Talk about the price but not the price. I mean, it's useful if you can kind of go a bit into how the deal was structured and in general terms, how the business was valued. But yeah, it's fine. Some people do talk about the price and a lot of people don't. So it's totally up to you. that where it's advertised people like to talk about it. But yeah. where it's visible. Yeah, there's a lot of people on LinkedIn who love to talk about how much money they've made.
Yeah, the only thing I'll talk about is I didn't realize how many wealth managers there were in the world. Right. Yeah. Great. All right. Well, let's start. So yeah, could you just start by introducing yourself, please? Yeah, I'm Jacqueline O'Donovan, former MD of O'Donovan Waste Disposal, currently serial entrepreneur, chapter three of my life. Okay, and yeah, can you just tell me a bit about your background really and how you came to own a waste management business?
So back, and my parents are both from Ireland and they emigrated in the 50s. They met in Ireland and dad came over first. He worked for what we know as Network Rail now, but was British Rail then. And then he sent the money for mom to come over in the 50s and they eventually settled in Kilburn in Northwest London and...
Dad worked then as a lorry driver and then he went on, he had real big ambitions and he went on to becoming a demolition machine driver and he went on from that to actually owning a demolition company and then from that he saw that there was a need for waste removal so he opened his own waste company and I'm the youngest of four we go up in twos as a brother, sister, brother.
So the older brother had got married in August 85 and three weeks later, dad unfortunately died of a massive heart attack at the age of 51. And at that stage, mom was 48. So we were thrown into, I suppose, just pandemonium. It's quite fuzzy that sort of two year period between. So I was 17 when dad died and then we just didn't know what was happening. So We just brought everything back down to basics. My sister went off to have my niece and I then was the only person in the office.
Then we employed a school friend of my brother's and the four of us just ended up working together. It was never the plan, it was never discussed, it was just a need. Mom needed looking after, bills needed to be paid and we just all put our shoulders to the wheel. I just naturally morphed into the managing director role and I just carried on doing that role and all my siblings had major roles within the business. But yeah, they just let me, I suppose, be captain of the ship. So yeah.
Wow. So, so all four siblings got involved with the business. And what was that like working with, with, with them? to say it is absolutely amazing. I think even what I'm calling now chapter two, because I've exited, is the fact that we still see each other if not daily, because mom lives with me, if not daily, at least every second day. We're on the phone to each other. We worked harmoniously for 37 years seamlessly.
And I can honestly say that there wasn't one night that we left the office or the yard that we weren't talking to each other. And I know we are extremely lucky to have had that. And people say, well, how did you manage it? And I think it was a case we knew no different. Dad died at such a young age and we were all so young. We knew no different to, well, they had, they inbred a really strong work ethic in us.
And I think that was due to the times back in the days, it was no dogs, no blacks, no Irish on the pub doors. They had that discrimination and they just dug deep and we just knew nothing other than a really strong work ethic and a real, I suppose, level of respect and cohesion. We just worked together. and we all had our lanes and we all stayed in our lanes and we're all very good. We're at the top of our jobs in our lanes and so together it just worked. And what did it feel like?
Because I guess after your dad dying, that's, you know, it's a massive family bereavement. And then, but then there's the sort of practicalities of having to kind of take over the business. And how did it feel for the four of you to kind of step into those shoes so quickly? I think it was hardest for my older brother because with the Irish heritage it's sort of common knowledge that the farm goes to the eldest.
So I think the three of us underneath the older brother just naturally assumed he was going to take the business off dad and we were going to go away and get our own jobs. So I think the pressure was more on him. Everybody expected him to be a carbon copy. of dad, which I think was unfair. I think we've all got an element of mom and dad in us. I was unlucky enough to get dad's thin hair. Yeah, all the others have got mom's thick hair. But yeah, I've got mom's jeans and they've got dad's jeans.
So yeah, it was hard and it was a challenge. My first challenge was back in them days, everything was cash, cash into the bank, cash out the bank. big long queues at the bank, wages were paid, you know, little brown envelopes and you write people's names on things. Well before payroll and sage payroll and, you know, digitalisation of everything, facial recognition.
And I remember going into the bank and the bank manager going like that to me and I walked over to him and he brought me into his office. And at this stage I would have been 19 and he said, I'm really sorry but... He said, you're all too young. None of you are going to be able to follow in your father's footsteps. He was a phenomenal businessman. So we're closing the account. And it was like, right, OK. Right, first challenge. Off I go.
So having come from Irish heritage, I wanted to stay with the Irish Bank. So I went off to the other alternative Irish Bank and I was with them until halfway through the due diligence of selling the business, they decided to leave the UK. So we had to swap banks then to a UK based bank. But that was my first challenge, the bank saying, you're never going to make it.
That's, yeah, that's, that's, I bet they're kicking themselves now that they didn't, they didn't keep that banking relationship going. What, from a legal perspective, how, how did it, how did it work? That it had your dad made a will or, or how did you assume control of the business? We didn't. Dad had numerous businesses. We didn't know why. We didn't know how they were connected, why they were connected. We were just too naive.
So everything was closed down and we started O'Donovan Waste in 88 when I was 19. So I was the only one that was there to sign the paperwork. So I suppose that's how I naturally morphed into the MD because I was the person with the signature. And then it was, my next challenge was to run a waste company. You need an operator's license. So then it was like, right, you know, after running out of school, pointing two fingers at the teacher and it wasn't that way either, saying, I don't need you.
I'm now finding myself in Wilsdon College at night trying to do a transport manager's competency test, which thankfully I did. And yeah, I just, we just got on with it. I didn't realize how male dominated it was. People say to me, God, how did you survive in a male dominated industry? Male domination back then was just not even discussed. It was just, we all had a job to do. The two brothers went out on lorries. The sister was at home just after giving birth to my niece.
And it was just, we had to get on with it. It just had to be done. And then as we grew back, so there was probably, we only probably had about five lorries to start with. So as we started to sort of get things right, know what we were doing, I then had to find a new yard. So back in them days, you paid for your yard a week in advance only. That's how it worked. But of course now it's all leases and freeholds and stuff like that.
So. A lease came up in Tottenham for a yard and it was like a 10 year lease. You know, at 19, signing a 10 year lease. Please believe me, it's like signing your life away. And I had to sign it and you know, we had six offices but we only needed two desks. It was only me and another girl called Trezell that went to school with my brother that was up for me. And it was like, well, we just closed the rest of the offices off because we didn't need them.
to going to actually outgrowing that site was quite sort of, yeah, I had a little chuckle when I think back that we closed all the offices off because they didn't need them and then it was like, my God, we've got not enough space. And as we grew, I suppose that they just, if there was a major decision to be made, I would place it on the table and I'd say, look, you know, we've got this decision, we can do X or Y. And they would all turn around and say, whatever you think, Jack.
And then the decision, I would make the decision. And touch wood, I'm happy to say that every decision I made, both in my personal life and my business life, I'm absolutely, I've got no regrets whatsoever. So yeah, it just was fantastic. Yeah. So talk to me a bit about the growth of the business. So was it 37 years from your dad dying to selling the business? So how did it sort of grow and evolve over that time? So I think we had at the very beginning, we just had natural growth.
People knew the name, knew what happened to dad. I think dad's funeral was probably one of the biggest London I'd ever seen in the Irish community. It was just absolutely massive. You know, we used to live in North London and Wood Green was where we bought. We had the mass and we just bought the whole place to a standstill. There was cars everywhere. I mean, he was a phenomenal character and businessman. So I think people sort of came to us because they had allegiance to my father.
So I would give them the business because we knew Joe. And that was a natural sort of growth. And then I started looking at things. Then the environment agency brought out a change in licensing. So then I had to get a waste qualification. So there I was back doing an NVQ whilst I was actually pregnant. So I'd got married in my early 30s, married for about a year and got pregnant. It took me about 18 months to do this Waste Qualification and it was exceptionally academic and I'm not academic.
I'm a really plain talker. Keep it simple. It does it for me. It works for me. And I got the Waste Qualification and then I started to notice that our industry was just so far behind any other industry. So I... went on a one -woman crusade to bring the waste industry into the 21st century. And I think by the time I left it, I think I had sort of had a good shift in the right direction. I've got an awards cabinet that any football team would be proud of. So I got recognized for the work I did.
But yeah, it was, so I then went away and done a health and safety course, which was one day a week release at Barnet College. So I'm a transport manager, I've got waste qualification and I've got, I'm a health and safety officer as well. So yeah, I just, I suppose my mantra was, if I can't do it, I can't expect you to do it. So I went away and did it and then showed them how to do it.
So one of my mottos was always every day is an education and I love learning something every day or I love teaching something every day. And so what kind of size did the business get to before you sold? keep freezing on me. Sorry, did I freeze there a bit? Yeah, you're freezing a little bit. Yeah, I'm not, but you are. I don't know why. I can see we've got 98 % uploading above your head, but that's what it is. the audio and the video locally and then uploads it.
So any sort of glitches won't come through in the recording. So yeah, my question. Yes, that's right. So what kind of size did the business get to before you sold? So it got to 100 SUV vehicles and about 185 staff and we had one, two, three, four, five depots. So we had expanded quite rapidly. We were one of London's, probably one of London's largest leading independents. We were definitely well ahead of any of our competitors. with regards to sustainability, safety, training.
So with all my work and all my working groups and all my input, we became an employer of choice. So it had a really positive impact on the type of driver or person that we were attracting to join us. People wanted to work for us because they could see we were doing it right. They could see it was fun. and yeah, we became an employer of choice.
So I think when that realization happened, that was probably one of those moments that I sort of, that was a sort of like a methodical pat on the back sort of thing. And I think. the roles of your brothers and sisters towards the end? Were your brothers still driving? No, no, no, you mean the brothers, the older brother came off the lorries first. So as we got permission, as we turned the Tottenham Yard into a transfer station, the brother came out of the lorry to run the transfer station.
Then we bought another yard next door. So then we had two yards and then we started getting into making recycled aggregate. that was in Stratford, so that was another yard. So then the other brother came off the lorry and he went running the Stratford yard. And as we grew bigger and bigger, the older brother would choose all the types of machines, lorries, what we needed, what needed to be done, look after the maintenance, the mechanics.
And then the other brother would look after the yards, make sure everything was, everybody was where they're supposed to be, everything was doing what it was supposed to do. And then the sister headed up the largest part of the business, which was Skip Hire. So Skip Hire was 50 % of the turnover. So she completely dominated and ran that department because that was the main revenue stream.
People, I suppose people just looked at us as a skip company, didn't realize that we actually did a lot more than skips. So that was why that department was the biggest and she overseen the department for years. And okay, so in terms of sort of ownership, were you 25 % each? Was it evenly split between the four of you? No, it was, I was 100 % shareholder and it was just simply because I was the one that was signing everything. I was the one that was there. It was just easier.
It was just more streamlined. But we were all in it. We're all in it together. And I don't think at any point did any of us go, actually, I don't want to be here. I want to be a nurse or an astronaut or anything like that. I think we just, we just knew that we had to do this for mum, that mum needed us to help her pay bills and stuff like that.
And I think as the company grew bigger, I felt a real responsibility for people and their families and that I had to keep thinking of ways of keeping us fresh, new, ahead of the competition, which I did tenfold. So, you know, I was talking about sustainability. We weren't then filling waste years and years before people, other people, you know, some people are still doing it. And then we went digital in the skip department and we were the first to go digital.
That's probably 30 years ago in our industry. Our industry is very antiquated to most industries. So, yeah. So, yeah, we had a lot of milestones. The biggest one, I suppose, was when the accountants used to come in and do an audit and his calculator, his hand calculator didn't have enough zeros. So that was a world moment for me. But yeah, yeah, we all worked and we all continue to work until the final days in those roles. Yeah. So, so tell me a bit about the sale then.
Were you, were you looking to sell the business or did someone approach you? No, if anything we were probably approached an awful lot to buy other businesses which turned into actually being quite funny because people would ask us to come down and look at their business and actually you could tell from a mile off that they had plucked numbers out of the sky and it was like here we go again.
You know, they think that they've got this goal, this goose that's laid the golden egg and so many businesses. And to the end, it was getting a little bit like, you know, we've looked, you know, we're not really, I don't want to look at anymore. It's just not working. There's no need to look at anymore. We can do our own. We had at this stage got our flagship depot over near Hangar Lane in West London in Wembley. We had moved out of the lease hold that we're in into a bigger. freehold premises.
So there was ill health in the family. So on the O'Donovan side, there's definitely heart issues. So my dad died of a heart attack. His mom died of a stroke and my granddad died after my dad of a heart attack. And all my siblings have had strokes and they all had them when they were 53. not sure why it was all 53 but they were all 53 in their head.
So my brother had a my older brother had a minor TIA then my sister had two within 48 hours and then my other brother had one and they were all 53 and so you can imagine the panic when I was approaching that age but I've got my mum's my heart is fine I've got no heart issues nor is my mum so I've got mum's genes and I think the brother was approaching a significant birthday and he said, you know what, Sodette, we need to take things a bit easy. We need to enjoy what we've built.
And he said, let's sell it. So everybody agreed that, okay, we'll do this. And I went on that journey of, right, okay, we need to sell what do we need to do? And my compliance director used to work one day a week, two days some weeks. She was freelance and me and her had and still do today have a great relationship. We just get each other.
So I involved my corporate solicitors who were in Northampton and we called it a beauty parade and we invited five different companies to pitch to us to go through the process of what selling looks like. So I'd had no experience in this area whatsoever. I had decided that we weren't going to sell all the freeholds. So I engaged with BDO, one of the top four, to structure finances and the company structure. So I invited them to pitch. The solicitor knew Grant Thornton, so they came to pitch.
And then three others, I can't really remember their names. I think they were sort of independenty sort of, and actually it was quite funny. One man contacted me like 24 hours before the beauty parade and I said, well, if you can be in Northampton at 10 a not tomorrow, then you can pitch. So he came and it was quite funny. We were sitting, so it was me, my solicitor and my compliance director. and he pitched to us and he pitched that he was going to sell me to a private equity.
And I'm not going to repeat the words my sister said, but he actually swore him basically that Jackie will not survive with a private equity. So that definitely isn't going to work. So he was completely ruled out. And then we went through and one of the familiar names had a female in the group. So they came in groups of threes and I'm not sure if that's... or not, I don't know, but they came in groups of three. And it was two men and a woman.
And the woman kept bringing it around to emotion and how I was going to cry. And then the man would say something and then she'd bring it back to emotion about how, you know, I would see this as losing my child. And it was very confusing. And when she walked out the door, I turned to Sarah and I said, Sarah, does that woman just keep bringing it back to me crying? And she said, yes, stupid woman. And it was like, why would... why would emotion get involved?
You know, this is a business transaction. We're not talking about me personally, this is a business transaction. So we picked Grant Thornton and in particular, a gentleman called Mike. He was the one that was pitching. And Sarah said to me that I gave him a little slap on the wrist during the whole process and he took it really well. and he dealt with it and he got on. So we all voted that he was the one that was going to be able to work with me.
I can't emphasize how important it is that that relationship works because if it doesn't work, it's never, the sale's never going to work. It's never going to come to fruition. And I suppose back then I didn't realize how important that was, that relationship. I knew I would have to have a relationship and I would have to have a level of respect. for the people that were dealing with the due diligence.
But yeah, it wasn't until I got right into it and back out after it was sold that I realized how important that relationship was. And I think a lot of companies are driven by money, percentages, promises, false promises, and are naive to the process. No one could ever have prepared me for the process. So yeah, so how did you, how, so once you'd appointed Grant Thornton, how did you go about finding a buyer and how did that process go? They took that process on.
So they had already dealt with a smaller waste company and had dealt with the largest waste company that was in Europe. So they had experience within the industry. So the first stage is to get an information memorandum ready so that any interested parties... So you sort of vaguely ask people, are they looking to acquire? If so, we were dealing with construction and demolition waste. So, you know, some waste companies don't like that.
Some waste companies just want household waste, like your black bag waste, not construction waste. So they weeded it down and the people we sold to were in it from day one. We had an Irish company that was interested in it. who kept looking at my hair colour and thinking it was real. So I had to kick them out of the process because they kept insulting me with their offers. And then we had a company from up north look at us and they were more into scrap metal than waste. So they backed out.
And we had another because of course this is all happening while Covid is going on. So I've been through the 80s construction recession. I've been through the Brexit downturn, I've been through the financial recession and now I'm hit with COVID right at the point of doing due diligence. And it's like, I don't think anything else can be thrown at me now, I've done it all.
So I had to try and balance everybody's expectations of COVID as well as supply Grant Thornton with all the information that they required. Which, you know, I've got to be honest, no one could have prepared me for it. and no one could have prepared it or pointed anybody in the direction of it, only me. So, yeah, that was, yeah. you go about choosing the final buyer? How do I go about choosing the final buyer? Again, you have to have or feel a rapport.
And me and the CFO had landed that rapport quite early. I didn't with the CEO, but with the CFO I did. I landed quite early with a rapport. I felt that he got me, that he knew what I was saying. And yeah, and that is what done it in the end was the relationship. And yeah, the relationship because it was key for me because although my brother had had enough, and I totally get that, and I knew my sister was... wanting to take things a little bit more easy, enjoy life a bit more.
Because we worked our socks off. We were a six day a week job. It's not a five day a week job and it's not a nine to five. I think that I knew I wasn't going to stop. I knew that I had years left in me being the youngest. So it was, I probably would stay in the business for a period or part time or something like that.
So. That was the end result was, yeah, I had to have, I had to be able to, one, make sure it was in capable hands because we had a reputation and two, that I was comfortable with them. And how did they go about valuing the business and how did you kind of put a deal structure together? So I don't know how they valued us because obviously they wouldn't leave the cat out of the bag there. I don't even know how much they paid to PwC took them through the process.
And due to COVID, the team it started with wasn't the team it ended with. So they had a lot of change going on, which I think was very frustrating for them at the time. I've got to be honest, I sort of... I sort of sat back and thought, right, that's the number I want. And I got it. And it was like, you know, I've got to be honest, anything I've put myself out for in the universe, I've got. nothing's, you know, nothing can't be done.
I just am a doer, I'm a getter, I'm an achiever and I achieved the figure that was in my head and they structured the deal that a section of the money wouldn't be paid until a 12 -month turnout. And the reason they'd done a 12 -month turnout was because of Covid, which I totally understand and So because they wanted to do a 12 month earn out, there's no one else is going to do this earn out, only me. So I'm staying where I am. So I became, so we sold on the 31st of May, 22.
So probably being a bit naive here. I was an employee for the first time on the 1st of June, 22. and then that was a Wednesday. The Thursday and Friday was the Queen's platinum. So it was bank holiday. Remember we had two bank holidays? It will go under the radar. No one will know. No one will see it. 38 magazines and newspapers covered us. I got in the Irish Independent. It went as far as Italy. They got on, they're a Swedish company.
They got on the Swedish nine o 'clock news, the equivalent to. And Monday, morning it started bubbling. So Monday afternoon, because it is a male dominated industry, my brothers were getting calls, I weren't getting calls. The rumour was starting to gain traction. So Tuesday I was out buying Bentleys, Wednesday I was going skin and hats. So it was really funny how people actually accepted the news. And I think it was quite confusing for a lot of people because nothing changed.
For 12 months, All of a sudden we got this news, all of a sudden everybody's talking about it and then it's all died down and I'm going to events that I would normally go to and conferences. People are looking at me thinking, why is she still here? I thought she left, thought she sold, you know. And I really do think people really couldn't comprehend why I was still around. So that was quite funny actually. And then we did the earn out in May 23. No, May 20, when we're now 24.
So May 23. Yeah, May 23, my 12 months was up. They weren't ready. They didn't have an MD in situ. So we just carried on and I carried on. I've got to be honest, I don't think they were ready at that stage for me to let go. And they brought an MD in and me and him worked together with a handover process. At this stage now, my siblings had gone, bar my sister and so she stayed, she actually stayed on for about a month or two after I had parted.
So last year in the King's birthdays, his Honours List, his first birthday Honours List, being King, I was awarded an OBE for my services to the industry, recycling and safety. So that was like, wow, what? a high to go out on. And in December, the MD, the new MD said, I think the 31st of January is a good date for you to exit the business. I said, fine. And I had already planned an OBE party to celebrate my OBE. And I left the office on the Wednesday. I was at a charity lunch on the Thursday.
I was at a construction lunch on the Friday. On the Saturday, I had my OBE party. On Monday, I had gone. back to Ireland with my mum and my son for a holiday because that's my happy place and it just all worked fine. It was seamless. Congratulations. I mean, what a story. It's really amazing. How did it feel that that transition to becoming an employee after having been master of your own destiny, mistress of your own destiny, sorry. yeah. It didn't feel any different.
They actually left me alone. All I did was once a month, I've got the top line numbers, presented them to them, chatted them through. So we had a Zoom once a month, and they probably came over once every two months, just for 24 hours. And I think they knew because it was producing the numbers, it was still producing the profit, nothing was changing. They left. And I think they made the right decision. They left well alone, because it was just all working.
So there was no reason for them to actually the wheel hadn't broken just because they owned the company. It was carrying on as normal. So they just left me at it. Yeah. Well, you know, most of the listeners to this podcast are in the creative agency space. So can you, and I know you're, that's something that you're going into at the moment, but can you give us an idea of margins in waste management? And, you know, right. would hover around the 4%. Yeah, really low, yeah.
So you really do have to have a tight rein. And I think that's why we were successful. Every year, I was at the helm where we had profit every year. Even through COVID, even through the recessions, we always had a profit. And I just threw the downturns, the construction one, financial one, I just battened down the hatches. And it literally was when your pen ran out of ink, you bring me the empty one, I'll give you a new one. It literally was that battened down the hatches.
Simple things like, because we use to post everything out. So instead of using first -class posts, we moved to second -class posts because we invoice daily. So it wasn't that I had to get there the next day, but so that. that saved money. So wherever I could save money, I would save it. And I think that the bigger the corporation gets, or the business gets, the bigger the bills get and the less the eye is on the target. And I found that in probably the transition period of the new MD coming in.
So he was obviously set by HQ in Sweden to do the handovers, get to know people. Then very, very cleverly of them, they said to me who was my nemesis. So I told them who my nemesis was and they went out and bought them. So they bought two companies and the other company was twice our size, twice our turnover.
But, and this comes into the creative space, but they only had a couple of lines in a trade magazine and three phone calls to the MD. it actually went completely under the radar because they weren't out there like I was out there on social media with corporate social responsibility piece, with the compliance, with the sustainability, with driver wellbeing, with mental health. They weren't doing any of that. So they went under the radar.
But because I was so active in all these other spaces, that's why we got such a... fanfare when we sell, you know, everybody wanted to know. Yeah. How did it work? This is a sort of technical question really, but with your siblings not being shareholders, how did it work with kind of just divvying up the cash? Sorry for the crass question. so obviously I am responsible for the whole pot. So the first thing I did was put an insurance policy around that pot.
So in the event that I throw my toes up in the first seven years, the bill will be fairly big. So I've covered them all for that. covered my son. So we actually skimmed over that bit. So I had one boy and I got post -natal depression. For three and a half years I had post -natal depression and still managed to get through the divorce and have post -natal depression. So my husband left me when my son was three months old. So yeah, all throwing that to the mix. So I nearly forgot about that bit.
So I've gifted them and in gifting them I have secured them their future, their retirement and I've advised them what they should or could do and they're all doing different things. So my older brother, he's got two sons, his two sons are in business so he's supporting them. My sister's having a whale of a time, she decided to get married for a significant birthday instead of actually... having a birthday party, she decided to have a wedding. That was funny.
So yeah, they now can do what they want to do. But I'm not gonna lie, I think we all suffer from not having that connection every day because we were 37 years having that connection. We would see each other every day. So I moved out to Hertfordshire 11 years ago and they all followed. So we're all within five minutes of each other. Whereabouts are you? I'm just at the notorious junction 25, them 25.
So I just live about five minutes from that, which is 12 miles from Tottenham, the office, but 50 minutes in the car. That was the killer. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, they followed me out. So yeah, so we socialized together. So we were all out last Saturday having dinner because we fancied a meal out and then someone, a family friend from Ireland was over on Sunday. So half of us went out for lunch on Sunday. So yeah, it's just, yeah, we just get on.
Yeah. It's actually quite funny when we're all together, we all bounce off each other. So it was a shame. Somebody wanted to do a television program on us and it was a real shame that the production company he worked for. he had his second child and the child wasn't very well so it sort of went by the by and then somebody else picked it up but by that stage we had sold so it's yeah watch this video you never know we might do another one. And what are you doing now? What am I doing now?
I've got to say chapter two is very exciting and very different. The one common thread through chapter two is everybody in their industry talks to everybody as if they are in that industry when they're not. Everybody talks their own lingo and everybody uses their own industry acronyms and I just think, and I'm the one that sits there and goes, sorry, I'm not in your industry. What's that acronym? But so many people that sit there, they're going, that's what that is.
I got a LinkedIn message yesterday and love a short message. If you can say it in the sentence, don't use paragraph. I'm a sentence girl, not a paragraph girl. And he sent me, and he's actually in the waste industry and he used two acronyms, two acronyms I didn't even know what they were. So I went back to him and I said, yeah, great to connect, but what does that mean and what does that mean? And he came back saying, maybe my message was too short and I should have kept the acronyms out.
So I then went back to him and said, well, one of his acronyms didn't even match the initials of what he was saying. So really not sure why he was using it. It was RMX he was using when he should have been using RMS. Ready Mix Sites was what it was short for, but it was RMX. And I thought, well, I'm never going to get that out of that. So that is really strange. I started a PR marketing company, and I can't believe how many people have said to me, what's that?
And I'm like, surely it's written on it's like PR marketing. So I have a flair for it. So I did all the ways PR marketing. I had a marketing director and I would give her the skeleton. She'd put the meat on it and she'd fire it back and I'd trim the fat. And between us, we would agree on a document, on a thought leadership piece. And I can... I just have the ability to be able to understand different industries and ask pertinent questions that I suppose other people just don't ask.
And I think, I really don't, it's not personal, it's not, it's all about business for me. It's not nothing personal. And I think, I think businesses, some people in businesses feel it's personal when it's just business. So I've got PR marketing agency, ODPR, and that's really gaining traction now. I'm really pleased to say it's gaining traction because people are now understanding what it is and they want me to do theirs because I was so good at doing O'Donovan Waste, which is fantastic.
And people are saying, yeah, she's doing this now. Let me introduce you to her. then it gives me the opportunity to explain to them that this is what I do and this is how it works. If anything, my strap line is thinking outside the box because I do, I think totally different to how people think. And in my industry, because it was male dominated and being the only female MD in London, I thought completely different to how the other MDs thought.
And I think we only tracked down two other female MDs. So I was one of three in the UK. So I really was different. So then I just acted different if we were in a meeting. And up until recently, we've got this standard that TFL are bringing out called the direct vision standard. And up until recently, I was asked probably late last year to sit on a round table about this. And I was the only female operator. and TFL were talking and they weren't actually clarifying what they were saying.
They were making statements but not actually giving us the evidence to back the statements. So I then challenged that and then when I challenged it some of the men started to challenge it and then people started to actually talk but it took me to challenge it for the other people to actually think well actually I can ask a question. Because I don't think there is any stupid question. If someone doesn't know something, they don't know it. We can't know everything. Yeah. Well, that's fantastic.
That seems like a good place to wrap it up. And thank you very much for sharing your story. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for coming on. You're welcome. I've also done a couple of investments in. yeah, yeah, yeah, tell me about those. So I've done a couple of investments. So three friends in Ireland have brought out a supplement and they've put their heart and soul into this supplement called, it's called Sisterly the Elevator.
And they gave the chemist or scientist three and a half years and said, go away, bring us back something that we would want to take, that we would want our sisters or our mothers or our friends to take. and it's a fantastic product and they're gaining massive traction through the fact that that product is, does what it says on the tin. So I invested in that. I'm looking at a bedding company at the moment. I'm also looking at a couple of tech things.
So, which can't really talk about at the moment and an animal one. So I've got lots in the pipeline. I haven't got enough hours in the day. It's just mad. I would never ever have thought in a million years that chapter two would have been busier than chapter one. You mean I am back to back on the calendar. I'm back to back with meetings. And yeah, it's all great. I love it. I've got a new team around me, probably of about six people and that's slowly growing.
And yeah, we still keep in contact with the old staff. you know, some of them have left, some of them didn't like the new regime. And yeah, it's, it's, I'm now being approached by people that want to bring something to the market. And I've got to be honest, 50 % of them are trying to fix a wheel that isn't broken. It's very hard to go through an hours of a zoom call with someone that's put their whole life and house money savings on this product that isn't going to fly.
So yeah that's a bit challenging but yeah I love a challenge. Yeah, great, great. Well, thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to talk. I think it's really important that to be it you've got to see it, you've got to see it to be it and I think if we don't do things, podcasts like this, the next generations don't see it and for me the females don't see it. So yeah it's really important for me that we share our experiences in honestly, I don't have that many women on the podcast.
And, you know, I'm always looking for female stories, but there's, it's just sort of naturally ends up being a lot of men. So it's always good to have that other. that. Yeah, that's that. And I think it's more out of fear than anything else. So I get an awful lot of women that are like way, like way up the stratosphere than I am asking me, is that OK? And I'm like, why are you asking me? Like, you're the CEO of this public company and you know, it's yeah, that's quite strange.
And at International Women's Day, not this year, last year, a woman asked me four times, I was being interviewed for International Women's Day, and a woman asked me four times, do I suffer from imposter syndrome? And it was like, no, do you think so? No, no, that's definitely not one of my traits. And it's like, I'm now talking for an hour and a half, and she's still asking me, am I suffering from imposter syndrome? And it's like, no, but you must be. So let's find out why you think that.
So yeah, I really do think that. women really do need to get out there and be a bit more ballsy. We can do it. Yes, I like it. Great stuff. OK, I will just press stop there.