S2E4: A conversation with top CEO Simon Hill
In this episode of our series Leadership Lessons for Challenging Times, Simon Hill, founder and Chief Executive of Wazoku, an innovative platform, which focuses on releasing ideas and innovation, talks with Xquadrant's Founder Richard Medcalf.
Simon is an innovation leader and expert, as well as a software founder and tech evangelist. He is an expert contributor for The Future Shapers on topics including Innovation Software, Innovation Archetypes, Innovation Ecosystems and more. Simon is also an author, blogger & speaker.
Learn these leadership lessons for challenging times...
In this discussion we cover a wide range of topics and benefit from Simon's longstanding experience as a chief executive.
Listen in and you'll learn:
Note: this transcript is automatically generated and only lightly neatened up. So this should be used only to get the gist of the conversation and any transcription oddities should be ignored!
Richard Medcalf
Hello, Simon.
Simon Hill
Good morning.
Richard Medcalf
Hey, great to have you here with me today. Thanks for joining.
Simon Hill
My pleasure. Good to see you.
Richard Medcalf
So, for the benefit of everybody else who doesn't know the legend that is Simon Hill. Can you perhaps just tell us a little bit about you just do like the two minute elevator pitch and also what was Wazoku?
Simon Hill
I'm still working on legendary status. But thanks, Richard. So, I'm Simon Hill. I'm the founder and CEO of Wazoku. We are an open innovation and idea management software and services business working with organizations from SMEs through to large multinational organizations and government institutions around the world, helping them through software and through stakeholder engagement to solve today's problems and create tomorrow's opportunities by kind of process of challenge driven innovation, ideation, brainstorming, crowdsourcing of scale, and then kind of delivering projects off the back of those that have really strong value for the organization that we work with. At its heart, we help big businesses to solve problems more effectively than they do today.
Richard Medcalf
So what what I'm hearing is, it's really helping your large companies find the innovation and the ideas within their within their ecosystem.
Simon Hill
Yes, I mean, we believe passionately that people are inherently creative and inherently problem solvers. You know, we do it all the time in our private lives outside of work at work. we've tended to stymie people into specific job roles and functions and sort of, you know, my goal is to try and unleash that creativity give a voice to everybody in the process of, of bringing solutions make work a bit more interesting for people that work there. Make it a bit more of a accessible, engaging for the customers that buy from it and, and help businesses to solve problems more effectively. Right. There's no shortage of challenges, as we've seen for the last six months or so. Yes, I've had to say, you know, perhaps you had a business now because clearly in 2020, there are no more problems to be solved.
Richard Medcalf
So, you say I mean, I guess I've seen it in my own clients, right. There's a whole stack of issues that people weren't even thinking they were going to have to face six months ago. What are you seeing in terms of perhaps customer demand, you know, has that has that been shifting? through the whole COVID pandemic? You know, what, are people still addressing the same kind of main business challenges? Has that really changed the way people think about innovation?
Simon Hill
I think I think that the in these types of moments, right, and I professionally, now lived through two or maybe three of these, you know, significance, macro challenges, and I think you said organization's shifting in a couple of directions, right either either is risk on or risk off. And, you know there's an abundance of new businesses that typically spawn out of circumstances like this. And you know, and others have to bunker down and start thinking a little bit more short term. And so the pulse for me is that in terms of what we deliver, we've never been busier. I think that there's a utility in an asynchronous tool I want that doesn't need us to be on video conferences or kind of live with an audience because as we've all learned for the past three months, that's really valuable, but also exhausting. constantly being on live, live streamed, web conferences and stuff. And so the ability to engage with your teams in an asynchronous fashion or with your suppliers or with your customers, in a world that doesn't need us to just be there immediately at that point in time, but to co create and collaborate in a slightly different fashion has actually become extremely valuable and powerful for people as we as we grow. And so yes, that combined proposition. I've seen that we've never been busier, we've never, you know, we had a, we had a brilliant quarter. But you know, sitting at the start of that quarter with a board saying, you know, which direction do we go? And what's the magic eight ball telling us and I checked on Amazon, they were all out a bunch of cables. And so, you know, I think that we were facing the same dilemmas that most CEOs and boards were facing is do we go risk on or risk off and we, we, we kind of kept off. Maybe it was like this on the gas pedal, and we lifted it slightly. But it was, but in reality, we were still very much risk on from our business perspective. I think there's a very broad spectrum of out there in the world at the moment.
Richard Medcalf
Some companies have been hunkering down some companies have really been say, let's kind of go big. And, what I loved what you were saying there was this point about, nobody wants to be stuck on zoom calls, or team calls, you know, for the whole, you know, for that whole day. And actually, what I'm seeing, even with my own clients who working on leadership retreats or strategy days, is that a lot of businesses actually have settled into a way of working where the default process is, have a rambling conversation about something. And that didn't really ever work before. But you could perhaps put up with having a rambling conversation for a day or for morning or whatever, in a room with your team. But when you're on a web conference, it's incredibly tiring, and not that productive. And so I see that actually, this virtual work actually increases the need for processes and for just as an asynchronous work, going through certain getting through a system a process to bring the creativity and innovation because it doesn't necessarily happen. On one of these calls. Right on the one of these calls, you can do status reviews and updates and very transactional things. It can be hard I think to bring that innovation, I guess, is the focus of what you do.
Simon Hill
Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, I've, I think there was this real spike where it was a very different way of working. And it was, and it worked for people, right. You know, I, in some senses as a leader, I have the inverse problem of I'm trying to encourage people to take time off at the moment and not work quite so hard because the division between work and life has been, has become broken a little bit. But on the other hand, we opened our office up a couple of weeks ago for optional optionality. Right? So people that didn't have the choice to go in, and I've been in for about half a day over that period. And you do notice the dynamic of being in the office just spawns very different ways of working. And you don't get that serendipity moment where or where you just need to get a question. You don't want to hold someone into an already busy conference call. So it doesn't happen. And then you take it offline, and it you know, just doesn't work as effectively in that in that very human way. I think we can provide some of that through the way that work. The other thing is that as businesses have shifted, right, so if you've gone from risk on risk off, or slightly less or more of the other, the ability to go back to the archive of the ideas that you said, like these are not the ones we want to do now, because we're in this mode, but we don't want to forget them has also been really valuable. And I was talking to one of our clients from the NHS recently and that's what she said, we've gone back to the archive to see you know, what do we have the the quick win ideas now to help us tackle the immediate challenges that we're facing, in this case as a health service, rather than potentially some of the kind of longer term projects that would have had impacts much further down the road and so that ability to you know, as you change your cadence or your strategic priorities, kind of go back to the things that you've done, there? isn't that easy if you don't have a tool like ours? Because Where do your ideas live? Otherwise, right, how do you go? How do you remember where they all work? So yes, so a lot a lot of interesting shifts in the business environment and I think they'll continue to, they'll continue to happen, I think there's a lot more, there's a lot more complexity to come, I actually think 2021 might be even more complicated than 2020 as a kind of spill out of this period of time, but we'll see.
Richard Medcalf
So what's been the most difficult decision that you've had to make in this period as a CEO?
Simon Hill
I mean, I think that so we've been going through a quite an interesting period as a business. We were as we as we came into it, we just started the process of acquiring business in the US right that that just happened a few days ago. And you know, pursuing that in this environment was still was particularly risky, right? You know, it's not often that a UK business goes and buys a US company anyway. So even even less appealing when the when you're when the pounds all over the sharing game worth less on the global stage anyway, so you know, making the decision to push on from my perspective, with risk on strategy there for something that we believe in the long term was, was a was a big challenge. It's not that we ever really thought not about doing it, but it certainly is a, it's a big risk on move for us as an organization. And, you know, you don't really know how things are going to play out for the next six, nine or 12 months. I think that was the, you know, as a software company, going hundred percent virtuals was easy, but the human, the human capital side of that shift is less easy. You know, we have a team of very varied experience, lots of people who, you know, we live in a city where real estate's extraordinarily expensive. Most people live in tiny little shoe boxes, they don't have the luxury of a home office and you know, plenty of space to be able to get stuff done. I think that that side of things and the isolation people choose to live in an expensive city because it's got social and it's got entertainments, other things you take that away and suddenly you've got a very expensive shoe box And no other real perks I think that the human side and the mental side of that after the initial kind of Oh, this is different and interesting tucked went away. It's been quite challenging, right and for a business that we work hard on our culture, but it was always kind of part of who we were and so certainly have to step back and think about what what does that mean, when you're, you're not all together, and it's not done through a mix of work hard, play hard, work hard, and trying to figure out is a is is difficult. You know, I think that's that's probably not unique to us. But it's certainly been something that we've had to adjust our ways of working and our ways of thinking about that, to try and try and make it work better. But it's very difficult.
Richard Medcalf
Yes., that is great. It's a great point that a lot of companies have even said to me, Well, yes, we know we had to work remotely in many ways. But it's not that's not the only thing that's been going on. It's been the fact that you're stuck at home, without any social life, perhaps with family, calling Well over the, you know, over the room, trying to share a space with people who perhaps weren't there before. So yes, there's a whole number of things where you say it changes the whole equation in people's minds.
Simon Hill
Exactly.
Richard Medcalf
What so how then? And you said, you've been through this, you know, kind of challenging times, you know, a couple of times in the economy. Do you have some kind of like mental playbook about like, how do you try to, you know, how do you think about this, you know, clearly, customers are gonna go through their own rocky times. There's a lot of visibility is drastically reduced. What kind of moves do you make in terms how do you lead the business differently in those times, we've definitely talked about hitting the accelerator and saying, well, let's actually double down but it will become some kind of guidelines guiding principles that you you've figured out over the years?
Simon Hill
I wish so the book's coming soon. No, I think I think there's a, I mean, there's a real gut feel about this right? I think that you have to place as a leader on, on the business that you exist in, you know, I was talking to someone, I was talking to an investor friend of mine as this thing kicked off and he was in the midst of trying to help an early stage company whose niche was over 65 with underlying health conditions. It was tourism, over 65 with underlying health conditions. I mean, that was the that was not the time to be going out to try and do this right so I you know, luckily I'm not which is a great idea but the timings horrendous, right, so the, you've got to take a judgment call on what kind of business that you have and also on how how to make sure you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater as you go forward with these things. You know, we've we've certainly been through the round of these things. I wouldn't say I've been in the middle of have something like this where we weren't very early stage, you know, the business is a very different beast. Now I have a baby, and I have the bathwater quite literally in my life, but the metaphor works as well means the risk quota is very, very different, right. And so if we get this wrong, there's a lot more that goes wrong in this particular time. And we don't necessarily have a big Titanic that needs to get turned, but certainly a lot more in the business that's harder to turn on or off quickly than there was when you were very, very small. And so that that piece of the puzzle is a lot more complicated. We're used to being very agile and able to, to turn corners quite quickly. You know, suddenly you get to 60 plus people and longer term commitments in different ways and that battleships just a little bit bigger and a little bit less agile than it was before. So I don't have that experience at this scale in this specific thing. I'm not sure that anybody should think that they do. Right. But I think that what we had to do very quickly was step back from this, we did adjust some of our numbers, right, we assumed that the churn would be would be higher this year than it's been. And I think that I wanted to get out and speak to the market and see what people were expecting. And the markets expecting that right people are not deluded. And so we can make forecasts that allow for a bit more of that, and unfortunately, we do have customers that have that have not been aboard will not come through this chapter, most likely. And so, you know, you've got to take a realistic perspective that the world is not the same world that you went into forecasting, you know, 100 plus percent growth and basically no attrition. It's just not it's just not realistic. You know, we continue to grow strongly and you know, do this acquisition, but we slowed down some of our other kind of headcount growth and other things, which so we weren't, we weren't 110% risk on any more, we were probably more like 50 or 60%. In our own context of what we have what we do, but mostly for me, sorry, mostly for me, it's about do I keep investing in the longer term strategy? Or do I double down on what we're doing today? Right. And that has been, I spent three months thinking about that and seeing what would happen to come out the end of it. Well, I think we continue to invest in the long run so great for us, because it's been a good quarter. But equally I could have gone the other way. Right. I think making those quick decisions was was most important.
Richard Medcalf
I mean, that's key. And you say, Where is it? How, how far ahead can I afford to think based on how, how is my current engine doing right, my current economic engine doing? And I think the other question you mentioned is if the risk profile and there's this, this question about how optimized are we as a business? Actually, it turns out that you don't have to optimize the business because things can break easier, right? When you're super optimal. Is there actually a way having a bit of redundancy in the business? whilst it can feel inefficient in one level, actually, in a situation of uncertainty can actually help? Right? It's like, you know, you know, on a domestic sense, you know, the minimalists, you know, who's got like nothing in their home, which is great when life is working. But when there's like, no food in the shops, they have a problem where the guy that's kind of like, got a basement full of pasta, or whatever it is, you're totally inefficient, in one sense, it can weather storms differently. So it's kind of interesting when this kind of uncertainty throws up.
Simon Hill
It is I think, you know, anyone that knows, you know, a high growth business that's come from this little idea to 60 odd people is very unlikely to have, you know, all of those things in place. I definitely don't have a basement full of food and any form of that metaphor, right? Like you're kind of you're basically firefighting in the near term. Anyway, even back to that long term planning, I think we probably got a good idea of what six months looks like probably 12. But in any real corporate setting, right, we're all working in a much narrower timeframe, in a much more agile way, what I spent the last six months doing, which predates COVID bore no resemblance to what I planned it to look like the six months before because an acquisition opportunity came along that seismically changed the business overnight. Right? And you're kind of that agile as an organization Anyway, when you're small, but I do think that kind of wartime peacetime CEO kind of discussion comes out a little bit more than and you kind of think about what kind of what kind of business are we in what kind of leader Am I in in this type of time? And what does my board behave like right as well because the board was very, very much kind of looking at us to to make those decisions and work really sure like which, which which way to carve, and I think that depending on your board, that can be very, very difficult conversation. We were quite lucky.
Richard Medcalf
And that question of leadership growth is super interesting how's it forced you to grow as a leader? I mean, what do you think that's, that's what's your story been over the last six months?
Simon Hill
I mean, I think we're just winging it, right. Like, I'd love to say it was more but I do think that you, you know your days get even follow and your, your minds busy with, you know, with ideas and strategic plans and, you know, trying to figure out whether you unpick what you've been working towards or not, plus dealing with the human side of everything that's going on. So I think my head is full of a lot of information. What I've been what I've been trying to do as a person is to kind of, you know, scale myself a little bit more and work more on the business rather than in the business, which has been tricky because we were missing a few kind of kind of key headcount positions in the business and so, you know, as always, you wear a lot of hats the CEO of a growth business I'm probably wearing too many at the moment. But working out how to get some of that off your plate to give yourself half a chance of having some time to think is a big mission. One, I'd say that I, you know, I've not done a great job of that for the last six months has been so busy, that it's been mostly reactive leadership and trying to you know, try to find the time rather than the positive. I'm not sure that's a massive negative either. I've obviously I'd love to step back from it and say can be difficult, but it's exactly what the business needed for me to do at that point in time. And it didn't it didn't need anything else.
Richard Medcalf
And when crisis hits, right, often you need to kind of jump in and do that, I think. But that question about scaling yourself and being the bottleneck. I just see that all the time. It's, I call it the leaders dilemma, because leaders get to where they are based on their ability to be amazing problem solvers, right, normally, and they can pretty much you can pretty much solve anything that's been on your plate. But the issue is that naturally means that you problems come to you and you become the kind of Chief problem solver. And so it's me the leaders that embrace do I solve the problem now and go fast? Or do I build the team and build momentum? Right? In that moment? So is this depart from it, you know, so the temptation is always there, let me just get it done. It would be fast if we solved the problem would be a good answer. And we can move forward but that does tend to kind of keep us prisoner right to that fact.
Simon Hill
I think it's a really good observation and it's certainly one that I deal with. The business has grown with you and around you. And so you haven't necessarily documented all of the things that you know and do right. So it's really hard to hand that thing over to somebody else in any in any kind of structured way because it's sort of it lives around you It lives inside you. The other bit is i think that you know, when you get to the size of the business where what 60ish people and the type of person that you need to hire is, is slightly different. I was reading, I was reading a comment from someone recently that says, when you look below 100 people, you kind of hire well rounded generalists to get the job done above 100 you hire someone who wants to hire 8 people around them to do the job that the person before would've done would have done. And you just got to accept that fact. Right. And I think that we are you that that happens is your approach sort of 70 to 100? Somewhere, I think in reality, right, and you don't, you can't afford all those extra people. So you're still looking for generalists, but finding people that have got the experience to lead a business and a team that size. When you're looking for designers, and developers and managers of those teams. It's a lot harder, right? Like you're not finding kind of grafting entrepreneurial, experienced leaders who are happy to get in and do all the dirty work, do all the hours and it's not that people are lazy. It's just it's different title career, I think they still exist for that much. Further between, and so you end up stepping back in to kind of keep that thing moving because you don't have a choice. That's it's a real, it's a challenging point.
Richard Medcalf
Yes, I think that's right. And I think as a kind of high energy founder, you know, you often come with that ability to like, roll up my sleeves, get stuff done, actually, the role starts to shift, because you need to become the person that's actually mobilizing a management structure, and actually just say, How do I multiply what's inside me, into them and into the broader culture, so that other people start to think in the way that I think this company needs to be thinking about things? And how do I bring the best out of them? And it's a very different skill set. Right. And I just say the most people are doing last year's job, and that includes founders and owners and CEOs and everything else, right. It's like the thing that we were doing last year that was really working for us last year. We think, well, that's the formula, right? I've got the success formula. And I'm always talking about what do we need to kind of upgrade that formula, and for the new challenges that are coming And that's often that's often where we're lacking, right? We kind of thinking that we're always one step in the past, often in terms not in terms of what we're working on, but the way that we're working on it.
Simon Hill
Exactly. And I think not leaving your business behind in some of that can be quite tricky as well, you know, when you're living one foot in the present, and one in the future as a, as that kind of CEO, you know, the balance between what you tell your teams now and what you don't because, you know, there's this kind of, there's variability in where the where the kind of future things might go, and they've got a busy day job already, like, do you need to layer them with the extra with the extra stuff is a is a real balance as well. No one wants to live inside my head for too long, that's for sure.
Richard Medcalf
Well, I hope it's been like driving performance and releasing commitment. There's kind of like a shift there, you know, and the driving one kind of gets exhausting at some point because, you know, the energy, the motivation, the commitment and all the ideas that within you, and then it's it's a shift but you're right. When you're in when you can try to navigate a ship through very immediate iceberg for whatever it is, whatever it is, yeah, sometimes you just need to grab the wheel right for for a bit of time. But then, it's how you come out of that, exactly,
Simon Hill
I think the most important thing for me is though, it's still you know, it's a high energy thing. It's challenging. And it's interrupts that's direct, interesting, rather, the intellectual challenge of a business of this size, I think works for some founders and doesn't work for others, right. For me, it's never been, it's never been more interesting in some ways, right? Like it's a different type of interest, but it's more interesting and so that personal growth that keeps coming with the with the kind of the business growth that sits around with you know, that constant niggle of fear and questioning and doubt in the back of your mind is is probably mostly healthy, right and keeps you going.
Richard Medcalf
Yes, absolutely. There's no growth in the comfort zone, right. You know, you want to be thinking and addressing and driving.
Simon Hill
Well, maybe maybe there is I'm my own worst enemy. Probably I just keep adding more in.
Richard Medcalf
Well, yes, that's um, I have a friend of mine who has a has a snail on his desk to remind him to slow down to speed up right that actually I like to say one of my phrases is, you know, you can't change gear when you've got your foot jammed on the accelerator.
Simon Hill
Exactly.
Richard Medcalf
And that's hard. That's hard because I love jumping on the accelerator. It's exciting, right? But then at some point, there's nothing else there.
Simon Hill
I think if you're used to real high pace, it's gonna be another kind of parting thought is you can think you're going slower, but in reality, you're still going 1000 miles an hour. And I kind of used the analogy of when I was learning to play golf. I kind of remember the instructor telling me to slow down my swing and like I don't go any slower and you watch it back on video and you're like Jesus, I was swinging a baseball bat, right and so, in your mind, you think you're going slow but in reality, you're still whipping that club around and going everywhere, all the time. And that ability to sort of step back and actually find a bit more slow, especially in this scenario, right? Like there is no, there is no slow right now. It's just 150 miles an hour non stop. Yes.
Richard Medcalf
Yes. Great. Well, hey, just a quick few quickfire questions as we wrap up. And what's your favorite book, or book that really inspired you?
Simon Hill
Good question and put me on the spot with one of those. I mean, I, I read a lot of, I mean, a lot of business books, but I'm a sports person. And so you know, for me, I find a lot of interest in the psychology of leading sports teams of a Manchester United fans are probably say something like that. Sir. Alex Ferguson book on leadership, for me is really interesting, right, as we rebuild a team for the second or third time as part of growth. You know, I've sort of revisited that book and thought, Well, how did someone like that in the sports environment, do that and keep as high performing teams going over and over again. So I've got loads, but it's a personal favorite. It crosses the lines between business and pleasure as well.
Richard Medcalf
Which is great. What about what about a productivity tip? You know, you're talking about running it hundred 50 miles an hour. So what's one thing that you do that you think is a thief secret of success right in terms of getting things done?
Simon Hill
So I like an inherently unstructured person. I think accepting that is one of the one of the most important things actually during COVID I decided to get myself a remote a virtual PA, I think it might be the best decision I've ever made. So like someone behind the scenes that takes a sweeps up all the understructure and turns it into structure and helps me to really balance my time and just get the things done that I was never you know, I used to do them at 10 o'clock at night, on on all weekends. It's not I still don't end up working those hours but spending it doing different things now, so I'd say that that was one right. There's a there's some really good structures out there. I mean, you don't need you know, you don't need to go find that person or anything. It's a full time role. Having someone behind me to help keep me a bit sane and managed has been really good. And obviously, you know, having a great solution for where to kind of manage your ideas is always, always right up there as well.
Richard Medcalf
And what about what about an inspiring leader or heroic figure, you know, that kind of excites you or inspires you in some dimension?
Simon Hill
Um, so I look the business that I admire a lot, right? And I'm not I'm not big upon idols or anything like that, but I really like the, the business that Benioff built on Salesforce. I'm not saying that I don't know the guy, I don't know anything. But I like the, the way that they took that thing and that they built a sector. It kind of existed before but they really redefined it and they've, they've really defined the way the businesses is done in a very different way than many other people do. And I'd say that in The way that we're trying to grow our business is very much along the lines of how how Salesforce built itself from from built its market around it from that from the ground up. So you're probably probably that would be one good example.
Richard Medcalf
Yes great night nice one and what about, last one favorite quote or motto? Do you have a kind of a phrase that you Bandy around
Simon Hill
There's a quote that sits on the foot of one of my clients emails that I like quite a lot which is that mines are like parachutes and you know, they only work best when they're open and so the I quite like that one. I think there's there's a few there's a few that you know, we kind of live around inspirational quotes because we're in the innovation world and a lot of them are a bit cliche, but I quite like that when it pops up on my email this you know, again, I'm not mega up on these things, really, but I quite like that one that pops up when it pops up when I see the clients close email come through.
Richard Medcalf
Yes, I think the other one I like around just on that one about open minds is somebody said, yes. And there's no point having an open mind unless you close it again on something, which I thought was quite interesting twist on it right? Because there is that phase right? And in the innovation cycle is a phase of like being open, right? And like gathering all the possibilities, exactly if that kind of focusing and implementation and Okay, this is where we're going and let's move forward on it.
Simon Hill
The other side of that is a quote that sits on what a lot of our sales tax partly of the way that we work right now we try and get businesses to do exactly that focus on the problems that you're trying to solve. And then ideate and innovate around those rather than just doing it blanket which is how to do and so the kind of Albert Einstein quote, which is you gave me an hour to solve a problem. I'd spend 55 minutes working on the problem and five minutes solving or however it goes, right. yes, basically the sentiment being exactly that right. Let's spend as much time as we kind of thinking about that problem. And then the answers are quite easy.
Richard Medcalf
Exactly. Yes, defining the problem is often the hardest thing, right? And exactly. Once you define it, then actually the answers that you said probably come quite naturally, once you've actually figured out what the actual issue is, Hey, this is really it's been really great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Where can people find out more about you or about? Wazoku was like, I never say it right. Wazoku
Simon Hill
It doesn't matter Wazoku. You know what you can trust everything. You search something that sounds like five years ago. So yes, I mean, you can find me in all the usual places, and I've never, never short a soapbox moment on LinkedIn. So feel free to connect with me on there. And obviously, the corporate website Wazoku.com is a place that people can dig into business. We just acquired a company called innocentive.com people interested in innovation challenges should go there and you can sign up and, you know, there's opportunities to, to get paid for your great ideas through that domain as well. We've awarded up to a million dollars to people brilliant ideas through that particular platform. So go check it out. And thanks, Richard for a good conversation.
Richard Medcalf
No thanks Simon, I think what you're doing is fantastic. And, you know, innovation, right? It's especially for companies in you know, in Europe in the US, I mean, not gonna always have the lowest cost base possible based on pure, you know, hours or whatever it is right there in contributing, but innovation is where value is created. So anyone who's helping structure the world's ideas and and bubble up, the things are going to make the impact for the next month for years ahead is always exciting and motivating. So thank you for opening the door bid on that today.
Simon Hill
My pleasure. And
Richard Medcalf
Thanks Simon, bye.
Richard Medcalf
I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Now let's turn to you. If you're a top performer, who's already accomplished great things, and yet knows that there's a whole new level of impact and potential open to you, why don't we get on the phone and strategise on how to get you there. Head over to xquadrant.com/speak to find out more. Until next time, be bold and be purposeful.