Latest / Chief Officer / Andy Doyle, Chief Officer at Kantar: Think Like a Member of the Board

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Andy Doyle, Chief Officer at Kantar: Think Like a Member of the Board · Chief Officer

• 0:00
  Hi, Andy. How are you? It's such an honor to have you here today with us
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  on Chief Officer. Thank you, Tiffany. And how are you? I'm doing very
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  well. I'm really delighted to have you and to be able to share with our
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  listeners today more about your incredible inspiring journey and your
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  amazing leadership here at Kantar. And excited for you to be able to
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  share with us your--
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  a very beautiful journey, but especially your role now today as Chief
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  Officer and how you got there. Thank you. Looking forward to it.
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  Wonderful. Well, will you tell us, will you tell me where you grew up
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  first and your journey leading up to today? And then we'll dive into the
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  Chief Officer role. Sure. I live in London today and I was born in
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  London. So I've been a Londoner for much of my life in the UK.
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  Wonderful. And what about school and workplaces thereafter? Where did
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  you go? Yeah, I mean, I went to school, I went to university in
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  Loughborough, which is a major sports university. I have to say I was
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  probably the least sporty person at the university time, but it's also a
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  great university of technology. And I suppose that's where I discovered
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  some of my early excitement and not just
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  in economics, which I did my studies in, but in technology there as
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  well, because it was Loughborough University of Technology at the time.
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  Amazing. So that was in the Midlands in the UK, and I've been fortunate
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  enough to work mainly in the UK. I lived in America, I spent a lot of
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  time working in America, as well as often having, being in different
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  cultures gives you a different perspective. In the couple of years I
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  spent in Texas,
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  Certainly did that. Yes, yes. Where in Texas? I'm
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  from Plano, Texas. Yes, yes, Plano is next to
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  Addison or nearby. That's wonderful. And so then we
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  moved back to London. That's right. And I've been in
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  London ever since doing a series of international
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  jobs.
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  Mainly working for companies that got kind of based in the headquarters
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  in the UK, but have got big presences or big presence in the US and
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  other markets around the world. - And then when was your first chief
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  office role? What I recall, it was quite a while back you had your first
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  chief officer role. - Yeah, I had a baby one to start with. - Yeah,
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  let's talk about that one.
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  in the dot com boom 2001 when I became chief people officer of the
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  European HR director as it was and the senior HR person in an
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  online business. The HR team was about 10 strong so it was quite
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  small, small business but I suppose that that did give me a taste
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  of what it was like to have the top job and dealing with the
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  board more.
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  and dealing with investors and regulatory coverage and so on. But
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  it was in a very small business and unfortunately that business
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  failed. I moved back into a more corporate role and then I
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  became- Although can I ask you for on that experience
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  particularly, how did you get that chief officer role even with
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  10 strong?
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  listeners out there that perhaps are just in that position just below
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  the chief officer role and would still want to get there. So I always
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  think it's really interesting to ask even about that baby role that you
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  caught it. Did you come in as a chief officer and get recruited to be
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  that or did you rise up within it? No, I got recruited for that one. I
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  think actually no smaller businesses often you'll find there's a pretty
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  big gap between
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  the caliber of the team, the experience of the team, and quite often
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  it's difficult for someone to step up in those teams because the gap
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  between the person who's leading it and the person who might be in that
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  team is quite big. So you do tend to find more, I think, in the smaller
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  businesses, it's not uncommon for people to get recruited externally
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  because you might be needing the experience of it's a bit different.
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  I was lucky I was in the right place at the right time. I
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  took a risk. I left kind of a big corporate role to join a
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  much more start-up, embryonic, newly listed business. It's
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  a bit similar to joining an AI startup today back in 2000,
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  late 2000, 2001 was the dot-com boom in the UK and Europe.
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  and the US and really online retail was just at its beginning stages.
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  Believe it or not dial-up speeds were 56k. We've tried to do
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  e-commerce in that environment. So it was very different. I did that
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  for a couple of years, learnt a lot. I like the things I say to
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  people is do take some risks.
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  You know, I took a risk. It didn't work out in many respects. The
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  company failed ultimately. But from a personal point of view, the
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  learnings I had in that job of dealing with the board, being a director
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  of a company that was in trouble, really focusing on cash generation
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  because you run out of cash first, those were lessons which I hadn't
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  really experienced before. And it was like very stressful at one level.
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  But looking back,
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  Very rewarding. Absolutely and probably invaluable. And for then
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  you to secure your next chief officer role. And which one was that
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  one? So I then went back into kind of the number two role, kind of
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  big divisional HR role after that running a much bigger HR team.
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  And then a few years later, I moved to ITV, which is a big public
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  broadcaster.
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  producer of a content, TV content in the UK. And I went in as the
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  number two there to someone who was kind of thinking about what she
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  just gone part time, my boss. She wanted someone to take a bit of a
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  load of running the function. And about 18 months after she left as
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  part of a planned succession, I took over the top job. - Had you
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  known each other?
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  No, we met through the recruitment process. And initially, it
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  was kind of an interim arrangement. She was leaving. She was
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  going to work in a different environment. She was going plural
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  at that point. And she wanted to step away from being a
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  day-to-day executive. And they kind of-- [AUDIO OUT]
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  asked me to do it for six months to manage that transition and see
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  what happened and it worked out okay. Amazing. And so when you got
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  that call to be the interim officer, how did it feel? Did you feel
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  like this was going to be a stressful time period ahead or exciting
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  time period ahead? How did you feel initially? Were you
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  Well, I think there's two bits. One is, you know, I'd been working in
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  the company for 18 months as the HR Operations Director. You took over
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  the number one job. I was taking over the number one job from someone
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  that had worked there for 25 years. You knew all the management team who
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  was a real force and a really credible leader. So you kind of first of
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  all, you kind of go, well, I've got some very big shoes to fill here.
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  And as I thought about that role, I kind of decided that one
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  thing that was very obvious to me was I couldn't be her. I had to
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  be me and I couldn't try and pretend to be her. 'Cause she knew
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  everybody, she'd grown up, she'd been on the same graduate intake
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  as some of the other members on the exec team.
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  she was a force of nature, she was an inspiring woman to work for.
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  Oh, not that. And so I learnt a lot from her, but the difference
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  was I was not her. And for many of the executive team, they'd only
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  ever known her as the chief people officer of the
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  organisation. So I did, one decision I made was not to try and be
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  her and kind of draw...
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  to do things my way. But the second thing I did was, even though it was
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  kind of for six months, is I said, I can't pretend I don't want this job
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  and I have to act like I'm going to have this job and I'm going to
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  succeed and not wait until the end and see what happens. I'm going to go
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  into it because the reality is, if at the end of that six months I
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  hadn't got the job, you probably would have ended up leaving.
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  because it's quite difficult to be ambitious at that point and want to
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  do a big public company job and then get there and then kind of six
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  months afterwards so it's not you. So I think you have to go into that
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  situation as though, well what am I going to do if I am the leader and
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  behave that way and not really worry about the interim piece of it but
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  focus more on what you can do.
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  Oh, wow. I wish I'd had your advice this morning. Literally, I
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  was on the phone with a woman, a friend who's the interim chief
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  officer right now, two people officer for a major fortune 50
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  company. And she's at month five of her interim role as interim
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  chief officer. And I think that's brilliant advice that
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  I got a really big back to her from you to just act like you have the
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  role and better to feel like you're going to get a role and you know not
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  worry that you won't and then you know you're in a better place when you
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  do. Well and even then if you don't get the role your mindset is a
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  different mindset when you go back into the job market or you go back to
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  what you're going to do next because you're
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  The difference between being a big divisional HR leader or a big
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  divisional leader and then the top job is everyone kind of everyone I've
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  ever talked to that's done that transition goes it's a very different
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  job than the job you think it's going to be. You often wonder when
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  you're the divisional leader looking up at your boss. Well, what do
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  they.
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  you know, what do they spend their time doing? And then when you are in
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  that role, you go, well, I can't tell you what I spend my time doing
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  because most of what I spend my time doing is highly confidential. I
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  can't talk about it. So it's a very interesting transition for people.
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  So if you've done it for a period of time, away from it, you've always
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  got that. And I think that gives you something that's more credible when
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  you then start looking for your next role.
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  - Absolutely, I love that advice. And so what was it like when you got
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  that phone call that six months in they selected you? - Yeah, you know,
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  it's often anti-climax because the phone call isn't a big moment when
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  you get recruited. When you get recruited, someone phones you, they get
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  on the phone and they say they want to offer you the job, you're feeling
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  the love.
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  because they still want you to join. When you're in an organisation and
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  you get the next job or promotion, it doesn't always feel quite the same
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  level of love that you get when you're being recruited. It's like, well,
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  we've decided it's you. And I seem to recall that moment, I think. I
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  went home that night and I talked to my partner and I said, the good
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  news.
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  is I've got the job. It was one of those strangely anti climatic
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  moments. The work really begins after that because, you know,
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  very often you set yourself and I had done during that six
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  months, I'd set out an agenda for change about what we needed to
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  do. It was in the midst of the economic financial crisis just
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  past, you know,
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  going back to the mid 2000s. And we're dealing with the fallout of the
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  failure in the banking system and so on. And it was a tough economic
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  environment to become a chief people officer. And one of the things we
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  had to do was downsize the HR function by 40% in that time. So it's a
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  tough message that you're at one level, you're very excited about this
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  for you personally.
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  But you're all facing into a very big organizational restructure based
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  on that kind of crisis moment and indeed in your own function as a
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  leader of a function with the people that you lead having to deal with
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  some really difficult stuff straight away. Yeah, wow. Absolutely. So
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  that was what was
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  what it was like for your first month, the first week, it sounds like it
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  was challenging. And now you're facing kind of an interesting time
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  again, because you just got elevated yet again, in this very interesting
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  time that we're in, in the age of AI. So now chief people and AI
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  officer. - Yeah, chief people and agent officer. So I look after- -
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  Agent, yeah.
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  Exactly. So I think we, you know, AI has many uses across our
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  organization and has got lots of different owners in different parts of
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  it. But we fundamentally believe the workforce of the future will be a
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  mixture of people and agents and how they come together. And it's not a
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  tech challenge. It's a people challenge about how do you create
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  organizations that have got people with leadership and accountability in
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  a new way of working. And that's the stuff we're trying to work out.
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  I love that. And so what is now in this current role, the proudest
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  accomplishment you've experienced? Looking back on your journey
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  actually as well, all throughout your life, your journey, your career,
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  what has been your proudest accomplishment? I think if you look back,
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  the thing you're always proud of is giving people a chance and seeing
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  people blossom.
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  And I can talk all about the big strategic things, but I look at the
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  micro things, the people I've worked with are in bigger jobs, the people
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  that I've supported to take a chance and be made from non-traditional
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  careers, bringing them into HR.
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  Seeing people promoted in HR, having a network of people that you've
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  worked with over years. One advantage towards being at the end of your
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  career is you've got so many miles on the clock, so you've had more
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  years to meet people. You know, I now have people in my team that my
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  children are older than.
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  which is a scary moment. And I think that's just a really interesting
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  part of the working environment that says, if I look back, it's the
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  people, people always surprise me how capable they really are. And you
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  should think the right conditions for people to thrive. And if you're
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  given the right conditions, people generally thrive. And I'm really
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  proud of that.
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  Yeah, amazing. And what are your insights on now, the new world, this
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  new age of AI and the future of work? Yeah, look, I think it's moving
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  fast. And I don't think any of us know what right answers, but listen,
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  we're all trying to learn and grow and experiment about this. And
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  actually that curiosity and that mindset is probably the most helpful
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  thing you can do at the moment. What I do know is many of the things
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  that we look back on
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  as statements of truth may not be the models and the ways of working
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  that you'll need to use over the next five to 10 years, even the next
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  one to two years, things are changing the way we think about change, the
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  way we think about work, the way we think about processes are all
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  changing and evolving. And that change is going to be uneven, it's going
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  to be bumpy, and it's not going to be
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  distributed in a way that's always comfortable. And as humans, no matter
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  even how much change and transformation you like, we always like to have
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  control. And sometimes this can feel like you're losing agency and
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  control. And therefore, what agency can you bring to this and what
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  control can you exert to enable you to make the best choices and the
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  best decisions for yourself, for your company, for your family, whatever
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  that might be.
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  and for society. I think those are some really interesting choices. And
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  I think that's the bit that we're all navigating. I don't think there
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  has ever been a better time to work in HR than we face right now,
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  because all the things we have said as a profession about we want to try
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  and change the way we work, we want to try and move the administrative
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  work away and become more strategic.
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  These are all enabled by AI in a fundamentally different way than
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  anything else we've had before. Yeah, absolutely. And what I find
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  exciting is that the heads of HR across these organizations that we're
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  looking to service at Mogul and support are all being tasked with
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  overseeing AI.
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  deployment or training and whatever it may mean for them inside their
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  organization and the structure and their culture. But it's the head of
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  HR that's quite often overseeing it. Sometimes more often than not
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  informally, but for you formally, which I really appreciate of your CEO
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  and you pairing up to have you formally oversee that aspect. And I think
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  that's wonderful.
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  Is there an aspect that your team is working on that you're most excited
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  about right now? - Yeah, I mean, look, we come to this, you can make the
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  technology work. The technology is not the issue here. It's the adoption
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  and giving people the curiosity and the willingness to fail. And the one
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  thing I'd say that I'm really proud of is the experimentation we've
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  created inside the organization that lets people fail. And I know we
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  always, like no one wants to.
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  fail. We don't like particularly in professional service firms. We've
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  grown up to be trying to get things right, to practice, but what you're
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  seeing with the rise of agents and how you use agents is you've got to
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  experiment and you've got to try and you've got to practice and you can
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  theorize as much as you like but put your hands on the keyboard start
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  building one, get it to do the process that you want and it probably
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  won't work.
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  but it might do some of it and then try again and try again and try
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  again. And those kinds of constant iterations and you can iterate an
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  agent 50, 100 times in a day will help you build something that's more
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  useful. And getting that done at scale, it'd be something I'm super
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  proud of. We've now got about 12,000 people at Kantar. We've got about
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  17,000 agents.
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  Most of those agents are pretty simple, but they're all built by our
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  colleagues. Most of the agents that build things are by all our
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  individuals. We've got over 90% of our colleagues use AI every day. When
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  they say everyone's built, most people have built one and a half agents.
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  Some people built loads, some people have built none. But the thing I'm
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  proud of is that creating that environment where we've got lots and lots
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  of agents that are trying to help people.
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  take some of the work, take some of the kind of pressure out of their
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  job, take some of the kind of drudgery away from them, make life a
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  little bit easier for them, let them do a higher value work, those
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  things. One of the things I'm most proud about is that excitement that
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  we've created to enable that to happen.
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  Exactly. That's how I feel too. From our conversations, I always take
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  that away that you're one of the leaders that really has enabled
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  experimentation and excitement, enthusiasm, and transparency on this
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  effort internally. So I feel like it creates such a kind and generous
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  culture with regards to this effort. And I really appreciate that and
• 18:56
  commend you on that. And so what's--
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  Now what's some piece of advice that you'd give to a leader who
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  wished to be more like you to become the chief officer many times
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  over now as you have been and who's perhaps just one seat below? I
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  think the advice I'd give people is think like a member of the board
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  because if you think about if you're on the board
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  whether you're an executive or a non-executive on the board, you are
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  thinking about the value creation narrative of your organization. And
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  you kind of come at things through that lens about value and risk. And
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  actually, as HR people, we don't often spend a lot of time talking about
• 19:37
  value and risk as overtly as people in the finance community or other
• 19:41
  operational disciplines. And I think that's one of the things that
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  you've got to think about.
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  is the proposal, is the idea, the thing you want to do aligned with the
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  strategy linked to value creation and what are the risks associated with
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  that. And if you think about that and one great and simple way of doing
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  that is just ask your ChatGPT, your Claude, your Copilot, whatever
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  system you prefer to use, ask it to help you. Ask it to help you think
• 20:06
  like a board director. Think about what your presentation should
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  include.
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  think about how board directors operate from a value creation point of
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  view of risk mitigation point of view ask those questions and use that
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  information to help you think about as you are interacting with the
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  board as you're interacting with. I'm kind of executive team members
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  that might give you some different ideas about how you think about you
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  come over.
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  how you sell your ideas, how you create excitement about the concepts
• 20:36
  that you want to bring to the job. Love that. So, up-leveling your
• 20:40
  strategic thinking, your way of communicating to stakeholders,
• 20:44
  especially board members.
• 20:45
  Well, thank you so much, Andy. Such an honor to have you again and to be
• 20:49
  able to learn from you and to share your learnings and advice and
• 20:53
  inspiring story and leadership with our listeners today. It's been a
• 20:57
  pleasure and true honor as always to talk to you. Thanks, Tiffany. Thank
• 21:01
  you, Andy.