The Amber Moment
The podcast that tells stories of remarkable careers.
The Amber Moment
Steve Hatch
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Steve is the former CEO of YouGov and VP of Facebook/Meta, heading up their operations in Northern Europe. Here he talks about having parents who were entrepreneurial and intellectual; dyslexia; getting a call from "the Robin Williams" of the media planning world; the transition from strategist to leader (and getting it wrong initially); the debate about Facebook as an editor/censor; 29 elections in a year at YouGov; a hatred of repetition; and crying at the movies.
Hello and welcome to the Hatter Moment, a podcast that tells stories of remarkable careers. My name is Paul Howard. My guest today is Steve Hat. Steve is chairman of Anything Is Possible, an integrated media tech and creative agency. He's also a strategic advisor for companies including Lab Bible. Before that, Steve was CEO of UGov, and prior to that, he was vice president at Facebook and Meta heading up their operations in Northern Europe. Steve, thank you for being there.
SPEAKER_00How are you today? I'm very well, Paul. Very nice to see you. I don't know if anybody else can see you, but I can, and I'm sorry, very nice to hear you.
SPEAKER_06Well, that's great. Thank you so much for being on. Um it's a real pleasure to have you here. What I'm trying to do here on the Amber moment uh is basically to tell some great stories. And yours, I think, definitely is one. But as you know, every story has its beginnings, and every leading character, which for the purposes of today is you, has his or her origin story. So I'd love it if you could start by telling us a bit about your uh childhood, your upbringing, your education, and any early influences.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, great. Well, happy to jump into that. I'm slightly embarrassed to kind of be on something that's about great careers. I've certainly had a lot of luck in my career and a lot of enjoyment.
SPEAKER_06Well, as as I've said to many people who I've asked to be on the show, when I write the book a bit, which I surely shall, the intro is gonna say the first thing you notice is the humility.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't I don't know about humility, but you know, there's that maybe you might also like quiz about fear of failure, although that's it. Like, are you doing what you think you should do as well? So there's always maybe that's a we can talk about that a bit later as well.
SPEAKER_00But no, I mean, in many ways, I had a really happy childhood would be perfect. So, in terms of the things I've been blessed with, that's certainly one of them. We have two great parents who actually divorced about 20 years ago and are still incredibly good friends, like co-own a house that they go and visit together, and so two really quite different people as well. So, my father was a an engineer, but actually started out, he was a pipe fitter and a welder, and grew up in and around the new forest and in and around Southampton. It's actually in Southampton met my mum, whereas my mother, I think she was born in Glasgow, but actually, most of her childhood she grew up in Corby, which is in the Midlands, because my grandfather was a steelworker, and when steelworks moved from Glasgow to Corby. Yes, there's a huge Scottish population in Corby, isn't there? It's extraordinary. You're only really just in the Midlands, kind of really around there. And if you go from one street to another street, you can go from you know what feels like England to what feels incredibly like Glasgow.
SPEAKER_06Well, I've heard my understanding is that the the Corby accent, even now, is a little bit Glaswegian because of generations of Glaswegians having well certainly when I grew up, well I was growing up one a little bit, it was fully.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I barely understood a word my grandfather said, you know, he was a proper Rab scene in that kind of Rhapsody Ned accent, but the way he spoke just more like one of the funniest people. So yeah, so Corby, where the the only place in England where iron brew outsells coke and record outsells the sun. I mean, they're both my parents very impressive people, and one of the things about that community is a very tight community. This tends to stay together, so people stay, hence why it's still as strongly as Ouija now as it as it was kind of you know decades ago. But my mum made the decision to, she was a hairdresser, she decided she was gonna go to South Africa and fight against apartheid. That was her kind of decision. Wow. So she's one of the few people in her family that actually left Corby. She made it as far as Southampton and Southampton docks, where she met my dad. And it was only, I think, at their 25th wedding anniversary, I kind of put two and two together and went, oh, this is August, and I was born in March, and I so quick math. But the reason I could have talked about the two of them in terms of their differences, which is my mother and still is, you know, a very passionate. So she didn't make it to South Africa, but she did do a lot of social good in her career. She did a lot of work with the CAB, bootstrapped her way through the open university to do a sociology degree, and you're just very engaged in the world, and you know, that made for a kind of really interesting place to grow up. Not always an easy place to grow up, because you know, she was quite fierce then, she's remarkably not fierce now. Well, unless you get one politics, and then it and then my dad like built up this job, and I remember certainly a pivotal moment uh was a conversation. Um my sister, she's 10 years younger than me, and we're very, very, very close. And we got quite a heated discussion between my parents that we were overhearing. That wasn't unusual. But what was the conversation is about well not actually heated is maybe the wrong word, a deep discussion. It was about whether my dad was going to take voluntary redundancy and set out and start his own business, which he did, and created a kind of really great engineering firm. I did a lot of work as a school kid lifting pipes and carrying welding machines. That was a lot of my weekends, a lot of my summers, and I quite I quite enjoyed being on site to you know to uh to some extent. But the reason I kind of paint the pitch with the two of them is all kind of in hindsight, which is they they had this duality of somebody that was you know quite entrepreneurial, business, kind of you know, wanting to do good for himself and move his family forward. And I've got enormous respect for anybody that creates a business. I work with founders still because you know I don't have that in me, but I love the people that take a bet. It's always very impressive. And that my mum on this other side, which was more intellectual, you know, we'd be eating tagnotelli for dinner, which was you know a rarity. Uh the kind of like you know, what is this? Or was it uh you know, it's I spent a lot of time my childhood in France as well because they they twinned with the couple, so it was this there's this duality between the kind of commercial world and the the kind of world of social activism and politics and intellect for one of a better word.
SPEAKER_06And so how how did that apply to you as you as you went through your school career, for example? What was your education like?
SPEAKER_00Oh well imagine I really enjoyed school and I was terrible at it. I mean, I'm dyslexic, I'm kind of proudly dyslexic, and my reading capability is pretty good. My written capability is extremely poor, yeah, as my you in my French exam will testify.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Me in my oral, like a you in my in my you know in my writing. But I always quite enjoyed it, but I'd never felt I I I belonged to like one group or another, like I, you know, yeah, pretty close friends, but never part of a a certain kind of clique. I was quite happy mixing with lots of uh lots of different people. I've got to say, I mean, I must have been a really deeply frustrating kid to uh as a teacher. I mean, my reports were pretty much the same all the way through.
SPEAKER_06Can I can I ask, since you bring up your dyslexia, yeah, at what point was that sort of no because you you're sort of from like our generation, lots of kids who who are dyslexic, or lots of adults who are dyslexic, it wasn't sort of picked up in their school. What how did it how did that work for you?
SPEAKER_00Well, it did it was with me, kind of very and and this is where I can only kind of it's all it's all on me, really, you know, and I was offered and it's took up a little bit of the additional support, but didn't really do that much with it. There was more that was offered than I took up. And just generally speaking, structured education didn't really work very well for me. But I read a lot, I was curious, classified as bright, yeah, yeah, but frustrating, but oh almost impossible for me to express that through uh the conventional education system of retention and regurgitation of uh but say I had a great time, and um then that kind of really lends my career. Uh two things happened. One, I was having retaken my O levels, as they were, I then was midway through my A levels, and I was basically just swimming and playing tennis. I mean, I really did like a country club, and uh and I I couldn't quite work I mean I was like I say I was really dry and then my house master basically said, Look, you've got two choices. You can either leave or if you miss one more lesson, we're gonna expel you. And you know, I did at that point say, Well, I think I should probably leave. And in hindsight, I could look back and go, God, was that not awful? And was it difficult? It sort of didn't, it just felt right, like, yeah, that seems fair enough. You know, I really uh it's not working here, and um I'll do something else. And I'd simultaneously read, I mean, I the the the the bits of school I really like, so I really like drama, so we we we were the first school to take a play to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, so that that was a kind of great thing to go and do when you're 15.
SPEAKER_06What was the play? Could I ask?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there were two. We did it two years on the trot. One, I can't remember what it was called now, to be honest, but it was a reworking of Chekhov's Seagull. I don't know what either of those two things actually are, and some heavy stuff, but it was set in Old Serum in a in the which is a military town outside of Salisbury, so yeah, dynamics go. And then the next the one the the following year was a musical set in a fast food restaurant I didn't sing before you ask. Bit of a tonal shift there between those two tones. Yeah, and I was a baddie because I played the kind of like corporate franchise owner. The man, but yeah, I was I was commander, which I really I mean, they're both terrible, uh, probably, and at no point in any one of those performances, both the first year and the second year, was the cast in the minority. Like there was there was always I think the best we did with like four literally four people in the dog, but who cares? Like and you're 16 and you're going to the fringe club afterwards. Amazing thing to do. Yeah, yeah, it was fantastic. So it's lots of things that I really enjoyed about that. But one of the things I well, probably a book that saved saved my life to some extent professionally is I read Ogre and Advertising.
SPEAKER_02Oh, right.
SPEAKER_00And something just sort of clicked. I mean, I liked in terms of other influences, uh, very early on. I really liked comedy and obsessed with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't know, all the kind of I guess sort of absurdism in that sense. And they sort of answered a lot of questions for me that religion didn't answer. Right. I was to say as well, my mum was brought up a Catholic, yeah. And I was brought up a Catholic until I was 10. Yeah. And then midway through the sermon from the priest, my mum grabbed my hand and said, We're leaving. And I can't remember what the sermon was about. Oh wow. I was an altar boy, but we never went back. And I mentioned that because there was something that I quite liked about the spirituality part of that. Yeah. And some of that I found in science fiction.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I kind of quite enjoyed the idea. So I read all good bean advertising, and something just clicked this sense of a world where it's both art and commerce. And it sounded fun and it was exciting, and it was interesting, and it was fundamentally about people. So that was yeah, that was definitely a book that steered things for me.
SPEAKER_06And this stuff is clearly ingrained in you. I was thinking when you said a few minutes ago about Corbys that it's the only place in England where the Daily Record outsells the sun and Iron Brew outsells Coca-Cola. And I was thinking, there's the media planner in you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_06Fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Well, I start so I I was rescued again. You know, any anybody that doesn't say luck, luck is everything, you know, is either naive about their own success or we all need a bit of luck, but there's a little bit of skill as well, which will be. So I used to tell the story that I got I got a job in advertising, so I left college. That's that used to be like the acceptable way of framing it. Nowadays I don't need to do that. So I can sort of what's the reality then? I guess well, so I got offered a job literally. I went, I thought, well, I've got to probably get a job, really. And my parents were adamant about that. Like, what are the things, you know, there's a strong work ethic in my family. So like you're not sitting around, and I didn't really want to go and lift pipes, and I was a terrible welder. You'd you'd done that, yeah. And uh it was fun, you know. Building sites are fun. And I answered an ad for and then I found out it was a double glazing thing. I literally nearly ended up as a double glazing salesman for but I'm the only person I know that went to the careers office in the careers office. When they said, What do you want to do? And I said, Well, I'd like to be an actor, a journalist, or a work in advertising.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they went, okay. I mean, they didn't laugh me out of the room. And then a week later, I got a call saying, There's an advertising agent called Riggs Advertising who were looking for a trainee account exec.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Would you like to be interviewed? And I was like, Oh my god, yeah, that sounds that sounds great. And I went to next and bought my suit and you know, got my tie on. And and and I think probably I I mean uh again, I probably would have been one of the few people that had read Ogilvian advertising at that stage and you know, was able to really I don't know why I got the job really, other than that just a general enthusiasm for it and a desire. Believe it or not, what I got a job as an account person, and I'm probably the worst account person in history. I was really, really bad at it. And I got right, I was really supportive well, so they rotated you through all the departments. And I wasn't really bad, I'm exaggerating, but what I found I was really drawn towards was the media department, right? Which has two people, uh, an amazing woman called Kathy, quite a lot of regional agencies, they have they have great people in them that have, for lifestyle reasons, often have moved out of London. So she was a passionate sailor, so that's why she was in Southampton. And she really took me under a wing and really helped me. And I began to think, oh, this world is really interesting.
SPEAKER_06I quite like the what was it about it that interested you particularly?
SPEAKER_00I well, one I think I'm reading I'm pretty numerate, so I quite liked that part. I quite like the research part and the data part. And I I don't know many people in advertising that aren't fundamentally interested in people, like at their heart, they're not fun, you know. That's really where a lot of I think the consistency comes from. And media felt like it was changing then and getting bigger and uh more important thing, and it then turned out to get even bigger and bigger, and that's like kind of another part of this as well. But I felt very in sync with and the variety that it that that it offered, and she was great. I mean, Kathy said, I mean, crikey, we should all wish for such amazing people in our lives. You know, she said to me, Look, like you're good at this, but if you really want to be good at this, you've got to go to London. Right. I don't think literally I don't think she was trying to get rid of me. I think it was a genuine this is one thing I've tried to repay to her and to kind of others, you know, my career. But somebody that isn't thinking of themselves and their immediate need or like oh shit, I'm gonna have a gap in my team. But somebody that's uh do you know what you you could be really good at this, so and you seem really interested in it, but this isn't if you stay here, you'll limit yourself.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you need to go to London, so you need to go to London.
SPEAKER_06And in these early days, so you sort of found your way into advertising and into media in particular, and you obviously got a taste for it. We were you aware at that point, Steve, have any anything like a long-term plan or a mission? What were you trying to achieve at that point, or what drove you, I suppose?
SPEAKER_00No, I I I I I mean, god, I wish Paul, I mean, you know, it I I I I did have a long, it wasn't everyone, but I know the things that interested me. I was always interested in technology, like I had a ZX, I didn't have quite a ZX80, but I did have a ZX81, which is a very, very early 1K.
SPEAKER_06Is that the one with the with the rubber keys?
SPEAKER_00No, that was a spectrum before that. That's a spectrum. Spectrum, of course, yeah. Um yeah, this was the one with the people can't see me, but inverted comments, touch sensitive keys, like touch sensitive if you had a hammer and a chisel, but it might be touch sensitive around. So I spent quite a lot of time it just in technology, and I really found that fascinating, not coding, not hardware side of that, but what you could do with this stuff. Yes, you know, people think if you worked in tech that you can code, and you don't need to, but if you're interested in what the application of these tools can be, yeah, that gets really exciting. So there was a thing that sort of drove me. Uh I didn't have any particular insight other than well, this looks really interesting. And you know, again, could have been a coal miner.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_00And then, you know, and then through no through no no no bad luck of my own, coal miners become smaller, ended up in media and technology through no skill of my own. That area got bigger and more. So I just found myself in the right place.
SPEAKER_06So give give us a little potted history and a little synopsis of your careers from those early days to how did you get to where you got to ultimately? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'll do that kind of pretty quickly. So I then went to work in an agency called Initiative, which is still around and at the time was Unilever's implementational planning agency. And I just spent a lot of time just crunching numbers. I worked there for two years, and then got a call from a guy called Ivan Pollard, one of the most amazing kind of marketing communication geniuses around. Yeah, just he's kind of the Robin Williams of the media world, just incredible intellect.
SPEAKER_06I've heard many stories about Ivan. I'm not sure I ever met him, but uh he's incredible, legendary figure.
SPEAKER_00And then, you know, so I got an interview at BMP, which is where we met as well. Indeed. Where I met my wife as well, most importantly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she's gonna love listening to this and say I've mentioned you before her, but there we go. Um I'm in front of you, you know, it's just the immediacy, don't we?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's true. Nothing to read into that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh initiative I learned was like doing an engineering bit where you're just learning the bits of the car, like you're a mechanic learning yeah, okay. Well, this valve goes into that and it just goes into here. Yeah, and at BMP, you learnt like how to this whole car, like how it drives, it's much bigger than that little widget part of the engine that you've been building. It's this whole thing, and it was amazing, it was an amazing place to be. It was unbelievably creative and sparky. And what I liked about it as well, it had the sort of sense of being an outsider, and it's kind of quite quite liked media because if you're in media, you were slightly the outsider, but you weren't in the glamorous bit, you were in the you know, the kind of ungl you know sort of slightly looked down upon, but but actually not very much at BMP, it was pretty good for that. But BMP, you know, sat in the middle of Paddington, not the centre of Soho. There was something that that really I really liked that, and most importantly, the focus on the work. There is nothing better than knowing you've done a great piece of work on that place. Well, that was what that place was all about. And then I, after four years there, I I did regret not being at university, not necessarily for having a degree, but actually having some kind of experience of of life. I've been I felt I'd been working quite hard, isn't it? So decided to take a year out and go traveling. Then actually the other kind of like formative thing happened in my life, which is I was a few weeks into that, and then I experienced an episode of mania in Sinai. So between uh it was Egyptian Egyptian territory, yeah, yeah, on the coast of Sinai. Actually, in the end, that resulted in my dad coming out to to Sinai, kind of finding me. I mean, it kind of manifested in all sorts of like in hindsight, pretty scary ways. God, it didn't feel like it at the time. He got me across the border into Israel, and that's where I uh got into hospital for a few days, got sort of stabilized, mainly drugged, and then flown back to the UK. And it probably took oh, what would I say? It probably took nine to twelve months to like fully and it's you know, it's probably a whole new different podcast to gonna get into that world and that uh go into that one that experience. It was quite tough for me, but uh the thing about mania is when that that you don't actually feel bad, you actually feel really good, and that's the issue. So, but incredibly difficult. The only bit that makes me really kind of go, oof, is the impact that it had on other people, you know, friends and family, you know. Yeah, I found that I found that, yeah. I uh yeah, to this day, I found that kind of very hard to think about. And of course, lots of gratitude to my dad. I mean, you know, yeah when you see your son kind of run. I actually remember like pushing him away because I wasn't coming, you know, it was quite surreal for me to think that my dad was there, pushing him away and then running in the bit between the kind of Egyptian security border and the Israeli border, like running shirtless through the middle of this, and there's guns around and everything. So but I felt very and you know, I'm very grateful to the people that did look after me. And the reason I the reason I raise that is because as a kind of moment in my life, it was really pivotal. I mean, it probably as big as adolescence, and whilst it was a difficult period, it's not a period that I would, if I could change my life, I wouldn't have changed that. And as much as you know, when you've gone through an experience as big and deep and rich in many ways as that, there aren't many things after that that really scare you too much, or uh there's a there's a really good book with a terrible title called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It's from the 1920s, and I'm not casting myself in this, but yeah, I did sort of think, oh yeah, I think I had a bit of that experience. And he interviewed like you know, the Rockefellers and kind of like it's actually a really good read. But he talks, he said quite omenly, quite commonly what's happened in some people is they've been twice born. You know, we get you get once when you're born, yeah, and then an event happens where that sense of something of a yeah, a different person emerging from the other side of that. And I definitely can relate to that in as much as things were different after that. Yeah, it took me a little while to then get back in to get a huge thanks to my friends who supported me, the ones that supported me. Incredibly well. It's I I saw I talk a lot about mental health as well. Because you know, in hindsight, it's the stigma that's the issue, not the event. And I'm extremely fortunate that people do talk about mental health, and it can be like breaking your leg, breaking a bone. And of course, for some people that's not the case, it's lifelong and it's extremely hard. I feel very fortunate that if that's what it was for me. Like it happened once, it was a break, but never recurred. But the echoes of that and the shape of that moment when I was 26, you know, they're definitely still with me today. So after you go through this huge life-changing kind of perspective on life, what do you go do? Well, you go back into advertising, don't you? Of course, yes, the obvious answer. Which at some extent it does, it doesn't it does a job, it's you know, it's so rich and interesting and brilliant. And so I was very lucky. I got a job at PhD Media, which I actually left quite sure. I only stayed there for a short period of time because I then got offered a job to go and run the UIP account, film account at Y and R Media, and I love passionate about film, so of course I was yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was also quite nice because a Y and R was acquired by WPP. We kind of spun that out into the media edge, so it was nice being part of that, but then combined with ME with CIA, and that created MEC over time, which went from the least successful WPP acquisition to the most successful across that period. Yeah, and a CEO there, and all the way through. Well, I moved from strategy into being a CEO. That's quite a change, you know, when you go from a specialism to leading, that's quite a big deal.
SPEAKER_06Well, I'm always fascinated by this, and particularly having spent a long time in the first half of my career, in particular, in in advertising agencies where you see like a brilliant creative person who is fantastic at doing the work, and then all of a sudden they're like a group head, so they're managing people, and those two skill sets are very different. It's very rare to find someone who is as good at managing as they are at doing the work. So, how did that work for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, really badly and then quite well. Um huge credit to a guy called Tom George who sort of I think saw that in me, you know. I mean, you know, I really enjoyed strategy, I really loved it. I got to co-write a book with a guy called Jim Taylor and called Rigorous Magic.
SPEAKER_06Lovely.
SPEAKER_00I think it's still a valuable.
SPEAKER_06Head over to Amazon immediately.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I think it's one of those books that it's like priced at like 412 pounds now. Because it's only one dynamic auction in case or 12p, depending on the day.
SPEAKER_06You know, yeah, that's the market view.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's the market. And I mean, he obviously saw something there that I didn't. I mean, like I say all the way through this, I'd be really interested in the kind of technology side as well. I hadn't really spent much time on the people side. And what I mean by good and then bad is is I is I got it very wrong very quickly, and then learnt the lesson of that.
SPEAKER_06Okay, how did you get it wrong?
SPEAKER_00Well, it was the first pitch, and actually, my first I wasn't CEO then, I was joint MD, and I was so desperate to win this pitch. Pitching's freaking brilliant. Anybody, you know, it's just the best bit of the job. But I I was a bad leader in that pitch.
SPEAKER_06It was I think the BBC.
SPEAKER_00Well, because I burned everybody, like I was so it was so central to the win, you know, I wasn't showing the right level of consideration. I didn't really take people with me. I was just focused on bang, like you know, gonna do the outcome. And you know, one of those internal narratives of like, wow, I'm gonna be brilliant. Like, I've just become joint MD and pitch, and then we'll win more pitch, and all that kind of you know, bullshit kind of stuff that you know if if you let it rule you will not only not bring you happiness, it'll also unquestionably make you unsuccessful. So, of course, with all of that, we lost. And I had a lot to reflect on with that. And in a way, the way I've talked about it in hindsight is to make a successful transition from a specialism to managing and leading, you have to find a different energetic satisfaction in the work that you do. So, put simply, you know, I mentioned being a strategist great. You're like a set piece player in a game, like you come onto the pitch, you kick the ball over the bar, you listen to the rapturous applause, and you walk off. That's it. Yeah, you know, it really is a world of like look what I've done, clever me. It's ego fueling in that sense. But I had to learn to develop a new appetite to feed that my ego. I had to learn to find something different, and yeah, so it move from like look what I've done, clever me, to look what they've done, and then privately whispered to myself in the corner, clever me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because everybody's and they're and at that point, I found it deeply, deeply satisfying in being able to guide and help and build and create an internal narrative for a pitch process that you're then delivering through. Like, what is this is what are we trying to do here? What are we trying to build?
SPEAKER_06And just being able to, I I found I was like pretty good at coaching and giving people I was gonna say to you to use to extend the the metaphor that you started there with the special special teams or the specialist who comes on and does one particular thing, and you've moved from that role into the kind of the head coach role. Is that uh is that too lazy a metaphor to make?
SPEAKER_00No, no, it's not at all. And god thank God I did, because you know that there are so many people that got so much better at strategy than you know, people people, you know, Pete Bucky, Ian Edwards, Stuart Balkine, like Stuart Son of Mike, all these like amazing, amazing people that are so much better. But the great thing about that move, as well, is you realise that your capacity for growth becomes almost unlimited. I think it's incredibly stressful and incredibly difficult if you think this is all on me.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'll steal his phrase with Scott Galloway around, and he talks about you know, you know, greatness is in the agency of others, and it's so so true. There's also nothing more satisfying in a pitch than seeing somebody that was shaky as heck in rehearsal, and you just give them a little bit of advice, a few pointers, then they smash it. That's that's deeply satisfying. Anyway, so MEC, that went really well. Yeah, probably the most fun period of my career, to be honest, because we just you know double the agency and all sorts. I mean, it was just sensible band of brothers and sisters together. Yeah, and I got asked to go and run um Facebook in the UK. Sorry, that's not quite true. That's misleading. I got asked, I I thought that was what I was being asked. Actually, I didn't realize I was being asked if it wanted to be part of the process, uh, a candidate for it, which and then I initially said no because I was happy with what I was doing, and I thought I was gonna do a global role.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then two days later, I was walking through Golden Square, and I remember thinking, what am I doing? I I really like the people because I spend a lot you know, a fair amount of time out on the West Coast. I think they're a really interesting company, and I think I know what the answer to this problem looks like. So I called up and said, I've changed my mind. Like I I know what this looks like now and I want to have a run at it. So then around the UK and extended that into Northern Europe and part of the global leadership team.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, because from from the outside looking in for many people, I should imagine that moving from a sort of CEO role in a in a media planning agency to to kind of heading up Facebook in northern Europe, that looks like quite a leap. Can you talk to us a bit about how it came about?
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's interesting because it didn't feel like it actually as a leap at the time. So that the I mean, I I mean I would say like we shouldn't forget that the principal business of Facebook now is advertising. So what do they go in to do, which is grow the business? You know, that was yeah, that was what the job and I you know, but really help be part of the group that then would matured that. Yeah, but what I didn't expect, and what was really fascinating for all the nine years I spent there, I mean, I couldn't tell you at the end of nine years that uh what all the different parts of the business did. You know, you realize you see this narrow kind of small window, but then to go and really meet like the best engineers in the world to work with product development people, to talk to policy people, like how are you engaging with government, you know, or to talk with content policy people, like how are we making decisions about what can and can't be shown? How are we building these things? To work with brilliant HR functions, enormous. I mean, media agencies then certainly, and I think the same is true of ad agencies, yeah, they were like incredible little local fiefdoms, like you just ran the whole thing, but they're quite relatively simple businesses. They're not now, they're becoming more complicated now. But a meta, you know, in Facebook, it was getting exposure and experience and then a real interest in a kind of much broader organization.
SPEAKER_06Because nine years sounds like quite a long time to be at Facebook at that time in in our history and its history, and and of course you had that shift into what became meta. Can you maybe just tell us a bit about about that process and how that worked?
SPEAKER_00Well, the shift to meta or yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_06And and generally your your you know, journey within that organization.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, there were so many things that were just like deeply fascinating. I mean, it ran at a pace. I mean, it was a I mean, I thought I worked very hard in advertising, and it was much of the disappointment of my previous agency peers when they said, Oh, you've gone to the media side. Is it yeah, and I go, no, no. I mean, and the way I described it is you know, an advertising is very baseline in its rhythm. So much of it is dictated by pitching, and you go on these very deep, big, yes, long experiences, yeah, and often not just one at the same time, yeah. Yeah, but it but the rhythm is more of a baseline, whereas but certainly tech and and and media on that side is much closer to retail than as much as a rhythm, it's much more staccato, yeah, you know, it's much more continuous. You're in a customer-facing, consumer-facing brand, not a B2B business. And I mean, you know, some of the really most formative moments, I mean, there were some incredibly hard moments, I would say, in there, particularly on the kind of content side to try and work through and manage. And often you'd come across uh problems that nobody had ever experienced before. Can you give us an example of that? Yeah, uh, so I remember I'd just taken over a remit for Northern Europe and which included Norway, and it's the first time that kind of Facebook, it's Facebook and editor came up as a question kind of globally. The editor of their biggest broadsheet had posted a picture, it's a very famous picture called uh The Terror of War, and it's an image, and as I describe it, I've I've no doubt people can be able to imagine it. It's an image of a girl in Vietnam after a napalm attack, yeah, and she's you know on the st in a road and she's naked, yeah, and her clothes have been burnt off of her, yeah, and it's a horrific, arresting image. Yes, and incredibly, incredibly powerful.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_00When the editor posted it, it was immediately taken down.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The systems immediately took it down. He reposted it, the systems immediately took it down. He I think I'm pretty sure it was it here. I don't I don't want to make sure I'm getting that right, but I may be I may have got it wrong. Basically, then said, you know, this is this is editorship, you know, this is platforms editing what can and can't be shown, or what can or can't be an advertis commas published. And then the uh in solidarity to the editor, the the I believe it's prime minister, they might have a president, I guess, but the the the head of state basically reposted it, it was immediately taken down.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_00So this started and became like a very then, then I think it's picked up by the Guardian and then went translate, like it became like quite a big debating point. And of course, the reason. So there are two ways of thinking about well, there are many ways, I'm sure, but let's talk about two ways of thinking about that image, which is on the one hand, it's an image of deep historic significance and importance. Yeah, on the other hand, it's a picture of child nudity, yes. And when you're building these systems, you don't always know what they'll need to be managing. So, for example, when you're building a system for content moderation, it is pretty hard to imagine a circumstance where images of child nudity are an okay thing.
SPEAKER_07Sure.
SPEAKER_00And actually, when you've got like general rules of kind of it's a much easier thing to say there's a zero tolerance to this, and okay, we might accept somebody doing a picture of their kid in the bath or something. But much better to kind of go, there's a zero tolerance for it. So, what you find in in the kind of situations like that is you've you you've you've got either one of two things, you've either got a policy that's not quite right, or you've got execution of that policy that's not quite right. And in that example, it was a policy that wasn't right because it's the policies that then shape that decision to take it down. That then led to a kind of new way of classifying, which is images of historic significance, okay, of which that is one. Yeah, so that changed the policy, and that that's what I mean, Paul, where you come across questions that actually nobody's ever this is kind of technology. People can make a lot of assumptions about technology and can make assumptions about what the intention of the builders, but in practice, until things are actually happening, yeah. It is very difficult to imagine all of the circumstances. I would say it's not difficult to imagine some of them, and like some should be better, you know, unquestionably, and should be better at the beginning. But you can imagine that's quite a fascinating thing to be a part of.
SPEAKER_06Really fascinating, because you're dealing with a lot of unknown unknowns, I suppose, at that point. These things haven't happened before until they do, and then you deal with them.
SPEAKER_00So, no, I didn't expect to kind of you know to a couple of weeks into the job and oh great, we've upset a head of state.
SPEAKER_06So that was really early on in your career.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was relatively early on, yeah, because in the in the in the first few years, but no, I mean I have lots of positive to say about that as an experience. So certainly stretched me more than I expected uh actively stretched me and I you know I learned a lot.
SPEAKER_06So tell us how I mean, I know nine years, as I say, is a long time at Facebook in it's a long time anywhere, I think, but particularly as as Facebook was growing and you're coming across these new situations and new scenarios, etc. Nine years sounds like a long time, sounds like a little bit like dog ears at a certain place. But if you're able to just sort of condense that into uh a bit of a summary for us and then how that led you to Ugov, that'll be great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the I mean I thought the initial job there was we shouldn't forget like 11 years ago now, but yeah, at the time social media was seen as you know kind of interesting but slightly on the fringe. Yeah, you know, so really many ways a kind of early phase part of that. I I knew the job that needed to be done, which was there was a gap between the reality and the perception. The perception was this is a bit of a niche thing, it's gonna stick around. But the reality, even when I when I started, well, there's 25 million people every day in the UK are using this already. So it was kind of big. So I had a you know big job to do to really commercially make reality perception, which is no, this is a substantial kind of part of people's lives, yeah. Uh and actually, you know, if you're in business. So the first phase of that was really about being driving the business and growing it principally on Facebook, and then latterly introducing Instagram and onto it, such as now color quest. So you then you sort of saw the more rapid expansion of a company into different different things that move from images to video. You know, we shouldn't forget wasn't that long ago where your feed, you wouldn't have autoplay video now. Like the idea, now almost the majority of media consumption is uh certainly on platforms is auto-play video of one type or another. So I think probably the one of the lessons I took from that experience, and then yeah, then when I take Brig of Remit, you know, working with a lot of different teams, policy, comms, monetization, all those, which again I I I felt really kind of rich. And then, but there definitely was a point where I began to feel okay, I'm I'm repeating myself, and I don't quite have the same kind of degree of passion for this that I had for. And there literally is a kind of like an energetic component of that. And you're right, nine years at Meta is a long, you know, it's a long time, it's always on, it's really intense, it's a very inspired place, it can be a difficult place to work sometimes because you're dealing with difficult things. It's also a very inspiring place to be around because similarly to MEC, it's like a high concentration of and BMP, like a very dense concentration of really good and really smart people who work who work really, really well together. Yeah, but I began to I began a sense of okay, I think I'm sort of falling out of love with this a bit now, and I think that's the reason for I'm probably just a bit tired and um feel like I'm doing the same thing again, and you know, I hate repetition, Paul. I kind of have a phobia of it.
SPEAKER_04I'm not I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. Oh man, I'd be like the world's worst drummer. I might be a good jazz drummer, I don't know, but you know, I kind of like I actually can't contain things enough. They tend to like want to mutate into other things and you know, like change quickly. And that's when I realized, okay, I think it's I think you have to ask you have to be really and I wasn't honest with myself early enough with that. I was just sort of feeling it, but not really. What do I mean? What what I was trying to I was trying to try to ignore it, yeah, distract from it. And I mean it's just a terrible idea. You know, once your body is telling you something, you should really listen to it. So yeah, then then I was thinking, okay, well, what might be next? And I did can consider going plural then, but actually, when the U job, you gov job came up, I thought, well, this sounds really interesting. I've worked with them a lot at Meta and uh and at MEC. It's a PLC, and even though I'd been a non-exec on a PLC board, I hadn't run a PLC company. And uh it's a real shame, actually, because it just in the end wasn't what I it wasn't what I expected it was when I was there. And I really wish them the best. It's a terrific brand, it does really, really, really important work. But I yeah, I thought I was joining a rocket ship that was still in its acceleration. Actually, quite a lot of work needed to be done that was more room. And my experience on that was there really wasn't enough room for a CEO and a chairman in that kind of business, who was also who was also the founder. So I go back to founders, yeah. Yeah, the founders are yeah, they are singular and brilliant and great. So that was a bit shorter than I was originally planning.
SPEAKER_06But the election happened, no, in in the middle of your stuff.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that year, there were 29 elections around the world. It's the biggest year for democracy during that period. Um and Ugov was the most accurate of all of the polls across all of them. I mean, that was really, really impressive to um to see and be a part of, and yeah, a lot of very kind of great people because you know it's an important job, yeah. But actually a right time for me to go, and I mean I think sort of intuitively it's another one where I probably knew that earlier rather than later. And now I get to work with lots of different businesses, which I I love because it brings me that originality and difference and stimulus.
SPEAKER_06So if you think back across the totality of your career, then Steve, I I want I mean, you've mentioned luck, we all need a bit of luck, but this is where you definitely have to park your modesty at the door. Because I want you to talk a bit about, I know you're a big film buff. Think about Luke Skywalker, right? At the start of that film, yeah. He he needs to learn the way of the Jedi, he needs to learn all these different things and learn how to fight with a lightsaber, all that sort of stuff. So I want I want you to think about what are the things, what are the skills or knowledge or talents or character traits that you possess that have enabled you to be successful in your career that maybe other people don't have.
SPEAKER_00Ooh, okay, happy talking about things I don't do well. Um, but I am as described. Well, I think one thing for sure is like I am described by my son as, and he doesn't mean it as a compliment, relentlessly optimistic.
SPEAKER_01And I think the emphasis is on the relentless from the point of view, you know. Um it's true, you know. I am relentlessly optimistic.
SPEAKER_00You know, you either win or you learn, you know, is certainly kind of how and and and and I think just a sense of we'll work it out. Yes, I don't need I don't need to read the Haynes manual tools to just get started. I think yeah, that a little bit okay for my dad. I always loved the phrase he uses. Maybe it's takes me back to being on site, you know, which is you know, if all else fails, read the instructions.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's great. You know, uh I think that sort of shaped a lot of my thing. So I think relentlessly optimistic. And I think if you want to if I know this is talking about kind of a much broader life than just work, but I think it's very hard to be a leader of business and not have well harder to even have a nice career for yourself if you're not if you're not optimistic. Um I'll try and there's a really good TED talk, that's brilliant composer, but yeah, he talks about Martin Luther King, the idea of saying I have a dream. I'm not sure you I'm not sure you're up to it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, there is that sense of we could just go make things happen. And so I think that was definitely one. I uh second is these are sort of three things that uh intersect quite a lot. I have terrible fear of failure, yeah, terrible fear of failure, but once I learn to harness that, it's a really great motivator of getting stuff done. Yeah. So even if you feel bad about stuff, it can make you if you put it to your own use, you can you can it can well and what I mean by that is I've got I've I oscillate between like an incredibly good work ethic and and the desire for absolute slobbery and laziness. Other reasons I work quite hard is I know the alternative would be I just vegetate. Yes. Um so I think yeah, optimism work ethic and congratulations to all the other dyslexic out there, out dyslexics out there. I am able to absorb a lot of information about a rapid period of time and see the connections between it. And that's that's unquestionably a dyslexic trait. Okay.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. And I don't I don't I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you mentioned previously your your restlessness and your your desire not to repeat things. So that that desire for change has that helped you at all?
SPEAKER_00I I think that's very true, actually, Paul. Yeah, and I think that sort of that I still sort of feel like I have an out, you know, the sort of sense of an outsider ethic. That that that you you sort of that and again, maybe this comes from my mother kind of now I think about it for a second, you know, but that sense of like things aren't how they should be, and you want to go and challenge the status quo a bit more, and not and if things are how they are, well they're Marshall McEwan, isn't it? You know, if it works, it's obsolete. And I think that's true. It took me about five years to understand that quote if it works, it's obsolete.
SPEAKER_06I'm gonna have to go away and think about that in some detail.
SPEAKER_00Uh but it's true, like it though somebody's now working, you know it's not gonna work, like it need it needs to be better, you can improve it, you can change it, you can adapt it, you can keep, you know, and and nothing really can stay static.
SPEAKER_06Yes. And what about you know, you you are the hero of your story, but every story also has an anti-hero kind of pulling in the opposite direction. So I'm not talking about individuals unless you want to name names, you don't have to, of course. But can you think of things that have kind of stood in your way? It might be systems or structures or prevailing ideas, what are the barriers you've had to overcome to get to where you got in your career?
SPEAKER_00Hmm. Well, let's put the caveat out there first that I've got a lot of privilege to use the kind of like you know, my gender, my race, my family background. So I haven't I don't feel I've ever had to face into systematic challenges. Okay, you know, and that's incredible, you know, what a kind of blessing, what a blessing that is. I think probably the mental health one was one where I kind of I felt stigma, you know, that maybe gave me a sense of what's it really like to feel a bit like the other people are a bit uncertain of you or a bit afraid of you as well. So kind of um, and they um the reactions that create so the reason I say that is like it's always in your head, like the who or the what or the anti-heroes or systems outside of the systematic things that I'm blessed not to have encountered very often, all of it's in your head, you know, what other people might think, you know, well they don't think very much of you because they don't think they think about you at all is kind of the however you know if I think about the thing that makes me annoyed and that gets my goat up more than anything, it's in it's entitlement.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00I I find any sort of sense of entitlement, I find it very that's my anti-hero. So if that means we have to like prove some stuff wrong, yeah. Entitlement and assumption, you know. I mean we're at MEC, we got written off like this is a terrible place, it's an awful merger, like losing business kind of like hand over foot, which for a period we were. But that sort of sense of and and actually belongs over here. This doesn't belong to you, it belongs to other people, this success.
SPEAKER_06So would you say you live by certain uh rules or principles? You know, we talk a lot about values in marketing and advertising, don't we? Do you do you have a sense of that things, behaviours that you particularly treasure or things that you particularly rail against?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yes. No, I I I I I really I think this is not a unique trait. We we all have it, but I do have a very strong sense of fairness, and I couldn't work in an environment that didn't really understand that. Like we're all so incredibly sensitized to fairness intuitively, and it's a human condition. Um if something's not fair, you know it. And if it is fair, you know it as well. But I think it probably goes alongside like the work ethic, and that's probably a value. I hold that value. I I I also just be decent to people, like really decent to people and find time for them. I'll credit the person, but probably my single biggest, proudest working achievement is taking 500 people, this is MEC, 500 people to Nice in the middle of a for three days, the most amazing three days, in the middle of a WPP travel ban. Like that is, you know, probably the thing I might.
SPEAKER_06I can only imagine, I can only imagine the shenanigans that had to go on.
SPEAKER_01It was extraordinary. It was extraordinary. I remember the the kind of barman in the hotel, the first pace. Nobody drinks like this, you know, and uh it was it was it was great. It was for me.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I kind of did uh do match. I do think that you know unsuccessful companies have meetings, successful ones have parties, and I and I hope you should just keep doing that, you know. People bond and has kind of like great stuff. But I do remember Sarah Hennessey, who's the most extraordinary woman who at the time, and she you know opened the day and sort of said, Right, we've just got one rule to follow in this, and that rule is don't be a dick.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_00And that there is a you know, so I don't want to steal that that's probably a much more concise, accurate, pithier phrase to my sort of fairness night. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Don't be a dick. I think a lot of religions could be distilled to that one phrase, actually. That's very wise.
SPEAKER_01Yes, true. Yes, it's very true.
SPEAKER_06So what's what what's coming if we look forward then? What's what's coming next for you, Steve? What's what's happening in the in the near and the far future?
SPEAKER_00Oh well, I mean, I'm I mean, so professionally, I mean, I'm super excited right now. I'm probably got more energy than I've had for you know a couple of years around, and that's partly because of the organizations I'm working with, I'm really loving, you know. They uh accidentally they they I seem to have found myself they've got similar traits, like they're all in growth, so they're going through those quality problems of growth, and that's kind of really lovely. And they're generally younger organizations than I am, so like that's a kid. Yeah, I get a lot out of that as well. So I think I found my sort of antidote to my hatred of repetition is having multiple things to why I always loved pitching, right? It's like being a journalist, you get really deep on one thing and then you don't think about it to think about too much. And I I think the other thing is it's very nice to be like fully in control of my own time. That's uh that's a nice thing. Like I've I've never really got on well with authority, that's why I've always wanted to be in charge. Um and that's one that I now have for myself. So I I yeah, I feel like this next phase I'm really excited by, I'm very energized by, and if I can do more of my look what they've done, yeah, kids clever me uh work.
SPEAKER_06Whisper in the corner, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a whisper it to my so you know, have it you know, uh have it in my head. So I'm I'm very excited about that. I'm excited about learning and going through that learning phase again, getting to learn some new stuff.
SPEAKER_06And and we're coming towards the end here, don't panic. We'll take as red that family and loved ones and friends are are important in your life, but outside of that and outside of your work life, what what's important in your life, like what what are your passions and hobbies and interests?
SPEAKER_00Oh well, first and foremost, food and film. Like I am passionate about movies. I but you know, like, oh god, we know it's working at Y and R, and you'd get to go and see a movie, and you'd only know you'd walk into a screening room, you'd only know the title of it, and sometimes that is a working title. Yeah, and then you'd see this thing called American Beauty, or this thing called Glad, yeah, it wasn't called Glad and you'd go, holy shit, or this thing called The Dancer, which turned out to be Billy Elliott, and you'd just go, God, this is it's great. So I love I love the movies, it's probably the place I cry most often. Um yeah, there's something about that, yeah, even more important given how much technology, which I love on the round, and then food, I mean restaurants in particular. My sister is a chef, and I've got so much awesome respect for her. It is incredible running a good restaurant. Yeah, you know, it is yeah, you've got to get everything right. And I I kind of maybe it's one thing I've quite liked, and it's quite like a picture, like that pursuit of perfection all of the time. The fact you're putting on a show every time you do service, you've got the back of house and the creative and you've got the front of house, yeah, the servers and rich, that whole and all of it has to be excellent.
SPEAKER_06It's like doing a pitch every day.
SPEAKER_00It's like doing a pitch every day, and all of it has to be excellent, yeah, all of the time. Yeah, all of the time. So I find, you know, in a way, my sort of most relaxed moments of awe just sat watching a really good restaurant work. Yeah, and then I, you know, I do I do a lot of health stuff as well. I I play tennis, run about, I lift stuff, and I and and and then also anything in on or under the sea makes me very happy.
SPEAKER_06Very good. Final, final question. Since we're on a podcast, would you have a podcast recommendation for us at all?
SPEAKER_00Oh, loads. I they're probably my favorite medium. So happy to be doing this today, Paul. I have hearing aids because I have hearing loss. And one of the upsides about having hearing aids is you've permanently got headphones.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_00So I can listen to stuff all the time, and I do. Sorry. Um, oh god, there are so many. I uh I think Brett Goldstein's Films to Be Buried with podcast got me through lockdown.
SPEAKER_07Okay.
SPEAKER_00That's a really that's a it literally I discovered that like Brett Goldstein's approach to most things, and uh he's funny. And I I suppose like everyone, not like everyone, but I really enjoy. I I wish history was taught when I was a kid, how it's spoken about now. Like most obviously the first the rest is and the rest is history, I think is a phenomenal podcast. I listen to a lot of US politics, film, film, film, and blah, blah, blah, blah. But probably the one I'd recommend that folks might not have heard of, and it's by uh uh Ben Benton and Freddie Clode, I think are their names, and it's it's called the Go To Podcast. And if you want to get super geeky about restaurants and chefs, it's the most amazing podcast. They have the best guests from Marco Pierre Wallet and Raymond Blanc to people, you know, to real great kind of the up and comers and everybody in between. Yeah, and and it's a bit that's why I go back to that like pursuit of perfection bit uh point as well. Like I don't remember the quote, but something along the lines of in the detail lies the the connection. So if you go deep into anything, yeah, find something that's consistent with everything else. Yeah, it's a bit like why documentaries can be interesting. I'm not interested in Formula One, really like drive to five. You know, there is a once you're in the detail of something, you realize how fit and they go so into the detail, it's an amazing, amazing podcast about these brilliant people that every day get up in the pursuit of making people delighted and happy with their food.
SPEAKER_06So that's the go-to podcast.
SPEAKER_00The go-to podcast is what it is.
SPEAKER_06Lovely. Well, thank you so much for those recommendations, very thoughtful and excellent recommendations. But thank you even more for joining me and being so generous with your time and talking about your remarkable career and best of luck with the next chapter.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you, Paul. It's been an absolute delight to see you, and the hope always well with you and yours.
SPEAKER_06Join me next time on the Amber moment, when we'll be hearing another story of another remarkable career. Until then, day amber.