CEO TALK with Hector McNeil - #1 - November 2025

In this founder-to-founder conversation, Hector McNeil, CEO & Founder of HANetf, joins Steffen Scheuble (Founder & CEO of Solactive) in our Frankfurt office to talk about the realities of entrepreneurship: partnering for the long haul, making hard focus calls, investing in culture, and defining success beyond headlines.

Hector reflects on a career spanning nine ventures he still loves. He unpacks the complementary superpowers he shares with co-founder Nik—persistence and persuasion—and how they handle disagreements by keeping “a board meeting every day,”. We dig into culture at scale—from a flat exec team to a 51-person Ibiza off-site—plus practical advice for interns and juniors on staying flexible, learning fast, and leaning into ETF opportunities. Above all: focus—because if everything is important, nothing is.

CEO Talk is our monthly chat hosted by Steffen Scheuble, Founder & CEO of Solactive, an international index provider.

Watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@solactiveag
Want to learn more about Solactive: https://www.solactive.com

Follow Steffen Scheuble on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steffen-scheuble-63849813/

Follow Solactive on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solactive/

Transcript

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Welcome to our first CEO-Talk in the Frankfurt office of Solactive. And I could not be more delighted to welcome an industry legend, a serial entrepreneur, one of the godfathers of the ETF business. I would really say globally and not only in Europe. Hector McNeil, the CEO and founder of HANetf. Welcome here in Frankfurt. Thanks Steffen, pleasure to be here. Perfect. What brings you to Frankfurt? It's not one of the common travel destinations of the ETF industry. Funny enough I've been in Frankfurt twice in the last three weeks, I think. So, we did a how to enter event with K&L Gates and a few guys the other week, And we're here yesterday for the Deutsche Börse annual ETF conference. It's pretty good, actually. There's probably 4 - 500 people, you know, lots of industry people there, always good to get everyone in the same place. Amazing, amazing. Let's dive a little bit into your history as an entrepreneur. Yeah. And I guess the the main difference between you and me is… We've just pre-discussed we can both talk a lot. So at the end we need to stick a little bit to the time. I founded one company. And I've learned you founded nine. Hector. Yeah. Let's be serious. Is this your last one? Look, I mean, I'm 57 now, right? And I think we still got a good few years to to get hands of where we think you can get to and maximize that opportunity. And I, to be honest, I'm absolutely loving it. We just took the whole team to Ibiza last week, and 51 of us, we had great fun. And the industry is just on a complete, march at the moment, I mean, you know it better than me Steffen. There's so much opportunities on the table, and I always classify myself as an ETF Money. So it's almost like a call for me, you know? So, I feel, it's as much a pleasure to be doing it as it is work. In reality I think by the time this is sort of mature to the level that I think it should be, whether we, you know, Nik and I sit back and become non-exact or less hands on all the time or we're still hands on, but, the lesson today, I think something is a bit of a journey that to go. And that takes me well into my 60s. So I don't see me doing anything at the intensity that we're doing now. You know, I think I'll always dabble in businesses or whatever, but I certainly don't want to be, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year. So, and you know, more than anybody, right? So I think that's probably the long answer to your question. Perfect. I started Solactive on my own. And I guess, Hector is always known for being together with Nik. You've always done it as a duo. Tell me, did you ever consider to do something on your own? How did you just start to be, you to get to know Nik in the past? Yeah. I mean, I've done a fair amount of businesses in my time, and I think it's always good to have strong partners. I think I've probably got a few too many weaknesses to do it on my own. I'm not the allrounder, the nature of you and certainly, you know, the the sort of, as I call it, the work marriage that Nik and I have for 23 years is strong because we both complemented each other. So well. And I think one of the best things about it is that, you know, we don't care if each other one's right or wrong as long as we're right together, you know? So if I am wrong and Nik's right. You know, we're pretty accepting. We might have a little bit of an argument and a little bit of a… But we know we've got each other's backs. We know we're going to make a good decision off the back of that. And I think that's the strength of it, that you've got that sort of, camaraderie and you just make better decisions. And it's a heavy lift, this world, you know? So, having two people makes a lot of difference. Interesting. So tell me about how is it to enter into a battle with Nik discussing about, two different views that you're having? You know, is it loud? Is it intensive? How is it? Yeah, It can be quite volatile in a lot… So yeah, we don't get, angry or in each other’s face. But both of us can get a bit pissed off with each other. If you don't mind the old Anglo-Saxon coming out there. But I think usually we calm down you know, five minutes late, we'll come back in the room, apologize, and then we'll crack on and get on with it, you know? And I think that's the power, really. That we don't hold grudges, and we both know we mean the right thing. You know, we're not trying to win or score points. There is no politics in what we do. You know the staff see it as well. The stuff has seen this you know, go at each other a few times, whether it's on zoom or teams or in person. But I think that's part of the strength of our relationship, really, that we don't… we're not the same people with different people. We bring different things to the table and we respect that, but it does mean sometimes we disagree. Well, we quite disagree a lot, but we get to the right answer, which is the main thing. And sometimes you need to agree to disagree. Yeah, I guess, And I guess the most important topic is that I'm always saying you can't go into intensive battles as long as you can grab a drink five minutes later and the world is okay. That's the most important topic. And that's one of the interesting things that developed over the last few years. I think we were never that social with each other, so, you know, I had a young family when he didn't really have a family up. My family got a bit older. His is young. So there was always, different life stages. But now I think we both have got, a sort of deeper friendship now, than we did have in the past, and I think that's come out quite well. So, for example, in Ibiza the last week we went out for two days early, and we just went out for dinner and we actually made more decisions over those dinners and a few bottles of wine that we've done in the past couple of months, to be honest with you. So, yeah, I know we spend a bit more time like that together as well, which I think he is also appreciated what we've done together as well. Perfect. Well, and I guess it's, a fascinating journey that the two of you have started. For sure. Talking about Nik. Yeah. I wonder what is coming now. I am very sorry. Yeah, but you know, what we've done is we've done before our CEO-talk a pre-talk. Okay. All right. And we have… Am I gonna like what’s coming here? Yeah. You need to find out. Yeah. So at the end we've interviewed Nik and we've asked him a few questions. Yeah exactly. Exactly. And the first question we have asked Nik is actually - what is Hector's secret superpower? Oh, wow. So let's let's have a joint look into what he mentioned. Fantastic. Probably with respect to the to the one word I used to describe him and I say his superpowers is persuasion and persistence. He's always persistent about what he believes in, and he's always thought of every arguments against for and against when he, comes to present his arguments, which he always persistently believes as well. So it ends up being good at persuasion. You need to be good at persuasion. You have to be persistent to be like a serial entrepreneur. And he created 4 or 5 successful ETF businesses. So let's say his secret power, would be to persuasion and persistence. But then also add as a detail hen you deal with Hector. It's always black and white. So, you're never left wondering what he actually meant by something or what he does really believe in. You always know what his position is on something. So there's no ambiguity which obviously helps with being persuasive. I could say that having met his business partner was his superpower! But I think that everybody knows that I work with Hector. So it’s not a secret superpower. That's probably the public superpower. And two is greater than one. Or in our case one plus one equals five. Totally agree. Two main success factors for the whole journey, not only with HAN but the prior companies as well. Yeah. Yeah. I think… there's a funny story with Nik with it on the persistence side, because when I was at Susquehanna, I was always trying to sell in market banking. When they have the gold, especially because they connect to the GLD in the U.S. and I wanted to be able to make markets and that as well. And for Christmas they bought me a picture. A picture of me on it. And underneath they said persistenSEE and then under the words T. So it was pretty, pretty brutal thing. But it was SEE, like that sort of stuff. So that's going back to 2000… So those things haven't changed. I think clarity of idea is probably the main thing. And then being able to pivot around that idea as you go along, not being too beholden to it as a structural point of view. And, you know, if you've got that sort of focus, then you could, you can implement that yourself, setting your own businesses off, part of it is a journey that you get those battle scars and you get those bruises that you can't get unless you do it, and I think that you get that, you can never be incredibly… It's like having kids, you know, I've three kids, which is a lot of kids, but it's not a lot kids, actually. So you experience back to resilience of having those kids. And it's like, business is a bit like that. So you only got a very time limited process. You can't create a hundred businesses. Yeah. So but if you've done a few, you learn that journey and I'd say that every ETF business that we've had, we've learned something from what we taken that from, whether it's raising money, whether it's coming up with names, whether it's building out business plans and pricing models, whatever it is, you get better and better and better but you never get perfect. Looking a little bit back, I'm pretty sure you had pretty tough times, if you start your business. I know at the beginning of Solactive, if it was all about surviving, how do I get a few dollars on my account at the end, pay the next salaries? And I'm pretty sure there was not fundamentally a difference on your end. Yeah. Let's look a little bit again. Persistence and persuasion. Yeah. The key factor, I think that's it. I think, I mean what's really nice about this journey is, we've had two exits before this, so we're always on savings and wealth to fall back on. But even in this journey, it's been hard. I mean, we had two years where Nik and I didn't pay each other anything, and we paid the staff but we felt it wasn't, you know, there wasn't the right thing to do, which was keep putting money in and to take that out through the other side without the business being in better shape. Luckily, we were in a position to be able to do that. Wasn't ideal, because when you tend to need money, from your savings, you're selling assets in the wrong time, right? But ultimately, still a nice position to be or a nicer position to be in on that basis. But again, you've got to believe in what you're doing. And, I'd always say even when you get it right with a business, it takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you think is going to. And that's when you got it right, not when you even got it wrong. Right. So, and I think the stuff I'd say with Nik and I and our businesses. I don't think we've ever got it wrong in terms of the business model or what we're doing. But timing's really hard, right? You know, timing you can't control. And, you know, I think in some ways with HAN for example, we were probably a couple of years earlier, than we thought the market was at. And now it's sort of speeding up now. And just like everything, you know yourself, Steffen, you've got to have longevity in a business to get that business model and get that success that you're after. And I think the longer you're in a position, the longer you've been around, the more likely that's going to happen. I think that's it. That's for sure. And I'm always smiling about if I'm looking into the first business plan I've written for Solactive Yeah, it took a little bit longer. Yeah, it was a little bit more intensive than anticipated. And the reality is, and I'm sure it's the same for you… I love every second of it. And you've got that persistent factor with you as well, haven’t you? I mean, as I said to you on the way in here, seeing you marching around in Miami or New York or whatever with your bag and going a hundred miles an hour, you've got that persistent trade as well, I think. Well, I guess it's part of… persistency and relentlessness. I guess it's part of the DNA of a founder, of an entrepreneur. But what I always think is, if you don't have that passion, if you don't have that self-confidence, that belief in you, Yeah, you will never be able to succeed. Yeah. And at the end we all need to be lucky at some point in time of the company history. But you can increase the likelihood of being lucky by working harder. Yeah. So from that perspective, because these are a few learnings as well. Yeah. So anything you control, I would say that to the guys. You can only, work hard and smile. Yeah. That's all you can do. And it's not enough to work hard. You gotta work out and smile. Yeah. And then if you get it right, your estimates or whatever, your crystal ball, you're in it at the right time. Yeah. and you got to wait for that to come. Did you ever doubt you'll make it. Yeah I think that's… and that's where having a partner is great because, you sharing that burden. Obviously that's where your wife and your family come in as well, right? Because ultimately you're in that position where you have to share that with them as well, right? But having Nik around and I'm sure I am the same when it does get a bit tough, we can have that sort of candid conversation and support each other through that scenario. So especially when you've got kids and, broader things… I mean, I lost my dad last year and my mom's getting old, Nik's mom is in the same boat, he lost is dad some time ago. When those things happen it's important that somebody around you that can support you through that times and maybe take a bit of slack off you and do all those types of things. And I know you've got Timo and the broader team and I'm sure you lean on those guys a fair bit. From that perspective I think it's massive to have that sort of support. Well I'm always talking to Timo about, let's try to be both not negative at the same point in time. Yeah. So one needs to be positive. And sometimes we've got meetings. So I just say, „Hey Timo, I’m currently in a negative mood. How about you?” And if he's saying he's in a negative mood as well then we stop the meeting. Yeah. And then we just delay it. Yeah. You mentioned the team. Yeah. And starting a company, you've got a very small team growing a company. You've got a much bigger team, much more responsibility. How has the team changed throughout that journey? Yeah, I'd say again that's that sort of evolution I think between businesses. I think I've probably got better with being more empathetic and more, you know, investing in people, particularly at the the management level. I mean, I remember ETF Securities, we were 70 people and $10 billion of assets we bought. We hired HR and finance and all those types. We just didn't think it was time to do it. It wasn't worth it. And we could do everything and all that sort of. And at HAN we take a very different approach. We got a really strong executive Team, put a lot of time into that. We're very focused on the business, at all levels. I'd say we're very flat. I talk to the interns as much as I talk to anybody else in the business. Been over in Ibiza last weekend, it was great because you get time spent with people. When people let the hair down, that you don't get in the ordinary cause of business. And I think that's sort of really consuming culture as well, I mean, people always ask, what's the culture of the firm. And I think it's always a hard question to answer. But I do think it's been collegiate, being, customer centric, you know, all those type of things. And I've probably evolved with that where I probably would have thought, that's a bit nonsense. And what I really want to be is… I see the need of that much more now from anything else. I mean, I am going back to the Ibiza trip because it is pretty current. But that costs a lot of money, right? You know, to take all those people. But actually, the benefit of that and the feeling and the teamwork that came from that will be absolutely massive, you know? So that sort of stuff, I would have a blind spot, ten years ago, but I see a lot more value to it now. And there's no I in team. Right, as they say. So, it's definitely the case. Yeah. And the generations are changing. Yeah. Talking a little bit about the younger generation. What is the number one advice that you would give let's say an intern or a junior that starts in your company? What is the number one career advice that you would give such a person? Well, it's interesting because there's different levels to that, I think. I think industry wise, I think ETF… I just think from a financial service perspective, e-commerce perspective, social media perspective, whatever levels you want to look at that, whether it's technical, whether it's marketing or sales, whatever. There's massive opportunities in that. So I don't think you can look further than that as an industry. As I say, I'm an ETF Money. So I am big believer in it. And then I just think, just be really open to learning. I mean, there's no doubt that the way the world is changing, that those guys, the job opportunities in ten years time, we don't even know where half of them will gonna be, right? So you got to be flexible on that and then just just have that much of work smart and hard. You know, and keep learning. I think that's the… and I think if anybody says that when you're 20, you know what you're going to be doing. And what the world is gonna look like in 30 years, it's B.S., right? You got to be flexible and take those opportunities. And as you said before, timing wise. And look you've got to be there to get that. But it will happen and it will give you opportunities. Don't be afraid of them. Absolutely! Talking about advice, we have our friend Nik. Oh, he's back, is he? This will be his second appearance, and… I promise it will be only three. Yeah, we asked Nik about, well, let's see it. Nik, was there ever a bad advice that you've received from Hector? Yeah. Let's see. Don't buy bitcoin. We’re working together for such a long time. I mean, I mentioned it before, I've known Hector for 23 odd years and I’ve been doing business with Hector for around 20 years. So it's almost impossible to remember what would be the worst or even best piece of advice. Because there's just so many conversations we've had going giving each other both good and bad advice. Bad advice brings you closer to good advice, I would say. So probably I’d say actually the best advice we've both decided to live by is that we’ve so maybe given to each other, reminded ourselves what we both had to do, that is, if everything is important nothing's important. And that’s because Hector and I always see so many opportunities out there, I've got a business and we just constantly see more and more opportunities out there. If you try to do them all then for sure you'll fail to do them all. So first of all, I clearly have to admit Nik has gone a little bit through your sales school. Because you ask a question about what is the bad advice and very eloquently has put it around into a good advice. Yeah, but, let's dive into that, focus is what he mentioned. And, if everything is important nothing is important. How do you live with the fact that you will never, ever be able to realize all the potential opportunities that you have? Yeah. No, it's a really good question, actually. And I think it comes down to the number of successful execution of a business. Right? You know, and you'll been through this a million times I’m sure. And we look at stuff all the time that we think, Christ, that'll be really good. Whatever it is, I mean for instance we've toyed with the idea many times about, do we launch our business in the US? US Markets are so much bigger. I actually think when you get it right that it's easier to be successful in the ETF market in the US than here. And the returns are so much bigger than Europe. So the temptation is always there. But then you've got to be realistic about it. You're going to say, well, that's a ten year journey. You know, do I really want to be nearly 70 and doing that sort of stuff? And you suddenly realize that actually then you sit enjoyably back can sort of say, well, actually, the opportunity we have in Europe, if we stick to it will be really strong. And I think that's where the ballast of how we both act is really important because we do have bad ideas or we have ideas that aren't as good as other ideas and we tend to come back to the, revert to the mean with it, together, you know, and I don't think Nik's afraid of telling me when he thinks that, we're too busy or that well stretches too thin, or that's a long journey or cost too much money, blah, blah, blah, you know, and vice versa. It's quite funny what he said because that's what he says. He says, like, if everything's important than nothing is important. So, you know, I felt I was, that was interesting. But, but I think all in all it's almost like a progressive conversation. Nik and I funny enough, we talk on several mediums all day, every day. WhatsApp, Slack, calls, whatever. It's like a continuous conversation. I would say Nik's got this ability to be able to talk interchangeably across all these platforms. I also have this stat, he get’s annoyed with this actually but I’ve saved every email Nik has sent to me. How many emails do you think I've had from Nik? Oh dear. Let me just think about, you're working together 23 years, Whatever you come up with, times it by 2. 5000 emails… 20 years… I would say 100,000? 1.2 million emails! Oh, dear. I need to talk to Timo. So. Yeah. No, but it's… yeah, I think that's it. It's that progressive conversation that you have, when you're always… It’s funny because we took some investment, as you know, recently from Citibank and they were talking a lot about the board meetings. We have a lot of boards throughout the company. All the issuer levels. And the board, currently is Nik and I. Right. And they were talking about this and we said to them, every day is a board meeting with Nik and I. The board meetings we have actually quite procedural, you know, to issue shares or whatever. But actually we have a board meeting every day. We have a call every day, half nine, where we just go through everything. And that’s the progressive conversations through the day. So I think it's a progressive conversation. That’s how I would turn it. A close friend of mine told me once, teffen, we've got a lot, we can always have good food, we can buy a lot of things. There's one thing we can never buy. We are not time rich. And at the end, we just need to make the best use of our time. Yeah. Excellent. Let's look a little bit behind the person. Hector. Yeah. It's a little bit of a business related question, but at the end, if we are looking into how do you define success and has that changed, let's say, throughout the journey of your career? Yeah. Because at the end, success can have many different meanings. Yeah. Has that changed throughout the journey? I think it has. I think because we've been lucky enough to have four ETF businesses, with two exits. Each that we've had exited that changed our lives in terms of the risk, de-risking the life. Right. So I think that when we made the decision to create HAN, we probably could have stepped back at that point. And just taking some not exact directorships or whatever and just lived a decent life, you know. Not a life changing life, but a decent life. So I suppose the HAN decision was more about where do we want to invest, get out. Where do you wanna invest time, money? Would that be, you know, private equity somewhere else or back on the people or what’s the conclusion? Well, actually, there's no better place to invest in ourselves than in the ETF market. And I think we would only done that if both of us had agreed to do it. So if Nik had decided not to do I wouldn't have said it by myself. I don't think he would have done either. Yeah. He probably gotta have done different things. So I suppose, success has been different at each levels, probably the early days in each of schools and financial security, maximizing that opportunity. It was sort of taking that to the next level. And then HAN. I mean, I have a quite a low bar in terms of the financial reward I want from HAN. Because I'm not an extravagant guy. So, you know, I like a car and, I've got my place in Ibiza and I've got a nice house and home. I've got some wealth I can pass down to my kids and their kids. So I don't really need to top that up too much, even though I think we will be a lot more successful on that level. So a lot of it is about just leaving a legacy, I think in the industry really. I mean, I worked out the other day that I think Nik and I are on about 764 products now. And then, and I think when you folded in 50, I think we're getting nearly 10% of every ETP has been done in the world since. It's not not by you have, unfortunately, some sample by number of products. And there isn’t much we haven’t done. We've done lots of firsts in the industry. So leaving that footprint is really what would be a cool outcome for me. I think, so that's that would be success. And I'd also leave in, I always say, my business is like wisdomtree Europe now and what's left of ETF securities and Exchange Data International, which we talked about before, obviously is a bit like walking past a house you once owned and looking at the garden, thinking „that was my garden”. Yeah. You know what I mean? You still got that sort of, pride in it, you know? So there's a bit of that as well. You've got the same footprint as I, Steffen. So you must be thinking very much the same that, you want to maximize the opportunity but also you want to be seen as a contributor to what is a fantastic industry. I like the term leaving a legacy. Yeah. Because at the end if we're talking about money you need to have enough money. But it was never a goal to maximize money. That is not what we are working for. And I guess that is where hardly any founder is really working for. Yeah. And at the end of the second problem, that probably you and I have to solve as well, you're too young to retire. I'm too young to retire. And we need to do something. Exactly. And I'm always saying, you know, okay, if I ever sell Solactive, I can go to the beach. Yeah. What do you do? I can go to the beach for two weeks, you and I, we know no one wants to see that. And then after two weeks I need to do something else. So from that perspective, leaving a legacy is a very good description. How do you recharge? What do you do in your free time? Good question. I was a reasonably decent rugby player back in the day. So I've always trained a lot. So I'm in the gym sort of three days a week. I try to try to keep fit. I have a bit like an old warhorse. I think I was. It was also the shot me by now. So my knees are not good. And my elbows are no good and I’ve probably broken every bone you can break over the years. And I have three reconstructions of my knee but you know, keep going on that. My kids mean a lot to me. I mean, they're all sort of 20 plus now, but always being good at sports and my middle son, he's just become a full time professional footballer. I'll go and watch him tonight. For example. Perfect. So I'll try not to miss a lot of that. My other son is a rugby player in America at university, so try to see him, my daughter likes riding horses. Unfortunatily I'm allergic to horses, so that's a bit of a challenge. But lots of antihistamine later and I can get there. So they mean a lot. And then I think the, you know moving towards my 60s, I've got to think about, how my life with my wife is going to work out. What's the next stage of our life from that perspective? And then as I said a big rugby fan. So this weekend I'm going to watch England, Australia in Wembley, Next week I am going up to Everton’s to watch them play again. This is a three test series. And I used to own a rugby club up until four years ago. And I think over time I'd like to go back into that. I'd probably like to get, you know, resurrect that dream. And I think I would have more time and more money and know more about how to make that a success as well. And that's always been a big community focus for me as well. So we've done so the junior rugby all the way up to the professional rugby at the top. So that would be a big focus for me as well. Excellent. Well sports, we will come to that in a second because you know, this is you know, if you look at my body, I'm always talking… This is a perfect Darts body. So we'll have a round of darts, later on. Look a little bit into sports. I mentioned to you Nik three times. We have seen him twice. So at the end one time is missing. And at the end we asked Nik the question, what is the one thing you would change about Hector? Now this is going to be interesting. This is going to be interesting. I can tell you. First of all what do you think he wants to change about Hector? I think… he said the persistence thing is a good trait, but I think he'll say probably something around… He knows he needs to know where to drop some things, you know? Yeah, yeah, it's like a dog with a bone. But I think we're both a bit prone to that. But I'd say it's probably on that. Just learn when to let things go. Sometimes I would have thought. Yeah. So I may have a look into that. There you go. You might call me a pain in the ass, but… I would have said in the past he had to change his fashion sense. Actually in the last couple of years I think his wife has giving him some help. And his fashion has got a little bit trendier. So I think he play with messages. Professional in his private life. Given that this two worlds have merged these days into one. I'd have to say - the fashion. That's hilarious. Any comments? Hector? Well, that was it was quite funny, because when I first joined ETF Securities I joined from Susquehanna and I used to go to these really stuffy old wealth management meetings with a pair of jeans traders in a leather box jacket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think Nik and Graham used to like almost curl up in their seats and going like that, I guess so, he's got a fair point. He's got a fair point. You know what? I've shown that video yesterday in the evening to my girlfriend and she was laughing like hell and asked me, was that for you, Steffen? And so at the end, we were sitting in the same camp at the same topics. Yeah. You know… So we can, communicate now very openly and very transparently. But he’s gonna see it at some point. We'll see if there's a director's cut. Let's talk about payback time. What is the one thing you would change about Nik? I think… I think there's… probably nothing I would change about Nik. Because the things I don't like about him I think are his strengths as well, right? You know? It’s not like, he gets on my nerves. And I think that term I used with dog with a bone. Nik is a bit like that as well, if he's got an idea, he'll just keep coming up, keep coming up, keep coming up, keep coming up. And it's almost impossible to get him off it, you know? And to the judgement of everything else. You know, it's not a singular vision for a period of time. I think he's an incredibly, warm and empathetic character, particularly because I do think he's slightly on the spectrum. So, yeah, it doesn't normally go together, those two things, but he is. He cares a lot about people, especially the team you know, broader people. What's going on in his life, he’ll do a lot for his mates, all that sort of scenario. But I think, probably the only thing I would do is I think he just needs to sometimes know when to dethrottle. Because he does work enormously hard and sometimes that will push himself over the edge, and he needs to be able to see those warning signs sometimes. Especially he's getting on a bit now. He's in his 50s. He needs to be thinking about, well, health wise or, mental health wise, just pushing himself, that actually sometimes you just need to just know when to brawl back off a little bit. Just for his own good. You know what the big problem is? If I'm playing that statement to my girlfriend as well, she’d say, yeah oh, yeah. Might be another similarity there. Well, I think there's a lot. I mean even though they are quite different characters, I think there's a huge amount of similarities between between Nik and I. So I'm sure he would say very similar things about me. I mean, one thing's been nice over the last few years. We have given each other a lot of personal advice when it's been needed. You know, whether it's family issues or we've mentioned parents are getting older, you know, those type of things. And I think we've become much better supporting each other for those things as well, which I think that's been really good. Perfect, perfect. Let's make a little link towards sports. You mentioned a lot rugby. Yeah. Tell me about this. What is fascinating about that sports. I'm from Germany. Yeah. So I need to support soccer as you know. Yeah. But at the end what is the fascinating thing about rugby. Yeah I'm a big fan of soccer as well. I mean unfortunately Middles was my team, so it’s hard to… We are second top in the league at the moment. So hopefully, maybe we get promoted this year, but, now rugby, I mean, it's been in my DNA since I was a kid. I played it all the way through and I played international level, for Scotland and it sort of almost defined me to a certain extent in my non-working life. But I think also that's given me a lot of the competitiveness, a lot of drive. I mean, one of my biggest traits in rugby was I wasn’t the most skillful player in the world but I was fit and I was strong and I have a good work, right? You know, so I offered, traits to coaches where they weren't going to put me in as the guy that was going to win the game but I might be the person that stops them losing the game. Okay. And I just found that the whole teamwork thing I mean, I've toured places like Kazan in Russia or Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Morocco you know, all these places I've never got to without that in my life. I think the defining bit for me was playing rugby at university, actually. It was like there's the whole thing of going to university, having that life experience but also being part of… I’ve been the captain of the team in my first university and in my second university. I just found it. And then I set all of the scholars was 25 years, I would love to have that opportunity as I said, going back to that. And I think the interesting about rugby league as well, it's an interesting social history story because it split up from the rugby union Because it was originally the northern teams in the 1800s that wanted to pay their workers that players who played Saturdays and were working on the mines or whatever. And they wanted to give them compensation for missing that day's work because it was six day a week at that point. And obviously all the teams in the South were all public schoolboys. They didn't really work you know. So the two game split, one became a professional game and one became a strictly game for a long, long time. I suppose that social history, that sort of working class against the establishment, it sort of resonates with me as well. Yeah. It's always been a big struggle up there, but it's a very honest game as well. I mean, it's a pure conflict game. And even when you compare it to American football, there's no pads it's bone on bone, gristle and gristle and it's gladiatorial as well. It's got the skill element to it but it's also got a very physical element to it as well. I like that. Maybe you saw the sumo recently, in some ways that's quite similar. You know, rugby goes for 80 minutes. It doesn't go for 15 seconds. Max. So there's a lot in it. I think that this transfers to life and it's just great. It’s left my body in a wreck now. Well, that's the only thing. But it's a great sport. Excellent. Perhaps let's see if rugby is the answer to my last question as well. As I'm doing once a year what I call a sports cultural foodie trip, traveling to a place where I look into some sports, cultural, and of course, Food for you. Food, as you can see is never allowed to be missed there. Yeah. I've done actually the Ally Pally in London for darts. I've been at Ellis. You have to explain the food bit of that to me at Ally Pally, but yeah. Yeah. London and food that is, you know… Well Ally Pally definitely. I've been at LSU against Alabama college football in Baton Rouge. And it was impressive. Yeah. And I've been out recently in Japan for the sumo. What is my next event? Tell me. That's easy because combining the food and the sport. So there's a there's an event called A State of Origin in Australia. It's Ruby League again and it's New South Wales versus Queensland. And they basically play a three game series. It's the three most watched TV programs in Australia every year. It's 80, 90,000 people crowds. And they're almost neck and neck after 25 years, the two teams, even though it's a two horse race. And it's usually that the Queens are the underdogs, the New South Wales is the favorite. But for some reason Queensland always turn up, so they’re always keeping it. But every year that's the battle. And obviously the the main place they hold this is Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and I think food in those places are fantastic as well. Right. So especially seafood or whatever. So you can't lose, Steffen, with that. I think you'll love the classics. Good. What's really great about it is that those red teams, they come from the club teams where this guys could be actually clubmates playing on the Saturday. And they play these games on the Wednesday, so they call it mates on mates, so these guys can be rattling the hell out of each other, on the Wednesday and then playing together against the opposition on the weekend, you know. So it’s ironically, you think it's like England, Australia would be like the top game in rugby league. But actually that State of Origin is probably the highest standard rugby union or rugby league, in the world. And it would be fantastic… And the spectacle is brilliant as well. It's like a cup final. So you’d love it. Terrific! I guess you know, we've seen in many places all over the world. We met in Miami on conferences in the US, all over Europe. So let's see if that is one of the adventures we'll jointly do at some point in time. Seeing each other in Australia. Yeah. Hector, that was a fantastic conversation. I really enjoyed it. Looking a little bit behind the scenes, looking a little bit into the person Hector, looking a little bit into the founder Hector. And the good news is we've not talked about the ETF industry. We've not talked about products. The reality is we all agree, it will only grow. So from that perspective that is an easy one. Now we are up to the Solactive Sports Challenge. So as you know, we are sponsoring for many years now a German professional dart player. We had fantastic client events, playing darts here in Frankfurt. The rule is very easy. Nine darts. We count the score, and there will be a leaderboard at the end that we can jointly follow how that is growing. The good news is, I'll promise to you after the first round, you will be leading the board because you are the first one. Thanks a lot for being our guest in our first show. Thanks a lot to everyone for listening. And we are looking forward to additional conversations in the future. Three practice starts or do you want to start right away? We'll just go straight in! There we go. 2 16 No score. Oh man, come on. That's no good, is it? 18. I didn't spend enough time in the pub. 9 9 7 43 in total. Last round. Yeah. All right. Come on. Well, let's see what we can do. 11 14 2 70 That was slightly better. Yeah. You’re leading the board. Yeah. You’re leading the board. Thank you. Hector. Take care. Lovely to see you.