was going to come around. But I knew that this is, even though was treasurer, you know, stuff that I'd like to do. I was at a different stage in my career. I wanted to do something completely different. But let's say I realised that the automotive industry was about to go through a capitalistic change. Something had to happen. What we were doing is wrong. I mean, seeing us implement a 50 year old business model in China made me realise that we got to do this better. We took all the mistakes from Europe and all the mistakes from the US and we brought them right to China. implemented the same business model, they're like, we didn't take the time to go and change the way we interact with customers to change the way we retail cards to train them just to be we just did the same thing over and over again. Like, there's got to be a better way at this stage. We know that, you know, people want to buy cars online, we know people want to not deal with the dealers anymore. We know people want to have a much more direct connection with the OEMs. We know that the vehicle features are getting commoditized, there's got to be a better way of doing it all these new business models of you know, memberships and leasing. And all this stuff is coming up, like what do we do with this. And we just neglected the opportunity to do that in China, that sort of frustrated me. Because by this day, I was seeing myself as this entrepreneur, this guy who can change the world, even though I was implementing the same business model in different countries, like I mean, I was like, you know, getting ready to go change things. And I just, I just got frustrated that I couldn't do it. And then what is what is the opl? Do when he gets frustrated, he tries to force things right, you know, 14, things didn't work well. And then I realised that, you know, I'm at the point where I'm now going to do force harm onto my career. So it's better to accept that it's time for me to move on. Find something that excites me, and it takes me out of my comfort zone. I just turned 40. I was like, Am I ready to spend the next 20 years of 25 years of my career toeing the line in terms of doing what the group needs to do? And I said, No. So I had to change. So I started looking for jobs that could do that. And it was interesting to see what was out there. And then you know, out of nowhere comes a call from a formal former co CEO and said, You need to talk to this guy called Elan musk. So So yeah, I end up having a conversation with him. And two weeks later, I joined Tesla. And that was that was that was a actually thinking back at it. Now, the decision to go to China prepare me for the decision to leave, leave BMW group and join Tesla, because I knew that that decision to go to China with a said was this whole career sort of move that you got to go do this. So that when the time Tesla came around, it was a small company selling 25,000 cars, big promise, but nothing in reality, like there was nothing right. Then you've seen it. There was lots of broken pieces, and you know, broken processes and all this stuff and stuff. There was no presence in Asia, it was two analysts, you know, up in China, trying to you know, keep their heads above water. And it was just this thing, and it's like, well, you've always told yourself that you're this entrepreneur, you've always told yourself that you're going to change the world yours your time. Is it it's time to do it now? Are you going to be brave enough? You're going to give up the comfort of you know, being a BMW executive with all the job security expert package. You know, trust and reliability and all this stuff? are you actually going to, you know, shrugging the blanket off and step out into the cold. And yeah, I did. I decided to do it. It was tough. I mean, I gotta tell you, my wife wasn't convinced. She was like, What are you doing? And what are we giving up? For? What? Who are these guys? And yeah, so it was it was a difficult decision. But I knew I had to do it, because otherwise I would just become bitter and cynical, right. And so I had to do it. And I'm glad now I did it. But the first six months was rough. There were days where I would like not sleep, I wake up in the morning going, like, what the hell that I do? Like, what did I just do? But I believe in the power of the business model. I mean, I always say this to be from the beginning, like, Tesla as the car is cool. Yeah. But everybody's gonna eventually build those cars. What I've always liked about Tesla was the business model, the fact that we could start from scratch, we could throw away all the old legacy problems. Could we could do it the way that it should be done in the 21st century. And that's what attracted me to it attracted me to come up with true business innovation, like we could do it the way it should be done. And I knew that that's that was that that was my opportunity at Tesla for however long they will let me do it.

Andy: 1:19:35

Yeah, it's so much easier when you start with a blank sheet of paper.

Leopold: 1:19:41

For sure, right, then you and we could there was none of the restrictions. There was none of but at the same time, there's none of the safety nets as well.

Andy: 1:19:48

It's so much harder as well.

Leopold: 1:19:51

Like I mean, I was for that stage I was used for the last 1213 years of my career. I walk into a room and I put that BMW business card down people's pay attention. Right. I suddenly walked into rooms in Hong Kong or Beijing, I put the Tesla car down and they'd be like, like, you'd be like the UK has a completely different mindset right. Now, I

Andy: 1:20:11

still have to say he still had to say, Tesla, it's an electric car company.

Leopold: 1:20:19

Exactly right. I remember the first time that I met some of the insurance agencies, they're like, Who's that? What do they do? And they're like, but what if the battery falls out on the road? Oh, yeah. So you have to go through that. I mean, and it doesn't help when you got to go home, and you gotta pay the company's bills with your own credit card? Because so yeah, so it was it was it was interesting time and it but it got me to really go do the things that needed to be done. Right. I had to I had to finally be what I told myself. I was like an entrepreneur and an innovator, I had to go figure it out. Like there was points where you don't know what was going to happen, right? There was no support structure, there was nothing you had to take risks. And you know, so those risks are normally not always that easy, right? They end up normally with a severe, like, severe reaction, right. And suddenly, I went to an at will employment, right. And so, so it was it was it was a a move that nowadays, I go back, and I can tell you about but when you're in it, it was difficult. But I knew it had to done because I had lost faith in where the auto industry was going. And I love the industry too much. And I love cars too much. And I like I mean, my dad owned car dealerships when I was a kid, like though I always been in car dealerships and all that type of stuff. So but I, that's the age I've lost, I couldn't say like, Hey, we're doing the right thing anymore. Because we were just trying to find ways to my job and financial services, it became a way to help the dealers make more money, right? Like, that's not that's not fun, right? You know, you're not doing anything, we all say we're doing stuff for the customer, we're not really doing things for the customer. We're doing it for our own sort of, you know, antiquated system that I developed. And at Tesla, I got to actually speak to customers, it was direct. Like there was an immediate response, I launched a product or an initiative onto was like that either somebody tweeting you on an Elan calling me or call me directly. First one you don't want but the second one you do, right. And it became a more real, like, it was frontline. He was direct, he was connected, it was what everything said the industry was gonna go and it was interesting, my last 18 months at BMW, I went through this training course there was, you know, designed to get you ready to become, you know, higher level of management. And they actually took us to all the places and I remember sitting in Silicon Valley for for 10 days meeting all these sort of, you know, startups in Silicon Valley companies. And I looked at one of my colleagues who actually end up joining Tesla as well. And I said to him and said young, like, I mean, we're like a dinosaur, like, we're old, like, we might be the fastest one, but we're still a dinosaur, like, we're still gonna die. We need to do something different than that became that impetus for me to look at the industry is changing it is it's wigga, we're getting disrupted and disconnected by people that we never even saw coming. And you know, what, best way for me to go and just join them and see what they do. And when I joined them, and I started looking into it, I mean, I started looking at the Tesla business model, when I was actually in Australia, we were looking at, you know, doing p2p stuff, and all that type of thing. So I was aware of some of the things they were doing. But it didn't happen until I actually got there to realise, oh, my God, this is what I believe in. I believe in this business model. This is for me, where it's got to go, this is where I think the industry gonna go. So I might as well go help shape this. And that's what I really enjoyed about my time at this, I'm gonna end up spending five years there is that I got to be involved in shaping how that model looks. Like, there were very few of us that were car guys that joined us and most people came from the retail industry or Apple or you know, people that have no experience or even own a car in their life. So it was it, it was a big text for your test for me to be able to not say, Yeah, but we tried that before. Now, it was always like, let's see what it does. And I was surprised 90% of the time I was surprised it worked. Because you have this way better than direct connection. That's what I really enjoyed my time to test and it became like after about a year or so like it became really all consuming that I wanted to do it. You know, and if I look back at my time at Tesla, it actually it became too much like I was working pretty much every hour of the day like I mean, my first two years in Singapore, I was on the road 186 days a year travelling. That's great from Singapore because you only pay taxes when you're in the country. So it's great for my tax bill. But, but it was terrible for like, you know, sort of just life balance because I was I was on a plane every Sunday night and came back every Friday night. And that's it Saturdays and Sunday mornings with my time with the family, right? Good thing is that they were We were based in Singapore, which is safe. But I ended up becoming that sort of corporate guy that was not really a corporate guy. It was a startup guy that was flying around the world trying to change everything, build insurance companies build financial services, captains build, you know, relationship, markers, energy, business, whatever, anything that came across my table, I wanted to build like, I wanted to get in there and Bolton, like I picked up my hammers and my wrenches again and started renting, right. But it was good, you had to, because there was nobody to manage. Like, I went to a team of two people, you know, when I finally left inside a team of about 40 or 50 people, but I had to spend, I had no time to spend on people managing, because there were no people to manage. So you know, whereas the VFW like in China, I think it was like 150 or 200 people that was in my team, like, you spent the majority of time doing those and making business decisions, when you on the front line with it. That's it, I got to pull up Excel sheets, again, Word documents and write stuff.

Andy Follows: 1:26:15

big change big.

Leopold: 1:26:17

So it's almost like starting a starting a career from scratch, which is which actually really good because it made me realise what I really enjoy what I really want to do. Which is one of the reasons why I moved carvanha right now is because I still believe in the power of the business model. And I believe that there's so much we can do in bringing the what I put in an industry I love which is you know, nowadays you can't call it auto anymore, it's probably called transportation or you know, mobile. Yeah. And how many years and we've been throwing that word around the ability to use mobility. It wasn't, it was never mobility. But that's, that's that's where my passion now is like, I can do it now. Because I've seen all of it, right? I've seen the majority of it, you've seen the mistakes, you've seen the good things, you've seen the power of changing it. And this is what I really enjoy in my in my career. Now. I mean, I've been with carvanha now almost a year. And we get to like, we look at cars just as a piece of hardware. It's just it's just a widget. The the process around it, the engagement, the customer, what we provide as a service, what we provide as satisfaction, that's our product. The car is just the just the widget,

Andy Follows: 1:27:32

just a vehicle.

Leopold: 1:27:33

Yeah, it's just it's just the same as it was always. But somehow when you when I was a staunch BMW guy, you believed in it like this is better the product is better the feel of it's better than, you know. They say The Man with the Golden acid, BMW, the driver of the car, like you believe in all that stuff, you believe in this product, but you forget that the product is the people right. And that's that's the thing that I've sort of come full, full circle in terms of learning. Because even at Tesla, it was all about making people believe in the concept of electric mobility. And it started off with First of all, convincing people that electric works. Yeah, then second of all, convincing people that a connected car works. And then moving into like, how is this all gonna work? Right? And that's what what was interesting for me to see in the beginning, you have to do exactly what you said you had to always explain. It's electric. No, it's not hybrid. It's full electric. And you plug it into the wall. Okay, and then the battery, yeah, there's a battery in the battery drives the motors. Okay. And, you know, but what if you run out of battery, and you charge it? had all those conversations, right? With very smart people that have driven cars for their life, suddenly, suddenly, they were like, dumbfounded by this whole concept. Yeah, it's the same thing. To the point where like, Listen, now the car talks to you, and we're talking and then you can see this movement in people's heads when they realise Well, if my vehicle is connected the same as my smartphone and all that, like, look at all the power of the technology and the information and how this can make my life easier to, you know, one click insurance, one click financing, like, you know, interactions, changing vehicles, swapping them, oh, wow, this is like, like, upgrading your car, instead of going to the dealer and buying a new one. You just get a software update overnight, and tomorrow, it does things that it didn't do yesterday. How does that work? Wow. You know, in building all of that into an ownership model, I mean, I can in the end of my, my career at Tesla, like people ask me what I do, and I said, I just worked on ownership, like, you know, even though my day to day job was still you know, doing securitizations, doing financing, you know, credit underwriting and credit risk management and customer service and funding. You know, that's my still my day to day job, but it became part of this environment that enables people just to get easier, faster, better access to cars, and to get value out of that. Then my whole concept of the insurance product, which is probably my last one Salma Tesla's, we wanted to build a product that was going to help make mobility easier and manageable wasn't just about getting cheaper insurance, anybody can get the cheaper insurance. There's like tonnes of inefficiencies in the model. But it was a system that was actually going to come back and generate money for you so that you could take that money and do better things with it than just pay for an eventuality. And that's sort of really what changed my mind process. So well, it turned when I you know, left Tesla in the bank. it you know, it ended up in what I wanted to do with carvanha. Because, you know, meeting, Ernie Garcia, the founder of carvana is like that sees concept, it's all about the power of what we can do with the customer. The car is just a car. You like blue ones, you like red ones, you like you know, German ones, you like American ones, who cares? Like, how do we just get that to you easier, better, faster, and in a process that you really enjoy versus something that you hate to do?

Andy Follows: 1:30:59

So you're enjoying what you're doing now?

Leopold: 1:31:01

Yeah, I do. I do. I really enjoy. It's completely different. I am once again a team of one. Okay, I've started back from back from the bottom. Again, I'm part of a team. We're called special projects, we do all the things that, you know, new initiatives, I think, is the best way to explain it. So we focus on things that are currently not part of our business verticals. And then how would we bring that in, I get to look at the industry really critically, and get to look at all the new innovation in this industry and service? And how would we make that into completely surprising customer expectation? So it's pretty cool. It is really cool. It's, it's at a pace that, you know, I can control it is at a pace that you know, makes sense. It's not you know, we launched a car, you now need to get financing, insurance and service and you know, all that stuff in place. Because we're going into a new market, it's more about what's going to bring value to our customers, how do we create something, people can get their car service today, they can get the car finance today, they can get insurance today, they can get all that stuff done? How do we make it better for them? So that's why I said come back and probably explain myself and ask I'm a car guy and an innovators body, you know, so instead of what I got to do, now I got to look at it and say, how would I do it better? Yeah. So it's it's come a lot full circle for me. And I'm really lucky and feel lucky that I had this opportunity to do it.

Andy: 1:32:31

Do you think you'll stay for a little while?

Leopold: 1:32:35

Yeah, I mean, we just bought a house here in the US first house I bought in 22 years. So that's permanency. So that's the first thing. So I think I think I'll stay here for a bit. I got I got quite a bit to do here. And it's, uh, I'm lucky to be part of a team that has given me an opportunity to do things that I love to do. Yeah, nothing that I have to do. And, and that's what's really enjoyable about it. So it's a, you know, these are all really big names and a career trajectory, if you look at the car world, but they all tend to go in one direction, which is I think the way in the industry is going I like to think that I'm sort of following or leading the industry a little bit. And I'm hoping this is going to be the right thing. So that's it's really enjoyable. It really is. It's it's good to sort of be able to look back at your career sometimes ago, how would you do it differently and then apply that to the decisions I have to make today?

Andy: 1:33:30

Yeah, certainly amassed an enormous amount of experience be appalled in some very different environments, with different cultures, different personalities along the way. I've certainly enjoyed all the times we've worked together. It's been it's been a good ride. And good to hear that you're settled now. And is your wife happy there?

Leopold: 1:33:59

Yeah, that is that. I mean, I think it's funny. That's all sort of, you know, going through the virus isolation period for the last nine months. It's been interesting, right? It's allowed us to really live as a family in the same house. Yeah, we moved houses looking, but that's just part of our DNA. So it is allowed us to really be people that spend time together. So I think that's really good. And, you know, I deliberately made this last move is where my family decided where we were going to live. Yeah, like now I will follow you guys now. Like, you follow me around. We've done this. Are we happy? Or because we will. I went through a massive visa changeover process when I left so I didn't have to stay in the US. We could have gone anywhere. We could have gone and we looked at it like I looked at jobs in anywhere from Dubai to Sydney, Australia. You know, right back into my old sort of habits and I said Well guys, we need to sign in. Everybody eventually agreed that No, no, we want to stay in the US. I said it Find that all look for jobs. The years and I know work for a US company, I have no international responsibility or connection whatsoever. My time zones are only three hours. First time in my life ever since I've been a kid. Some days I'm like, like, email stop at 5pm What the hell is that? I wake up with only one email. It's an overnight, you know, report that came out like what the hell is that? So, so I have allowed the family to make this decision. And I will follow along with them. I think it's their turn. My kids are now 17 1512. So these are their teenage years, they've got a foundation of being, you know, dragged around the world. So now it's their time to sort of build it for them. And, you know, everybody decided that they're going to be happier. So

Andy: 1:35:49

they get if they get itchy feet now they're almost old enough, you can say, Well, fine, you go off and have an adventure.

Leopold: 1:35:58

Exactly.Exactly. Right. Yeah.

Andy: 1:35:59

If this was a movie, I can still. If this was a movie, Leopold, I can still the next scene is two years from now you walk into an office in Carvana. And you drop a folder on the desk, which is the expansion, international expansion that you've decided you need to lead?

Leopold: 1:36:16

I would I wouldn't put that past me Andy you know that? You know, we're all like the leopard doesn't change in spots. Right. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, at this stage I am, I'm really lucky position. It's a good place to be as an easy coming year. And not always, but it wasn't fun. Definitely. And we'll see, like, I've learned a tonne of winning, I've worked with some super, super interesting people. I also work with some people that I don't think I'll ever work with again. So you know, we all have those in our lists. There's probably some people who are really happy to see the back end of me. But you know, this is just what it is like, I mean, it's, I think you have to have what I've learned, you know, as I get older in my life, now, you know, you just have to be honest to who you are, you're going to be true. And if you change, embrace that change, like really take it or take what you learn, because the reason why you go that is my mom used to always say things happen for a reason. And I believe that a lot more now, like, you know, when I was you know, 2025 30 years old kid that was going to change the world. I always thought I could I could decide what's going to happen. And as much as you try and squeeze it and fight it, you know, and some of the things I learned even at tests, I mean, the reason why eventually I left, that's just because I ended up at odds with Ilan over what I think needs to be done and what he needs to be done. And clearly I was going to lose that battle. Right. But I did, and I took it and you know, eventually lost it. Yeah. So I moved on in East Asia. And you know, but I feel that I. But I felt I did something that was important to me, and I learned something about it again, like, you know, I can I gave what I think I should give and now it's time for me to take that somewhere else. Right. And I think that's something you know, when you asked, if I if I look back at my career, I always thought like, I would stay with one company for the rest of my life. Like I'm a super loyal person, you know, the staunch Africans, you know, background, but I realised that you have a natural transition in terms of where you decide, you have now reached the point where you need to take what you want to do somewhere else where people believe more in it. And you run out of you run out of things to say to each other.

Andy: 1:38:31

Yeah, you keep growing, you outgrow the role or the company.

Leopold: 1:38:36

And no, I don't know, sometimes not as a joke. But maybe now maybe I'll be done with corporate life in about five years from now. And I'll start farming again, who knows I do kids just going back to where I come from. And maybe that is maybe I end up back, you know, farming with goats or something, and you'll be done with his old corporate career. But it's definitely been been fun and exciting. And I got a tonne of stuff that we still need to do in the next few years, especially with the automotive industry. So yeah, I would not be surprised with that folder gets written fairly soon.

Andy: 1:39:04

Yeah, no, well, I look forward to seeing where where you do, I wish you a very settled time where you are now for you and the family and to enjoy your latest role. I also will keep in touch with you as we have done and be following with interest, what the impact that you continue to have on the industry and to maintain our friendship, Leopold, which is

Leopold: 1:39:31

appreciate it and it was a it's funny, it's funny that you phrased it like that way because I you never think you do things like that. Until I had to go through this whole visa process this time in the US and you know, and you get asked the critical questions like why should we let you into the country. And I ended up you know, getting my O1 visa, which the official title for that is an alien of extraordinary ability. So, so that's probably the combination of all that stuff. Now I'm officially labelled by the US by the US government as an alien of extraordinary ability. So I'll leave that as my as my final swan song as we alien with the abilities but but it's a it's been pretty, pretty fun. So look back at it and realise that, you know, this was some really cool things that we did and some really interesting people. And you know, I think the industry is in for a massive shift. I would love to be part of it.

Andy: 1:40:28

Yeah. Well, let's, let's leave it there. And we'll have a another one of these in a few years time and see, see all the changes that's taken place?

Leopold: 1:40:39

Yeah. I appreciate it. It's been it's been a great chatting to you Andy and I hope people find some value in my story.

Andy: 1:40:46

I'm sure they will. Thank you very much again for taking the time and sharing so openly with us.

Leopold: 1:40:53

No problem.

Andy: 1:40:55

You've been listening to Career-view Mirror with me, Andy Follows. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Leopold. Maybe something from Leopold's career journey resonated with you? If you have any comments or feedback for us, if you have any questions, if Leopold's insights have helped you in any way, or if there are guests you'd like us to include on the show, please let us know. Our Instagram handle is@careerviewmirror or on Twitter it's @cvmpodcast. If you're keen to develop yourself or your team members further, check out the Aquilae Academy at aquilae.co.uk that's aquilae.co.uk. Thanks for listening.