Season 5 Episode 5 | Sabine Fell-Douglas - Director of Business Operations

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Northwest Defy, the podcast where we talk about business and tech. I'm John Cleary and I have my co host with me, Zach Giorgio. Say hi, Zach.

Speaker B: Hi, John. How are you doing?

Speaker A: I'm great.

Speaker B: How are you? Yeah, good, thanks.

Speaker A: We are absolutely delighted to have Sabine Fell Douglas, Director of Business Operations at Centric Music, back on.

Speaker C: Hello.

Speaker A: Hello. The Bean. How are you?

Speaker C: Very good, thank you. Yeah, I think my. My name has potentially changed as well, actually, since last time. I've just remembered. But no, very grateful to be back. Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: Excited to hear about you and your journey and what's been happening since then. So, yeah, maybe we'll just get straight into it. I mean, it was July. I think it was July 21st.

Speaker C: It was, yeah.

Speaker A: So tell us what's been happening to you since then.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, what's. What's not been happening? So I think last time I had spoken about personally just returning from maternity leave, which has happened again. Um, so returned in April this year from a second maternity leave. But a lot has been happening, uh, still at Centric, still really grateful and enjoying being at Centric and as a business have grown significantly both in terms of, you know, artists, client base, team size, ambition, et cetera. So a lot to talk about.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Maybe for those who haven't heard the previous episodes, first of all, shame when you go back and listen to it. Uh, and second of all. Yeah. Do you want to just tell us. Yeah. What you do at, uh, Centric Music and really just a little bit about what Centric Music are.

Speaker C: Absolutely, yeah. So Centric Music are an independent publisher who empower songwriters at, uh, all stages of our career and their careers. S A R taking absolutely zero credit for all the amazing, uh, songwriting and performing that all our, uh, clients do. So essentially with music, there are two sides when a song is written or performed. So we have the recording side, which is a lot about distribution and streaming, and, um, focuses on that version of a song as it's performed. And then you have the publishing side, which is where we generate royalties every single time a song is played, streamed, um, performed live, is on TV, etc. So we look after, uh, the people who write music.

Speaker A: And you saying that has grown significantly since. Since we last spoke in 2021.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: What's. How much growth are we talking about and what's sort of driven that?

Speaker C: Absolutely. So very timely, uh, for you to ask, actually, because we've been looking a lot about our future and what that looks like. But we joined Believe a Company called Believe, who are a parent organization now back in March 2023, um, which has been a really great marriage for us because they are, um, predominantly a distributor. So being able to support and empower artists, writers, labels at all stages of career with all different levels of income across the board has been really fantastic for us. So we've been part of the Believe ecosystem for coming up to 18 months now. Um, and we're still sort of establishing what that uh, international presence looks like, what that looks like for our artists and what the next steps are brilliant.

Speaker A: And was that transition to sort of moving into the, the Believe ecosystem, how was that for your business? Both businesses, right, There can be cultural changes, there can be all sorts of different aspects that affect everyone. How has that been generally?

Speaker C: Yeah, so answering your question, John M. Joining Believe has been completely seamless, I would say, in terms of an employee experience and from a client artist user experience as well. Believe are, uh, very aligned almost to the point that, not that I question being a naturally suspicious person, but we'll sit there and say, oh, this has gone really well. Has this gone too well? But I think fundamentally aligned with powering artists, making sure that the people who we work with are looked after and the ways and means of working very similar. They've been very, very good at supporting us with our ambition. We have operated in a way that has been not disruptive to anybody, um, and actually has been of great benefit in terms of data transparency, visibility for artists and being able to get more of where that came from, essentially. But for the team perspective as well, Bought brought a lot of positives in terms of benefits, progression, etc. As well. So it's been great.

Speaker B: I mean, it's a massively, it's a massively interesting industry, isn't it? I mean, and one that I think is evolved hugely. I mean, you know, it wasn't, you know, you. Well, for anybody that's a bit more of an older, like me, you, you know, you blink and you, you records and then CDs and then iPods and, and now basically streaming. I mean, how is that changing? How does that impact you? Because, I mean, some of changes are moving that quickly. It's like in the past couple of years, three or four years, they've changed again significantly, haven't they, from the streaming services to what was previously like, I don't know, did anyone have one of those? Ipod?

Speaker C: Yeah, I've seen the Minis and the Nanos.

Speaker B: Yeah, the little Nano thing, wasn't it? How does that sort of impact you Know, are you constantly working on tech? Is it, is it now a tech operation?

Speaker C: Basically what Sentic has done really well is set an infrastructure and a foundation that we can deal, and I say deal. We can thrive really in variances in the new and emerging landscape. So there's, there's sort of two sides of that. We, we're very good at visibility both internally and externalizing that to our artists, clients, et cetera, and making sure that the lessons that we learn and the insights that we have, we pass directly to them. So they're seeing the performance of themselves, their artists at the same time that we are. And just democratizing that. Data is really powerful in the publishing landscape that we exist in, where data naturally is quite delayed, is quite retrospective. You know, that's a real focus for us. Um, so I think that that's something. And then we have the other commercial side where we are constantly innovating, looking at new ways of income generation. So we, you know, we have deals and licensing deals with TikTok, with Meta. Um, we are, have a team and a very, um, very talented person on our leadership team whose sole focus is looking at where is our opportunity for our artists, where is additional income going to come from for them, what does the future landscape look like? And making sure that operationally that does all marry up with the tech to make sure we're ready for that when it comes.

Speaker B: And do you deal with like, so, you know, it sounds like a, A, uh, very, very exciting world that you deal with and whether it is an exciting world, you know, do you deal with, I don't know, Tina, something like that? Or do you deal with the record companies and is it the record labels?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How does all that type of stuff work? And again, is it all just done through the tech part? You're really a SaaS business now, aren't you? Completely.

Speaker C: No, total opposite. And I think like we, we did a big perception piece on this where we, we asked all our clients, do they perceive us as a music company, a technology company, or a, uh, music technology company? And it was pretty even across the board. And I think that's really dependent on the service that we can offer. So we are a very strong publisher who have a technical infrastructure that allows us to do things better, faster, more visibly than anybody else. But fundamentally we have the core skills and really, um, talented skills who deal with artists and the landscape and the publishing. So we have to be good at both. In answering your question, I think it's still exciting. I'm still here after seven years and Excited about coming to work every day and genuinely not just saying this in the hopes that my boss is listening to this podcast, but genuinely I love coming to work every day because it is rapidly evolving, rapidly changing, always new opportunity, um, but still having the stability and the consistency that we provide on the licensing front. That is a whole other area to unpack. But there's a lot of copyright law legislation and um, rightly so to protect artists. And I think what the independent movement that was kicked off, you know, with Taylor Swift saying that Spotify royalties and taking all her music down from there, Kesha and that very visible and public, um, display of being restricted by their labels etc. Management, owning her uh, music has really brought to the forefront that in the world that you're talking about previously where record labels owned things and owned artists, you know that the independent movement is a lot more user generated now. And that's why we're seeing more income from, you know, TikTok etc is it's artists generated. The barrier to entry is a lot, lot lower for artists. Um, and that's where someone like centric, we have the infrastructure to deal with the likes of Tina Turner and we have a lot of what we call Evergreen Catalog, where, you know, big classic music, um, where we can provide new income streams for them, new levels of visibility data, new levels of licensing and sampling that music and remixes, etc. Whilst also serving a completely different type of artist who, you know, might be viral on, on the, the likes of TikTok, but still making sure we can service and facilitate both in a really powerful way.

Speaker B: It's fascinating, isn't it? This is, this is the thing that, you know, I keep telling my kids that there's so much that goes on in the background that people really just don't understand. All we hear is Alexa, uh, we play Tina Turn.

Speaker C: Yeah. Or we will rock you at our household at the moment.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I should have say Alexa, can you play Taylor Swift? Because that's all we hear in our house. But anyway, I've known you for a very long time. You've even sat on my side of the fence for a number of years when we worked together and we had a laugh and stuff like that. Uh, what's changed for you in your role? Obviously your Director of Business Operations now, you know, what, what, what differences are you seeing now as we've talked over, the tech recruitment market or tech generally has been a tricky market for the past couple of years. What are the challenges that you're starting to face and what are the exciting parts that you're sort of wrestling with at the moment.

Speaker C: Of course, yeah. So where I sit at the moment with Centric and in this role and um, the publishing within believe is I really look at marrying our ah, core operations. So you know, our delivery functions with um, our product teams, our insights and data teams and our engineering teams and then how that also marries with artist teams and marketing and client relations, et cetera because the core operations are the, the foundation. But is ensuring really that there's value across the board? I think Centric in a unique position in that it's not often that you would have a significant dev, um or product function within the business itself. That's core business model is something else. And our delivery capacity is really significant and really invested and really respected. Um, we have really high retention on the tech and dev and product and engineering side because they see the tangible value, they're very, very well aligned to the business. Our artists, the impact that we can make within the industry, constantly and consistently innovating and can see and measure the direct impact of their efforts. So within my role it's marrying core operations altogether. Um, but yeah, that's sort of how it's changed. I mean we'd be here uh, for a whole entire podcast and we spoke about the engineering landscape and how that's changed. But um, yeah, that's where I sit.

Speaker A: I guess. One thing I'm curious about is again we're talking about change and TikTok, that's a platform we're all at least aware of even if we're not familiar and comfortable with it. But there must be emerging platforms in, in different parts of the world or just, just everywhere? How are you keeping on top of all of that? How do you know that there isn't a new social media platform over in Venezuela that is streaming your music and your, your artists aren't being paid? You know, can, can you stay in front of that?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's enough on the copyright legislations that in order to utilize music m there is an obligation and that varies wildly per uh, territory. I think we have to be really focused on where there is value for our artists and writers and where there should be value for our artists and writers and that that's a real core focus for us and we're very diligent and data driven I guess in that respect of knowing usage and where that should be and um, what that can equate to in terms of royalties. Um, but it's not a simple thing to do. There's no Easy, you know, API or database that's going to tell us exactly where everything's been used all the time. It's reliant on a multitude of factors, whether that's user generated, whether that's automated. It's a challenge, but one I think we've also been dealing with for 15 years. And centric have always been on the forefront of innovation of one that is business as usual for us, I guess in our mindset that, you know, that it's an expectation that we have every day. So it's not a surprise.

Speaker A: Yeah. So it's up to the individual countries to have legislation in place to protect artists and report on and then the businesses that operate there to report essentially back to you or back to whoever.

Speaker C: Yeah. And a lot of uh, our core operations, and this is where we really hone in on the data side, is focused on ensuring that we recognize those and understanding what that should be versus what we're actually receiving and being very proactive on the forefront of licensing new income streams, doing deals at societies that are of value for the right income for our artists, et cetera. Um, you know, it's a core function within the business and we have within the core operational teams, two teams whose sole role is, is like you know, activity tracking, making sure that we're tracking exactly where the income's coming from, relating that back to the royalties receiving. There's no clear or easy way to do that. We get varying forms of data, varying forms of format, varying forms of reporting at varying frequencies. It's not an API driven world at all. So yeah, it's constant for us.

Speaker B: Fascinating, isn't it? Because there must be, I know like you say, it's not possible to track it, but you must lose so much money from people just doing whatever they want across the globe.

Speaker C: Um, a lot less than you think. Because I think, you know, there's infrastructure. I think you sort of have to pick your battles. You know, if somebody on a rogue radio station that might get 10 streams in a territory where no one really listens to radio versus you know, something on Radio 1 that, you know that there is a, an element of prioritization and an element of making sure that we're chasing the right income in the right places. But inevitably the end goal is to have the picture of every stream everywhere at all times.

Speaker A: It's fascinating world. Um, I'm um, super interested in the tech side of it, but I do want to talk about something else as well, which is, I think it's always been an important topic and Something Zach and I have talked about a lot, which is, you know, diversity in the workforce and, you know, diverse belonging, inclusion. Is that something that I guess do you hear more about, you know, drives in that area, trying to improve the workforce, improve the diversity? What have you, what are you seeing, you know, in. Either in, in your team or teams and the rest of the business? Uh, as a whole.

Speaker C: Yeah. So I think we, we face it on two fronts. One is, you know, the known industry of technology and then also it's very, very prominent with gender equity and equality within music as well. And there's a lot of drive on, um, that front. So we, we have it in both respects, which is really powerful for us because when we have two pools where we can pull together. I think the great thing about joining believe is that we're lucky enough now really to be owned by a parent company who do champion Ed and I very strongly, and they understand the importance of strategy. They've set, you know, very clear strategic elements, but have left the application of this directly with the team for implementation far and wide because, you know, from a centralized office in France, they can't control what that necessarily looks like elsewhere, but can control the success of that essentially. But that's been really great because it is implemented far and wide across centric. So we consider that all orphan and we are all aligned to a strategy of improvement. But we are, as with everybody, you know, consistently benchmarking, consistently bringing awareness. I have seen, I will say, a lot more hacks hiring pools from the last time that we spoke and support focused on Edni that we seek to support as much as possible. There's a couple, you know, within music such as she Said, so but we're seeing a lot more presence, awareness and conscious moves really to address imbalance. Our, uh, benchmarking internally is improving.

Speaker B: So I think that the topic itself is definitely hit home with lots of businesses nowadays and I do think, think that it is significantly improved than even, you know, five or 10 years ago. I think, you know, lots of businesses are, uh, acutely aware of it. I think that it's advocated very much so in the younger generation, which massively helps because then that flows through. You know, I think some of the disgustingness that's sort of gone on within boardrooms across the country 20, 30 years ago that have come to the forefront now, and people have even been prosecuted, as we know, multiple people. I think it's just made a big difference. I think it basically people are aware of it and people do want to make sure that they're making a difference. I think it's really good that that is happening.

Speaker C: I agree. And I think, you know, even in the last five years, as you said, with the likes of COVID and you know, but you've both seen and felt this really significantly with flexible working and removing bias that potentially existed within office spaces. But also very personally with me as a working parent, I was four days a week in the office previously, I'm four days a week from home now. In a world where you are a, uh, full time working parent and for me it shouldn't be either or you shouldn't have to choose between being a parent or having a career, you can do both. And the flexible working has really allowed me to do that. Ah. And I think particularly for the laws and the proven ability of success around that, uh, throughout Covid has really empowered a lot more diversity as well, I think.

Speaker B: Sorry John, I'm jumping in again you know, because I. Only because I've worked with the being as well. You know, we've worked in, in so many, many. It's very, very different now to what it was then. You know, I remember you came out, I'm pretty sure you were quite heavily involved in women in tech, weren't you? At.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: In fact, weren't you involved in. Was it the mund. Was it.

Speaker C: Yeah, the Mobile Monday back in the day.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, Mobile Monday back in the day. So you know, I think all of these things is, you know, you see it across the piece and you know, um, within our team we get heavily involved, Sarah's heavily involved, Melody, Melanie Sedgley is heavily involved in, in stuff. So yeah, it's good, it's really good. It's really good because, you know, it's as it should be.

Speaker C: Well, I think there's a lot more accountability now, which is great. Um, but you know, 10 years ago, I think it was about 10 years ago. Yeah. I remember going to Mobile World Congress and um, probably seven out of ten conversations somebody would come and ask me if my boss was there because I was a woman and it was so heavily male dominated and it was just to the point where that wasn't a surprise to me. And I look back now and think that should have been a surprise to me and I think in today's age that would be a surprise to me and I would never tolerate that conduct or behavior. But I think there's so much more awareness that there's so many more advocates, so many more allies, so many more levels of awareness and perception of acceptable. Um, so yeah, Big change.

Speaker B: Can I jump off topic and I want to move on to the, the big topic that we keep hearing about and um, should we be, should we not be worried? Elon Musk came out the other day, I think, and said something along the lines of, you know, uh, AI could, could basically completely harm the human race. Or so I can't remember his exact quote, but it was, it didn't sound very good, put it that way. What about within your industry? AI, uh, what's, what's happening there? Is this a big threat to you guys? Is this. Tell me more.

Speaker C: Of course, yeah. There's a lot of talk within music in general. So if we look at it from the music perspective rather than, you know, purely product development, because there's far more qualified people at Centric to talk about that than me. But generative AI and AI within music is, is a really hot topic. The position that we have taken is that digital and technology isn't new. And um, they are at the forefront of everything that we've been doing. You know, that old age, old. It's part of our DNA that we embrace technology, we embrace creation. We see it as an opportunity. There is a lot of talk about threats and it's something that we do look at. But we see both AI and uh, generative AI as an opportunity in the industry. What we think it will open up is creativity, you know, on the discovery, so giving artists a better chance to meet their audience. Essentially we, or believe have been very, very good at putting together what principles are that we work to, we adhere to and what that means for our end artists. Because I think it's quite easy for companies to get caught up in what does that mean for us and the existential piece that you're talking about there, you know, what does it mean for us? What does it mean for teams? What does it mean for technology? What does it mean for our future? So we have sort of controlled it within four principle which none of which will be surprising, but consent, control, compensation and transparency basically at the four. So we are happy to embrace it. We think it's a positive, um, however that comes with very clear parameters of, you know, we seek consent for specific uses. We ensure that the artists keep control over generative AI outputs. We always make sure that it's compensated proportionately and adequately and we do ensure that all uses are communicated transparently. So it's that age old thing, isn't it? It's there, it exists, it's how you deal with it, how you manage it. But we're embracing It.

Speaker B: Yeah, we can only work with what we've got. I think the biggest point there is, you know, the threat. Well, we actually don't know what the threat is really, do we? All we know is that clearly, um, when there's lots of people that have been involved in developing this product and now saying that's a threat. Well, actually, maybe you should have thought that about that before you developed it because. Because ultimately it's there now. It's there, full stop. Done.

Speaker C: And look at Spotify to the. The record legal industry for us, you know, it's not the first time that there's been a rapid innovation within the industry. And if you embrace the opportunity, then it is an opportunity and that's what it is. You know, there is a threat. And, um, we're very protective of making sure in the monetization and compensation and, um, visibility and transparency. But, you know, we have the foundation for that and it's something we're aware of, we make everybody else aware of. And that's the best I think you can do.

Speaker A: I think one or, uh, six or 12 months ago, when AI and gender in particular was exploding, I mean, it's been around longer than that, but that's when it was hitting the headlines. A lot of business were scrabbling and going, and they were thinking about themselves, which is what you were saying, right? They were thinking, how is this going to affect us? Like, what's the threat here? But also, how can we monetizes, how can we, you know, lay people off, whatever the sort of dystopian version of that is. And it sounds. What you said sounded great. It's like, how does this go to affect our music creators? How do we think about them rather than profiteering off it or something else. So I was, yeah, really pleased to hear that. And I think more businesses could take a leap from that book and go, how do we help our customers more with this? What's. You do need to think about things, right? You do need to think about the threats and the opportunities and. But I definitely notice businesses were, let's put it bluntly, in a bit of a panic because they really, they were under qualified to talk about it. And lots of us are under qualified. I put myself in there and we're still knowing they had to talk about it and they had to like, um, you know, get smart quick. Um, some haven't, some happened.

Speaker B: So, yeah, I think, you know, it comes down to that whole controlling the controllables, isn't it? You know, it's like at this moment, in time. You know the question this morning about what are you going to do in your business? And you know, after the budget on when what, what are you going to do? And I'm like, you know. Well, actually what I'm going to do at this moment in time is I'm going to concentrate on trying to understand what directly impacts us and how I solve that. Part number one and then the other part, which is obviously quite a big thing for ourselves is will people hire as many people, will people not know? Because ultimately it's a bit of a jobs tax that the way they've actually done it on business. That's a bit of a. More of a, of a bigger threat to me, the indirect threat threat in relation to, to what that could potentially mean. However, uh, if I sit here now and start second guessing it, I'm going to be really, really worried.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I need to see how these things pan out, you know, and m. You just, you can do is control what you can control and if you have to cut costs or you have to use AI like you say, I think your four key pillars, I think you mentioned control, transparency, there was a

Speaker C: couple of others in compensation.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You know, you've got to just try and deal with and then hope the rest of it falls in place or works itself out. Which I think the one thing about humans generally is we are, most humans are definitely resilient and they definitely, um, work out actually, well, this could be good for us or if it isn't, how do I work a way around it, how do I make it work for us? Etc?

Speaker C: Absolutely. And I think, you know, from our side, when we talk about creators, the majority of people that we work with are creative and it is our responsibility as a business to harness those pillars of consent. You know, we don't want people to be sat there worrying, uh, about consent. We want them to have the intrinsic trust in us that we know what is appropriate consent and what the benefit of that is and they are compensated properly. And we're very transparent about that. You know, it's, it's the responsibility of us. But you're also absolutely correct that if you believe, both of you, if you believe the LinkedIn hype, none of us would have any jobs tomorrow. It is just making sure that you stay in your own lane, focus on yourself.

Speaker B: Yeah, completely agree. And I think you've got to do that. And being someone that has now, and I'll be open about this, I've completely lost faith in all politicians, full stop. Uh, whether it's done that before, I don't know.

Speaker C: But I wouldn't say that's the first time I've heard you say that. I don't think it's the first time. But you know, it's, it's a landscape and the world that we live in.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And you've just got, as, uh, I say, you know, you got to be resilient and work yourself around it. But believing anybody anymore is very difficult.

Speaker C: On that positive note,

Speaker B: I'll tell you what, I'll um, mute myself going back to, to you. Um, obviously a lot's changed for you. Time I've known you. A lot's changed for you and for me, but a lot's changed. Five years or so. So, so what, where are you at now? What's going on with your career? What's your motivations? What, what, what, where are you at? Are you still dead excited with what it sounds like you are, which is great.

Speaker C: I'm at the stage of life where I saw and I say stage of life, that is, you know, ultimate middle aged thing to say, isn't it? Um, but I'm at that position, I guess, that I saw a lot of people talking about. And then you live the expectation of the societal pressures of working like you're not a parent and parenting like you don't have to work. And I think, I wouldn't say it's ever good, but I'm at an okay place with that where it's really ambition looks different. There is still ambition. And you know, with that ambition to be the best, most present parent I can be, but in a way that I'm still fulfilling all the things that I want to achieve. And for me, setting a good example to my two girls on um, expectation around women, expectation around gender norms, and um, what positive looks like for me looks very different, solely sort of related to my career. I think I'm in a very different, different position than I was when we spoke three years ago in that, like the way that I would attribute success or enjoyment, satisfaction, reward, impact, etc. Mean very different things. My perception, I think growing up, uh, you know, 10 years ago in that world that we spoke about where uh, over 99% of the FTSE 250 CEOs were white men. Authority. And um, what that looks like is very different than the current day's reality of what authority is and how you deploy that and what does it mean to be authoritative? How does that display? You know, you kill. You can be very inclusive, you can be very supportive, you can Be very analytical and be authoritative. It's not a case of, you know, your classic Alan Sugar anymore. So I think, you know, attributing success for me is really different. Success for me is not being a busy idiot, making sure that I make time for every conversation that's important to everybody within our team, not just what I'm perceiving as individual success necessarily. You know, leaders have different qualities. Now having that awareness really for me has been the biggest chum and given me some of, I've had some really, really great coaches and leaders that I've been working with, but it's given me some of the most powerful tools I think to be authentic.

Speaker B: And it's interesting, you know, and I, uh, completely agree with loads of stuff that you're saying there, you know, particularly how. And John, you'll probably be a little bit different to us because your children are a lot older than what we are. But I think the one thing that I've realized is you perceive success a lot of time when you're younger about, you know, how much money you've got in your pocket or how well you're doing and stuff like that. And I think when you, when you have children and you realize what you give to children, it's a relentless task, isn't it? You know, and it's actually um, in multiple different ways. But, but, but no one reward you for it either like a job would be, you know, particularly kids who basically just, just walk all over you. But he's like, but I think when you start watching your kids grow and you start looking at how they behave, I think there is so much success in actually hearing somebody go, um, oh, you've got such lovely children. They're so polite, you know what I mean? It's like a real, you know, you get a real, real, real feeling of, of success. Success isn't just about how well you're doing. Success is how you bring up your children and how you behave and the things that you mentioned there. And I could just add something though, for you, just as somebody who has got a 10 year old and an 8 year old and had a mentor, well, not a mentor, but a mentor in the respect that they always say to me, don't wish it. Why? Don't wish it away. And when, you know, 20 month difference between my two children and I was just like, it was relentless. I just started the business, I was backwards and forward, backwards and forward. Work 10 or 12 hours a day, coming home, then literally, I think for the first two years of the business I pretty much had about three hours sleep every single night. Um, and you just like, oh good. When's it going to get easier? When's it going to easier? Don't wish it away. That's the one thing that I absolutely um, hold now I think oh my God. I'm looking at now my elder, she's 10. She thinks she's 10 men. You know what I mean?

Speaker C: Hey, she's, she's a Georgie. I'm sure she probably is.

Speaker B: Don't tell me, you know, you've probably been there John. I'm sure, I'm sure you have with children.

Speaker A: Well, yeah. One thing, one thing I want, I want to actually tell a quick story and it's not about my own child because you were talking about children. I think it is a case if you reap what you sow and the time that you're putting in. Now my child, my youngest is 16 year old, is 22 and you know, so I have two adult children, you know, 19 year old as well. You can't control the parameters as much anymore. They're that bit older. And something I saw last night was really lovely. So we do uh, something for Halloween and we, we collect outside our house. So we had a lot of kids come to our house, we decorate the house. A lot of kids came to the house and it was a bumper year we had. We normally have seven boxes of sweets and we ran out just right, right at the end, last sort of 10 minutes and some kids came up and said don't took a treat. We said we've run out and he reached into his bag and he put some sweets in back into the box and he was like 9 or 10 or something. I just thought oh my God, someone's doing a great job somewhere, you know. And it really kind of touched me and we just like yeah, you know,

Speaker C: I agree and I think I had one, a similar one recently where you know, breeze looking at schools, preschools, etc, um, before looking at totally applicable to the way that we work as well with annual appraisals etc, you think okay, what do I want to get out of this? I want structured learning. I want them to be given an exposure of things etc and then you go and look around and you go well actually same as work. I just want them to have a nice time and quality of life and the things that align with your morals and values. And I had a parents evening with um, my daughter's preschool, my eldest daughter, in contrast to what I perceived I'd be like as a parent thought I'd be, you know, the compete, achieve high, you know, high levels of academics, high. Um, you know, and she's, she's very independent and forthright. Um, my eldest daughter, which I'm so proud of her for, but she said a teacher said, oh, you know, I dropped something. And all the children were laughing and saying, you know, silly Emily. Ah. And my eldest daughter turned to her and said, it's okay, Emily. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. And honestly, I thought that that is in itself more reward, teaching somebody compassion than any kind of academic result for me. And I think that is something that is translating across the workplaces with the newer, uh, generations come in who have potentially had a kinder upbringing, you know, less authority. When we talk about authority, is that compassion coming into the workplace, being more people focused. Covid taught us a lot is really important.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think we're all probably very proud of our children there as well.

Speaker C: I'm gonna be worried if you would, successes.

Speaker B: And it's not just about business, as it probably was for a lot of us at the start. It's very much about sort of looking and reflecting and going, wow. Well, you know, how. Because I think that it's probably, arguably more a reflection on our sounds as well, and how we've brought our children up, which probably does that, but. Right. Final question, as we always ask, and I know we've run out of time, but what advice would you give to your younger self?

Speaker C: Oh, this reflects directly back into the children question, though, isn't it? Um, uh, younger self. What would I say to my younger self? You asked me this last time, so I probably should have had a much better answer. But I think sort of what I've alluded to before, but I've been having, I think a lot recently, me about my own morals and values versus those that are imposed on us. And I think giving my younger self the advice of really try to understand and recognize what your morals and values are and therefore what career aligns to that, what industry, what roles specifically, etc. And it, I, I, you know, it's not always as easy, particularly in this economy, to say, go and do something you love, but you don't necessarily have to love it in terms of, I love that I have a higher salary. I love that that I'm in this specific location. It can be really simple as this completely aligns with what I want to achieve in my life. And that doesn't look typical to the expectation that's been put on me. And that's okay because I'm really Happy. It's what I found within Centric that I didn't know I was gonna find and that's what keeps me happy. And you know, completely openly, if I worked rather than music, if I worked in pharmaceuticals or if I worked in banking tech, et cetera, could I earn more money? Yes, probably. Absolutely is the answer. But every single year I have had a pay rise at Centric that gave me a pay rise a month before I went on maternity leave and that aligned. So, you know, proactively giving somebody a promotion and pay rise before they go on maternity leave to ensure they have a better maternity leave is so much better aligned to my morals and values. So my, my advice would be understand your aspirations, not those that are imposed on you.

Speaker B: Love that.

Speaker A: I think that as well from the story, from, from your business, which is perfect, really. That shows that a business that is putting its team first and its people first.

Speaker C: No, ah, they're a great, great company. And I genuinely don't just say that, you know, you look on LinkedIn and the retention will tell you that not everybody is as lucky. And I also want to make sure that there's a lot of visibility and advocacy for those and the forums like Pregnancy and Screwed etc, that do really, really great work in that field.

Speaker B: I think, you know, the thing is, it's so, it makes total sense to me. I think the legacy, the legacy, you know, is never about how much money you've got in your pocket, is it?

Speaker C: You know, you can't take it with you.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I asked this question once to somebody, would you prefer to have 10 million pound in your bank account when you die or have 500 people at your funeral? My answer was, I'd like to have 500 people at my funeral. Don't get me wrong, you still like to leave your family with, um, in a very safe place. But what I'm saying to you is, is that's the legacy. A legacy is, is somebody turning around in the industry, in the industry that I've been involved with and I've trained and developed loads and loads and loads and loads of people over the years and going, he's a really, really good guy, him, he really supported me on my journey. That's a great business to work for, really enjoy working. And if I earn a little bit less money for that and people don't want to leave, then brilliant, because exactly. Everyone is turning around and going, that's a really, that's a better legacy than being a multi, multi, multi millionaire and not giving a, about anybody else. So right Anyway, on that note, we'll be talking all day. So, John, do you want to finish off?

Speaker A: Yeah. Just to say thank you very much, Sabine, for coming on the show again. It was great to have you. If you want to follow us, uh, you can find us on LinkedIn. You can message us there. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast.

Speaker B: What?