Disclaimer: The following transcript is the output of an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. Every possible effort has been made to transcribe accurately. However, neither Beautiful Business nor The Wow Company shall be liable for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions.
Yiuwin Tsang
Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy and soulfully grown. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Beautiful Business Podcast. My name is Yiuwin Tsang. I'm part of the Beautiful Business team, and I was joined this week by Richard Thomson. Richard is a CEO of Kaptcha, the Visual Communications Agency, which specialises in bringing the vision and purpose of his clients to life. Richard cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear Formula One Crime Watch holiday and godless world. He rose to become commissioning executive for factual programmes selected popularly new shows for BBC One and two, while continuing to executive producer series including Saturday kitchen and escape to the country. Bringing these skills to the corporate wealthy then launch and run the pioneering and multi award winning HSBC TV using his broadcast experience to bring the same on watch ability to HSBCs corporate film output. Today, purpose is a part of successful business. And like Richards TV shows, Kaptcha harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences internal and external, think and feel. So yeah, let's kick off with you. Tell us a bit about your time at the BBC and what you've got up to there.
Richard Thomson
Sure. Well, my time in broadcast TV started, actually before the BBC, my first directing job and it was a very junior directing job was at Sky TV that just launched this channel, a new Travel Channel and sky did at those times these to launch these new channels. And I got a job there as a junior edit producer, which was basically taking other people's material and editing it into little packages that were going into the studio programme that we did every day. Just to give you an idea of how small the audience was. We had a competition one week from amazing 10,000 pound holiday. This is 20 plus years ago, for a family of four to go to Barbados, in a perfect ideal holiday. Perfect prize, we have four entries. So if you enter that competition, you had a one in four chance of being picked out of the hat and winning that competition. So we didn't have that many viewers. But for some reason sky a few months in said, Look, we want to start doing our own travel programme our own travel reports from around the world. And we need some directors to go out and do it. And as a junior director on the channel, they said, Look, we're going to give six of you the chance to go out and direct abroad, six of us went out, three of us survived. And that was a certain start of my time directing travel reports two years about this amazing travelling around the world. And after a couple of years, you know, that was New Zealand, South Africa, San Francisco, Thailand, just these amazing countries. But after two years, the guy said, Look, we're still not getting that many viewers. So we're going to have to cut the programme because it's the most expensive factual programme we make. By luck. It just coincided with when the BBC were looking for travel directors. So literally, I moved from Sky over to the BBC, and started doing a very similar job. They're working on their programme called the holiday programme. And I another five years I travelled around the world. I think I did 45 different countries, 120 different trips all over the States, all over Spain, all over Asia. And I said it was the best job in the world. And it genuinely was such an amazing time. Such a wonderful job.
Yiuwin Tsang
I bet when you're travelling around and seeing all these different places, experiencing all these different cultures, while you're, it's like when you do something new, it's like time slows down in the sense that you're kind of learning so much, and you're experiencing new things. And you've got five years of it, it must have been incredible.
Richard Thomson
The seven because it was to Sky it was five at the BBC. And it was, without sounding glib, it was like going on holiday every month, every three weeks I was doing a new trip, we'd have a week to prep and research would have a week over in the country, and then a week back to edit that programmes. And it was amazing, you know, you're going to a different culture, you're examining a different part of the world. You're working with really interesting presenters, you know, some famous, some not so famous. But I think the thing that was most rewarding for me, I love different cultures and meeting new people. And it was meeting a huge range of fascinating people around the world from you know, really, really rich multimillionaires to just tribes of African people or people that living in huts in Mexico or similar sort of villages in Asia, and just meeting some wonderful, wonderful people.
Yiuwin Tsang
It does sound incredible. I'm very, very kind of jealous of it. I wonder of those experiences of all those trips and of the seven years of you travelling the world where did you go that had the most kind of profound effect on you? The reason why I ask is certainly with Beautiful Business, with the audience that we have, time is incredibly precious as a commodity and also the chance to have a bit of a break the chance to kind of get away and do something different. I'm sure they'll be really interested. So yeah, I'd be very curious to know, Richard, where do you think that you've been over the years that had the biggest effect on you?
Richard Thomson
I think one of the places I went to which was amazing was Tamil Nadu in South India. It's a state just above Kerala. And it was a rainforest where they built these tree houses. And it was one of the sort of early eco tourism holidays. And it was just such a wonderful trip, literally, we went into the rain forest, and we lived in a rain forest for about five or six days. And we literally lived in trees, we slept in trees. And it was such a settling time. I mean, it wasn't a holiday throwing these things, it was really hard work. Usually we're doing 12 to 14 hour days, really hard work, lots of moving around. But this one, it was in one place. It was a real settler. And it made me think you know, that time just doing nothing but away from everything. And when we didn't have that much of email, it was early days of email, but away from everything away from phones, and everything was just wonderful. And also the impact that those places making in terms of ecotourism, we did a few reports on ecotourism, and they were fascinating in the early days,
Yiuwin Tsang
This is interesting that you say that the place that had the biggest effect on yours, where you had that separation, almost from it sounds like is sort of place where I'm imagining a really quiet kind of space where you've almost given your mind the chance and the space to kind of think things through and to process thoughts and other thoughts that perhaps get masked by the day to day, hustle and bustle that you get wherever you are, gives it a chance for that to come to the surface.
Richard Thomson
It was just like that. I remember there was one time we were in this tree house, about 90 feet up in the air and it looked over the forest, I was just sitting there with the sound of the forest around obviously no cars, no road anywhere nearby, and reading a book and thinking this is what we should be doing.
Yiuwin Tsang
If only if only. Fabulous, what a great experience. Later, we want the next question, when we spoke before, we spoke a bit about some of the projects that you were part of at the BBC and I recall the US speaking with some passion about these projects that really helped kind of define what purpose and what impact means to you. And can you give us some insights on what these projects were? And then perhaps tell us a bit more about how they impacted you and how they let them mark on you?
Richard Thomson
Yeah, I think for me, the BB, their mission is to inform, to educate, to entertain, and that mission was set down right in the early days at the BBC 100 years ago. But when I was working there as a director was very aware that that was the mission. And it really felt like a purpose driven organisation. Even you know, before people talked about purpose driven organisations, we were very clear on that very simple mission to inform, to educate, and entertain and read. I think a lot of people, they're certainly me very proud to work for that organisation. And I think the best organisations have that clear purpose of their role in society. I stopped travel when my first child was born. Not surprisingly, the wife said, Look, you know, I don't want you travelling around the world. I was probably spending about 150 days a year out of the UK at that stage. She said, I want you working in the UK. So I went to my boss and I said, Look, I need to be based in the UK Can I work on some UK based programmes, so they put me on to Well, I went on to garden as well for a year, which was a lovely programme to work on darkness. such nice people, the most genuine people, gardeners worked on Prime watch for a couple of years. And that was fascinating, directed Top Gear, as well, which was great fun, I've got to say, my personal culture, it's got to match your culture, Top Gear, and that didn't really quite suit me as much. But try and watch was a fascinating programme, because it was really the heart of that sort of inform, educate and entertain. It was a real social impact programme, where every month as a director, you're given a real life case study, it might be a murder, might be a rape might be a robbery. But usually, people had been impacted and really horrible way, either themselves or their family. And we would have to recreate these stories, we'd have to go and interview the people that have been impacted by the crime. I remember interviewing a woman whose husband had been murdered, and that was really quite deep. But the programme would go out. I think it was a Wednesday night. And as part of the team, we would sit in the gallery taking calls from the public. And I remember we would have some of my reports people were caught. Remember, there was a murderer who was caught off the back of one of my reports, there was a rapist who was caught there were some people that had a racist attack on some kids that were caught. And that really gave me a sense of, Wow, I'm making a real impact in the world. And that sense of purpose. I didn't realise it until a few years ago. But that sense of purpose was really strong, knowing that you're doing something that's having a positive impact on the world. I directed at one stage a lady called Dame flowvella Benjamin, and then florala Benjamin was one of the first female black presenters on British television she used to present protocol Play School, which was like the fro gramme for young kids, you know, sort of anywhere between about sort of three and 10, I suppose. And I used to watch her as a kid, and you know, just seeing Mr. presenter on TV or she, you know, she's presenting this programme. And so it normalised, that idea of colour on television. And I'm sure I grew up in a very multicultural part of North London, I'm sure a lot of my black friends, they looked at her and thought, well, you know, she's doing this on TV, I can do this on TV. So she was inspiration. And she said to me, one day, I was directing her spent about a week working with her. And she said, you know, you're going to do great things in television, and you have a responsibility about the impact you can make. The way you represent people on television influences the way other people think about them. And obviously, that was absolutely the case with her. But I'm really pleased that now what we do now, the work we do with our clients around diversity and inclusion, the stories we tell about how people are making a positive difference in the world, it has a real impact. So I think that sort of ethos of the BBC has carried through to the work that we do now.
Yiuwin Tsang
Fabulous. And I guess it kind of goes beyond that your immediate consideration of the impact of the work that you do. So it kind of goes almost going beyond what are the objectives for the client directly themselves, but thinking about what impact they could have further down the line, what that ripple effect is for most of the work that you do, and imagine that you can apply light into all sorts of not just in TV production. But you know, in any sort of business thinking beyond just generating a return for the client here, or we're building this house in such a way. But that shift, that mindset must be incredibly powerful when you actually think beyond just that immediate effect that immediate like level one effect, let's say, of the work that you do, and consider what else can happen further down the line. In many senses, I suppose that gives you guidance in terms of what projects to take on what clients you should work and what direction projects go on as well.
Richard Thomson
Absolutely, yeah. And yeah, to be honest, the company has been going about nine years. And you know, we work with mainly sort of large corporate businesses, and some of the work is not as interesting as others. But it was when COVID hit that it really gave me time to think as I think many people had, at that time, time to think about what was important to me in the work we do. And we've worked on some really interesting stories by that stage that were making real positive impact in the world. And it made me realise that's what we want to do more of that's what we're good at. We're good at making films that have an emotional impact, and can change the way people think about things. And I'll give you a couple of examples. So we had worked for a few years with Barclays on their sponsorship of women and football. Now, I know people have positive and negative thoughts about the banks, but lots of them do do amazing initiatives, and Barclays sponsor women in football, and their sponsorship, and our films have helped. Obviously, there's lots of other stuff involved as well, but have helped really raise the awareness and the acceptance of women in football. And that's really made me proud to think I was just a tiny part of that. But I've helped sort of raise awareness of that. And the series we did with Barclays wasn't just about the female footballers. But it was about all the women in football from the managers to the referees, to the agents and the women as well. And another amazing one we did was with Aviva, they had launched a policy called equal grant or leave. And the premise is basically if you work for Aviva, if you work for a company, in the old days, typically, if you had a baby, the woman who had the baby would get six months off, and the dad, if they were lucky, would get two weeks off. And they said, No, that's not fair. You know, whoever you are in relationship, you will get six months off, when you have a new child, you could be in a gay relationship, or lesbian relationship and adoptive relationship. But if you've got a new child coming into your household, and you're one of the parents, either of the parents, you'll get six months paid leave, fantastic for the time for the parents to bond with the child. But actually, what that also does is it equals up the opportunities for both partners. So traditionally, women might have taken six months out of their career. And you know, that can put them behind if the male is taking two weeks, and the thing was taken six months, they could fall behind. And I think that's partly the issue why women sometimes fall behind in their career, although they don't post. But if you say, Well look, both male and female, take the same amount of time off, it's starting to equal up the whole picture. And I think that's an incredible campaign.
Yiuwin Tsang
It certainly is, I think it's becoming more acceptable to talk about these things and to take action with these things. But the implications of this inequality when it comes to parental leave the implications on manifesting, you know, like now, whereas you say the disparity between female pay and male pay, I see what you mean by in terms of being left behind terms of Korea, it's less than much that but you know, they effectively have a six month disadvantage to their male counterparts for each child. So if you've got like 2.1 Children, then that's a urine a bit, you know that in terms of progression opportunities in terms of training and development and just experiences in the workforce. And then there's the implications of the childcare because of parental side of things only kind of, as you say it's from birth but they There's that whole kind of the impact that has from a childcare perspective. And you know, up until the point where you get free childcare allowance that you get, and kids go into school, but then the the females have always been at a disadvantage when it comes to that. And then the wider implications around things like your National Insurance contributions, they end up with gaps in the pain, which means they have an impact in retirement. So there are huge implications that almost amplify over time from the inequality of the parental leave at point of birth.
Richard Thomson
Absolutely. And of course, Aviva will well leading in that policy. And by making those films from his point of view, it's saying this is what we stand for. And it's great recruitment films, because people watch those I remember we were working with somebody at another big client, big corporate client, and they were just about to have a child at that stage. And I went in to see him. I said, How you doing? How you feeling about your child just about to arrive? And he said, I wish I worked for it either. They've just launched it's amazing policy. I said, Yeah, we made that film.
Yiuwin Tsang
I just want to take a quick minute to say thanks to our trusted partners Krystal hosting. Krystal is a B Corp powered by 100% renewable energy, and has a goal of planting 1 billion trees by 2030. Krystal services super fast and super reliable, and they're genuinely really nice people. We're super picky over who we work with as partners at Beautiful Business and we're delighted to count Krystal as one of them.
Yiuwin Tsang
Back to the podcast, fabulous. And as we get from Avivas perspective, the fact that they were thinking about this and taking action on it and being really progressive at the time, I wonder, what's your experience that you had with the women's football work with Barclays and the parental leave piece with Aviva? Did it shift anything in your mind in terms of what equality actually means to you?
Richard Thomson
To me, equality is all about giving people equal opportunities, treating people equally treating people with respect and dignity, you know, whoever you are, whatever your skin colour, background, sex, whatever, but it's also giving people a voice to get their stories out. And that's what changes people's perception, you know, if you can tell people sorry, and get those out there so other people can hear them? I think letting everybody be heard is really important.
Yiuwin Tsang
Yeah, it's about that giving a voice to the people that often aren't heard, isn't it? So that's a bit to it. And what kind of lessons have you taken from those experiences, and what you've learned from working with Barclays work of Aviva in terms of how you run and how you lead the team at Kaptcha?
Richard Thomson
We have a very supportive, very inclusive culture, that capture, we talk about our values, we talk about our purpose, our vision, our mission, our values a lot. And that makes us feel more aligned as a team. We also, when we recruit people talk about it in our adverts, it's on our website, as well. And that just, it makes us feel more aligned. As a team, it makes us feel like we're all heading in the right direction, that we're all pulling together for the right reasons. And that's a really strong thing, you and you know, I've worked at companies. And in fact, you know, you can have a good culture overall of the company. But actually, you might have a team within that culture that isn't quite the same culture as others. I mean, I'll go back to my days at the BBC, for some reason I really fitted in I love the culture at the holiday programme, because I think people were really open to exploring the world. For me, personally, the culture at Top Gear was a bit more macho, and that wasn't mine. So you can have different cultures within organisation. But I still think overall, an organisation has a culture and if you're heading in the right direction with that culture, it really helps steer the company in the direction he wants to go a lot quicker.
Yiuwin Tsang
Yeah, I heard a lovely term the other day about it was on another podcast, actually, where the speaker mentioned about how a business or people within a business or teams within a business need to be, you know, aligned in terms of vision in terms of values in terms of culture, but loosely correlated in terms of method. So you give them the space to kind of like you know, imagine, especially in the creative business like capture, you got to give him the space, to be creative, to explore and to discover, and to have ideas and share them and take action on them. But as you say, having that you know, your values really clear from the top what your culture is, and it's really nice turn of phases. Have you got the guardrails that you put in place for them, but they can play however they want to in between sounds like a really powerful way of doing it. What would be the challenges? Do you think in terms of having this, you know, really transparent values and purpose led business? Have there been challenges in running your business in such a way?
Richard Thomson
Yeah, I mean, there are numerous challenges. I think one of them is by calling ourselves a purpose driven organisation. We're putting ourselves up on a pedestal, and there's a potential that people will say, okay, that's where you think you are, we're going to try and knock you off that pedestal. And no business is perfect. We're certainly not perfect. We certainly don't do everything as well as we would like to. At the moment. We've got a quite ambitious CSR policy. I don't know whether we'll hit everything we've put down on our policy. We're also applying for B Corp at the moment. Sure, you know, that's quite a involved process. And you know, you've got to do stuff, you got to deliver stuff. I don't know whether we'll get a B Corp or not. But I do think if you're heading in the right direction, if you've got the best intentions, and you're going in the direction that you should be going, that's a hell of a lot better than not doing anything about it. But I am aware that, you know, we could come in for criticism at time for what we're trying to achieve. I'm also aware that when we take on clients, and when we talk to clients, we want to be working with clients that are doing good in the world. And we do work with some big organisations that some people would look at and say, Look, you know, some of the stuff you're doing is great, some of the stuff you're not doing is not so good. But if overall, that organisation is trying to make a positive impact in the world, they're the sort of clients we want to be working with. Purpose is quite a vague word. It's something that a lot of organisations are doing it that defining their purpose statement. But I think if your purpose statement is focused on you, and your clients, and what you're achieving yourself and feel for them, as opposed to what you can do for society, what you can do for the world, then it's not a great purpose statement. I think if you can overall, make a positive impact in the world and make positive change in the world. Whether it's around diversity, inclusion, whether it's around sustainability, whether it's around animal welfare, then you stand for something that's important, not just raising money for you and your clients.
Yiuwin Tsang
Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. And thank you, Richard from Kaptcha, for sharing your experiences and all the lessons that you've learned working at the BBC and launching and running Kaptcha. Thank you for joining us for this week's Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to do business. Join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change, helping communities, building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet. You can also join in the discussion at www.beautifulbusiness.uk