Journey of a CPO | Ep 8. Building a Successful Global Leadership Career John Mahjoubi

From Ground Up: Building Bolt's Procurement Function They brought me in around about a year ago just to build a function from the ground up. More or less. We had nothing at that point in time. From functional identity to a software to a team that is fit for the job. Didn't exist a year ago. Proud to say today it's completely the opposite of that. Expectations are going open up. The story gets quite interesting. What I do in my in my head, always envision where I want to be surfing on top of the massive wave of success. Everybody's praising me. I'm going to land in Lebanon, just knock it out the park. People will love me there. Speaker 2 The glamour. Speaker 1 Of the not true, not true at all is really good with people. Alright, He knows nothing about procurement, right? So sharing a couple of ideas, picking those ideas, delivering things started to roll. My work life had a major impact on my personal life. When you work for bigger companies, you get consumed by the culture. Speaker 2 What were some of the tips that you suggest to people when you first go into big changes? Speaker 1 Don't go for The Big Bang from a day one right? The majority of times you go in, you're blind. Imagine 13 markets that few of them were the most heavily sanctioned markets in the world. Two or three wars broke out, missile hit something. You have to start replanning in everything. The only role across my entire career that I left a business and I cannot call people in that team friends. I call them friends. Probably. They wouldn't call me friends now. I think I wasn't ready to manage that group of people at that point in time. One solution doesn't fit all your problems. Speaker 2 In this podcast series, we're talking to inspiring leaders of procurement and supply chain. Join me as we explore their journey, their achievements, and their career advice. This way you can integrate them into your career and achieve the same. I'm Mark Kumarambe, managing director at Procurato. Hi everybody. Today we're here with John. John is the CPO at Bolt. John. Speaker 1 Hi. Hi. Thanks for having me. Thanks for the opportunity. Speaker 2 Good to have you on board. Thank you. So we usually start the series now asking a little bit about, for those who may not know Bolt, maybe can you tell us a little bit about the company and your role and in terms of what you're proud that you have achieved with you and your team today? Speaker 1 Old, very interesting company becoming a household name. I think pretty quickly in across Europe. What we do in a nutshell, we're a right hailing company, one of the first and only that came out of politics. It got to Unicorn status quite quickly worth billions. Now I'm going to tell you how much but billions what right hailing for delivery, grocery delivery or the core of the business and we got some other micro mobility sort of a business as well, which is quite exciting if you go to Western Europe, Eastern Europe, BCR scooters and bikes more or less everywhere. And the story of a company is quite interesting as well for for the audience just go on LinkedIn search. Marcus Philik was the founder of a company how he built the company from streets of talent. One person sitting on the back of the cabs trying to sell the software to the to those people to how, you know, having, you know, billions of revenue. Just fascinating story. Yeah. So that's from a company perspective, what I'm doing in a company on the global procurement director CPO. They brought me in round about a year ago just to build a function from the ground up. We had nothing at that point in time from functional identity to a software tool. A team that is fit for the job didn't exist a year ago. Proud to say today it's completely the opposite of that, right? Expectations are going up and up. We're bang in the middle of a major source to pay tool implementation. So we're building that that sort of product of procurement slowly, gradually. Speaker 2 Amazing. From Sales to Procurement: An Unconventional Career Path And that's probably the end of the story and we'll probably start from the beginning and connect back to that which is which is really great. As you will have seen, we normally start with getting to know you a bit more. So one of the questions I like to ask and the question we always ask is if your friends and family were to describe you, how would they describe John? And let's start with family this time, yeah? Speaker 1 Family again, depends, right. My daughter, the fantastic daddy, the fungi, my wife, you really don't want to know. Just keep that as a secret. And I think just us. Yeah, for sure. The the wider family again, in general, if if you say family, then to the wider friends group of people that I interact with, I'm known as the sort of the stand up comedian. Speaker 2 OK. Speaker 1 Right, so if people want to have a laugh, I'll get invited. If the the the gathering is a bit more serious, don't invite John, they will make it. Speaker 2 Keep the mood up. Which is good. Exactly. Yeah, that's amazing. And your friends, I suppose they. I'm the. Speaker 1 Stand up comedian always. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, every party. You're the one who? Speaker 1 I'm the one that makes makes people laugh and then, yeah, I mean, that's good. That's the side I have to keep away from work most of the time. Speaker 2 Well, I'm sure I'm sure your colleagues also still find some interesting stories you have good. So let's start with the history of how you got into procurement and how you started in the world of procurement as such. Maybe even starting from just after you studies and how you were sort of looking around and what you were looking to do or what path you took really to start the first few steps within the world of procurement. Speaker 1 You have watched few of these podcasts. I mean, everybody says their journey into procurement has been a bit unconventional. I think people don't aspire to land in procurement. You get a few people. Yeah. Yeah. It's so it's always how things came together for somebody to land in a job and grow. And I think mine is not any different where I come from, our culture very similar to that part of world Middle East, Iran, you have to graduate from university in three different disciplines. You'd have to be a medical doctor, a lawyer or an engineer or you're a failure to the family, right? It's unacceptable. So I have no option. So I studied IT, graduated with a with a very decent degree, came out in the moment I walked out the university. I knew my brain is not big enough for to be an IT engineer. Yeah, I struggled the entire time. Although I got a first degree, I have to say I didn't enjoy it. It was very difficult for me. So I ended up looking for jobs that paid and I needed money, ended up moving into cells. So I started here setting conferences and social hospitality events and that sort of thing. Yeah. And that got me into my sort of first decent job with a decent company with a decent profile, which was called, which is still a FTSE, one other company in former SO databases, conferences, you name it, call calling people you know convincing them into buying something they didn't need. Speaker 2 Unconventional from a procurement point of view, but literally on the other side but. Speaker 1 It's hardcore sales, right? I think one thing I've learned from that is the success ratio, conversion rates. Yes, 1% was a success. So people when they attempt two or three times at something, they didn't succeed them because you still got 95 more times to attempt. Speaker 2 Exactly. Speaker 1 And I, I did quite well, right? Despite the, you know, my English is on my first language, something still shows. But back, back in the days, it wasn't really dead. I was an extreme case of an introvert that opened up a different side of me, brought out a different side of me. I'd realised, yeah, I'm an introvert, but an exrovert at the same time, which is a. Speaker 2 Ambivert, which is a discussion. Speaker 1 We've had, which is a very strange place to be. And I stayed in cells for around about three years. Yeah. And again, people say I went from strength to strength, not really. But I gradually just went up, ended up in in formal branch in Dubai. Speaker 2 Wow. Speaker 1 When I moved is when credit crunch happened and it was quite interesting. I moved, I landed, went to the office, signed a contract, got the role and then the business got dismantled, closed down within a week. Quite interesting. Speaker 2 This was your first experience abroad after? Yeah. And it didn't last that long. And that's. Speaker 1 One of events literally on the spot that you get, you lose your job and Dubai is expensive. Iran was next door, went back home. So let's work here for a while. Obviously younger, enjoying with the family, friends, different environment. And then a friend of mine said, can you do procurement? First thing I got to do Google what is procurement? So I didn't really know and my sales pitch was I've worked on the other side, I know the sales techniques, I can succeed. That's how I got into really procurement, first job in British American Tobacco. So that's the starting point. Speaker 2 Amazing. Navigating Cultural Shifts in Early Global Assignments And that's how you landed for the first time in procurement. And obviously I think the angle makes complete sense, right? You're on sales, so you know what you're selling, you know the the approach now let's look at it that way. So did it turn out to be like that or did you have? Speaker 1 To yes, although I have to to say the approach to overall business always stayed with me. Yeah, I see everything as a sales pitch, right. It's great. But in general, there isn't much you can do, you know how to negotiate, but that's what it didn't stay the entire, the other things aren't really relevant. Yeah. Speaker 2 So you landed there first and obviously being what it was, you know BAT will have a mature function. And so you had some guidance as supposed to start with on what to do or literally had to set everything up, learn on the on the spot in some of those I have. Speaker 1 To say these big companies, big organisations, BA, TS of this world, PNG, all of them, they are fantastic universities. Yeah, right. They value people, they value developing people and when you go in from a day one, they don't expect you to start running as they want you to. They give you the platform. And that was the case with B80 A 100% as well. So I landed in a job, I had no clue what I was doing, but I was quite lucky because again, procurements in that part of the world is not a very well received profession because of long list of reasons which I'm not going to open here. But turnover was quite high before I landed in the row, more or less 10 people 10/8. I don't know the exact number, but lots of people came and gone me comment procurement in procurement in Iran, right? So when I came in, it was to them something different. Somebody that doesn't know the realities of the market doesn't necessarily speak, I speak fluent Farsi, but I don't speak the fluent Farsi corporate language. So it's quite different. Oh yes. Speaker 2 Of course, speaking at home with your family and friends quite Farsi is going to be different, quite different. Speaker 1 Yes and I was lucky one of the people that had I think the biggest impact in my career gentleman by the by the name of Shamil he he really took me on and developed me to who I am more or less today like a the what you call it the strict further you want to have to get to a certain place. Shamir was that to me. So I landed there They they needed to build a function. I got the guidance from the top. What do you need to do is put the basics in place, build some relationships, put a policy in place, start building a framework and just following the instructions and having some initiative to get a few things done started to make some impact overall in the run. And then in procurement organisation and in span of one year, I got promoted once and then became sort of the procurement manager. And although we didn't have a target the title at that point in time. And so I said in doing many things, you know, marketing stuff, we put a structure around marketing, build relationship with more or less everybody within the company. And the funny story is the CFO in Iran became friend. The GM of Iran became a biggest part, the biggest sponsor I ever had in my career. Fantastic guy by the name of Jorge. Yeah. The amount of time that Jorge came in, got my back, got me promoted, moved me around. I cannot tell you just the importance of those relationships. Yeah. Speaker 2 So building those relationships really gave me some strength. And shout out obviously to both Shamil and Jorge being. Speaker 1 Persistent. Being outside their office. I need to talk to you, need to get this resolved. Yeah, they obviously, they saw me as a kid. They gave me the space. But that space that I got got things done which was quite, quite positive and. Speaker 2 Then at that point, how did the next step move and how did you, how do you move on to the next, next phase of your? Yeah. Speaker 1 That the story gets quite interesting. Yeah. What I do in my in my head, I always envision where I want to be. Yeah. Right. So when you work for these bigger companies, you see lots of expats moving around, learning, developing. So started getting the job done, Iran, in Iran and things were coming together. I was developing the knowledge, developing the network. I could see there's an opportunity to go somewhere else. Maybe I can incentivize for a As for an assignment I had the didn't have to do it. It came to me. Lebanon had more or less the same problem. The Levante Yemen office, one of the headquarters we had, again, we needed to hire a new team, build a structure framework from the ground up. Same issue with the policy, same challenges with the stakeholder backlog of projects. Lots of things weren't happening. Yeah. John, do you want to go to Lebanon? Of course, on the plane off to Lebanon for a year just to sort of replicate what we've done in Iran with the assumption that, you know, I'm surfing on top of the massive yeah wave of success, success. Everybody's praising me. I'm going to land in Lebanon just knocking out, knocking out the park. People will love me there. The. Speaker 2 Glamour of the expats? Not true. Not. Speaker 1 True at all, Didn't realise expats are not really liked. At the same time, what works in one area doesn't necessarily work in the other area. And that's been the story of my life ever since. Yeah, yeah, every time you move, you have to sit down and think about what works in this environment. Speaker 2 So you had to readapt not only to the country culture, which is different from from moving from Iran, it was also the hate like the office politics and every day we should have happened there 100. Speaker 1 Percent again. In Iran, you get in a conversation with people, crack up the jokes, they laugh, they smile. Then you build that relationship, things move on. In Lebanon, you land, you crack a joke, they get offended, you have to you have to leave the office completely defend dynamics. And then one reality was in again. I don't know if it's still the same, but GMs, area directors, they had their own Kingdom. Yeah, they wanted to run in a run the business in a certain way their own. Speaker 2 PNL their own. Speaker 1 PNL, their own process, their own people, their own, as I said, Kingdom basically and they had a vision of how they want to buy stuff, right. Me coming in from global procurement structure, which wasn't part of that business, trying to mandate a new process procedure, new framework, ways of working really didn't go down well. So it took way longer than expected to actually get something off the ground to start getting the buy in from people over there. What changed was the hard work, breaking a sweat. Delivering was needed. You know, I needed the sort of evidence of success to build on, which I didn't have. So you came with. Speaker 2 What you thought you had achieved and you thought, oh, I've done this already, I can bring it. That's. Speaker 1 Enough for them to trust me. But it wasn't the case at all. Nowhere near right. So I had to prove myself from the from the scratch. The guys, trust me, I can get something done. Yeah. Speaker 2 So what if you recall that moment when you sort of presented all the stuff that you thought would be good and it's sort of what people just switched off and walked off and you sort of went, right, I have to restart. Speaker 1 To be fair to them, delivery was quite poor. Yeah, the message was badly sort of drafted. Yeah. The approach was borderline childish in a way. Yeah, part of the best, you know, growing up and maturing in this kind of environment. Environment, but I had to succeed. So what I've done one of the I took one of the projects on right, although I wasn't a sourcing manager, but you take on a sourcing project, you get it done, deliver it. For the life of me, I was thinking about which project was it this morning. I do not remember. I do remember something in marketing but don't remember and then being outside the CF OS office to align with him to show him this numbers. I think he appreciated that this guy is not going away. Yeah. He came outside of my office and stood there for for an hour. He mentioned that six months down the line you changed my mind that that day that he's not going to let it go is he's persistent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we got one project done and then from there the CFO started sort of trusting a little, sharing a couple of ideas, picking those ideas, delivering things started to roll. And then the relationship I sort of developed with the procurement person that was in Lebanon at the time, that helped as well to open door to other people that guys, he's a decent guy, let him in. He took a bit of time, did one year in Lebanon and then it was very evident to myself and more or less everybody that is really good with people. All right, He hasn't. He knows nothing about procurement. Speaker 2 You were there to actually install. Speaker 1 But again, I never done sourcing myself. So knowing the principles basics, I was never trained on it, right. And then Shamir, with the help of my line manager, manager at the time, Beso, they incentivized a an assignment to South Africa for a company which was subsidiary of BAT, which focused only on sourcing projects. Go there, get your hand dirty, learn what strategic sourcing is, what are the basics, Work on different categories, understand a different culture. Because to be fair to them, I needed to learn how to deal with different people. Speaker 2 But this was third time round, so you'd had already your first two. Speaker 1 Experiences. But then again, it became a development area for me, big and bold, that you need to go and learn basically how to do things. And they shipped me off down to Cape Town. Expat Life: Mentorship, Leadership, and Personal Evolution Beautiful Cape Town. Lovely, lovely place to be. Lovely people. Yeah, people, people ask me where is your second home? Instead of saying if I say Cape Town, South Africa, it's. Speaker 2 It's a lovely place, yet to go there. I mean, I'm sure we will assume we have a part of our office there, but obviously had had the experience of one culture. Second, this time you're armed with I know that I'm not going to go and try and represent the two things I've already done, you would think. Speaker 1 Yes. I mean, my path to become sort of mature, Yeah, it took longer than expected, but again, South Africa was amazing. They landed a sourcing manager for EMEA for a few categories, working across mostly Africa. Which was still big enough, six, €700 million to spend pounds of spending and some of the projects in Europe. But here and then when the projects came in, I got assigned the projects going to be delivered did year in a Gregor. But then at that point in time I got to a realisation, same as I didn't have a big brain for technology and be an IT manager, I had no interest in becoming the sourcing manager. No, it wasn't for me. It's just the same process repeating itself and I wasn't really a superstar in it. I really struggled. OK, You know, the standardised, standardised your engagement style changes. It wasn't for me really, but it gave me as the basics I needed. Yeah, to manage. Funny story enough, GM Iran Jorge, as I said, got promoted to the Southern African markets GM and moved to South Africa. So you had an. Speaker 2 Ally come through. Speaker 1 Yes, and I keep saying it to my team as well. Having mentors, having supports, having allies. Amazing. Yeah. Jorge was more mental. Yeah, right. And I had meetings with him every month. He go, we chat. How you doing, John? Good. But they need to move out. You want to move out? They want to come to my team. I'm like, yes, possible. He picked up the phone, Shabir. I want him in my team. Right? But he just landed there. Yeah, No, no, I want him. We have a position open. And that's how it happened, basically. There's a couple of conversations between them and obviously. Speaker 2 These two guys know each other already from past many a times, so yeah. Speaker 1 And and look again, both of them were massive support support. They saw the opportunity that there was no sort of pushback and. Speaker 2 If you think of it in interest of hindsight and wonder what do you think made them like Target? You can go right, this guy's got something now that you look at it from from the future, from that fortunate position of it. You think there was something that attracted or did you do something? You go out and speak to them to try and build those relationship. What do you think? Maybe you're just like yourself, fully I. Speaker 1 Had a relatively, I wouldn't say very healthy, but relatively healthy brand, yeah. Speaker 2 Did you know pretty much what you were you were starting to formulate an idea saying, look, I like this thing of procurement, I don't like this thing of procurement. I know what I want to do. Or were you very much, you know what Hora has asked me to it, I'm loyal to this guy. I'm going to go and do that job. I'll do it at the best of my ability. Or maybe it's a mixture of the two. How, how are you sort of positioning yourself at that point? Speaker 1 The honest answer is always 1 of Shamil's job. Yeah, he didn't know it, but always looked at his job and said that is a decent job, right, Right level of visibility, right level of impact. Yeah, You know, I understand that maybe I was a bit aiming low, maybe I should have aimed higher, but again, that was an unreachable target at that point in time. So I the conversations I had with Jorge and. And again, good companies give you that platform an. Speaker 2 Opportunity to have. Speaker 1 A proper development plan. Have a proper career path where you want to get to what you want to do. In my head, again, I've been a salesman, always wanted to move across the marketing. OK. So my focus was more into becoming a marketeer and then from there going to country management, general management. I was go, I was planning to go into a different direction. Yeah, dreaming. Yeah, dream. It sometimes happens, sometimes it doesn't. But then all those development areas that are focused on, but in terms of, you know, need to manage your PNL, need to manage a larger team, need to manage, need to know beyond just your tunnel vision of procurement. Sometimes it's wrong way to say it, but then in procurement, sometimes we get too deep into just buying stuff. We don't see the bigger picture. But when you talk to a good, decent supports at a very high level in the organisation, they teach you that look, take a step back, you know, have a helicopter view of things that are happening. Maybe you see things differently. And then I started developing that and. And I'm really thankful that I had the opportunity to learn it that way. I can see it today sitting here. I stay away most of the time from too much detail. Yeah. And my team will hate me for saying this. They know exactly what I'm saying. Speaker 2 But yeah, it's that's the whole point of setting up a team that way. You do. I get that. And for those watching at this point of your career, I suppose you've done a few jobs you had done. You got to a good, good point. I'm sure it, it wasn't, I mean, you pretty much alluded to it. It wasn't a straight line of false successes. Any funny anecdotes or stories that you can share that at that point, something which happened which really added to your to your career progression so that people can get to see, right, This is, this is normal, right? Even the more senior people have gone through this situations. Speaker 1 Major sets back, setbacks come later, but it's up to this point it's all it's all quite. Speaker 2 Positive. Speaker 1 Things are happening, and I mean, it's mostly, mostly beautiful stuff up to this point. Obviously we had funny situations, funny situations, challenges, escalations. There's a normal day-to-day stuff. Things happen. You feel like, excuse my French, but fool, how could I do this? Obviously there's a day-to-day stuff, but again, up to the end of the South Africa assignments, everything was was positive, productive, perfect. I ended up double hutting there as business development manager and procurement manager, but some point managing relatively decent sized organisations, organisation for South African markets. Fantastic learning opportunity as well. That must. Speaker 2 Have been incredible business development plus also to procurement. So you're having to get to pretty much, yeah. Speaker 1 Although the the scope of business development was quite limited versus what you might have in mind. But again, we've built like a portfolio of point of sales material for South African markets, developed it, bought it, rolled it out. Yeah. Speaker 2 And it's within the context of the group. Speaker 1 The business. Speaker 2 Not not that you're going out there great. And so, you know, we're now probably progressing to the more senior roles that you're getting into. And by then you had already managed some people or not really. Yeah. Speaker 1 South African markets had nine direct reports, 9 direct reports split into one to four, four different markets, yeah, four different areas. And how did? Speaker 2 You find those experience any any sort of anecdotes on that first sort of situations of having to not only look after your own career, but now actually doing what until that point some of your mentors and your leaders had done. Was there any any things that you have to adapt to that people should? Speaker 1 Should bear. Speaker 2 In mind if they're starting, let's say now to start managing A-Team it. Speaker 1 Was a shock to the system to be honest. OK, right. Managing people in markets that are quite immature. Yeah, right. From business operations point of view, from cultural, cultural perspective, there was complete disconnect from the environment I grew up. I grew up in from the languages used in the corporate setting and my understanding of how to manage A-Team. To be honest, I was quite lucky because I never got senior managers to manage right. People at my level, maybe one level below easier to manage and had a very good team. Yeah, they didn't didn't turn into a drama in the end, but lots of learnings in terms of how you position yourself, how you drive people who are in a different market, different understanding of the priorities, keeping them on track, making sure when you when you align on something, they understand your language. Because I had that problem at that point, still do have the problem, but then was a major problem. Communication stuff. Make it clear for people to understand this is this is the expectation, this is what needs to be done. Maybe I was too prescriptive, you know, in a leadership spectrum from being a dictator to a liberal leaning more towards a dictator than the than the liberal without having any sort of flexibility in that in that space. So I made made huge mistakes. But again, I was lucky with the team and I was lucky with sort of support the Hut. So when things when S people helped, cannot go into detail of what happened. Yeah. Speaker 2 And of course, the mistakes. Speaker 1 Were made, but we survived in a way but you. Speaker 2 Managed to to to go through it as such, and it must have been also like triple Wham in a way, you know, a change of culture, a change of types of business because a Gregor was doing something slightly different from an in house function of that outsourced, albeit still part of the group, as well as managing a number of people who maybe we're not all from South Africa. Maybe it was a bit of a mixture, people. Speaker 1 In Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, so different, different markets. So some of the countries, if you ask me, before I moved to South Africa, I couldn't point them on the map, so I had to go and learn. So where is Maputo right understanding of how the culture works? Speaker 2 Exactly nowadays. Speaker 1 You go, ChatGPT tells you everything over there. You have to back then you have to land and learn on the spot and. Speaker 2 Actually meet the people and actually understand. Speaker 1 All I have to say the most beautiful group of people, yeah, most beautiful experience you can have go to those markets, go to Zimbabwe, go to Mozambique, Malawi, all of them yeah. So each and one of them left me beautiful memories. That's. Speaker 2 That's amazing. So I, I taking it that go with an open mind really to, to get make sure everything works out great. So we'll probably delve into now the other part of your career where we're talking into more sort of the experience and more senior before we do. There's also another question we typically ask, which is around, you know, your career doesn't run parallel without your personal life influencing as well at that point in time. Or is there anything you you can share with us which kind of connects the two dots around, you know, whether it's a joyous moment, you met your partner, whatever it is in a certain place, or whether it's a more difficult part which actually had an impact on your career as well? Speaker 1 Again, my work life had a major impact on my personal life. OK, I'll have to see. Yeah, I got married. Yeah, I proposed to my wife. Yeah, through my boss. They're. Speaker 2 Your boss? Yes. Speaker 1 Long story not. Speaker 2 Super connected to it Super connected. Speaker 1 Right Beso, who was my boss? Yeah, who was the one that actually made me pick up the phone, call my wife and ask her to marry me? But. Speaker 2 So you have to be told me it's a very long. Speaker 1 Story, but it was it's not as sort of brutal as I'm saying it was a long it was on your. Speaker 2 Objectives for the year. It was a long. Speaker 1 Sequence of events he flew into Lebanon he took me out for a drink and gave me the phone and now you do it you're afraid of doing it do it yeah, yeah. He's he's a brother, he's an older brother, is a friend. So in terms of work being linked beyond super. Speaker 2 Linked yeah. Speaker 1 And all that period that was in Lebanon. So that was the beginning of conversation about getting married. And then we got married and moved to South Africa. Yeah. And it was as if we were on a honeymoon for around about four years. Oh well, right. And never forget my father-in-law asked me, so when are you guys are going on honeymoon? And I'm like, we are on honeymoon and been here for a year now. It's a permanent 1. So yeah, it's been, it's been personal life again. I have to say my wife tolerated that lifestyle of being an expert for too long. Maybe. Right. One of the reasons now we're in the UK and we're not moving is because we move too much at some point in time. Yeah. So heavily, heavily linked, heavily influenced, massive learnings in terms of how to balance your personal life with work life and different topic. But you know, when you work for bigger companies, you, you get consumed by the culture, right? To the point, up to a certain time in my career, I only went out with work friends. We only talked work. So my wife knew more or less about work, as much as I knew because I was constantly talking about work. What happens today is maybe we say a couple of words. I don't even think my wife knows what I do today, right? I try to when the time when the day ends, I try to disconnect as much as I can. Or even if I'm working, I'll try to have a personal life, a work life, but found it quite difficult at that point in time. I must. Speaker 2 Say it's a common theme for us procurement people that people don't know what we do. Speaker 1 Yeah, had a group of friends who were dentists. Yeah, they only talk dentistry. I was talking as if I knew, and I still can do the same when I go to a dentist. But yeah, they should have stopped at some point. Yeah, exactly. Speaker 2 So that's that's really interesting. Navigating Senior Roles and Geopolitical Complexities And so now you are moving to that next phase of your career, right? Yeah. So tell us about that next step. How did you you were already managing people. You're already responsible for quite an important aspect. What's that next role step up that you took and how did how did that change so up? Speaker 1 To Southern African markets level, it was a managerial role, role North Africa that I moved to next. Cairo was a head of level, first head of level type role that I got. Obviously all of these moves, I'm going from Iran market with three, four people to Lebanon with a bit more South Africa 9 up to North Africa with much bigger sort of PNL, much bigger spend profile much in terms of seniority of the stakeholders, every level within the organisation jumped by two job grades. So they had the GM of South Africa was two level below the area directing of Africa. So the whole thing elevated overnight. Complexity of operations, group of stakeholders, nature of what I was supposed to do didn't change. Go in. You know, we did have a procurement function, North Africa. Was it functioning? No. And being an expert, the assignment is go in, build it, hire someone that can take over the role, move out. And I'm not going to deep dive too much into North Africa, more or less the same thing that I've done in South Africa. Yeah. Go in and understand where the gaps are, where the business is not connecting with procurement as a function, where the opportunities are. Come up with a plan, right? And to me, it's all about building a capability along with it. And identity, yeah, for the function, building a brand basically, of course, to start to get people to come and work with us and when. Speaker 2 You arrived at I suppose they didn't have that brand necessarily you noticed that and what was very a question for you, what was really evident of the you said there was a big two step up change. How did this come out? How did you see it that it was evident that there was a difference in in their level versus what you had been used to look? Speaker 1 When when I was in South African markets, we were at the so they the way it worked, end market, cluster area. Yeah. So you always look up when you're in Iran, you're in end market. When you move to a cluster, it's the Middle East. You look up. Oh wow, people are there. OK, When you go one level up is the area you look they do they're too distant, they're too far away. They're too powerful. Yeah, yeah. So the command comes from the top that somebody said from the area you need to do it and becomes a a sort of must a mandate, you know, mandate. So same story as well. I became part of that area people now it it changed the profile of the the role where I was sitting changed. Yeah. So if if something needs to happen comes from the top, you need to do it and. Speaker 2 So just what's coming out very obvious for me is you've been evolving constantly until that point and there's always adaptation that you've having to put in place. You've adapted yourself often and got to that next level and the next level and discussed with people, got to understand people. What are some key tips that you would suggest to people to undertake if they are going into currently? Maybe they're doing similar thing to you international, lots of different assignments. As such, what were some of the tips that you would suggest to people when you first go into into these big changes had? Speaker 1 This conversation a few days back with someone mandation is don't go for The Big Bang from a day one right land. Understand where you are, understand the culture, understand the people. Then define what The Big Bang is because the majority of times, especially early in my career when I went from one area, from one roof to another, they are landed. I went in knowing what I was going to do, right? And every time, more or less every time it felt because you don't, you do not know the nitty gritty or the little things that you need to know to make a success. So it takes I think two or three months to find your feet and understand exactly what you need to do. Sometimes you're going with a mandate with someone who's and somebody who's in the role. That makes this slightly easier. Yeah, you can, you can develop an understanding. Majority of times you go in, you're blind and you're trying to make something happens. You're going to hit, you're going to miss the mark. You're not going to hit what you need to do. So that's that's the first thing to, to me, biggest thing, especially international assignments. But again, even from going from one company to another example is in my latest role, understanding the culture of a company, the pace that things happen in the company, expectation of the management. Talk to everyone because, you know, somebody can tell you this is what needs to be done. The next person at the same level has a completely different view. Find the balance to get things done. I think those are the core ones. Yeah, Don't rush it. So understand exactly what you need to do, and then again, build allies as soon as you can. Otherwise, yeah, things will fall upon. So don't. Speaker 2 Come in with a plan that is pre established, taken out of a shelf and go and try immediately put in place first understand playing the. Speaker 1 Role of a bull in the China shop will not, will not succeed. Speaker 2 So you're telling me as if you've had a bit of that experience? Speaker 1 There are many times trust good. Speaker 2 So how, how did you feel that sort of, you know, that change you're now probably dealing with quite senior people having to contend with their priorities versus yours as well. How did that change in mindset for you come about? And did you recognise it quite quickly or was it something where you kind of started to understand, I needed to pick up some of their requirements, I needed to work with them? Or was it mainly like, you know, I've got a target, I've got to hit that target. So I'll explain to everyone, bring them along with me, but ultimately, you know, that's what I've got to do. What's always what's worked better for you? The. Speaker 1 Role in North Africa, that was a major problem, major difference for me. Yeah, Right. Prior to that, I was either too junior to matter. Yeah. So even if I made people upset, yeah, it didn't matter. Yeah, Yeah. Or I was amongst friends, right. I had, I had massive support. North Africa was more or less the 1st place that are landed in in a relatively senior role, dealing with senior people and building it, building everything from the ground up. Yeah, again, right. Yeah. So it was quite different. North Africa, where it's is where I was exposed to my first sort of difficult line manager, right? True mistakes are made. To be fair, most of it. It was the first area that I dealt with CEO level characters, how you manage them, how you understand what what they're telling you as well because they see you. When you talk to a senior person at that level, the messaging might be different. You need to listen to every word they're saying, right? I used to go into meetings with them thinking it's a sales speech, I'm going to go and sell something to this guy, come out, get it done. Never happened that way, no. Speaker 2 You're. Speaker 1 Going to listen right you're going to just be at the presence of the person understand what he wants ask the question ask the question and walk out promise they're going to deliver that's a slightly different that's. Speaker 2 A great tip. That's a great tip because when you are dealing with those at that level, ultimately they already have a preset idea of what they want to do. It's just about you how to make it fit within the context of what you have to do, I suppose firstly. Speaker 1 Again, the reality of the matter is even context of what I'm doing today to AC your level person doesn't matter what happens at, you know, procurement execution level. No, they just want to see the two free high level bullet points of what procurement delivered, what bottom line impact we had, how much cash we released, XYZ, very high level, what goes underneath. Speaker 2 Yeah, I. Speaker 1 Don't think they care. I've never been in an organisation that CFOs care, but the CEO, they shouldn't. They have so many bigger fish to fry that how this kind of things run, they don't care. So then North Africa was the 1st place I realised you don't go into to these people with the detail. Yeah. You go in with very high level, strategic, relevant, you know, points to that cooked at a level that these people understand. And it didn't come to me, trust me, for quite a few years. Yeah. How to do it better or how to do it in a way that works? Yeah. Speaker 2 So I feel like we're going to get into that, but so next role from here on, right? Where were you at that point? So, yeah, so. Speaker 1 North Africa was again assignment. You go in, we did the whole transformation in 12-14 months and then they moved me into Middle East. OK, Big things were happening in Middle East. Obviously I had a very mature, strong team in Middle East. In Iran, they were building the one of the largest tobacco facilities in a group that up to that point they were going live with that. It was a massive, massive complex in Iran and building something in Iran in terms of complexity, if you build it in UK, complexity is 1 in Iran is 110 times more difficult to get the same thing done there. And they, they, they thinking was you send a local in who's already been in the market to go in manages the area, but then being be heavily involved in the manufacturing facility as well. And then then from North Africa, the size of a business, the complexity of a business, the spend profile more or less quadrupled from North Africa to to Middle East. Speaker 2 Big change. Speaker 1 We had production facilities in different locations. The logistics network was beyond complex. Imagine 13 markets that few of them were the most heavily sanctioned markets in the world. Got it right? Markets that you cannot take a truck go from one to another because they don't talk to each other. Speaker 2 They don't have to go. Speaker 1 Around, right, yeah, Bang in the middle you got Israel. That creates a lot of complexity in terms of logistics network. And then the wars that were happening, literally I was there for the period of time I was there. I think two or three wars broke out. Wow. And then you have production facility in some of the places in a missile hit something. You have to start re planning everything. So in terms of the resilience we need to build as a function as a team, for me it's just completely a new experience and was. Speaker 2 That a lot of direct procurement at that point we had direct. Speaker 1 And we had indirect, indirect. Speaker 2 So you had to do that whole host of it, which is why all the supply chain complexities. Speaker 1 Yes, exactly. And and give it put it this way, you look at Iran, no US transactions of course, which is quite complex. The level of fraud and complexity you deal with when you're taking something into Iran quite complex at the same time you're working for a company that is, you know, banged on top of the FTSE list, massive company, global organisation, They try to mandate things from a category perspective that will not work in those markets. Of course printed material guys buy it from Turkey. It takes me 8 weeks to get the printed material from production facility into Iran. I can buy the same thing in Iran and get it done in four weeks. Speaker 2 Faster and probably similar price speed to. Speaker 1 Market, especially when you talk about tobacco industry, you need to be on your toes. So somebody's going to market in two weeks. You need to be able to put a product in the market in a very short period of time. And all those global stuff weren't working or something comes from Southeast Asia, It's on the boat again. War breaks out. Yemenis do something. Boats are Boats are not moving. What are you going to do? Yeah, That's all those problems that we had. What's? Speaker 2 Interesting. And strikes there is really there's this context always about global power of buying that one has because you're a large company and I suppose in your story to date, everything is always, yes, you can do that, but it doesn't work easily and there must be some positives that you can pull out out of the, I suppose global presence. So in your experience, which is actually quite powerful, what you've been saying till now is where are the things that you think there is value to be had in this global? Speaker 1 Sort. Speaker 2 Of supply chain knowledge and and leveraging that and where are things which you feel you know what what we. Speaker 1 Benefited from mostly 90% of the time, again, South Africa for instance, it was too far away, yeah, to benefit from some of the deals we had in place, of course. So you talk about shipping marketing material to South Africa takes weeks, right? You try to find somebody, something locally. So what we benefited mostly in BAT, especially from global point of view, was the know how, the knowledge, right take something from people who know how to do it, try to deploy it locally. That was the sort of best practise to have great in in Middle East it was quite different. It was it's a hop right, bang in the middle of everything. But then you got difference at the complexity, you know. So we really didn't benefit much in majority categories direct, less indirect, we didn't really benefit from global deals. But as I said, the the learning help helped us significantly with how to do things better better. Speaker 2 So it's the learning state that actually helped people. Speaker 1 Came through more than actual commercial benefit, yeah. Speaker 2 That's that's great and that's really interesting to get ahead around. So yeah, lots of complexities, lots of things happening. Reflecting on Mistakes and Career-Defining Transitions Obviously it's always a hotspot in there in terms of communication between countries and and that so biggest learnings before you move on to your next step of your career at that point in time I have to be. Speaker 1 Honest, the biggest learning for me within that period of time, two things. One, I didn't manage my team well, right? That role was the only role across my entire career that I left a business and I cannot call people in that team friends. If I call them friends, probably they wouldn't call me friends, right? It was a much more mature team, significant. It can be more mature from professional point of view and personal point of view, complete different group of people. And I think I wasn't ready to manage that group of people at that point in time. Towards the back end of it, I was getting better, right? But I was thrown in the deep end, Yeah. And I had much less support. Yeah. So, yeah. But I think people managing people, that's when I had to sort of sit back and think about really deep. What have I done wrong? Yeah. But because in my head, I was the friend, I was the support. I was doing everything right, Everything. Speaker 2 You'd learned until that point in time, Yeah, yes. Speaker 1 But then again, it one solution doesn't fit all your problems. Yeah, of course, which it was evident in that case. And then I think the second learning learned from the most horrible managers you can have, right. They're not going to name anybody but one horrible manager that impacted my career as negatively as possible. I had it done then and it was a very fortunate sort of events, very fortunate that I ended up working with the guy, yeah, because I was turning into him, right? Speaker 2 It. Speaker 1 Occurred to me a few years later that you were him yourself. You were very close to him, right? And you hated him. Yeah. So you know what I mean. Sometimes you don't see yourself. I think the everybody needs to have a mirror. It's. Speaker 2 Like a mirror being held up sometimes. Speaker 1 Look at the mirror and think about what you're doing. And it was 100% the case at that point in time that, oh, you're turning into this guy, you need to, you need to do something about it. Speaker 2 So between North Africa and the Middle East, sounds like it was big step change of big. Speaker 1 Step change. Big step change. Personally, professionally, massive. And then again, the support I had, the mentors I had, they were telling me all of this stuff. Yeah, right. There's, it's one thing to have a mentor. It's another thing to listen to the actual men, of course. Of course that's another thing. And people are talking to you. Listen to them. Yeah. Listen, to be honest. So. Yeah. And that's where the journey with BT came to an end. OK. I became an expat. And the way I explained it to people is that I became an orphan, right. That's when you have, you don't have a home market that supports you to put your new place. It's quite difficult to find the next step. Yeah. And here I think my ego was getting bigger than reality. So again, all those stuff that happened at that point in time was quite painful. Looking back at it now, I deserved it and fantastic that it happened. The trajectory of my life and career change for better, yeah. Speaker 2 And looking at it from the outside, it sounded like you had a great experience, frankly, because I know you know, always some there are the good times and bad times. But overall, you're right. You really did jump from country to territory, learned a lot of new things, and it sounds like AI learned. Speaker 1 A lot, yeah, but again, I made catastrophic mistakes along the way as well. But as I said, looking back at it, it. Speaker 2 It all helped built it all. Speaker 1 Helped honestly in a positive, quite positive way, yeah. And I wouldn't be here talking to you today if those things didn't happen. Yeah, I would be still working for BET, Yeah, probably a different person character wise and you know, career wise completely from who I am today. Speaker 2 And interesting these large companies for me like, you know, what may seem to have been at a personal level and catastrophic is probably quite common. That happens these things, right? And it all adds up. And you've had a framework at least, or a structure there which allowed you to to get some of these learnings out of it, which is, which is great. Speaker 1 It was an amazing university, but in terms of people development, in terms of technical development, in terms of learning how to do things, Yeah. Having a framework around things, having the structure, how to think about things. Fantastic. Yeah. I owe them, honestly. Yeah. Speaker 2 And what's incredible about this is, you know, we didn't even talk about the products that people do in these companies, but it's just a structure which is which which can make a difference. And that's a great thing about a good organisation. From Corporate to Consulting: New Challenges in UK Finance So let's move on from there to your next piece of your next step of your career. So you've you've obviously finished there and did you? Speaker 1 Yeah, we sure can. Then left BAT and then personal life sort of took over. My wife was pregnant at the time. OK, so we said we need to find home first. Speaker 2 First time SO. Speaker 1 I had my daughter at the time I had. I had. Speaker 2 The daughter back. Speaker 1 We said, OK, we need to find somewhere that we can call home. Yeah, right. Iran wasn't the place. No, the plan was always to move out and London for me, I spend most of my life in London anyway. So it was natural to for us to plan to come back to UK. It was home. It was home, 100% was home. And so we started, I started looking and the Barclays opportunity came up during Barclays as the they didn't have that title. Procurement, business, partner, head of procurement, you can call it whatever. What person in charge of cards and payments business. Yeah, procurement and moved across to UK. Yeah, identical sort of narrative, identical assignment, right. Go in, there's no buy in for procurement backlog of massive backlog of projects. Yeah, people hate us. Go and build something that was a plan at the same time if you, again, I didn't understand it at that point in time. They told me you need to manage risk. Didn't understand what it is. Yes, 100% no. Speaker 2 Worries. Speaker 1 I fully understand this. I didn't understand this at all. Landed in cards and payments business and then more or less I can tell you bored the listener, but same story. Yeah, get a policy, tailor it for the cars and payments business, talk to the management, get their buy in, put in like a year plan to transform the function and then just crack home with it. Yeah, quite straight, different sort of setup because we have the way they structured the procurement function. They had the back office, I call it the sausage machine of procurement and the business in between that sausage machine and business there was procurement partnership. Yeah, the commercial machine which was us, so I didn't have a direct team, but then I was working with the sourcing team to get get stuff done. Same story again, the management bought into the plan. We put the plan in place, improve user experience, improve sort of the intake process, get the projects that are all stock delivered as well. And again, success story within the 8 within 8-9 months, we sort of transformed everywhere, right? The the pace that things changed shocked me as well, right. UK was for me, it's easier because culture, the corporate culture here is quite professional. Yeah, right. You talk to people, you agree on the point, you move on. You can trust that at least 50% of the message standard, 40% of it gets done. So this you can you you'll be sure you can get stuff done. Speaker 2 You've been through a long journey at that point already, you know about the UK, went around, went to a lot of different places, came back. Was there a little bit of a counter shock culture coming back and going, wow, OK, now it's slightly different or it was it, was it? Speaker 1 Wasn't a corporate culture shock, it was the lifestyle shock. I was an expat for a long period of time. Speaker 2 No more the glamour, yeah. Speaker 1 No more the glamour, just taking the tube every day. Yeah, it, you know, it was quite different, but you know, the culture shock was a +1. Yeah, right. How professional people are. One thing I keep repeating to myself and to my team is that it's good to have people above you that you can look up to. Speaker 2 Yeah, you have a. Speaker 1 Target, of course, you know this guy, you know, impressed me beyond, I can tell you. Yeah, right. My current mentor, external mentor, gentleman called Jim Winties, he has nothing to do with become. Yeah, he's head of fraud and nation, Nationwide Bank. But every time we went to a meeting with him, the only thing I could think about is that how he got there. Yeah. How he manages a team of this size business with this complexity with so much ease. And when he talks, everybody listens, even people above him. Yeah. When Jim talks, everybody zips it. Everybody listens. Yeah. And that was that was sort of the Portugal, the the energy drinking away from me, going to work every day, seeing those people. Yeah. Impressive people, yeah. Speaker 2 That's where you got to at that point. It sounds like you achieved a lot in in the space of nine months and such. So is that now which takes you back to where we started as well, Is that or there's a step in between? No, no. Speaker 1 There's actually 2 steps, so yeah, cut the story short. The So I did that role for one year became what they call that's one of the heavy hitters. I don't know what that means, but that's what they called us. So they hopefully it's. Speaker 2 Based on your successes. Speaker 1 They put me again. One thing that I've learned in my previous life in BET was the resilience approaching approach to transformation. I became a transformation, change, change agent in a way. So he was, I was doing it sort of organically. There was no, no, no push there. Then the Barclays UK, the challenges were the same. They were running couple of gigantic projects, a cost efficiency project, a project we called printer, what's called print and mail. At that point in time, just eliminate paper from your day-to-day business, go digital, very simple on a paper, but when you actually go into the execution, it was ginormous project. They needed somebody to run that, manage that. So moved across into print and mail project and then COVID hit, world turned upside down and that's it. That's where sort of life slowed down a little bit. Yeah, for at least a couple of years, right. Again, a lot of success stories in that period of time getting that printer mail done and that cost efficiency project. I call it the cost work stream of that with a colleague of mine, we identified, I think if I remember correctly, £120 million of opportunity was massive, massive project. And then my journey we came out came to an end with Barclays when they decided to move portion of the procurement team out of London into their strategic scientists really. And I had the option to move to different locations or take the redundancy change. Speaker 2 Jobs, basically. Speaker 1 So I went to the redundancy, yeah, and landed in a BPO company called Chain IQ, managed an account which was MUFG identical story again, go in, build something. This time the major change was I'm not in the in the organisation, I'm not the procurement function. I'm an external resource coming into roll out procurement, which triples the complexity of whatever you want to do. The first question is who you are. Who are you? What? You don't even have an MEF Gmail account? You're not. Speaker 2 Even part of the company you're not. Speaker 1 Part of the company, although we had the account in the company they knew we're chain IQ people yeah. So it was a completely different landscape. I think the again, within 18 months we took an account that went live, but at the point of going live, it was at the point of collapsing in a way. Things weren't happening as it should. We made lots of promises. We were behind team on the ground, wasn't lined up to get stuff done. And we transformed that in in a short span of time, thanks to two or three more or less people in the organisation. The CPO of MUFG, which was an ally partner, honestly helped beyond what I can tell you to get stuff done. And a few people within the team that carried the heavyweight, you know, was a politician. You know what you call it? The market here in the background supporting these people actually carried the way the work. Yeah. And then chain IQ job came to an end and I moved across the boat as the CPU of both now and. Adapting Procurement for a Fast-Paced Tech Unicorn That's that's where the journey where we started the game. It's been a really interesting career to, to how you kind of went through. And I know we we touched upon some of the more senior sort of scopes and things. And I think what we really interesting to understand and, and given that you're now live in the project, and I know you've already mentioned the beginning, that it's quite some interesting things to do, But what are the because now Bolt is a tech company. What are the big differences you notice moving from a procurement in the traditional sort of industries as such to the tech world? Let me. Speaker 1 Put it this way, there are more or less no similarities. OK, zero. Yeah, expectations are the same to some extent, but in terms of how you run it, completely different. So for me, I think again, I've been quite lucky. Things that happened to me in my career work for the better because this one was one of them. Big time, big corporates, they turn into dinosaurs, right? You you take an approach away, a work that works you. Speaker 2 Stick to it. You repeat it, Yeah. Speaker 1 The technology gets upgraded from time to time, processes get upgraded from, improved from time to time. But fundamental change in the way you operate, you don't see it that much, right? When I when I joined Bolt initially, somebody told me we don't use emails. And I laughed and I'm thinking, how is that possible? Yeah, you. Speaker 2 Thought it was a joke in beginning I thought. Speaker 1 It's a joke. How do we do this? Oh, we don't do it that way. How do we do this? Or we don't do it that way. So it was in terms of culture shock. I can tell you beyond what I can explain, but then when you start working for the organisation, you realise there are different ways of doing things, of course, right? Which led to me sort of dumping everything I knew in terms of transformation, how many things need to be done and how you run it. And we basically with the team reinventing it. Because reality is this organisation has nothing to do with I, what I know or my team knows. We are sort of redefining the ways of working. We're redefining how we use technology, we're redefining how to engage with people. The company grew from nothing more or less to where it is now multi billion EUR revenue at a. Speaker 2 Fast pace at a. Speaker 1 Very fast pace. And reality is they didn't have a procurement function. Yeah, of course. So convincing the organisation that guys, we're here to have add value. We have something to add. We deserve our position in the company. It's not a easy task, easy feat. It's it's just, it's a, it's a complex sort of transformation project. So yeah, we, we, we sort of reinventing what we do, yeah. Speaker 2 And it's completely different. So it's good, you know, I imagine no e-mail but Slack or things of that nature, which is, which is quite an interesting thing and without going into it too much, but from. Speaker 1 You know, PowerPoints to written meetings that I can tell you, the shock you get when you go to the first meeting, you get used to it quite quickly, you understand it. But the shock, the way I can explain it, your skill set evolves, yeah, quite rapidly when you when you introduced to a Unicorn to a startup like type company, yeah. Speaker 2 And it's interesting for me, I would say that, you know, out of our conversations I've had probably this came to me as you know, I would describe you as a reinvention person every time a new thing, a new challenge and your reinvention, which is, which is quite. Speaker 1 Challenges come in. Yeah, I look at it. One side of me says quite straightforward, yeah, Build a policy, build a framework, introduce it. But then you realise we have lots of policies in different formats confluence this and that, that they're not effective. So the the way to do it is not to build a policy is to encourage the end user yet to come and you know, unknowingly use your system right organically, should be inviting, should be easy to use should be you know, the input should be 10 times less than the output. So the return ROI should be tenfold, at least for people to use it. So the, the way you've built things, the way you think about things is quite different than a bigger organisation. Barclays, PATMUFG, chain IQ policy is a policy. Yeah. You follow. Yeah. Here policy is not a policy. Yeah. You need to convince that there's value. Yeah. So it's quite different. You have to. Speaker 2 Feel it. You have to see it. Yeah, that's great. John's Essential Career Advice and Leadership Philosophy So just tradition for us to finish normally is asking you the questions about of all your career, if there were two or three tips that you would suggest to someone who's undertaking A procurement career, what are the key things you would take? And then, you know, if they looked at if someone's watching this thing going, I'd love to work for John, maybe. What are the things you'd say they gain out of working with you? Speaker 1 So in terms of the tips, again, my my slogan, I know again, people that work with me get tired of it. I keep saying, saying procurement is people business. Yeah. Think of it as a sales pitch. Yeah. Think of it as I need to convince the person not to sell them something. It's just the people relationship that makes things happen. Yeah. And it's been, you know, day in, day out. We see within what we do today with the challenges we have, what makes us survive is the actual relationship than anything else, right? Difficult environments need allies to get out of journeys long. In my case, it was quite long, but I wouldn't get to where I am today without having a vision of where I need to get to, right? So I always wanted to be Shamil head of When I got to the Shamil, I wanted to be the person above. So I always had an eye on that. Again, probably at the beginning I was too aggressive to get there, but then you don't dream about jobs. But having a vision, have a having a sort of targets position, I think helps everybody, yeah. Speaker 2 People, business and aim for the stars. Speaker 1 Basically, and then procurement journey is not easy. You should be resilient. Then there will be many setbacks, many challenges. Don't be discouraged, they're rewarded. The back end is quite, quite big, yeah. Speaker 2 It's great. Thanks. And then the final thing is just, you know, if people were to work with you, what would they gain? Speaker 1 Personally from from me again, one thing I do happily is to share. Yeah, right. I think the key to success of me and my team is having an open dialogue and open mindset to share things with people. Yeah, right. And and the support you can provide to your team to grow personally, career wise, any aspect they can. So that's look like if I'm looking at my team 2 three things are supporting with if I have any know how, if in me about anything is freely available, right, It comes out instantly. If I can share something, and hopefully I'll hear this from my team in terms of supporting them in any aspect I can. Right. I do. And I usually tell, tell everybody personal life first, job second. Yeah. Work can be done tomorrow. Focus on yourself. If you're OK, if you're doing well, I'm pretty sure the job will be done tomorrow. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Knowledge and well-being is 2 things I can promise to people. Yeah. And then they can build their career on top of that. Speaker 2 Amazing has been very, very interesting. Thank you so much for sharing all that. Speaker 1 Thank you very much. Good to have you again. Again, thanks for having me and thanks for making it painless and easy, Yeah. Speaker 2 Thank you. Very good actually. Thanks, John. Thank you. At Procurato, we're lucky enough to work with some incredible experts like you and we are able to therefore interview some great people for you to get an understanding and learn from. If you feel like you've got a great story that you could share with us, please do reach out to me. If you like what you see, please drop us a like and drop us a follow. Thanks.