Up next in 10
Since Trustpilot was founded in 2007 by Peter Holten Mühlmann, the company has set about becoming a household name and, for many, a go-to destination to find out more about what others think of particular companies and experiences.
Now, Trustpilot's CEO has insisted that the reviews site "isn't perfect" but wants to be "the universal symbol of trust".
Speaking to City AM's UK editor, Jon Robinson, on the latest episode of City AM's Boardroom Uncovered, Adrian Blair defended the FTSE 250 business when asked whether Trustpilot could actually be trusted itself.
Watch or listen to more Boardroom Uncovered episodes here 👇
https://linktr.ee/boardroomuncovered
TIMESTAMP:
00:00 Coming up
00:53 Intro
02:12 Unfiltered reviews on Trustpilot
03:00 Adrian's experience with leaving a review
04:05 Adrian's time at Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg
05:35 Unique journey from Nepal to Google
07:38 Growing up in Lesotho
09:15 Taking over as CEO from the founder
13:00 Quick fire questions18:53 Can Trustpilot really be trusted?
21:10 How long does it take to remove fake reviews?
25:07 Trustpilot's status as a publicly listed company
27:54 What can the government do to help businesses
28:23 What should Rachel Reeves announce on her next budget?
31:57 What does it take to be a good CEO?
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Produced by: Jon Robinson, Joseph Curay Teneda, Emmanuel Nwosu
#interview #podcast #business #ceo #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #tech #technology #finance #personalfinance #review #trust #trustpilot
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0:00
Can Trust Pilot really be trusted? People are pretty unfiltered in what
0:05
they write. It's one of the things that people like about Trust Pilot. There are businesses who read it and go, "That's
0:10
really unfair." And you know, I'm in that position. I read our own Trust Pilot reviews and I often think, "Come on, that's not fair at all." But that's
0:16
the beauty of the product. That's why people trust it. So, it's one of the poorest countries um in Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world. And
0:24
we lived there until I was 11 years old. When we came back to England in 1986,
0:30
um I felt like something of an immigrant stepping into the UK cuz obviously it's a very very different place from the
0:36
Sutus. Can Trust Pilot really be trusted? There's a lot of talk about
0:42
fake reviews. You've mentioned it before. Also, you know, AI bots, maybe people using ChatGBT
0:49
to write a review, posting it themselves. It's fake, but it's difficult to pick up. Hello and welcome
0:54
to another edition of City AM's Boardroom Uncovered with me, John Robinson. My guest for this episode is
1:00
Adrien Blair, the CEO of Trust Pilot. Having previously worked at Google Just
1:06
Eat and Spotify, Blair took over from Trust Pilot's founder as CEO in 2023.
1:12
So, how is Blair helping the Footsie 250 company tackle AI generated fake reviews? And can he answer the question,
1:19
can Trust Pilot really be trusted? Without any further delay, let's dive in. Adrian, thank you so much for coming
1:25
on board Uncovered. It's great to have you. Great to be here. I've got to start with a confession. Tell me,
1:31
I've used Trust Pilots. I've never written a review. There's still time.
1:38
It's a bit bad of me, isn't it? What company would you like to write a review of? Uh, can I write a review of Trust Pilot?
1:44
Totally. Totally. Yeah, we have a profile. Our our rating is 4.2, so could
1:49
be better, but be honest. Tell us what you think. Has that gone up or down during your tenure? It's pretty flat actually so far, but um
1:56
but I'm hopeful we can get it up. I mean, if you think about what we do, so we're the world's largest independent
2:03
customer feedback platform. That means that we've got feedback from
2:08
over a million businesses coming in all the time. And people are pretty unfiltered in what they write. It's one
2:14
of the things that people like about Trust Pilot. But if you just think about that for a moment, that means that
2:19
there's quite a lot of people at any given time who are not happy with what's being written on Trustpilot. You know,
2:24
there are businesses who'll read it and go, that's really unfair. And you know, I'm in that position. I read our own Trust Pilot reviews and I often think,
2:31
come on, that's not fair at all. But that's the beauty of the product. That's why people trust it. Um and yes, so we
2:37
sort of put ourselves in that quite vulnerable position where where um we're authoritative, we're trusted, but at the
2:44
same time because it's an open platform, because people are very unfiltered in their feedback, there's at any given
2:50
time there's a lot of people who are very happy and there are some people who are not so happy. Do you use Trust Pilot?
2:55
I do. I do. When when was the last time you wrote a review? Oh, that's a good question. So, I wrote
3:01
one recently of um we were at Blenhin Palace as a family just yeah visiting
3:08
and we went to the playground and we'd already paid a lot of money to get in.
3:13
Yeah. And then we had to pay again to get into the playground really. And I thought that's a bit harsh. Come
3:18
on. That's a lot. So, uh so I I went on to it's one of the beauties of Trust Pilot is you can go on
3:24
and create a profile of a company if if one doesn't already exist as a consumer. So the company doesn't have to have you
3:30
know invited you you can just go and do that and so I left that feedback for blended pass now very nicely I think
3:36
they replied to my review and you know they they gave their side of the story and that's what I think is really nice
3:42
like when when businesses take the trouble to listen like people realize like no companies are perfect but when
3:48
when the business actually takes the trouble to listen and say something back about their
3:54
perspective that's how companies build trust by do by doing that in a in in a nice sort of open, unfiltered kind of
4:00
way. Okay. I want to take you back in time, Adrian, if I may. Um, during the course
4:06
of researching the show, I'm worried now. I saw that you taught at Harvard,
4:12
correct, for a year, 2003 to 2004. And it struck me that Mark Zuckerberg was there at the same time.
4:18
Indeed. He he uh Yeah. This is where you tell me that you're secretly an investor in Facebook.
4:24
Yeah. So, it is it is kind of ironic. So I was at Harvard Business School doing an MBA from 2002 to 2004. That is
4:33
exactly the time that Mark Zuckerberg was down the road at the uh faculty of arts and sciences as an undergrad
4:40
starting to start Facebook. And you know we actually had something at Harvard called the Facebook which was each bit
4:45
of Harvard had its own like directory of everyone's profiles. And Zuckerberg was down the road figuring out how to stitch
4:51
all those together and make it something way better than what you got out of the box. And it I always find it ironic
4:57
that, you know, we were sitting there in the business school thinking about how to run businesses and, you know, do all of those things. Meanwhile, there's this
5:04
kid down the road who's like actually doing it, you know, in a in an amazing way. But the I didn't teach Mark, but I
5:12
did have a class of undergrads and the course that I taught EC10 was one of the mandatory courses. So, it's a course
5:18
that Zuckerberg would have taken. One of my colleagues would have been teaching him, but it wasn't me. Well, there's a sliding door moment
5:24
there, isn't it? Indeed. Indeed. You you could have been walking past the streets past him on the street or waiting in line for a coffee.
5:30
Well, Cambridge is not a big place so it almost certainly happened. Yeah, definitely. Let's say so after that you went to Nepal,
5:37
correct? Yeah. So, I went to Nepal actually twice. Um, uh, a lot of people in their internships at business school
5:44
want to go and work for banks and consulting firms and all that. I had always worked in tech. I knew that I
5:50
wanted to work in tech afterwards. I actually kind of knew that I wanted to work for Google afterwards and so I
5:55
wanted to do something a bit different. Um, I grew up in Africa as a as a kid. Um, and we'd actually done a case study
6:02
at business school on a nonprofit based in Nepal called Population Services
6:07
International. And I was really inspired by their work. So I went for my summer internship first time round. I went off
6:14
to work for them and enjoyed it so much. And they liked some of the work that I'd done. I went right back there after
6:21
business school and I was actually interviewing for Google from Catmandeue on a very dodgy phone line trying to get
6:28
a proper job in in California which ultimately I did. How did that interview go then? Shout very loudly down the phone to make sure
6:34
that they hear you. I think it says something about Google as a company that they liked the fact
6:40
that I was out there doing something I believed in. Um, you know, no doubt they were interviewing a lot of people and I think
6:45
that helped to maybe make me a bit different. the fact that I'd worked in tech but now I really believed in
6:51
something and I'd gone to Nepal and I was so the first thing I did was I said look I'm really sorry but there's going
6:56
to be a big delay on the line so you'll have to wait a few seconds after I say something and then I'll have to do the
7:02
same for you so this might be a bit of a stilted conversation but I've got an excuse and and here's what it is so yeah
7:08
you could have elongated the pauses I suppose to give yourself a few seconds extra to think about the answers that that's kind of what was happening
7:14
there was no delay at all actually there was no AI at the time so I couldn't I couldn't looking it up on Gemini or
7:19
whatever. But that was quite a jarring thing like going from a nonprofit in Catmandeue and I went straight from
7:25
there to the Google Plex in Mountain View and started working there and that was quite a jarring transition as you
7:32
can imagine. I bet it was. Yeah. I'm going to jump around the timeline now because you mentioned that you grew up in Africa.
7:38
Yeah. Tell me about that. Whereabouts in Africa and what what were you doing? So have you ever heard of Lutu? I've not. Ah
7:43
well you have now. So, Lutu is a um uh there are only two countries in the world that are completely surrounded by
7:51
just one other country with no coastline. Lutu is one of them. Um do you know what the other one is?
7:57
If you counted Vatican City, that is the other one. Yes, you nailed it.
8:02
You nailed it. Well done. Yeah. So, it's about the size of Wales. And if you look on a map, it's the thing
8:07
that's a different color right in the middle of South Africa. Okay. So, it's one of the poorest countries um in
8:13
Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world. My dad was working out there training teachers and we lived there
8:19
until I was 11 years old. Um so, actually when we came back to England in 1986,
8:25
um I felt like something of an immigrant stepping into the UK because obviously it's a very very different place from
8:32
the Sutu. So, I guess shades of going from Catmandeue to Mountain View but at a younger age. Yeah,
8:38
it must have been quite a unique experience I suppose coming back to the UK having had that childhood and
8:44
you know those formative years are obviously so so important. Totally. Well, it was the UK that seemed
8:49
abnormal to me, right? Because all I could remember really was was lutu and how things were there. So coming into
8:56
this place was like, oh, it's a bit weird. Everything's a bit different. Yeah. So then you went to Google. Um we're
9:03
jumping back now forward in time. You went to Google. You've obviously you you worked at Just Eats, Spotify. You've had
9:10
Yeah. You bounced around a few companies. Um obviously all all in tech
9:15
before taking on your current role at Trust Pilots. Um taking over from the founder.
9:21
That's right. Peter Peter Morman. Yeah. He's a a great friend of mine. Big shoes to fill. Yeah. Must in I imagine a little bit daunting.
9:30
I don't know if daunting is the right word, but it it's certainly a challenge when you come into a company that's so
9:35
used to being run by one person that's only ever been run by one person. You know, it's a bit like stepping into
9:42
someone else's family as the head of the family um when you know you haven't met
9:47
anyone before and and it's it's all a bit different. Now, I think what you've got to do and this was the second time
9:52
that I'd replaced a founder in my career. I think what you've got to do in in a situation like that is first of all
9:59
deeply understand and get to know the founder themselves. Um and Peter is a wonderful person and couldn't have been
10:06
more welcoming, more supportive of me and more helpful, you know, behind the scenes in, you know, giving me advice,
10:12
giving me his perspective on stuff. And I've really become close friends with Peter over the last couple of years. So
10:18
Peter himself has been amazing about it. But I think what you got to do is come in with a real humility in those
10:24
situations. So, you know, you can't walk in saying, "Right, here's how we did things at Just Eie or here's how we did
10:30
things at Google or whatever." You've just got to really understand the situation you're in, understand the
10:35
people, the culture, not start rushing into decisions, but just come in with that humility. And one of the first
10:41
things I did was I ran listening sessions with every trustee, as we call
10:46
them, every employee around the company, around the world. And I spent several months doing sessions of you know 15 to
10:53
20 people and that was really just about listening to them and listening to their perspectives. What I felt that did was
10:59
it helped me to build trust with them. It gave them a sense of who I was but it also gave me a very rich sense of the
11:06
issues that were coming up around the company and it meant that it was a it was the best possible induction I guess
11:12
into the challenges facing the business and the opportunities. And it meant that when I started to say things about
11:18
strategy and direction, I felt like I was doing it having really taken the trouble to understand the situation. It
11:25
takes a lot of patience, a lot of humility to do that, but I I felt that was very important.
11:30
I suppose I might be a typical cynical journalist. You you're welcome to be uh which is a bit of my nature, but
11:36
whenever I hear something like that, it sounds good in theory. Each company has their own culture, right? I always
11:43
question how much the employees would actually bring up the genuine negative aspect of their jobs and or the company.
11:50
They're talking to the top boss, right? I mean, you know, they don't want to annoy you too much, especially when making probably a first impression.
11:56
Yeah. Tell you your baby's ugly or whatever. Yeah. Exactly. So, what I'm what what I was really heartened by actually is I've actually
12:02
done this twice now. I I did it so I've been in the business nearly two years now. I did it um just a few months ago
12:09
again going around most of the business not quite 100% but doing listening sessions in groups with you know many
12:16
many people and what I was really pleased about was that second time round people were if anything even more honest
12:23
and candid with me than they'd been first time round and I was actually really heartened by that because in any
12:30
great company you need absolute cander and transparency. people need to be
12:36
honest with each other, have the right conversation, the genuine conversation. If there's a hidden agenda, you know,
12:41
unhide it somehow and and get it out on the table. And I felt that um second time round, I mean, first time around,
12:47
people were doing that to some extent. Second time round to an even greater extent. Um and I think that's that's
12:53
testament to the kind of culture we got at Trust Pilot where we really believe in transparency and and cander.
12:59
Okay. Well, Adrian, it's time for some quickfire questions. Are you ready? All right. I'll I'll do my best.
13:05
Okay, [Music]
13:11
first one. What was your first job? I I'm actually going to have to say two things because they were at the same time. So, neither of them quite came
13:17
first. But I grew up in um uh after the suit, we moved to Nottingham and as soon
13:23
as I left school, as soon as I was old enough to get a job, I had no money at all. Um, I went to work in a shoe shop
13:28
called Round Pounds um on Clifton Estate in uh in Notting, which is one of the
13:34
bigger council estates in the UK. And I worked at the same time in a bar. Um,
13:40
and the bar stayed open till 3:00 a.m. The shop opened at 9:00 a.m. And I was
13:45
working the longest hours I've ever worked. Literally only six hours in between one job ending and the next one
13:51
beginning because I just wanted to earn what I could. My salary was £219 an hour
13:57
um in the shoe shop. This is pre-minimum wage and all that kind of No workplace pension. No workplace pension. Yeah. But I just I
14:04
at the time I just really wanted to have a bit of money to travel and that was the only way I could find to get it. Brilliant. Um who inspires you?
14:12
I'm going to have to say my wife. Um and she'll be pleased. I hope so. Um but it's true. I mean so she went through a
14:19
terrible situation. um 2019 she had uh stage three breast cancer. It was you
14:24
know as you can imagine the the most horrible thing. Um chemotherapy, radiotherapy,
14:31
surgery, you know the lot. It was really um there was really a lot of risk at first. We were very worried about it and
14:38
she completely like got through that. Amazing amazing courage um and has gone
14:44
on now. She works as a psychotherapist. She's helping um for the NHS. She's helping young people with some very,
14:50
very serious problems. And I just find that deeply inspiring. As someone who's faced such challenges themselves, has
14:57
sort of got through it and is now helping others who've got their own their own challenges. I just find that
15:03
amazing. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. I can't even imagine. I hope that everything's everything's fine now. Everything's fine
15:09
now. Yeah. I probably wouldn't be mentioning if it wasn't. I mean, that's true. That's true. Okay. Thank you. If you had to appoint a
15:16
celebrity to your board, who would it be and why? So, I think it would be David Atenburgh.
15:21
And I say that because he's pretty much in the UK the most trusted person we've
15:27
got. And trust is everything for us. You know, our vision is to be the universal symbol of trust. I think having someone
15:34
with his kind of experience around the board table giving his perspective, his color on things going on in our
15:41
business, I I would find that absolutely fascinating. What's the best thing about your job?
15:47
I think the best thing is the journey we take businesses on. You know, if I think
15:52
of companies, a lot of them don't listen to their customers enough or they think they understand their customers, but
15:58
they actually don't. And what Trust Pilot does, you know, the A colleague of mine sent me a video earlier that one of
16:05
our customers have made of their employees celebrating their Trust Pilot
16:10
score going up and their reviews getting better. Um, and I just think the way
16:16
Trust Pilot engages companies to really pay attention to their customers, to
16:21
celebrate the successes, to celebrate the wins. You know, I speak to CEOs. I read our Trust Pilot reviews. I speak to
16:27
CEOs who say they do the same. And that's just amazing to to be taking companies along that journey.
16:34
If you weren't doing this job, what would you be doing? I would be a
16:40
not very successful professional pianist. And I say that because in in Lutu, we
16:46
didn't have a telly, but we had a neighbor who left his front door unlocked and had a piano. I used to go
16:53
around to his house and play. My mom is an amazing chist and she plays a bit of piano as well. And so I gradually really
17:00
got into the piano and if I've got any time now, that's that's what I what I love to do. So yes, I I'm not sure how
17:08
many people would pay money to listen to me, but that that's what I that's what I would love to do. You never know. It could you another
17:14
sliding doors moment for me. Indeed. Indeed. You never know. Yeah. Um and finally, if you were prime minister for the day, what would you do?
17:20
I think and this is this is a bit trust pilot centric but I think I would really
17:25
go after businesses that try to mislead consumers
17:30
and the whole ecosystem that supports them. I'll give you an example. There are companies out there who will try to
17:39
deceive review businesses and sell businesses fake feedback. And I just
17:45
think that is deeply wrong. We do what we can at Trust Pilot to go after businesses like that legally. We have a
17:51
legal team. We've taken legal action. We've had a successful UK court case against a business that does that kind
17:57
of thing. So, we're doing absolutely everything in our power to go after those bad actors. But if I was prime
18:04
minister, I would have a lot more power to go after those bad actors and make sure that they suffer consequences. And
18:09
by doing that, you know, Karma would say his top priority is economic growth, right? because that's how you pay for
18:15
the NHS and public services and everything else. Well, this is people trying to throw grit into the economy,
18:21
right? Because great reviews, genuine reviews mean that more transactions happen. They happen between the right
18:27
people. They happen faster. So, we're doing our bit to help drive growth and there are bad actors out there who are
18:33
trying to stop it. And I would go right after them. Well, it sounds like the start of a manifesto for the second Blair
18:38
premiership right here, I think. Well, we'll see. I've got a big question for
18:43
you now, Adrian. Um, it's one that I think a lot of people will be interested to hear your answer to.
18:50
Can Trust Pilot really be trusted? You know, there's the there's a lot of
18:56
talk about fake reviews. You mentioned it before also, you know, AI bots,
19:01
maybe people using chat GBT to write a review, posting it themselves. It's
19:06
fake, but it's difficult to pick up. You you've said it before, you know, you
19:11
want to be seen as this elevated company, this this this trusted source
19:18
of reviews. Can that really be achieved? It can. And
19:23
we are. So, you know, people are voting with their feet or with their mouse clicks. More and more people are using
19:29
us every month because they see us as a trusted source. And when I read our own trust pilot reviews, a lot of people are
19:36
saying just that in their in their trust pilot reviews. So yes, and why is that?
19:42
Because we go to enormous lengths to ensure that the content on Trust Pilot
19:47
is trustworthy. We have more than 350 million reviews on our platform. Every
19:52
one of those reviews has metadata attached to it. So things like what time of day was it written on, what operating
19:58
system, what country, many, many other things. Because we have so many reviews, we can look for suspicious patterns in
20:05
that data. So even if people are writing text using AI, there's so much other
20:11
stuff that we can look at to decide is a review trustworthy or not. We have about
20:16
200,000 new ones coming into Trust Pilot every day and we have to decide in the
20:21
moment which ones are are genuine and which ones are we going to allow onto the platform. So I would say we we have
20:27
we have guidelines. We use technology to detect what shouldn't be on the platform. We also have a flagging
20:34
system. So if you don't if you think something's suspicious, you can flag it. We'll investigate it. And as I say, we
20:40
go after bad actors. We work with regulators to do everything in our power to make the content trustworthy. Of
20:45
course, the thing to compare it to is social media because you know, social media, all of those things I've just
20:51
described largely do not exist on social media. So people are talking about businesses on all the social media
20:57
platforms. Do you have the same guidelines and controls and enforcement?
21:02
You generally don't. Um, so we are we have a very important role to play and that's our vision is to be the universal
21:09
symbol of trust. So if I went on to Trust Pilot posted a review and it's a fake review, right?
21:14
I've either used AI to write it or you know it's just a fake review. How long
21:19
would it take for you to take that down? We have a 2hour window right after you
21:24
post a review during which we use our systems to to um to check it and if we
21:31
don't think it's legit then it won't go onto the platform at all. So no one would ever see that review. Now we'll
21:37
never be perfect with all the volume that's coming in, we don't claim to be perfect. Um and that's why we have a
21:43
flagging system afterwards where people can flag something that's suspicious and we've got technology. We've got people
21:49
that will then go and investigate. So that's that's kind of the system and how it works. And what about companies who pay for the
21:55
ability to show the Trust Pirate reviews on their websites? Obviously, they'll have the score, but they'll have a
22:00
selection of reviews. It's never the negative ones. It's always the positive ones. That seems counterintuitive, doesn't it?
22:07
It should just be a live feed, the reviews coming up. A couple of things there. So, so firstly, companies shouldn't and and our
22:14
our widgets as we call them don't allow them to showcase reviews that are below well below their actual score. Um, so
22:21
you shouldn't mislead people and that's something the regulators are very clear on that people shouldn't have misleading
22:27
presentation of reviews. And of course with our genuine widgets, with the um
22:32
with the um the things that we provide to companies, you can easily click through and see their actual Trust Pilot
22:39
profile and read all their feedback on Trust Pilot. So you don't have to just look at the ones that they've put up.
22:46
You can click through. You can use our our site to search just for the onestar ones if you want to see what the unhappy
22:52
people are saying and you can check all that out. So the principle is we want to be as transparent as possible. And how
22:57
does Trust Pilot compare to something like Google reviews? Businesses talk all the time that you can have a negative
23:02
review on on Trust Pilot or Google Reviews and it could tank the overall score. Uh
23:07
Google of course will try and force people towards their own platform. How would you as a company taking on that
23:13
competitor? So actually Google doesn't work like that. They they if you Google the name of a big company in the UK and the word
23:21
reviews, you'll typically see that Google is ranking Trust Pilot at the top. And the reason for that is that
23:27
Google reviews is a little it has a little sorry to interrupt it has a little widget on the right hand side on on a desktop where it has you
23:33
know the summary of the company and address and then it have reviews at the bottom. So yeah the link is there but it'll have the Google review on the side
23:39
as well for anybody to see that have to click on a they don't have to click on a link. What you'll typically find is that
23:46
for a big company and you know think of your energy businesses, logistics businesses, telos, for these big
23:53
companies, you typically find they have lots and lots of feedback on Trust Pilot. You know, like every the parcel
23:58
company has nearly 5 million reviews on Trust Pilot. Um businesses like that
24:04
typically do not have a lot of reviews on Google reviews, which is more of a feature of maps. So, you know, sure, you
24:09
look up Google reviews of the coffee shop and, you know, the florist and whatever it might be. So, typically when
24:16
you when you're looking on Google for reviews, if it's for one of those big companies, it'll take you to Trust
24:21
Pilot. And that's why we see Google more as a partner than as a a competitor. Um,
24:27
but of course, we're focused on reviews and on on having trustworthy trustworthy content on the site. So, for us, that's
24:34
our core business. It's sort of central to what we do. I think for Google it's more of you know a feature of of Google
24:40
Maps. Okay. Trust Pilot of course listed on the London Stock Exchange. Indeed on the on the foot we're in the
24:46
footsy 250. Footsy 250. Absolutely. Stock exchange has had a bit of a difficult time in the last 18 months, two years or so. Maybe
24:53
even going back even further. What's your experience of being a publicly listed company? It doesn't suit
24:59
everybody. It doesn't suit every CEO. It's a lot of scrutiny at least every 3 months.
25:04
Indeed. Yeah. So I think it suits Trust Pilot very well. I mean I've I've had experience in all different
25:10
environments. I've done venture. I've done private equity uh at Just Eat. Of course, we listed while I was there in
25:17
uh in 2014. So I had listed experience there as well. I think for our business being in the public domain, you know,
25:23
being very transparent about who we are as a business and our financials and um
25:29
issuing, you know, an annual report. We we we also do a trust report every year. We uh released that just a few weeks
25:35
ago. It's it's important to us that we are very transparent about the business,
25:40
who we are, how we work, and so I think it's actually for us in particular at Trust Pilot, it's very appropriate that
25:47
we're on the public market. What about London Stock Exchange? Obviously had a lot of troubles last
25:52
three years. What are your your views on that? We're very happy on the LSE. As I said, we entered the Footsie 250 recently. We
26:00
find that u we're getting a great reception from investors. Um we have a an amazing business model software as a
26:07
service. So we're not an advertising business. We make our money over over long-term contracts with businesses for
26:13
things like the analytics products to really understand their reviews. And we're finding investors in London see
26:20
that as a really exciting distinctive position. We're also having a lot of success attracting international
26:25
investors. So um around 40% of our uh investors are in the US. Um and we're
26:32
finding you know American investors are very open to uh to investing in a
26:37
successful tech business on the London Stock Exchange because that's not the overall narrative is it of London over the last few years
26:44
or so. It's been sluggish growth especially in comparison to New York and
26:49
the NASDAQ. Do you recognize those issues? Obviously, you've just said that Trust
26:54
Pilot's having a good time. Of course, you would say that, but do you recognize those there's genuine issues that the
27:00
stock exchange is facing? I think I think there's there's certainly more we can do as a country um
27:07
to attract and grow technology businesses and you know, evidently the
27:12
US has been amazingly successful at doing that. Um I am very keen that more
27:18
great tech businesses get built in this country. I'm obviously a Brit myself, so I care a lot about the success of of
27:24
Britain and the sector here. And we're doing our bit for that, right? You know, we're a a very successful London listed
27:32
technology business with a huge international opportunity. We have paying customers in more than 100
27:37
countries globally. We've got about 70 million unit users a month of our web properties. Billions of people see Trust
27:44
Pilot every month on Google. So, we've got absolutely massive reach. We've got a huge opportunity ahead of us and I
27:51
think the London Stock Exchange could do with more businesses like us frankly. What can the government do for example
27:56
to help that become a reality? Well, for us in particular, I've I've
28:02
I've mentioned you know I think going after um bad actors who are making markets less efficient would be a good
28:08
place to start. Um, I think there's a whole set of proposals about um about how to make the London Stock Exchange
28:15
itself more successful, how to make it easier for businesses to list and and raise capital. And I'm always happy to
28:21
see the government doing that kind of thing. We've got a budget coming up in a few months time. Yeah.
28:27
What do you want to see Rachel Reev announce when she addresses the House of Commons? Well, I think business most business
28:33
people would tell you that what they want is more stability, more predictability. Um and you know we we
28:39
all in business deal with uncertainty every day but um there's a level of
28:44
uncertainty um in terms of you know government interest rates um growth debt
28:50
all that kind of thing which um uh which ultimately businesses don't want to see
28:57
businesses want to operate in a a stable predictable environment so that we can deal with our own challenges and our own
29:03
risks in in in the right way. So look, I I'm a I'm a a great supporter of the uh
29:10
the growth agenda, getting economic growth going in the UK. I think we play a big role in that through um through
29:17
reviews. 89% of people look at reviews before making a purchase. And so, as I
29:23
said earlier, you know, we're we're helping people to buy things from the right people more quickly than they
29:29
otherwise would. And so we're doing our bit to to uh to drive growth ourselves ultimately. Are you optimistic about the
29:36
state of the UK economy? I'm optimistic that we're going to
29:42
continue to um to grow. I think the overall macro picture, you know, there are plenty of commentators out there who
29:48
spend their lives looking at this stuff. So, you know, I would listen to them on that. But but certainly what we're showing is that, you know, our most
29:55
recent announcement was that we grew our UK business by 15% yearon year. The economy, I know, is not growing by 15%.
30:03
Yeah, that would be nice if it was. But I think what we're showing is that is that, you know, if you play your cards right as a business, you can grow very
30:10
rapidly within this environment. And and you know, I would love to see more companies um uh doing that. And you
30:17
know, I'd love to do our bit as Trust Pilot to help companies understand their customers and get closer to what's
30:24
really going on in their businesses by listening to Trust Pilot feedback so that they can become more successful as
30:29
well. You know, if I took out my phone now, called the Treasury. Yes, is on the phone. What are you asking for
30:34
her to put in the budget? One thing. So, I think I think policies that drive
30:42
economic growth are ultimately going to be helpful to businesses in the UK.
30:47
Exactly what the right policies are. I I'm not um you know um uh I'm not I'm
30:53
not uh a commentator on that stuff, but I would say in our particular area, the
30:58
thing that would um that would help uh um uh the reviews industry is government
31:06
support in going after bad actors. So, um there's a whole infrastructure. There's people that try to deceive
31:12
consumers through fake reviews. There is an infrastructure that supports them. you know, payment companies, um,
31:19
marketing companies that they promote their services through. We should be going after those things in the interest
31:25
of driving growth because they're trying to deceive people. And we're doing our bit by having a fair system, you know,
31:32
with all the guidelines and technology that I talked about to do our bit to say, let's have really trusted, genuine
31:39
reviews, but we could do with with the government going after some of these bad actors as well.
31:44
Okay. Adrian, I always ask this uh question as as a final question to all
31:50
of our guests. It's really interesting to see what what people say. The the answers I'm just teeing this up. The
31:55
answers are quite varied, so no pressure. Um, what does it take in your opinion to be a good CEO
32:01
and you want one thing? Well, as many things as you want. I mean, there probably is more than one
32:07
thing, but uh I would start with humility. uh I think as CEO you are covering a lot
32:15
of ground right you you manage everything in the company so the sales people the marketing people the legal
32:21
team the technology eta etc etc there's no CEO in the world who can be an expert
32:27
on all of those things you have to have the humility to listen to the people
32:32
you've got and take on board what they're saying and not just willy-nilly you know go off in in some arbitrary
32:39
direction You also need the humility to be curious about areas you don't
32:44
understand. And one of the things I love about the role of CEO is you are constantly learning about new things.
32:51
You're you're seeing problems, you're seeing challenges, opportunities, and you want to dive into them more and
32:57
learn. And you know, you mentioned earlier I I taught at Harvard. You know, one of the things you learn there is
33:03
like a lot of curiosity, a lot of intellectual curiosity about what is going on in the world. So, this is one
33:09
of those jobs where I think as a as a good CEO, you have to have the humility to say, "I'm not an expert in a lot of
33:15
these things. I'm going to have the curiosity to ask the question, listen to the answer, and then there's a lot you
33:21
can do with with what comes back." I, as I say, I love the role of CEO. I think I don't have a lot of time for people, you
33:27
know, CEOs who sort of wallow in how difficult the job is and the pressure and all the rest. I think there are huge
33:33
privileges that come with with this position. the the ability to make an impact on the world, the ability to
33:39
shape the culture of an organization in a um in a way that helps it to do
33:44
better, but also helps the people there to be happier, go further in their careers. So, I think it's a huge
33:49
privilege doing jobs like this. Um but it starts with humility to actually listen to other people and and learn.
33:55
Brilliant. Adrian, thank you so much for coming on board. It's great to have you. Pleasure. Thanks a lot.
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