Succession and Legacy

My name is David Clements, I'm chairman and founder of Future Designs. I'm in Mayfair at my favourite cafe, Langen's Brasserie. This is the first in a series of podcasts, the name of which is The Long Lunch. Now I'm joined today by someone quite close to me, the Managing Director of Future Designs, who coincidentally is my son Oliver Clements. Hello, I'm Oliver Clements and I'm the Managing Director of Future Designs. In the dark days of 1991, what was the largest and worst recession for the UK? Interest rates had hit 17%. Companies were going out of business left-right and centre, and I was working with my brother as a salesman selling emergency lighting. And sadly, that business went into administration due to bad debt, nothing to do with the bad running of the business. And we formed Future Designs out of the ashes, but Future Designs was to become a lighting company, something I knew nothing about other than they lit desks and lit hotel rooms and lit my weapons. And that was how the business started. My very first memory, I've actually got a picture of it on my desk, is a picture of me sitting at David's first desk in Croydon when they open the factory. And it's me sitting at the desk just as a probably two-year-old kid. But they're moving on from that. Probably when I was a bit older, I used to work in the factory, just helping on the assembly line in the summer holidays when I needed a few quid to buy a new pair of trainers or have a cricket bat or something like that. And that was that was better than my early memories of Future Designs because while I helped out in the factory in my summer holidays, I still didn't really know massively what the business did. That didn't come till very much later on in life. There was never any sort of discussions at that age of me going to work for Dad, me joining the business. Rightly or wrongly, there wasn't really any interest in that time if I'm honest. Once I'd done school, came out of school and went off to do the other things that I did. It was just a conversation we never had. It wasn't until much later on in my early 20s when we probably started having the conversation. When I came back from Asia, that was when we had the conversation. I actually came back because I wanted to go to college or university to get some qualifications. So I could go back to Asia. But there was a different path that was discussed and then I ended up joining Future Designs. David, did you decide before Oliver that he was going to be joining Future Designs, do you think? I wanted to give him an opportunity to join us, but I was always terribly concerned about losing my dear friendship with my son. I was always concerned that if we worked together and fell out, that you could fall out. And I come from a family that is so fragmented and people not talking to each other that I never wanted that to happen. So when Oliver and I said, "Well, do you want to come and give this a go?" I said, "Come and see what you think for six months. See how you get on. See if you like it." And we'll take it from there. But there's nothing lost nothing gained in six, eight months. Let's just try what we're going to do and see. That's how it started, 15 years later. He now has the day-to-day responsibility of running one of the largest light and companies in the UK. I spent the first year doing sort of three or four months with production, technical estimation and then sales. So yeah, it wasn't until a year in that we sat down and said, "You know, where would I fit best? What did I want to do? Did I want to stay in design? Did I want to stay in technical?" And that's when I decided that, you know, I wanted to go out doing sales, doing what my dad did. And now he built the business because I think I'm more suited to that. I think for those people that know me, I'm not the best person to just sit in an office all day long typing away at a computer. I like being out, I like meeting people, going to site, visiting my jobs, visiting the other sales guys' jobs now. After that, when I did sort of join the sales team, we sort of agreed that I couldn't report director to David because that wouldn't have worked. I don't think so. I had a manager and I had another director that I reported to before I even went near dad. And I think that was a really good decision that we made when we did it because it kept us further apart from each other in the early days when we both were sort of learning, you know, his style, my style. Yeah, it was really important to do that and it worked very well. So just going back then to 15 years when you, yeah, when you first began. At what stage was the business in your head at that point, David? I was sort of it as always trying to punch well above its weight because our general competitors are multinational organisations and they're still the same today. Yeah, hasn't really changed that. That hasn't changed. And we've probably now sit, I know, top three organisations providing lighting solutions for the office bit out market in the UK and Europe and the Middle East. It's a little bit like getting old, you don't know it's happening until it happens and then one day you look at it and go, 'oh, crikey, this is quite a big business' and that's where we've, that's where we are now and the legacy of that for me. It puts a smile on my face but also gives me a confidence of knowing that it's in great hands with Ollie at the helm and his other board directors who've been with me many, many years, longer than Oliver. Yeah, by the way. But they both, they're three very tight people running the organisation daily and there's even a chance I might get some hair to grow back now just because the pressure's not as great as it was. How long had Ollie been working with you when you started to think, 'oh, this could maybe I haven't got to think about selling a business or maybe I've got my future leader and sort of really thinking about legacy?' And importantly, did you ever, did you tell Ollie? In my head, probably after, probably seven years, I didn't want him to stay and be part of it to please me. That was so important but what I didn't want was that he thought, 'I don't like to in this but I don't want to let my dad down now.' So I would far rather that we both looked at it and went, 'look, he wants to go back doing one of his previous types of work.' But that was about the time when I thought he gets it and I think he wanted to do it and that's when we started. Just talking about, do you like it here? You're going to stay, yes, yes, and I believed him. That's not to say I wouldn't believe him but sometimes parents and children can say things that aren't always meant just to make someone feel good. So that was really important. But then it went on to where Oliver joined the board, how long ago, five years? Yeah, must have been, yes, something like that. Five years. Five years, maybe six years. But at least 18 months before that, I asked him to, no, I'm not asking. I said, 'I want to put you on the board of directors.' And he said, 'I'm not ready.' Which was pretty bold, moved a bit of a downer for me because he said, 'I'm not ready yet.' And it was two years later that I said to him, 'Right, now is the time.' And that was about the start of COVID, wasn't it? Just before COVID. Yeah, 21 would have been, yeah. Yeah, so and that's when a lot of realities came into the world of what we wanted to do, taking things forward. And I knew he was right, I knew he understood it, I knew he got it, his work ethic is exceptional. And so there's a conflict to that. Yeah, and then there's been, there's been moments and tough times throughout those years that you sort of do go, 'Yeah, do I like it? Do I not? Do I want to stay? Do I not?' But at the end of it, once I, once I decided it was what I want to do and like, like they said, when he asked if I wanted to go on the board and I said I wasn't ready, that's probably the the biggest decision I've made that had almost settled my fate that I knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn't ready to do it yet. I didn't just want to join the board because I wanted to be on the board. It meant nothing to me. In terms of just the title change and things like that, I didn't just want to be a board director, you know, I wanted to be there because I felt I was right to be there. And that's why I said no. And then two years later on, that's when I accepted it and said, yes, because the time did feel right, it wasn't, it was more than just the title change for me, it was, it was, I'd made my plan on what I wanted to do and that was why. He had a far more difficult time than any other staff member being my son. I don't think I treated him any differently, certainly didn't treat him any differently from a pleasant point of view. But what was also for him is his name, his name's Clements. So there's people in the business, you can't help that. Well, he's got that because of that. The only reason Oliver was made a director and sales manager, sales director and their managing director is because of his ability to do the job. If he didn't have that, then he wouldn't have that role in my business because as a business, we're responsible for 120 mortgages a month. That's what the business has to, that's the way I've always looked at it, all the team that worked there, they have a responsibility to the business, but the business has a responsibility to make sure that they always have a job. We've never made a redundancy, never made a redundancy, never made a loss. And to say that about a business at 35 years old, I've been through three recessions and started him one. They're points that we're terribly proud of. And Ollie gets that and he looks at it the same way. I'm always going to be liking because I'm his son and I'm always going to work in similar sort of ways because I'm his son and also I've sort of grown up watching him how he's built this brilliant business. But there are other things that you have to sort of create and be your own. Having the clemeness surname is always 99% of the time been a good thing. There was one at the Jimember, there was one that we won't say any names, but there was no, I can't say a name, but there was one there, there was one certain small consultancy practice that we used to deal with and when I sort of joined the sales team, it was sort of left for me to, it was a business that I would go and pick up on. And so I did, but then we didn't get any work and I spent a lot of time trying to grow the relationship, but we didn't get anything out of it. And then the certain gentleman that owned a business phone, the phone dad one day and said, "Yes, I suggest you don't send your son into see our business anymore because it doesn't go down well because he's surname's clemeness." I think that was the last time. He actually said that. He said what you need to, he said someone in here with a different surname. He said, "Jay, he said that it's not a surname in here that's very highly thought." I thought he was joking to start with. It's the sort of thing you'd say, but no, he was serious. I said, "Let it not bother you." I said, "We won't bother trading with your business. It's easier." Can we talk a bit about how you do handle conflicts? Because I don't believe with your personalities, there aren't some. The same sort of, you know, it's a business in that they will always disagree in some things, but I don't think we've ever had a proper unright your wrong walk out the room situation ever. Not one that I can think of. No, you're right, but I think most of the reason for that is because we're aware that you can't allow personality to come into what we do. We have business discussions, we decide on a view, decide what's right, and we go ahead and we do that. And also there's a particular substance called vodka that we're both very fond of. And if things get too tight, well, let's go and have some vodka with ice. That's the most important bit, I think. But the vodka or the fact that if it gets too heated, it gets too on top, or, you know, you can't let things fester, you have to say it. And the really important thing is you cut the business out of it and you go next door to our showroom and we have a vodka and we have a chat and it's not about work. And instantly within five minutes you forget about the whole thing and you're back to being friends again. You have to have in what we're doing, you have to be able to have that switch where you can turn it off. Because otherwise it just fester's. Yeah, and in fact, we had one last week, yeah, there was an instance, doesn't matter what it was, but something that was said to me, I thought, yeah, I'm not 100% happy with that. Ten years ago, I'd have probably reared up because now I'm on a different type of medication and the farm will relax. But the fact of it is, you know, two days later, I'm out with him. And I said it, you said something to me, and he went, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I said it. I thought, I know that, I know you didn't mean it, but I'm just telling you. And it's done in a minute and buried. But the issue comes, it's like all relationships. If you allow things to just state and to sit there smoldering away and then something else happens, you can have four different minor issues that all of a sudden make one major problem. In all walks of life, contract wise, we've supplied projects where one little thing can tip into a problem. But if everything's discussed and dealt with when they're tiny, that's how you deal with, and that's where their personal, commercial, doesn't matter. Deal with any problem you've got, the moment you see it, the moment you get a whisper of it. Can we talk a little bit about different styles of business if you even acknowledge it, which you may not do? When Oli first joined, so 15 years ago, LED had just started taking over from fluorescent. But it was the biggest quantum leap in the lighting manufacturing since flame. It was that big, and that's changed. It's completely changed at the format of our business. In fact, we talk to designers now, architects, interior designers, lighting designers, because there is so much more innovation involved in illuminating an office space than there was, which is exciting. The level of technical that we now have to know to be involved in, probably get double tripled since I first started. But then again, when I first started, I'd never even bothered to learn anything about fluorescent, because while it was still quite a major, it was still the light source of use when I first joined the business. It was very rapidly being phased out. That's the biggest thing that I've learnt from working with Dad is that meeting people, seeing people, maintaining relationships, being able to pick the phone up. So I don't think anything's changed that that rapidly, if I'm honest, in terms of the way the industry works. He's far more tenacious. He's probably not tenacious, he's far more abrupt with about projects and people. If people say to us, "We're using you on this project." He doesn't let them forget that they said that. I think he has a stronger mindset than I used to have at his age. For having said that, it was a different, it was very hand-to-mouth all those years ago. It was a different type of business. People do call us now. People do specify us. People do use us because of our reputation within a marketplace that stands in great stead. But when I started, it was, "Who are you?" Someone out there now in the office fits out world hasn't heard of future designs then. I guess they've been living under a stone for a long time. When I bought my brother out, we rented a place in Edenbridge. We rented a factory. I was up to here in debt then. Then overnight, the landlord of where we were, there was a break clause in the lease and they said, "I had to be out in six months." I was like, "We'd only moved down there two years before," took all the staff out of Croydon. I didn't really need that, but I just came across this premises that was on the market, which is now the lighthouse, and it was a dump. It was horrible. But the guys that owned it, I made an offer, and the estate agent came straight and said, "They're not interested. They want the full asking price, not interested." I was walking around that particular estate one day with Leon, Leon Ellis, my dear mate, who's been with me since the day he after started the business, and we walked past, and the guy that we'd seen shows around was standing in the car park. Hello, he said, "You came and looked at the play." I said, "Yes, we made an offer, and you were uninterested." He said, "We never got an offer." So, the estate agents, yeah. Anyway, so I told him what the offer was, and he said, "Yes, and we ended up buying it." So, things like that project wise, I mean, there's been some massive huge projects that we did, but I remember with the driving test centres, we did, I think, 180 driving test centres in seven months or something, relit them all, and that was a massive achievement at the time. Then, of course, Crossrail, winning the bespoke products on Crossrail. It took four and a half, five years, cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds in development, but we won what became the biggest project to date that we've completed. But I suppose things like opening to buy, that was a big thing for the business, because again, very little work in the UK. It wasn't on after I joined, was it? 2010, 2011, yeah. I tried it in the UK, and we didn't really know what to do, so we went over and saw a sort of mate of ours, didn't we, that had moved over there to go and run a big firm over there. Then he said, "I can't work with you unless you've got an office out there." And then, probably more recently, the move to Soho, I think, to come out of Farringdon, where we'd been for a long time, probably nine years. We had three places in Farringdon, but they were all sublet from someone else, so it never quite felt like home, but then to go and have our own building, our own premises. More people wanted to come and see us, or want to come and see us in Soho, than I ever remember, people wanted to come and see us in Farringdon, the number of project meetings and sample viewings and text sub-review meetings, and those sort of meetings that we have now in Soho, that we never had in Farringdon, because it was always us going out to see people, but I think people now want to, for whatever reason, maybe because it's more central, I don't know, but we hold a lot more meetings in Soho, but I think it just helped just elevate the brand, just that little bit more. 2023 was a very tough year for the business. It was a bit of the tail end of the Covid drama, the office fit out had slowed up for us anyway, and so it was a tough year, and we were about to take on the expense of this new building, not newly refurbished building, and so I believe that all of us push at me to say we should do it, and that's the difference in younger, enthusiastic people with a brain taking over businesses, because it's ever so easy to go, we're just going to spend every penny that we've put in our war chest to make us as strong and stable as we are, but he didn't do that, but what he did say was that this place will make a difference, and if he hadn't been there, I don't believe we'd be in Soho. I wasn't really involved in the negotiation bits, I knew the cost, but I didn't really know the the fullings and outs of it, and then it wasn't until we went and sat in the client's office when we were sort of doing the final deal, and they made a comment summit along the lines of, we were talking about the lease break in its five years, and it was summit along the lines of well that won't be my problem then, and I was like oh yeah that means that would be my problem, and that was when it sort of hit home that all of a sudden we're about to sign this building and yeah I'm don't worry it'll still be my problem, I'm not going anywhere, but yeah that was sort of a bit of an eye opener for me I think, I think it's changed the way I work as well, I just love being there, the area, the office, the staff, people that come and see us there, we owe some fantastic events there. We've got our own bar, yeah she comes here. She would talk about ambitions moving forward. We had our full staff conference a couple of months back, which is where, so sort of a year, it was a year last week since I took over, it took over my new role, and sort of I think the goal for the first year was just not that the ship was unsteady, but get my feet under the desk, learn the bits that I had to learn, get the staff comfortable with everything that was happening, but yeah when we had the conference a couple of months ago it was about, it was time to sort of let them know what my vision was and what my sort of interpretation of what the future was going to look like, so yeah I sort of put together my five pillars of growth, so one is efficiencies in manufacturing, we've got to look, we want to look at that, we're pretty good, we're very good, but I think there's always work to be done, getting stuff out the door quicker, how can things be made faster, still at the same quality, but just looking at that, that one percent, it was the guy that took over the sky cycling team and he introduced the mantra of David Brillsford, so David Brillsford, yeah, he introduced that mantra of if you can just do everything one percent better, don't try and do everything one hundred percent better, just pick key points and do everything one percent better, and that's what I'm sort of now trying to look at with Paul and Leon and some of the senior management team that are coming through with me, new products, always a moving target, but as the market changes you know years ago when I first joined it was closed ceilings and modular fittings, now it's very much exposed and linear, but I do feel there might be another slight change in the trend coming in the next few years, and then you've got carbon careful, which is the sustainability aspect that we've got where we take existing products, we convert it to LED, there was also the tapeback scheme, so we've also we also launched return to reuse in September this year, which is basically where Vane, which is one of what it is our most successful linear extruded system, we've supplied over 1,000 kilometres in the last 12 years of supplying it to the UK market, so there's a lot of it out there, but the return to reuse scheme now is basically if you're stripping a building out and it's got that product in there we will take it back, oh and the fifth one was to to grow the Middle East, we've been there say 12 odd years now, and it's always been a it's always been a good part of the business, but I feel that you know to grow the business you've got to grow every element of it and we've got to look at the Middle East and we've got to grow that more because that's you know that's how things grow and move forward, so yeah we're we're looking obviously we've got we've got to do by Abu Dhabi, KSA's a big one to start looking at which we are already looking at, Steve what are you while Ollie's doing this, what are you going to be doing, not hanging up your shiny shoes, yeah are you? I've always believed in this that I'm I don't actually know what a chairman is, I thought it was someone much older than me, but the fact is I'm still a salesman, I'm I'm still you know I've got on the train this morning and I'm making appointments in the Middle East and I'm still looking at projects in in those what I'm like all weekend every night I'm sending things out to the sales guys go and check this out do that, so I never change what I do that way, the company's doing incredibly well and it's had two very big years and I believe 26 will be a big year, but none of us really know what's around the corner when things go wrong and what I have to make sure of is that the foundation is still as strong to see through grim times and that because that's my and they they're not skills I was born with their skills I learned through things going wrong, there's nothing you're born with that says work out what to do when there's no work what I'm most excited about is having watch the business form grow be established get to where it's got in its 35 years, but at the helm of it now this this group of three the three directors obviously Oliver Leon Ellis pull node to see them running this business and doing so well is massively satisfying to me and makes it very comfortable because there are people out there who have businesses similar to future designs but don't have a legacy for it don't have something and that makes me feel very lucky and very very fortunate the exciting bit for me obviously look we love love Leon love Paul Nolan most of my life but we all know again like we've done with David that there is a there is a time where they will both also look at it and go yeah do you know what we're we're done now but we've spent the last sort of seven five years of building a brilliant sort of younger generation that's coming through and we've got this fantastic senior leadership team that is that is that is ready in there to go you know so when the current board will go we've already got this brilliant leadership team of people that have been with us five years 10 years already that are all sitting waiting in the wings ready to take this on to the next level that's a great point and that's a great point yeah the people I've come up with they're my version of Leon and Paul because I've come up with them we've worked together yeah like I said five 10 years already so yeah the fact that we've got this depth in staff is exciting and very reassuring for me as well because you know they're big boots to feel when this got to be done right what we've all done as I've often said it's much better than having a proper job