Ep 11 | Spencer John | Inside the Maverick Mind - The Boy who Chose Option 4

**Inside the Maverick Mind | Episode: Spencer John

What happens when a boy from Port Talbot - no father, raised by his nan, told at 12 he had three choices: the cemetery, prison, or the forces - refuses all three and builds option four?

Spencer John went on to a 25-year career in investment banking across London, New York, Sydney, and the Middle East. Today he's the founder of Ethos Chain, an advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence on financial warfare, a FTSE 100 non-executive director, and the chair of employment advisory boards across all six Welsh prisons.

But none of that is the real story.

The real story is about trauma rewiring a brain into a superpower. About a daily gin habit at 13 that saved a life - and nearly ended it. About waking up unable to move on Clapham Common and feeling, for the first time, completely at peace. About walking onto a Wall Street trading floor and seeing not power, but insecurity. And about choosing, again and again, to build option four.

In this conversation, Spencer and host Emyr Afan - two boys who grew up miles apart in South Wales and found each other on a charity bike ride across America - go deep on:

🧠 Pattern recognition as a survival mechanism
💼 25 years in global finance - and why he walked away at his most successful
⚔️ Advising the MoD on unconventional warfare
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Changing outcomes in Welsh prisons through employment
❤️ The Yellow Sands Foundation and giving back to the rough diamonds
🌍 The end of the global multinational — and what's replacing it

This is raw, honest, and genuinely remarkable.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome to Inside the Maverick Mind, the show where we explore the thinking behind people who refuse to follow the expected path. My guest today is someone I share roots with. We're both from Portalbert, a place that doesn't always promise you much, but teaches you everything. Spencer John, or Spencer's I know him, built a 25-year career in investment banking across London, New York, Sydney, and the Middle East. Today he's the founder of Ethos Chain, advising governments and multinationals on economic security and geopolitical risk. He advises the UK Ministry of Defence on unconventional warfare, sits as a FTSE 100 non-executive director, and chairs employment advisory boards across all six Welsh prisons. But those are just the headlights. The real story is this: a boy whose father left before he was born, raised by his nun, told at 12 years old he had three options the cemetery, the prison, or the forces. A child shaped by trauma, whose mind learned to stay permanently alert. What he now calls his superpower was originally survival. I first met Spence on a Valindra charity ride in the States, pushing him up a hill, both of us wondering what we'd signed up for. That's where I realized something. This isn't just someone who built a career. This is someone who understands how thin the margin is between outcomes and has made it his life's work to widen it for others. This is about instinct, trauma, pattern recognition, and purpose. Spencer John is our guest. Let's get inside his Maverick Mind. Welcome, Spencer.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Hi Emir.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Do you recognise yourself for that intro?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah, it's quite uh you hear it all back like that. Yeah, it's um especially yeah, quite vivid memories being back on the estate in Port Albert. And yeah, it's um when you hear all the accolades, it's yeah, I don't know whether to be impressed or embarrassed.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Let's start where it really begins, Port Albert. You were told at twelve years old, cemetery, prison, or the forces, what did that do to you?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

I didn't know at the time, but I actually did what I've come to always do in life. I ignored the people telling me and I went with option four. But it took many years to reach option four because what it did to me when that day I realised that the only one that was going to change my own circumstances was myself. So I was dead set on joining the army from that point on. I looked at the navy, looked at the RAF. I had loads of mates, dads, and stuff who were in prison, and I I didn't want to go there. I'd lost a few friends by the age of 12 already, um, and that I really didn't want to end up in the cemetery. So it set me on a path for at least eight years of wanting to join the army. Met some brilliant people, some awesome people, one of which I'm still really good friends with today. But um, yeah, it created a lifelong passion for those that serve, and um yeah, I'm sure we'll cover a lot of that today.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

I only lived a few miles down the road to you back then. I was 13 in a happy home, building dens. But you had a dependency on alcohol as young as 13 to tr to deal with the trauma you were facing.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

I'd suffered a lot of um physical abuse um as a young kid, struggled to deal with that, didn't know how to deal with that. I was getting into a lot of trouble, I was hanging out with the wrong crowds, and um those three life options, two of them were starting to become statistically more probable. I hated where my life was going. I I I despised those that stole from others, um, but stealing was all around me. Um I was very anti-drugs, and drugs were all around me. I didn't know at the time, but these intrinsic values that had been installed in me by my nan and my nan's partner, who as far as I was concerned, was was my dad, was that father figure. My nan instilled values in me that I was living a life as young as six, seven, eight, nine that was contradictory to the values and that were inside me. And that caused me huge issues from doing silly things at school through to getting arrested, probably on first name terms with a lot of the police officers in Port Albert by the age of 10. I just struggled, so I come home one day, I was 12, and just opened my Nan's drinking cabinet. It was a wooden globe that opened and um found this clear liquid that just looked like water and started drinking some of that. And um yeah, and for the first time in my life just felt nothing, felt relief, and just thought that liquid was magical. So from that point on for that next 12 months, it was probably every couple of weeks, and then from probably the age of 13 onwards, it was daily. Um, so I was probably a daily gin drinker from about 13 onwards, and that's something I battle with through to current day. It's definitely saved me. So, much like I see trauma as both a curse and a superpower, um, alcohol is a curse and uh um something that's enabled me to live. I I definitely wouldn't be here if it wasn't for alcohol, and I am surprised I'm still here because of alcohol, is the easiest way to put it.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

It's a good way to put it. As you say, your father left before you were born and your mum went to Saudi to provide. That's right. It was your nan and her partner who raised you. When you look back now, what did that teach you about sacrifice?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I knew something was different about our family unit, and I and I don't mean absent parents. Most people in my community had an absent mum or an absent dad, or were being raised by nan. So I don't mean that. It was just that we had a lot of things that others around us didn't have. So large colour TVs, um, we'd often have more food than others. I had access to role models that other people didn't have. So in the community I come from, it wasn't normal to meet pilots, doctors, chemists. And yeah, just being through my mum making the sacrifice to go to Saudi to provide financially for our family unit, through then my nan making the sacrifice to actually look after her daughter's son and not just look after him but raise him for over a decade. So from a very early age, what both my mum and my nan have taught me is that nothing good comes without hard work and ultimately those around you are not going to do it for you. The only person that's gonna change your outcomes is yourself. Now that in itself has caused me issues because I'm very single-minded. I really struggle to take others' opinions on board. Um I've had years worth of counselling to work out that I'm not always right. Um, but um, but yeah, at the time I think, you know what I mean, just seeing that sacrifice by two generations above me so that I could have a better life. And that probably ties in. I don't know, I'm not a psychologist, but I I there's probably something in there of why I have so much respect for those those that serve and serve the country. Um and whether that's in the police, the fire, the nursing, or whether that's in the armed forces, I've always admired those in uniform that serve. Um and I think that is linked in some way back to the way I was raised.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

But your mum's sacrifice was hard for her as well because when she returned, you had another trauma to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

My mum and I have struggled. When she first came back, she obviously thought she could just slot back in and crack on with happy families. But my nan and I, by that time, were we like brother and sister, you know what I mean? You you um we were stick as two peas in a pod. Um, and you can't just interrupt that bond, that love, and assume that you can just replicate that just because you've turned back. So we had huge physical fights, my mum and I, and then that led to my nan and I having to constantly move house every sort of six to nine months because we moved out of the family house, and then we'd go to live with my grand's brothers. Couldn't stay forever, so we'd then move with one of my other nan's brothers. For most of my teens, we were moving every sort of nine to fifteen months to somewhere new, and it was like that until I left, really, when I when I went to university. And it's only in my later life, it's only when I've had children that I've come to accept. My mum actually had her own issues that she needed to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

So you're now based in Australia where Claire hails from, and work between Dubai and London, and frequently wails if there's a natural game on or a philanthropic board. That means you now spend over 200 nights in hotels, just like your mum once left home to provide. Do you ever see that parallel?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, definitely. So I've um I've recently taken an apartment in Dubai um because I was finding the long, long nights in hotels just too lonely, truthfully. Because it sounds glamorous, right? Travelling all over the world in business class, often getting upgraded to first because of the the status you hold on airlines and all that nonsense. But the reality of it is when you sat on the other side of the world and sitting there and I'm thinking like this must be what my mum felt like. I mean, that's all I want to do. There's like nothing more I want to do than jump on a plane and just go back to Australia and be with my family. It's easy to say, oh yeah, mum sacrificed and provided for us all. Brilliant. But actually, when you then do it yourself and then you realise, oh yeah, mum sacrificed and provided, and she must have felt emotionally like this. You know what I mean? It's that's a whole different chapter in that book, so to speak. Because I I spent most of my twenties not talking to my mum. We we almost went for a decade, like I for a number of reasons, but I and I I blamed her for so so much. And I do worry that I'm causing similar tr trauma issues for my kids with an absent dad. So I do my best. Like, we're lucky in today's world versus when my mum did this in the late 70s, early 80s. We have technology, so I I speak to my son twice a day. Like, he phones me and I phone him, so we're always on FaceTime. Weirdly, my nine-year-old daughter, she's more resilient than me and my son. So she's like, Yeah, dad, I'm busy, I'm talking to my friends, and I might not go for a week without talking to my daughter, but she's brilliant. Yeah, my wife and I talk pretty much every day. So technology definitely means it's not as bad as what it was probably for my mum. I probably now have even more respect for my mum because the nights where I'm alone in hotels, missing my children, missing my wife, um I can only assume that was the same for my mum when she was back in Saudi. I can now look at my mum and say, look, I'm sorry, you know what I mean? Uh which for probably over 20 years I I I would never dream of apologising to my mum because I always thought it was my mum's fault. Um and today, look, it's it's not perfect. Um I'll be seeing my mum later on today. I love it a bit now, um, and I have a lot of time for her, and I got so much respect for what she did by going to Saudi to provide for us. I definitely wouldn't have the opportunities I have today if it wasn't for the my mother's decision. Yeah, in in some ways, in some weird ways, I thank her for the trauma because genuinely it like for me it is a superpower. It really is.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Well, I'm hugely pleased you came back from Australia to do inside the Maverick Mind and see your nan and your mum. Absolutely. Thank you for that. When did you first realise only I can change my situation?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

It's probably not a single moment, M, it's probably a combination of three or four moments. So definitely when I was four, I vividly remember um feeling right, I'm on my own. A few things had happened, not good things, and I thought, right, I and I've never been like a strong fighter or whatever, like so I I knew physical force wasn't gonna be the solution. But so at the age of four, I I I knew that I was gonna have to make things better. And then probably with the interviews through the army um in my mid to late teens, I realised that um actually pursuit of academic qualifications enables better outcomes. And again, the only person that was gonna achieve those was me. I was obsessed by I wanted to join when I was 16, and it was a sergeant in the Swansea recruiting office that encouraged me to do my A levels, and I was so angry with him because that's all I wanted to do was sign up. Um so I went back into my A levels, and then the same guy persuaded me to do my degree and then introduced me to the officer route instead of the soldier route. But again, like what's central through all of that is ultimately it's me that's making those things happen, but it's with good counsel around me, and that's I think it's taken me decades to realise that like I don't have to do it all on my own and that I can trust certain people, but I I really struggle to trust others. That's a catch-22. Um I definitely wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for that sergeant in the recruiting office. Do you know when I I'd I would have probably signed up when I was 16 and yeah, I would have probably started a brilliant life, but it would have been a very different life. I think getting married has probably calmed my obsession with doing it myself. Um Claire's probably the only person in the world I fully trust, like 100% trust. And I I mean that with respect. I know you and I are good friends, but I I just I it like I struggle to trust. So Claire and I are a team. Um and yeah, for that I uh I'm learning what it means to actually take on board someone else's opinion. Although if she was here now she'd probably say she'd probably laugh.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

You've spoken openly about childhood trauma and how it shaped your mind. You describe it as being permanently in red alert. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

The easiest way to describe it is if um I've walked in here today, and now if I replay that back in my head, I can probably tell you where every fire escape is, who out of each person I've seen on this industrial area is most likely to cause me harm. And I've probably got a plan A and a plan B in my head without even thinking about it. And that's just getting out of the taxi and walking here. That's the calm version of me. Um, you know what I mean? That's the not threatened, coming to meet a friend, coming to do something that's fun. Back in the day when I was younger, I used to joke about it. Like I'd walk into a pub, and um, you know what I mean, by the time I'd gone from the door to the bar, I could with a fairly high degree of accuracy tell you probably the top three people in that place that were likely to kick off. It's it's rarely the loudest or the biggest. You know what I mean? It's the guy sitting in the corner, you know, reading the paper. I could tell you where all the exit points were, I could tell you how I would get out if something happened, what I would do. But I wouldn't think about it. This isn't something that I force myself to do, it just happens naturally. I find it happens on planes. I travel on planes now. Um again, I sit down, I don't even have to think about how many rows there are between me and the exit door back. I've already seen that as I'm walking on. I've just come to accept that's the way my brain is. I have to rest a lot because it is exhausting. And there are downsides of it. I I find it incredibly hard to be in a really crowded room. I don't like being in big crowds, um, which is quite hard when you have a love of rugby and watching live sport. Yeah, I've just come to deal with that, do you know what I mean? So I've come to learn in later life that people call that pattern recognition, but that to me just sounds grandiose. Do you know what I mean? It's it's I I just assumed everybody had that ability and was doing that, but I think where that comes from, from what I've learned from spending time in the priory um and working with some really good psychologists and um psychiatrists, is that due to what happened to me over a sustained period of almost a decade from birth to probably 10, 11, you just build your system, adapts, your brain adapts, your neural pathways adapt, and your body's extremely resilient at protecting you and creating mechanisms to protect you. And for me, that's something that's happened in my mind. My brain's been rewired at a really early age, and bizarrely, that's now one of the largest gifts I have because I I use that every day in my work. I'm using it in my PhD research at the moment. I was always accused of cheating when I was a kid doing my exams because I could often make non-intuitive leaps, especially in maths, and the teacher would always go, There's no way you could have gone from there to there. Like you must have looked at someone else's paper, and I used to get so angry because I couldn't explain how I jumped, but I knew I hadn't cheated. And it wasn't until I got to uni that I realised, and I was around other doctors and stuff, that I realised actually this is quite advanced, this is like this is useful. And then through a series of three years in uni and then a a career in investment banking, realised that that ability to spot and have awareness of the situation around you, and it's really good for survival, but it's also really good for problem solving, especially in a work context.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

To have your trust robbed from you at such an early age and the way you've put a coping mechanism against that, it's what kept you safe then. For me, it's it's what makes you exceptional now. Is that your edge, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

I struggle with the word edge. It's um it's for me, it's both um an edge and a curse. Um it's the m in later life it's definitely become an edge because I've understood it more and I've learned to accept it more. This sounds crazy, but I'll often talk to myself in my head, you know what I mean? So if I walk into a pub and I can like by the time I've gone to the bar, I'll I'll say, Yes, I know the three people over there, the two people over there, there's four doors, two windows. And I'm I I don't say that out loud, I'm saying it to my own brain, like, thank you for doing that. I'm okay now, like I I don't need you to do that. I always thought you were long get into the bar. Yeah, deep pockets and but yeah, I um I stopped going to lectures in uni because I got bored. I ended up doing two years worth of research into what today we would call um large large language models LLMs. But back in 1998 and 99, that was just artificial neural networks and multilayer perceptron networks, and that's what I used to do. I used to spend 12, 13 hours a day in a lab on my own, just coding in MATLAB, writing what today you would call LLMs. And it it makes me laugh that like we like we had papers published, we developed the world's first electronic nose, which literally can smell infection and tell you at what level that infection is, what what what's caused that. All of this is just identifying patterns, patterns in large data sets. So I don't think it's accidental. I ended up going into finance and working in investment banking, just different patterns. Um, and then in later life I've ended up taking um going back to university partly because I was annoyed I didn't get a I I knew I could have got a first in my undergrad, um, but I just got so bored with the lectures and I was still drinking heavily at that time. So I was 12, 13 hours a day in the lab on my own, and then 12, 13 hours a day in the students' union bar. And I I ended up with a 2-2, weirdly, with two original papers published as an undergrad, which was bizarre. I just got so annoyed. So when COVID hit, I thought, right, I'm gonna go back to uni and just get a first. And I I thought, well, what do I like at the moment? Right, I like international relations, I'm always reading government sovereignty stuff, military stuff, so I thought I'll do a degree in that. So I went back to Lachborough University and did a master's and got a first, well, a distinction. And it was weird, it was just to prove to myself that I could get a first. There's no reason I went back to uni during COVID, but then that's then led to the dissertation I'd done on my master's. Um, the supervisor was like, look, you could do a PhD in that. Um, and literally that was how to define corporate power, and that is a pattern, um, and it's trying to put variables on that pattern and create an algorithm, and that's what I'm doing now for my PhD. And it's weird, this like how life just takes its journeys, and I think that to me is the true edge. Coming back to your question. It's I've never been confined into one box ever, and I'm fascinated with what makes people tick, even the wrong ends. And by the wrong ends, I don't mean those in prison, I mean those that cause abuse to kids. I'm still fascinated, like why? Like, why do you do that? Um, I don't agree with what you do, but why? That's the interesting part for me is the why. Um, and yeah, I'm I'm obsessed with pattern recognition now in my current research. That that's the edge. That's the edge is is is is going, becoming a domain expert in one area, but then reinventing and going back and learning another domain and then finding the cross-relevant um patterns. Um it sounds so geeky, but it just I I just love it. But it marries with your intelligence but also your compulsive behaviour. You're all or nothing, aren't you? Oh 100%, yeah. I'm either asleep or I'm yeah, 100 mile an hour. And there is no in-between. The only in-between comes if I like so a couple of drinks or whatever, or I I I need to switch my brain off. A lot of friends around me lately, including yourself, have s suggested or maybe there's an ADHD element there, but honestly, I'm so nervous of all the labels that this generation apply to themselves. I I I I I've just decided, look, I've I've got enough treatment and medication as it is without asking for more. So um, yeah, but I've I've always been that person that I I enjoy what I do, I enjoy life. Like, so I I just love studying, I love parenthood, I love working, um, and yeah, why do something half hearted?

SPEAKER_02 21:46

And you're a giver as well, your kindness. You know, we met uh raising money for Vlindra Cancer Care. I wish you were a hundred miles an hour on the bike. I can tell you.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

I was when I took your electric bike.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

But you're a giver. Uh is that because You you you were given as a young age so many opportunities that were material and others didn't, or it's that conscience, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah, I think what I've come to realise is um it's it's it's so cliched, but potential genuinely is everywhere, but opportunity's not. There's probably a thread in there between all of the charitable work I do, all the work I do for the prisons across Wales, you know, how I've met you and by you know trying to help a local cancer charity. You've got to play the cards you dealt with in life, but equally the environment those cards are dealt in does sometimes constrain rather than encourage and promote. There's so many people that I grew up with that coulda, woulda, shoulda, you know what I mean? And unfortunately they are either in the prison or the cemetery, and they're no less intelligent than you and I, they're no less kind than you and I, you know what I mean. But for the grace of God, I'm this side of the jail, this side of the cemetery. Um and it's hard, and and I think, yeah, I've it's just instilled in me. It it's weird because my political values are probably more to the right than the left, but my heart is definitely on the left rather than the right.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Interesting. It's like a braid. Um you were sat on the army, then something unexpected happened. The PWC application out of spite. What actually drove that decision?

SPEAKER_01 23:30

I'd finished uh university in the June of when was it, 1999, and I was due to go to Sandurst in early 2000, and I needed something to do for six months. I'd been dating this girl at the time um for university, and um she always used to bang on about how like these firms in London like Goldman Sachs and banks I'd never heard of, you know, and I'd only ever heard of Lloyd's and Midland and you know those type of banks, but so I had no idea who like these banks were in London and firms like Prize Wardhouse Coopers and Deloitte and KPMG. And um long story short, she ended up cheating on me, and I I thought it'd be hilarious just to show her that any Muppet can work for one of these companies, but only the chosen few can actually serve the country. So my plan was to submit an application to Prize Wardhouse Coopers, get the job, send an email to her saying exactly what I've just said, and then resign. So I went through four stages of interviews, an assessment centre, another two days in London being assessed and then got the job, joined, sent the email, and then got paid. And that's one of the largest monkeys on my shoulder I've ever carried. Um, because a good friend of mine at the time, um Lieutenant Prosser, um, was my sort of regular officer looking after me uh to make sure that my journey in was smooth. And we went out on a Friday night in Reading and I said, Phil, like I've I'm I'm torn met, like I've I I desperately don't want to do this career. Like I've got no interest, you know why I joined Pricewater, I've got no interest in doing this career whatsoever. Um I said, but look what they've paid me. And I always remember he was like, Jesus, he said, that's like that's what I learned as a captain. He said, like, and and then he he helped me get to a point. He was like, look, with the strategic defence review and the way it's going and the pension cuts and uh the way the world's going. He said, look, you've got an opportunity that is just phenomenal. He said, you might not have applied for the right reason, but why don't you just embrace the opportunity? He said, like, you you don't know where this could lead. Like that, that type of money could change everything, like for your own children when you have them. That's what I did. I stayed with Price Woodhouse for another five and a half years after that, and had literally the best time ever. What started out as an application through spite and blind ignorance turned into working for one of the kindest, nicest firms I've ever worked for in my life. It's given me lifelong friends. I I become best men to one of the partners. Him and another friend of mine were my best men when I got married. Again, it's that thing about just embracing opportunity and just going with the flow. It's bizarre, but yeah. And then it's weird how life has its goes full circle. I've ended up staying in touch with that Lieutenant Prosser. Um, and today that is Major General Prosser. Yeah, and it's weird how just two lads from Wales both ended up doing something really cool.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

And then you walk onto your first trading floor, and instead of being impressed, you see insecurity everywhere. What did you really see that others didn't?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

If you've never been on a trading floor, you're looking at three by three monitors, so like stacks of nine monitors in front of every person, and it goes as far as the eye can see, and it's it's impressive electronically. But when you step back and look at the people, I just saw vulnerability, insecurity. Um, it's just reminded me of all the bullies back in school, you know what I mean, and grown men shouting, and like it's just bizarre. Do you know what I mean? I um and I thought, oh my god, this this is crazy. But there were pockets in each area of what back in school we would have been called the geeks, but there were pockets of these people who weren't shouting and they dressed differently, they weren't in like chalk striped suits and loud and big, they were in like woolly jumpers and trainers, and they were just writing away. And I gravitated towards those guys and just thought I learned that they were the quants, these guys who do the maths behind everything that the louder shouty people do, and I thought I'm probably not gonna fit in here. Um, but maybe that, you know, I mean, I've never really fitted in anywhere, a tribe of one, usually, and most of these quants were a tribe of one, so I thought maybe this is my tribe, but yeah, it's it's the same in all sorts, whether you're in a pub or on a trading floor. You've you've always got those people who think they rule the roost, and 99% of the time they don't.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

You were the brains of the operation, like so many of your friends, and the shouty ones, as you said, took the orders, which I I think is fascinating. I remember you telling me, because that period was very Wolf of Wall Street, wasn't it? I mean, it was excess, it was everything that probably somebody from your background would struggle with. And I remember we stopped in a in a roadside calf when we were cycling across America, and you shared with me that this was your darkest hour also, and you ended up lying on your back in a park asking why.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, I worked for an American investment bank at the time, JP Morgan. It was hard like because by that stage we were drinking at lunchtime, drinking in the night, uh, truthfully taking drugs to go to sleep. So taking things like ketamine to go to sleep, and then having to take cocaine in the morning to be awake, to get to lunch, to have the beer, to get through the rest of the day. And that went on for years, and in the end the wheels just come off for me. I'd um I turned up for work on a I think it was a Tuesday, and um I was early, like it was about half six in the morning, and every I could feel people staring at me, and I just couldn't understand why people were staring at me, and I kept saying like what what? And then um my um desk head, my yeah, my trading desk had come over and he said, Spencer, I can have a chat. And um I was like, Oh, Zefan, not now. I said, like I've got so much stuff to do. I it was busy yesterday and it's it's gonna be busy today. And he's looked at me and he went, What do you mean it was busy yesterday? He said, What day do you think it is? And I was like, Well, uh Tuesday. Yeah. He goes, But no one's seen you since last Tuesday. Like you you've been missing for a week. Like we've reported you lost to the police. You're so my now wife, then girlfriend, Claire, like it was no one's seen you. Like, where have you been? Um and that was the moment that I realised like, yeah, the wheels had come off, and they very kindly paid for me to go to um uh rehab and um in 2010 and um yeah, that was the start of journey and starting to unpick and unpack everything that had happened from birth through to that point. That's probably why I can sit here now and actually talk about some of this stuff that I've just labelled as oh, pattern recognition, superpower, edge. It's like there's so so much more deeper and I guess so much gratitude to those people in North London and Priory for tolerating my my shite, to be honest, because they we you they must have to listen to the same or similar stories day in, day out, and there are some horrific stories you hear in there. Do you know what I mean? I always felt in comparison, mine's not that bad. There were many times where that that was the end time, but there were many times. I think the example you're referring to is I woke up on Clapham Common and I I I couldn't move from the neck down. Um and um and it started to rain, and the only thing I could feel were the raindrops hitting my head, and for the first time in my life I felt secure, at peace, not a concern in my body, and it's bizarre because that's for any normal person that'd be the worst possible, but for me, I was that's the first time I'd been truly at peace, probably since birth. Um, which is a really weird thing to say, like because you've taken too much cat meaning and you can't move. It's the truth of it. You know, and I think that's the part that you know I mean, you watch the Wolf of Wall Street films and you see all the flamboyance, the yachts, the Ferraris, and all that stuff. What you don't see in those films are the moments like that when, you know, I mean you're on your own and yeah, there's the other side of that. And I I don't know, sometimes I wish Hollywood would make more films about the other side of it, um, because it's um yeah, it's hard, really hard.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Thank you for sharing that. So you reached a point in your career, you're back on track again, you're successful in the city, but the system no longer aligned with your values. You left one of the big four partnerships, not out of fear, but relief.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

What was the moment you knew you had to leave? I'd left my career in banking and I wanted to try something new, and I had this amazing opportunity to join one of the big four in London as a partner. And um right from my Prize Wardhouse days, um, being a partner was like that you know, I've always had this thing about rank on your shoulder or title, and it it um so I'd I joined one of Prize Wardhouse's competitors and I I I become a partner, and um it just it was so weird. It was they call it at that particular firm, they call it land and expand, and it was like you you get in through the door at any reasonable cost, and usually that means giving away something for free to get you in. And then once you're in, you just expand. And and to me, it just it was analogous in my head to being a like a virus. It was like this there were two specific things that had happened, um, one of them which made the front page of the Financial Times. Um, and I I just I hated it. Um so in the end I threatened to go public with the whole thing, and um we decided to settle. I signed an NDA not to ever talk over the details ever again, and um the money I I got meant that I was financially secure to be able to go and pursue a PhD and to do the things that I wanted to do. But it also triggered in me something that um I thought there's got to be a better way of doing this because companies value the good consultants, and don't get me wrong, at that firm I worked at, all the junior staff were amazing, you know, and by junior I mean director through to graduate, they were amazing. It was actually the group of partners that were like behaving like school kids. It was it was crazy backstabbing, stealing clients from each other, taking revenue off each other. I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could set up our own company with similar like-minded people? And it was by chance again. I I met a guy called James Summers. Um James is from Swansea. He introduced me to a few of his friends, Simon, John, Matt, and over in the pub one day, one pint led to five pints, led to ten pints, and we we all decided to set up what today has become ethos chain. We deplore land and expand. We land, deliver and leave. We value, truly value. Our our clients are, you know, they become lifelong friends. There's no no other way to put it. We go in, we solve a problem, and we leave. Um we're not interested in putting an army of hundred people in and taking a 60% margin off every person. So we always always cap our um profit to no more than 20%, which is unheard of in our industry. And we give away a lot of our profit. So we've for the last two or three years, we've we always sponsor Wales in London for the gala dinner. We give money to local uh sports teams across Wales. Um and more recently I've started to give in opportunities in Dubai and the Middle East. I'm sure I can watch this back and think, Oh I wish I hadn't said that, I wish I hadn't said this. But the truth is that the people working at that firm that I've not named, but they'll they'll know who they are. And the good ones will look watch this and they'll go, yeah, too right, he's bang on. And the bad ones will probably get angry and want to take me back to court, but good luck. But speaking truth to power is not the easiest thing. I've always been that one that does, and that always comes with consequences, personal consequences. I couldn't live with myself. I was never able to speak truth to power as a child. Um, and I think that really frustrated me, and it caused a lot of anger, and and that anger I buried so deep. And it's only since going to the priory in a lot later life, and since having my own children, that if you don't speak truth to power, ultimately you're complicit. So I'll always back the underdog. I'll always be on the side of the person who's being hurt, and yeah, that does come with personal consequences, but I I would rather die poor, happy, conscious, free, than be the richest guy in the graveyard having you know I mean, so many regrets. I don't want to be lying there on my deathbed thinking, oh, I wish I told that person, I wish I'd said this, I wish I'd said that. Um what probably happen with me is I'll be lying there thinking, oh, I wish I hadn't said that. But um, I think that comes back to your question earlier on when you said, Is that your edge? And and I said, Well, it it it's it's having the curiosity, it's having the curiosity and the the courage just to say, like I left banking at probably the most successful I'd ever been in my life, ever. And I I was I was bored, but financially I was probably earning the most amount of money I'd ever earn in my life as an employee, and I just left and then I reinvented, and then I didn't like what I was doing, so I reinvented. Now I'm doing a PhD and I'm doing all the government stuff, and yeah, it's bizarre, but that is the superpower. It's been able to apply your domain expertise in one domain to another.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

I ask every guest what is their Maverick moment. I think you've had several, but if you had to choose one when you realize you weren't going to follow a normal path, when would that be?

SPEAKER_01 37:26

It's probably when I walked onto the trading floor for the first time, realising I'm a Welsh lad with an engineering degree, sitting here on a financial trading desk, English public schoolboy accents all around me. I'm just looking at this going, I don't fit in here. I really don't fit in here. I think that was my maverick moment realizing that's actually not a handicap, that's actually a strength. I don't have to fit in, and the uniqueness in Wales, I think we'd be called the black sheep. But I mean, yeah, that that was probably my maverick moment. I'd always felt different up to that point, and I was embarrassed. I think that was the moment for me where I realised actually I can own this. I don't have to fit in, I can be my own tribe. And over over many years after that, I've realized there are other people in the world who feel exactly the same, and yeah, that's my tribe. Um, yeah, that's probably my Maverick moment.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

That's a good one. You mentioned the young lieutenant from Tanettie and uh how you wish to go into the army, but in true spenser fashion, you have ended up working in the military at the very senior level using your unique skill set. What exactly do you do and are you allowed to tell us?

SPEAKER_01 38:50

So I am an advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence on um what would be defined as financial warfare. Um so most people think of sanctions. Financial warfare is well beyond sanctions. It's using the infrastructure, um, people, processes, technology that belong to financial services globally, but in a warfare context. Um through that I wear the rank of a major. It's again taking your knowledge from one domain and just applying it in another domain, which is something I've done all my life. What I do is nothing in comparison to what the regular guys and girls do who do this day in, day out, and that's their job. You know what I mean? I'm I consider myself very, very privileged and lucky to be able to duck in, contribute, and then duck out. I get to go and sleep in a nice hotel bed rather than a barracks. You know what I mean? So I'm I keep it in perspective. I, you know, I mean at least in my head, what I do is very small. I I would like to think it plays a part somewhere in the world, but for me it just it allows me to give back in a way that's not charity, not non-exec work. It's ultimately serving your king. Um and for me that's really important.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

It's very expensive to have landed back in the army, in the sense that you know you've found a way. You know, you're you're you're a maverick. You will, if the front door's locked, you'll try the side door. If the side doors you go through the back window and applying a skill set in a different way. The only way I found out about your unique skill set, um, forensically, was one of our suppliers, one of the companies that we work with, unfortunately came into a case of fraud. It was a headline news in in our instance, and uh he said, Yeah, I was the one that found the FD somewhere in Brazil. I couldn't get over it. I thought, Spencer, I don't want to see what's on your laptop.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Yeah, that's um I I I got to learn more about what you call them outside broadcast trucks, OBTs, and how they are financed uh that I care to wish. Um yeah, and it was a really, really big fraud at the time, it was huge. Um, and a lot of banks had lost a lot of money, and yeah, we ended up uh tracking him down, which was uh quite interesting. But yeah, again, it's just taking knowledge from one domain and applying it to another, and it's it's doing the things that people don't think you do. So I'll give you an example. I published a LinkedIn article about two weeks ago. People run with Strava watches on. Now, for me, I was more fascinated with, oh, I wonder what data comes off Strava. So I I just looked at the there's a publicly available Strava map where you can look at people who's running, and I thought, I wonder who's running in Iran, given everything that's going on. And then you see six very bright pockets. I thought, well, I wonder where they are. So I overlaid the normal map of Iran and realised they were very mountainous areas. So I was like, well, it's obvious who's running there. You know what I mean? The that's going to be Iranian Special Forces training. I mean, that's there's no other like so I put it on LinkedIn and I said it's literally, and it's there if you want to look at the article. But if you wanted to track those people down, you'd never think of doing that route. But it's often the things that people throw away, including data that we all give away freely, that is probably the most valuable thing in the world, and yet it's the most undervalued by so many people. And that's what I love doing, is just taking data from one sort of world, one domain, and applying it to other contexts where never in a million years would a normal person thinking of doing that. Now, what's funny is a week after I published that article, there was one of the officers on the French aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle. Uh the Charles de Gaulle sailing through the med, and this guy was running on the deck of the aircraft carrier wearing a Strava. He'd give away the position of the aircraft carrier. So that made the Times, I was all over LinkedIn, and I was laughing because like a week before I'd already published a similar article. So I'd love to think that one of the Times reporters had seen that and thought, I wonder what else is going on, and then found his source for a good article. But I don't know, I just yeah, it's weird how my brain thinks. I I just yeah, I've always been like that.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

But it's very counterintuitive and very uh obvious when you explain it, but the best ideas often are, and they've led out of curiosity. Why would that be? You know, it's it's fantastic, and you find a use your skill set to find that that solution. Today with Ethust Chain, you advise on economic security and geopolitical risk. You're building frameworks to measure corporate power, as you said. What are you seeing in the world that most people aren't?

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Probably what's most relevant at the moment is I think the end of the global multinational company. I think what we're starting to see is industrial strategy returning at scale. Do you know what I mean? The days of free capital flowing, optimizing for efficiency, operating on price, um, building your supply chains around cheapest price and importing from everywhere over the world. That era is over. The concept of a global company, what we're starting to see now is um soft. Sovereign sovereignty. At the beginning of the state taking a real interest in the corporate assets that they have, ring fencing certain sectors, and really protecting those sectors, investing in those sectors. What I'm seeing is the the good COOs, CEOs, CFOs, they're already starting to re-engineer their companies around those type of points. I'd say they are in the minority, it's probably 10 or 20% of C-suite that I know at the moment that are actively doing that. And I'm talking about large, large, you know, I mean, manufacturers, processors, even if I think of financial institutions, you know, I mean, they're all still operating globally. And I think if you are in that position today and you are a C a C-suite member and you're not re-engineering and restructuring your companies to be focused on your home territories, and that's not to say you can't serve overseas territories, but the way in which capital flows now, the the the whole concept between you can't you can no longer buy product just based on cheapest price and import it and expect that everything's going to be fine. We're seeing that now in the Strait of Hamous, we've seen it before in Panama. You've only got to think of like common products like semiconductors, um, critical minerals. You know, and we've seen it in this in the UK at the moment with steel. You know, I mean what most people don't realise is Iran produces 31 million tonnes of steel a year. Um, at least before the war, they're one of the world's largest producers of steel. You know what I mean? So the good C-suite members are reaching out and asking, right, what's this actually mean for us? And it scares me a little bit because it will be the big four and the big strat houses like McKinsey, Bain, um, and the big four that will end up advising these companies because no one gets fired for hiring those companies. But I do worry the advice they will give. They haven't got the academic rigour to give that advice, and they haven't got the industrial experience or the geographic experience to give that advice. But I've seen so many decks over the last three months from said companies where they're advising on geopolitical risk and all this type of stuff, and it's like seriously, like I I used to know you when I worked there, and you used to be the head of audit or the head of compliance. Like, how have you now pivoted into advising Company X on geopolitical risk? You know what I mean? And I'm seeing a lot of people claiming to have the knowledge to be able to advise, and I'm seeing a lot of companies that are not not even thinking about these problems. And I think as with any change in industrial circumstances and geopolitical circumstances, there'll be those companies that succeed and there'll be those companies that fail.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Well, I would back Ethos Chain every time. So Thank you, Amir. Thank you. Well, your life knowledge, you know, the skill set that you have and the team which I've met, it's you know, there's more skin in the game. You know, a smaller entity, because I'm independent television producer. I love to be the smaller outfit, if you like, because we're hungrier, we work harder. I wouldn't say we work harder to be disrespectful, but you know, we've got to think that the you know, the mortgage at the end of the month, it's our focus. And sometimes we're not languishing on page 152 on the prospectus. Yeah, it matters a lot to us. Absolutely. I want to take you back a bit. I want to talk about the work that matters most and something that touched my heart because I am from Kumarvan, Portel, but uh a tough steel town, getting tougher with everything it's going through. But what you got involved with with the Yellow Sands Foundation speaks volumes, I think, about what you're about.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Yeah, at the time I I set it up in uh late 2017, early 18, and I I set it up originally just to help the school from where I was I I I went to Sandfield School and mother taught there.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Yeah, she was in she was used to getting chairs flying past in the middle of a lesson.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

I was probably one of the reprobates throwing them. Um Samfield's unfortunately is no longer there today, but um Escall Bay Bagland is there and um as the replacement sort of super school, if you like. And I was earning quite a lot of money at the time working for another investment bank, and I was going back and forth to Wales at the time to see my mum quite a lot, and I was just seeing the poverty as like and look, Port Albert's brilliant, right? I love it. Like it's it's got the best beach. Like honestly, if that beach was in the med, like it'd be a tourist destination, it's beautiful. We'd call it San Tablo. Yes, San Po Tablo. I mean, it's it's it's it's fantastic. Um, so I I want to be careful, like I'm with when when we say there's a lot of poverty, it's it's a beautiful place, right? And like it's I I love the place, it's like, but it comes back to that potential is everywhere, opportunity is not. And I reached out to the then headmaster, a guy called Mike Tate, and said, Look, I want to do something, I don't know what. So we we sat down and we worked out and we landed on let's just pick five of the lovable rogues. If you ask any teacher in any school who are the five lovable rogues, these are the guys who could either end up in prison or prime minister. Rough diamonds. Or girls, yeah, rough diamonds. So that's what we started in year one. We picked five rough diamonds and we sat with them and understood what were the reasons behind why they were behaving the way they were behaving when they weren't behaving. You had one girl who was too afraid to tell the school that mum had left and dad had gone to prison and she was running the home, and she was looking, she was the sole primary care giver for her younger sister. So she was stealing to put food, literally food on the table, and that was some of the days she was having to stay off school, was because that's what she was doing. And then you start to realise, like, oh well, why are they talking to me? Why why are they comfortable talking to me, a stranger, where they're not comfortable and we unpick this? And it it started off quite simple. Okay, well, this seems to be a really straightforward one. Why don't we just set up like Morrison's to do a weekly food drop for you? That's what we did. Like, so you that's one person, like just and it's financially it's insignificant, like it was probably like about 60 quid a week or something, you know, it's nothing. And then that summer I realised that actually what those kids need is a break, but they're desperate to catch up. And and I remember that feeling. Like, I I was one of those kids. I like I'd get so bored sometimes that I just cause trouble, and then I'd be so remorseful and but because I was behind. So I thought, right, what we'll do is we'll we'll run a six-week summer school. And if any kid wants to give up six weeks of their seven-week summer to do a week of physics, a week of chemistry, a week of English, a week of maths, a week of outdoor pursuits, and then a week down at White Sands. Um, I thought, brilliant, like you're you're you are rough diamonds. So we ended up taking, I think it was 30 kids that year. And then I was very lucky to meet a lady called Julie Walters from Swansea University who said, Well, rather than you pay in for tutors to do all this, I'll get a maths professor, I'll get a science professor, and we'll host them in the uni. So suddenly now I'm fulfilling this whole thing about these kids have got potential, but they've never seen a university, so tick. They've now seen Swansea Uni. And it's not daunting from them anymore because they've met people like Julie and other lecturers there, and they've gone, oh, this is no different to my own classroom. I always thought universities were full of like posh people, they're just like me. And then suddenly you've got a 12, 13, 14-year-old who's going, I could do this, I could I could come to university now. Now I've seen inside it. So after the university, like so they'd done four weeks of academic stuff. So then to give them something fun to do, um, I wanted to get them down to West Wales to a place you and I love, White Sands. And a lady who'd become a good friend of mine at the time, um, Fionn, Fionn Reese from Falcon Boats, explained to her what I was doing, and she loved the idea, so she was like, Look, I'll I'll take you out on the boat, we'll get all the kids on the boat. And I trust Fionne. I mean, she used to be in the R and L I knew it was safe. So we took them out for a day, went around Ramsay Island. Um, they got to see porpoise and dolphins and seals, and you know what I mean, and then that just blew their minds, like they're seeing animals for the first time in their life that they've only ever seen on TV, and they've just realized that's in their own country, and it's just down the road from where they live. None of them had any idea that there was a land so beautiful as West Wales on their doorstep. Um, you know what I mean? And and it it's it's weird, like because I I I think sometimes we spend so much of our life, or at least I did, so much of my life trying to get away and and thinking that success was getting away, but actually when you've come full circle, you actually realise that that true beauty was always there. Do you know what I mean? Like Port Albert, White Sands, like Pembroke. I I just love yeah, all that part of Wales. And yeah, and sorry, coming back to Yellow Sands, that's that's ultimately what Yellow Sands means. It's uh the first school I ever went to was Trith Maylon. I thought it was a bit weird to call it Yellow Beach. So I uh I call it Yellow Sands, and and again I I I set up that charity to to to help that one school. We then expanded, and then unfortunately Covid hit, and I was living in London at the time, and yeah, all of our funding dried up and everything, but I'm looking to re-establish. We haven't done that much in the last couple of years through the charity. Um, but I've spent the last seven months catching up all the last three years' annual accounts because I'd let it lapse. Um and now yeah, we've got a plan. We've um we've we're looking to fundraise and uh start doing this concept of the summer school again. What I'd love to do is pick ten deprived areas across Wales, ten beautiful but deprived areas across Wales, and go and find those five lovable rogues from each of those schools and just help them. Um for no other reason than I just wish someone had done that for me when I was their age during. And those lovable rogues are like the heart and soul of the community half the time, because everyone knows them um for the right or the wrong reasons. If there's anyone watching who fancies uh helping, yeah, I'm uh feel free to reach out. Um, I'm easy to find.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Well, I'm in. I did something similar in the valleys, and you know, it just gives you so much back. And I can tell you now there are people who sat in that chair who have come from that background, and somebody somewhere believed in them, given that chance. They had the intelligence, yeah. They had everything, but they didn't have the opportunity. You know, it's funny how you know you were in Patel, but I was in Kumar, and we didn't know each other. You know, I've gravitated towards white sands, and so did you, and that's why you've come back to stay with us so many times. I'd love to have the kids stay at ours next time. And then, you know, we find each other on a bike ride on a similar trajectory. It's like sliding doors.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

It really is, it really is. But I for me that speaks volumes of who you are as an individual. I mean I mean, we're quite similar. I I I think there's no surprise for me that you and I are very good friends, um, share similar values, similar outlooks on life, similar passion for work, and a similar passion for just wanting to improve the chances of those that are less fortunate than ourselves, and you know what I mean, and yeah, that's that's it is slid indoors, but I think it's sliding doors for the right reasons, if if that makes sense. Yeah, we're on the same path.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Yeah. The same trajectory, certainly, and I, you know, I treasure our friendship greatly. In that time you were recommended to speak to Floyd Woodrow. Yeah. Why didn't you think of Googling it first?

SPEAKER_01 55:30

So I was trying to have um an explainer video made, and if you look at the Yellow Sands website, there's a video on there. If you watch the video, this is the video I'm talking about. Tries to explain why Yellow Sands has come to exist and what our purpose is. I loved Gavin and Stacy at the time, so I reached out to Dave Coaches because I just loved his voice. Didn't know him, and I was like, look, I don't know you, but I'm doing this video. Is there any chance you do the voice over? And he agreed. Um, and that's that's me to a tea. If you don't ask, you don't get.

SPEAKER_02 55:59

Um it is you to a tea.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

And then the guy who's doing the production of the video, I I we just had a chat and I said, Oh, I'm desperate to find someone who's really resilient. And like I just want someone to talk to these kids over the summer school about resilience and what it means to be resilient. And he said, Oh, I met the guy the other week, he's called Floyd Woodrow. Why don't you um give me his uh uh email? Um he said, just email him, he's a lovely guy, he'll probably help you. Stupidly, it didn't dawn on me to email him because I was already three steps ahead. Floyd's gonna agree, how are we gonna do this? What's he gonna talk? I was already scheduling him in the timetable. You know what I mean? So I just shot off the email. Hi Floyd, you've been recommended. I hear you're pretty resilient. Um, I'm looking for someone to come and talk about resiliency to a bunch of kids. Can we talk? And then I kid you not, like within an hour, two hours, this email comes back going, Hi Spencer, um lovely to hear from you. Um think what you're doing's great. When you come to my office, um and we can talk about this. And here's the address, look forward to seeing you, and here's my number, let's find a time. And the address was 22 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London. Now, for those that don't know, 22 SAS, 22 South Audley Street, is where the founder of the SAS ran his business from. So I recognised the address straight away and I was like, oh shit, this guy's probably someone if he's in there. So I googled him, and at that point I fell off my chair because he's one of the most decorated like people in UK military. Um sorry Floyd, I'm probably gonna get this wrong, but I think like OBE for services in Iraq, MBE for services in an in the Balklands, DCM for services um elsewhere, um, you know what I mean, founder of four businesses, chairman of a big, big UK company. So I rather sheepishly then turn up as a doffice, like cap in hand. And he couldn't have been more gracious, like, hi Spencer, please come in. Like, you know what I mean? Just what should have been a 45-minute meeting three hours later ended up with him asking me to join the board of his charity, which is called Compass for Life. Yeah, that's been a start of a almost now what a decade-long friendship where I value him as someone I would class as one of my closest friends and someone I rely on a lot for advice and guidance. But again, it's one of those moments where it all starts with if you don't ask, you don't get, but it comes from a point of giving. Like the reason I was asking was because I set up this charity. The reason I set up the charity, you know, so when you as long as and that's my view in life, if you if you're doing things genuinely for the right reason, people will want to help and support you. Um and um yeah, it's been brilliant. And then through Floyd, that's how other doors have then opened. Um, you know what I mean? Yeah, in particular with the military work I do, um, and it's just been yeah, an incredible journey.

SPEAKER_02 58:53

As if you didn't have enough to do, and I'm a fine one saying this, you went into the prison service to provide for the futures of you know the those that probably would have been on the right side of the path, yeah. But fell the wrong side of the path.

SPEAKER_01 59:08

Well, it's so funny, this this actually came from Floyd. So um there's a well-known businessman in the UK called James Timpson. Uh he he operates Timpson's, the key and shoe repair shops all around the country. At the time he was James Timpson, today he's Lord Timpson, but um Floyd reached out to me one day and said, Hey, a good friend of mine, James, is um he's doing this thing with prisons. Yeah, I I think you'd be great. Um can I connect you? Again, had no idea. I didn't Google James Timpson, didn't even occur to me he was the Timpson from Timson's.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

Um You know you're gonna have to start looking at Google every now and then.

SPEAKER_01 59:43

No, because half of this I think is if you walk into these meetings fully prepared of who you meet in, sometimes you get nervous and sometimes you can your mind writes a narrative that I'm not worthy and all this type of stuff. Because actually, if you just walk in cold, they get to see you who you are, and I'm quite comfortable with who I am. So, like it is embarrassing a lot of times when you walk in, though, especially with Floyd. But it look, it is what it is, and um, yeah, look, James back in I think it was 2018, he was like, Look, I'm I'm really frustrated by the lack of progress from both blue and red political parties over the last 20 years in terms of reducing re-offending in the UK. Um, I'm someone, so this is James speaking now. He said, Look, I'm I'm someone who employs ex-offenders all the time, and they're they're brilliant. So I want to take what we've done in the Timpson family and I want to make that a national thing. And the short version of the story is we got no official remit, but I kind of just need you to build a relationship with your local prison governor. Definitely don't lie, but you know, I mean, the end goal we want is uh ultimately a team of people, prison staff, up to and including the governor, and external local business people from the community where the prison is to come together to talk about how you can get their prisoners on release into employment. And what started as a pilot is now live in I think 93 uh resettlement prisons across England and Wales. I started, I was the first um uh employment advisory board chair for HMP Swansea. I handed that role over to a really good friend of mine called Simon Griffiths, who's um been doing that role up until current day, and I stepped into the Wales regional lead role for the um the Employment Advisory Board. So we have six prisons in Wales, um Swansea Park, Cardiff, uh Prescottinask, and then Berwin in North Wales. So once every two months we all get together and we have some brilliant, brilliant employers. I can't name them because a lot of them don't want the publicity, not for the negative reasons, they just they just want to do the right thing. Um and some people in the country still have a negative opinion of those in prison, and look, that's that's fine, but equally um it's proven that if you get an ex-offender into employment within 72 hours of their release, you exponentially increase the chances of them not re-offending, and that's only a good thing, right? Because you start to break those community family links where my grandfather was in prison, my dad's in prison, therefore I'm gonna be in prison, and you you can break those links, you can give people new, fresh opportunities, and we've had some brilliant success. So we do the unthinkable, and the reason this works is because we're not bound by bureaucratic red tape. I'm on a WhatsApp group with probably 180, there's probably 93 of the chairs. Um there's a lot of the prison governors themselves. Um, any of us have an issue, we're just on WhatsApp with James, Lord Timpson, we'd just message him. So we cut out the whole of the civil service and we say, James, you are you are you aware this is happening in this prison? And and it's brilliant because like, yeah, it just works. So we've done things like um, so Carl, who's the chair impress Guyden Usk, he ended up, he was the uh director for Transport for Wales in his civilian life. He managed to get um a whole lot of rail track installed in the prison, and uh they've now got a programme in the prison training um the prisoners on how to install and fix rail because there's a national shortage of rail workers. So guess what? They leave prison and they get guaranteed jobs five to ten days before they're released, which is brilliant because then it just means that right, that's I've got my job sorted, that's my income, right now I can focus on the house, right? Brilliant, and then they start earning money and then they can start providing for their kid because normally there's a kid involved, and then that makes them feel good, and then you know, and then it's all self-fulfilling. There was a national shortage of um Holyage drivers, um, and so we bought a we had some companies come together to fund the purchase of a very expensive HGV drive-in simulator, and we put that drive-in simulator in HMP Swansea. So the lads now train how to how to drive forklift trucks and HGV trucks, and they go right up to the point they could pass their licence, and then in the first week of release they sit the test, pass their licence, and then they walk it into a job earning 60,000, 70,000, 80,000 a year driving all over the UK. And again, you it's just giving them the opportunities that to people like you and I, these opportunities are everywhere, but to those individuals they're not. Funny enough, I've I've got the Wales Regional Board now at HMP Park on this Friday. So yeah, I love it though, it's brilliant. I yeah, it's it's extremely rewarding. I don't get paid, it's a non-paid role. Um, but it it I've I've done it now since 2018 and it's time consuming, but I love it. I yeah, I wouldn't have it any other way.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:58

It says a lot about you. There was a boy in Swansea prison though that you knew from school and there was a moment where you said that could have been me. What did that do to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:09

It really shook me up, to be honest. I um I can picture it now. Um uh we were in what today has become um the employment wing, but at the time it was um a sensory unit. So a lot of the lads in Swansea they have mental health issues. We were in there just being walked around and all of a sudden I go, Spencer, Spencer, Spencer and I turn around and I won't name him name him, but I turn round and I I see him and I'm like, Holy shit. Like I like and I I I feel quite bad saying this, but I was like, Thank God it's me. Like, thank God I'm in this body looking at you, not that body looking at me. And I I just started filling up, like and I I was with some quite senior people at the time. I was with uh Lord Byrd, uh so John Byrd, uh founder of the big issue. Um I'd taken him to Swansea and as with his all all his entourage and whatever, and I was trying to like be the statesman in the suit and all this, and there I am in tears because like I've just seen someone I was in school with, and he comes up and gives me a hug. Like, and then the governor tells me off because I'm not allowed to touch the prisoners because they worried that you're giving them things. Um, but he can see it's genuine, I'm not smuggling anything in, like, I'm genuinely in tears, and I'm genuinely hugging this guy, like, and and it's like, oh, and I stupidly said, Oh, so what are you doing then? And he's like, and he said, Oh, I'm just serving my sentence, but yeah, I just done something I shouldn't have done. I won't go into detail. Uh and uh and he was laughing about it, I was crying, and it was one of those moments like it's just so bloody surreal. Like it could have been a conversation in a pub, but like there we are in Swansea prison. For me, it's validated that I'm definitely doing the right thing, um, 100%. And yeah, it just teaches you. It's um, you know, I mean, happiness isn't all about being the richest guy and all that nonsense, it's about like it's but moments like that in life where someone who's locked up actually can have a giggle and a laugh and give you a hug because you're crying because you've just realized it's not you and their shoes. It's like it sounds so bad saying that, but it's I it is what happened and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:16

When you're home with your kids, sunboarding, being present, what does success feel like then? Do you finally feel safe or still in red alert?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:25

Um I wouldn't describe it as red alert. I'm I'm still on, is probably the easiest. It's probably one level down from red alert. I'm quite fortunate uh in my house in Australia. I have a swimming pool and stuff outside, and there's nothing better than sitting in the hot tub part of the swimming pool just looking at the swimming pool where the kids are just playing and jumping in and they've got their friends around, and that to me is success, is like just the freedom to just enjoy and just watch them as pure enjoyment. There's like there's no fear, like there's no like someone's gonna come or someone's gonna do anything to you. Like these kids are just totally free, they can be kids, and to me that success is being able to provide that level of security, both physical security and financial security. For me personally, success is just being able to be still. Like, I know that sounds so weird, but like it's those moments in life where I can genuinely just sit there and my mind is still twirling, right? I'm thinking about the next business opportunity, I'm thinking about how could I do this, how could I do that, and it drives my wife nuts because like it's not work. I love what I do. So it's it's like there's a there's a really fine line between my PhD research and my work, and then most of my friends, close friends, come from domains that I find fascinating, yourself included, with all this kit, and like I I can only imagine the amount of data that you know what I mean. But so yeah, that's success for me is being able to have those moments of just pure, pure and at a stillness and just joy, and just yeah, just watching the world like that. My kids just have fun. That to me is success.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:06

Yeah, I I I relate to that and wait until you get grandchildren.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

Oh, I can't wait. Honestly, well, no, I didn't say that to my daughter. It's a game changer, all it does for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:16

And that's when I relax most is spending time with them. Right then, SJ, or Spence, as I know you, Maverick maxims, quick answers, whatever comes to your mind. What's the biggest myth about success?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:31

That it's linear. Um, most people see the outcome. Um they don't realise success is probably a series of recoveries. One thing high performers get wrong. Confusing motion with productivity. Um being busy doesn't necessarily mean you're being productive. What matters more? Intelligence or instinct? Intelligence will get you to the decision, but it's instinct that gets you through the door in the first place. So instinct.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:00

What's a book or a podcast you'd recommend and why?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:04

Uh The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck. I read that book once a year, every year. The first time I read it, it changed my life. Um I read it in week three of a four-week residential rehab back in 2010 in the Priory. And yeah, it's quite a deep read. It's not something you can read in one go. Uh usually takes a couple of days. Um Yeah. So The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:33

And Inside the Mavericks Magnet as a podcast. Absolutely. I know you listened to it on the live. Absolutely. Decision that you made that changed everything, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:42

Leave in banking at my most successful. I walked away from that world because I'd achieved everything I I personally wanted to achieve, and I I there were other things I wanted to do. Fundamentally set up my own business. Something you now value that you once ignored. I always used to have to keep busy because if I was still all the demons would come back. Uh so I hated stillness. Whereas now I value stillness, peace, calm. I love that. Those moments I use them on planes now. That's what I use planes for exactly that. I switch off and I I can be at peace and I can be still, and it's nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:20

What do most people misunderstand about power?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:23

I'd say they think power is visible. Um rarely, in my experience, is the most powerful the loudest voice. Um true power is invisible, it's structural, and it usually takes place two or three steps away from where the decision's actually made. One trait that separates survivors from leaders. Survivors endure. Leaders carry others and lead others whilst enduring, um, is what I would say.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:54

I think you've done that. And finally, what does life taught you that success never could?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:59

Um I think those that matter most in my life don't care about my CV. And those that do care about my CV don't matter.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:07

I love that. Finish this line for me. We always end with this. A maverick is someone who dot dot dot.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

Is an unbranded stray. Um, so I don't know whether you know where the word maverick comes from, um, but it's um it's from an old 19th-century Texas uh rancher called Samuel Maverick. And Samuel was a lawyer, a land baron, and he inherited a large uh herd of cattle, and he refused to brand them. So these unbranded cattle became known as the Mavericks because they belong to Samuel Maverick, and that's where the word maverick has come from. So to me, I think that definition fits me perfectly. I'm I am an unbranded stray. I refuse to be branded by anybody. Um, no one's gonna put me in a box. I'll always do the thing that's probably the hardest option to do, but then go back and show you I could have done the easiest one as well. Yeah, so for me, a maverick is someone who just refuses to be branded. Love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:06

Thank you, Spence. It's been a wonderful chap. I'm really grateful to you. From Betalbert to global finance to standing inside Welsh prisons trying to change outcomes. Your story is a reminder of something very simple. The margin between where you end up is often far thinner than people realise. To everyone watching, the world doesn't change by playing it safe. Sometimes the Maverick move is simply choosing to build a fourth option. I'm Emi Ravan. See you next time on Inside the Maverick Mind.