How Turning Down Apple Changed Nigel Wilson's Life

one of the City of London's most recognizable figures. You can be seen around town Night died in twenty twenty two for services to financial services. Welcome to the podcast, Nigel, Thank you and welcome back. In fact, in fact, you were I think our first francy on our first podcast about the leveling up agenda of the government. So thank you for coming back. Glad to be here, Nigel. This is quite a transition here for you, right you're about to step down as chief executive. What are you most

proud of? I don't really think in that sort of way that I'm busy sort of counting the things that I'm most proud of and then ranking them or whatever. My biggest achievement that a legal in general is having you know, an amazing team and amazing culture and who are you know, trying to do the right things for the right reasons and have a real purpose And it's very much a purpose led business which is delivered outstanding things,

not just here but across the world. You know, in the last decade or so, how did you know when the right time to step down was? How difficult is

that decision? Yeah? I think the decision wasn't that difficult because you know, you know, you can try and get the right time or a good time, and I think, you know, it was kind of a good time and a good process in that you know, the company can start the search for a successor and I can start, you know, talking to people what I do next, and you know it's you know, it may take a year, which is what we've said in the in the RNs, so not something that's going to happen in the short term,

but it allows the board to really manage the succession process with a lot of transparency and if I got off to talk to people about some particular role or whatever, it's understandable why I'm doing this, rather than sort of some clandestine alferative operation in the in the background with headlines in Bloomberg. Yeah, we would have got the scoop right,

you know. We're recording this the day after Nichola Sturgeon announced her stepping down as First and Scotland and in her speech she talked about this instinctive feeling of you know, it's time to go in there. Not enough leaders have that sort of self knowledge in the job. I have believed that part of serving well would be to know almost instinctively when the time is right to make weak for someone else and when that takes Do you think

too many chief executives cling on too long? Well, there's not much evidence to cling on too long, but in one sense, in terms of a time sense, you know, the average ten year of a chief executive is you know, three to four years. And I do think people should be thinking of more in the sort of eight to ten years and going about developing in their business with an eight to ten year horizon as opposed to trying

to get immediate impact. And there's a lot of short termism still in business and indeed in the wider economy here in the UK, which I think has not been helpful for economic growth or creating value for shareholders. Dave was doing Bloomberg speak. I just thought that Nichol student had had enough. I don't know whether there's a point that, you know, do you step down when you've had enough or two years before you have enough? Is there is there an optimal point? But I think I've gone for good,

you know, which is a good point. I mean, it's a good point for the firm to be looking for somebody else, and it's a good point for me to be thinking about what's my next challenge? You know. It wasn't trying to optimize anything, you know. I mean, in one sense, I could have gone on for a number of years, you know. It was there's no shareholder pressure or do you feel a change in yourself? I don't

know whether not at all? I mean, you know, I mean the hardest thing was actually talking to all of my colleagues amount that I was going because I've been an important part of their life and they've been important part of my life for a long time. So there were some quite emotional discussions of wearing me out actually, and I think gosh lists come to an end and let's get the R and S out and so I

can move on the next years of my life. I can't have another one of these meetings, which is so emotional because we've done well as a as a team for a long period of time and you know, people's careers have developed and evolved and not responsibility and accountability.

It's a big part of being a leader thinking about succession then and how much did you time did you dedicate to try and trying to groom the people who would be ready to take a lot a lot of time and so I've mentioned before I moved people around a lot. So they've got a wide range of experiences, not just in the UK, but they've shared American divisions, et cetera. From an internal point of point of view, but the board has to look excernentally as well. This

is a great job for somebody to get. You know, we we're doing incredibly well. You know the boundary it's very strong, and the sorts of capital to spend. But actually, you know, people internally and we've got you know, strong internal candidates have done you know, lots of things that have made them you know, um, let them have a better chance. Plus we've given them specific mentoring throughout the last year. So actually it's not like we thought about it,

you know, three months ago. We've been thinking about it for for a while. But again, we wanted the internal transition to work, to work well so that people felt as though we've given them coaching and support when we fired the gun. Well, when did you start thinking about succession? That this must be one of the hardest things to think about. Even when you started his chief executive. You had to make sure that the entity or the company

is strong. Yeah you yes, yeah, and that's been developing internal people and also bringing in some you know, great external people into the organization. So was that deliberate, Yes, yeah, yeah, most things I do with deliberate, they're not. I don't over think things. Do you think things? Do you think there's enough talent out there in Britain to do the sort of jobs that you've just done running these foot three hundred companies? You say there's there's a search externally.

Do we have enough stars to platform to do these sorts of jobs? I think we answer that we're not developed enough talent at a bought a macro level, at a micro level across the across the UK. And I think that's something that you know, everyone should be thinking about, is you know, how do we develop more talent in the UK so that people can step up and do bigger jobs. Is that you know, we've got some of

the best universes in the world. People come here to have their education, but why are we not developing enough to step up to run these big comforcause, I was doing a topping out ceremony at Oxford yesterday, which is one of our big projects, four billion pound project, and we were talking about the same thing as we produced this incredible amount of people out of our brilliant universities, including Oxford. You know, but how many of them rise

to you know, really important jobs in business? And have we really solved business well enough into university graduates? And you know, once they graduate, is that something that they look upon as a as a realistic goal that they could become, you know, a chief executive of a futsye hundred company. But what makes a difference between someone that becomes a chief executive and doesn't So is it aspiration

to become chief executive or is it resilience? I've heard, you know, you hear that you can have two people, same qualifications, same smarts, same intellect, but it's resilience through the tough times that will make one succeed, not the other. But that's when you learn as well, you know, success as a poor teacher, whereas when things go wrong you have to accept they've gone wrong and then really study

and learn what happened why. And resilience is the most underrated you know attribute to people don't really recognize in others and they don't teach it very well, although coach

it very well or make people very self aware. Compartmentalization is a really important part of that process because you can chop your life into different bits and then you know not all things will go well all of the time, but you're not sort of cross contaminating other parts of your life because one part isn't going so well, and you know, nobody's life all the parts of their life is going to go well at the same time, so you've got to have this sort of cross resilience. You know,

you're only as happy as your least happy child. Actually this I love that basically, but that's true, and so you know, but if you worry endlessly about your least happy child whilst you're at work, then you know you've become unproductive. But you know when you get home you really have to worry about at least happy child and make sure they're get a bit happier so everybody else

is happy. Think thinking a little bit about what you was talking about the skills gap in Britain again and just remembering our conversation last year around leveling up and you're very passionate about that subject. It's part of the problem. You were just at Oxford. I mean, we have this concentration of excellence in this kind of triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London. We haven't done enough, have we to spread the skills or the centers of excellence all around

Preson No, I think that's true. I mean, you know, in big picture terms were of law growth, law productivity, low wage economy fought by political infighting and so you know the political genders is massive over here where you know, relentlessly on the news it's nearly always negative. It's very London centric and you know people don't get out enough to to look you know, what's the real potential of Edinburgh or Newcastle, law Manchester or Birmingham, and they've fallen behind.

You've always Nigel given us a lot of time talking about leveling up and things that are very dear and it's very clear when we hear you speak that are very Jersey heart. Would you go into politics? Do think it's interesting what is politics? If politics is having a you know, functional role in government, then that's not, as

you know, particularly appealing. But if politics is defined as delivering you know, economically and socially useful outcomes a large part of the population, then you know, I'm clearly in the latter camp and not in the former camp. You know, do I want to be you know, the Minister of Trade or defense or education city and then the city minister? No? I, you know, I don't particularly want to do that, But you know, do I want to be a champion for

leveling up across the UK and various components of that. Absolutely? You know. Do I want to write about that in a more academic way going forward, Absolutely, given all of the knowledge that I have, an experience that I have around that that's sort of unfinished business from my previous academic career, which I dropped many years ago to pursuers and this is where you're going to pursue your energies. It's so academia, but with a kind of public policy agenda.

That's part of what I want to do going forward. You know, I definitely want to have a direct impact on, you know, the lives of people. You know, I want to finish off while I started, which is teaching. You know, I love teaching at m I T and previously in Essex when I was in the UK. But I now have a lot more life experience, a lot more relevance I think for the students and can be more ambitious at aspirational for them, saying you know, this is how

you get to these jobs. Do you think chief executives, you know foot see listed companies think enough about giving back, about leveling up, about making a real difference. I think I'd like everybody to think a bit more about it. I think there's, you know, the theoretical framework that you know Michael and Andy developed with with some help, but

it is just a theoretical framework. You know, what matters is the outcomes, and you measure stuff buy outcomes, and you know we haven't delivered enough good, economically sourced, useful outcomes across across Why do people not think about it more? I don't know what I mean I know what I do. It's always you know, how do why do other people not?

Part of the reason I have sort of long term views about stuff, and you know, even when i'm you know, and I want to change things over a period of time, most people are working on a quartity and thinking on a quartity basis. Or look, how numbers are terrible, inquar what can we do next quarter to get them back up? Or whatever. It's your point about the you know, terms of CEO. If you've got three years in that job, you've got to do. You've got to deliver shareholder returns.

You're not going to think about the next decade, or yeah, we have to think about the next decade. That's the thing that the mindset changed with SIME. For politics, you know, I do people players politics where has actually been a politicians start with the other way around, the other way around,

which is wrong. And I think in business, you know, short term profits become too important to focus whereas you know, you want to say, you know, I've got a ten year of you and this is where I want to reposition the business over time, and I think that is a will result in more success and actually saying don't worry I'll get this sorted out in the next six months, on amends twelve months. And you want to bring in talent, you want to develop talent. That just takes a long time.

One of the things that the chief executive might say as well, I've got to deliver these returns. I've got these these shareholds. Of course, you're around a company which is a massive shareholder and an investor in corporate Britain. Yeah, it does something need to shift in the way that fifty hundred companies are owned and the relationship shareholders understand that ironically that actually it ticks ticks a long time.

It's the it's the marginal shareholder, if you're lying, who makes the most noise because they're based so much of their job is based on their quarterly performance, and they lose assets very quickly, and those are the marginal assets. But the biggest shareholders are looking for long term returns because we have sticky customers and we're enormous now we're all huge companies, and but we want long term returns over a decade, not short term returns over a quarter.

On paper, we've got a very business sort of centered government. Now, obviously we've been through this amazing that this week gold Yeah, exactly this week plaically. But you know, the term oil of last summer was obviously remarkable and noted all around the world. But we've got a prime Minister who worked at Golden Sacks, worked in California. It's talked about the sort of startup Briton that he wants to create, and

we've got a Chancellor who's also a businessman. Do you think that's the right team to push through some of these big structural changes in this economy that you're talking about. I think I think they're a good team. I think we're looking at them. Both political leaders are the good people and of course apicially and Kia very good people and want to deliver you know, good outcomes across the

UK and recognize that will take here. As you know, he hasn't got long is the problem in he's like a two year chief executive, right and maybe even less maybe Les, Yeah, I mean that's the whole problem is that people are thinking, you know, and you can't change things quick enough in Britain because the planning and the policy changes just take too long and therefore you end up doing you know, odd things. You know, we very

rarely do strategic taxes. We always do stealth taxes. You know, if there's a shortage, we never think about, you know, what's the right thing to do over a ten year horizon. It's what we need to do very quickly to get some money money in. You know, the planning systems, you know desperately need to reform in the UK. The whole of the pensions industry needs reform in the UK. But

these are multi year projects. And you know, whether you get people like myself to work on those multi year projects and help get them passed without having to the timetable of a political party to support them is is a very interesting question. I think, going going forward, what would labor do. I don't know what l E talks with. No, No, I like them as well. I think they're good people

trying to do a good job. So we're fortunate and we've got you know, people who are quite similar in many ways about what they want to see as the outcome, and it's the outcome that matters and their pro business and their pro business which is good. And I think they are pro business, which is good because you know, business is the Whether these policies have to be delivered, and you know it's the delivery part of stuff that has been lacking in so many areas across the UK

such a long period of time. You know, we you know, DC pensions desperately need reforming in Britain so that they're competitive with you know, the four or one case in America, but also the Swiss system, the Australian system, the French system, all of whom have modernized pension system because we've not had you know, anybody in government for assicient long, soficiently long to drive through read real change. So we need long termism that people have collectively bought into and to

really make a difference. So if you had a seven year tenure as prime minister, you've mentioned planning pensions, what would be the biggest priority beyond your intron like day one? I think those take a tiny amount of time to really sort them out properly by getting everybody in the room to collaborate whatever. But I would see myself as the advisor to the prime minister, not the prime minister. That's too difficult a job and it's a very overly

demanding job. Whereas you know, I can be you know, deep subject matter experts on things and actually help facilitate change in the UK. But you know, the education system still, you know, it's brilliant for the elite but actually under really talented, but it's not good enough for everyone else.

And just recognizing that, you know, we need a massive amount of investment, both from internally, from the pension funds who've got five trillion of assets, but actually you know foreign direct investment that stays for a long period of time. You know, you know, our car industry is gradually eking away, the city's gradually shrinking, and these things we need to correct. Through the years, You've had many headlines and papers. Were

there any that you were unhappy about? It was one in particular where we were labeled as dull but worthy. That was the headline, dull still but worthy. So I was really upset about what did your wife think that? Well, well she knew that was true, but there's not there was not my image of myself and so but actually a few footy hundred CEOs, particularly in the financial service

called me up and said, amazing, headlight out. I would I would love that dream of that right, dream of that was classes, But it was the dulness bit and which was really really I never think of myself as a dull person, but obviously sometimes I am. I'm sure shareholders what were very happy about that as long as it was incrementally returned it well, they were, they were happy. What would it take for you to accept another big foot see one. I'm not going to do that. You know,

I've decided that not yet. You're not ever. You know the unfinished business from earlier parts of my life that I that I had intended to go too much earlier in my original regional plan was, you know, do twenty years in business, you know, go to McKinsey and all the rest of its. Learn a lot very quickly in McKinsey. Then, so this is teaching, you want to go back to teaching of coarencing outcomes. I think it's really it's really what I want to do. And I'm going to do

some more sport. You know, I love playing sports. You know I lived university life. You know it's intellectually curious and enjoyed sports. This is the perfect take place for me to go. Regrets to be you just don't have the same influence and I respect one hundred percent respect academics. Yeah, and policy advisors. But if you're you know, the chief executive of the biggest footsy one hundred company, you're you're going to have more skin in the game and more influence.

We have parlticians. Yes, no, I think that's true. I do think that's true, But but it's not that, you know, can I do another rule where I have a huge amount of influence? And that's the challenge I'm setting setting myself where I'm not in some ways constrained by you know, the legal and general position on stuff because we you know, we own you know, every footsie hundred company and etcetera

is And that's one of my personal goals. What's the rule that would give me huge amount of satisfaction where I could deliver outcomes, not reports which sit on the shelf, but actually outcomes which will result in much better solutions for the UK and change the culture so that we become you know, this is the vision, this is the north start, and this is how we're going to get there.

And it's not going to be linear, it's going to be up and but actually, you know, people have the confidence in that you have the capability to get there, and you build the team that believes they're going to get there. And if you if you're going to advise committees and advise politicians, how domestic are you that some of these trends you mentioned the dwindling city here, dwindling car industry, that these things really can be reversed. I

think there can be. Ellengy is a good example of that is that you know, we would you know, not doing well you know, in the after the after the financial crisis, and we've done you know very well, you know, very well across the world and you know, become a globally trusted brand and that having that credential and the credibility as a consequence that I think it's very very important to me when you're talking about you know, the need, the need for change, and you know, even yesterday in

Oxford or in two weeks ago in Sunderland and Newcastle which is where I was. You know, we've been at these things for ten years and people see the transformational change. You know, there's a million square feet we built in Cardiff for regenerating Cardiff. Now, if I'd gone to my shareholders ten years ago and said, by the way, I'm going to build them onion square feet in Cardiff that have been calling the chairman straight away? What does you mean by doing it? But it was a you get

to a doll that leads to a door. You know, you become successful and then you you that success breed success, You build momentum. Have you mentioned sport? I mean, you know one era that hasn't shrunk is the football. You know, it's a bit by far the biggest league. What can we learn economy? Yeah? It sat out to us the Super Bowl at half time? Boy, was there wrong a little about American football? Would you run would you run

a Premier League? No? I'm not interested in I got offered that many many, many years ago and decided that actually that was just just it's it's not not a job. I love watching football, but doesn't mean I want to, you know, be involved in the management of a football And I was going to ask you that the best piece of advice you would give to your successor, but actually gonna ask you the worst piece of advice that you could give your successor. I think you know, building

the teams is the is the key. You know people we always say people are the key, but you really got to believe that people are the key. Um, and be confident that you've got you know this, this north star and convinced, you know, internally, externally everybody that that's the right thing to do. And worst piece of advice. Don't know whether I don't know. I don't know whether I give worst advice, the worst piece of advice someone's

given you. Travel more, I don't have more coffee? Yea, yeah, yeah, run a football club, I like, I don't remember like bad advice, if you know what I mean. I domin out there searching for bad advice around around stuff. Um. I was approached about being the CFO of Apple years ago and I turned it down. Why it's not a bad decision because it's some everybody, my friends in the head don't disagree that it's terrible to wait. It's a long time ago, So don't go don't don't go there.

You're asking, you know, the exactly public. It's a long long time ago. But I mean, do you wait, do you have a pinch in your stomach every time you buy an iPhone? No? No, no, no, it's not. It was I learned a lot about that, is that. What I what I learned was, you know, do your own research yourself, and you know when I joined Ellen g had done tons of research on it, saw this huge potential,

and I made my own mind up. But rather than sort of listen to people who are supposedly experts but actually hadn't done a deep dive on where the company could be. Nigel, thank you so much, Thank you, thank you, thanks for listening to this week's in the City. We'll be back next week, but in the meantime, if you like our show, please head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, rate review, and subscribe. This episode was hosted by me David Merritt and me

Franci Laqua. It was produced by Summersadi, additional editing by Blake Maples and special thanks to Nigel Wilson.