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Why transportation in the UK is not as bad as you think | Boardroom Uncovered
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Jan 29, 2025
The boss of Trainline has outlined his European expansion plans as the online ticket giant faces government-backed competition at home. Jody Ford, speaking on the latest episode of City AM's Boardroom Uncovered, opened up to UK Editor Jon Robinson about the company's growth in the likes of Spain in recent years and which other European nations are next on his target list. 00:00 Introduction 00:40 UK Rail: Challenges and Opportunities 03:00 Ticket Prices and Customer Frustrations 06:45 Innovating Amid Disruption 09:30 Sustainability and the Future of Rail 12:10 European Expansion: Trainline’s Growth Strategy 15:20 Lessons from European High-Speed Rail 18:00 Leadership Journey: From eBay to Trainline 21:45 Handling Criticism and Learning from Failure 24:30 Trainline’s Vision for 2025 and Beyond 28:00 Closing Reflections and Final Insights Get more Boardroom Uncovered here 👇 https://www.cityam.com/trainline-on-track-for-european-expansion-as-state-backed-rival-nears/ Get more of City AM 👇
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the train system in the UK it's not great is it well I I mean everyone has
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different views but from from my my point of view I actually the kind of funny thing is I get to travel a lot around Europe and see many other uh sort
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of rail networks and I actually think the UK Network pretty fantastic one thing we talked about reliability or
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sometimes the unreliability of the train Network another thing is the price you can't always buy Super Advanced tickets
0:25
because Business Leaders for example need to come from Manchester down to London of a day two days notice
0:30
and they're looking at couple hundred 300400 sometimes for a single ticket
0:35
which is absolutely outrageous what can train line do do you have any powers about setting the prices
0:43
because when they're complaining on social media they're screenshotting the train line app and it's your name next to a ridiculous price this that you're a
0:49
self-confessed train geek is that true yeah so the the kind of where that comes
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from is uh earlier much earlier on in my life when I was sort of a kid I was moving between my mom in my dad's house and so every other week we would go down
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from um pachur to King's cross and I sort of was really into the whole train
1:09
experience and I don't tell anyone right but I used to sort of write down the numbers of the trains and and kind of do
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that now I I think that has led me to always be into ra and understanding ra
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and what that what that looks like and and kind of how it works so the opportunity to come and work at train
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line and kind of combine something I was kind of really into around Rail and just I I kind of like the the the travel of
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being with people and on Rail and the way it kind of connects the the country and in now Europe together um with my
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kind of know previous professional experience and Tech was just a too good opportunity to to
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[Music]
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miss hello and welcome to another episode of borderman cover powered by city am my my name is John Robinson
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City's UK editor and my guest for this Edition is the CEO of train line Jody
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Ford Ford took on the top job full-time in 2021 on the back of holding senior
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positions of the likes of moonpig and eBay the footsie 250 company enjoyed Rising sales and profits in 2024 but
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announced plans to cut its Workforce in a bid to make around 122 million in savings but how does train line plan to
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continue growing in the UK while being dependent on Britain's unrel train infrastructure without any further delay
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let's dive in Jody thank you very much for coming on B and covered thank you for having me here I suppose we better
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jump into it the train system in the UK it's not great is it well I I mean
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everyone has different views but from from my my point of view I actually the kind of funny thing is I get to travel a
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lot around Europe and see many other uh sort of rail networks and I actually think the UK Network's pretty fantastic
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um I think there's been some challenges over the last couple couple of years which really come out the back of Co
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where they weren't able to to train up enough drivers and so we kind of hit this spot without enough uh drivers um
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ready to go and I feel like we've kind of worked through that and then there's obviously been some um kind of
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industrial action and you have to remember that the 20 years prior to that there wasn't any industrial action and
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and the the railway actually doubled in size and actually very effective um for most people but now and again of course
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there's challenges and I think that's at train line what we're here to do is to try and support you when there are challenges help you through those
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disruptions and help you get to where you're getting to with as much information as possible and whenever possible on time well the narrative
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constantly is cancellations delays unreliability you know and I know that
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it's not ultimately train Lin's responsibility but you are The Gatekeepers to all of that information
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you know it's where majority of people buy the tickets look at the information and I see on social media all the time
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screenshots of people's phones of cancellation the cancellation it's from the train line app do you feel as the
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CEO of train line a bit of responsibility about that well I guess
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where where from our point of view is our job is to help customers in whatever way we can right so making that
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information available wherever we can um helping them through that making them aware of their options and then when
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things do go wrong um is kind of easily as possible helping get the the refunds or the um delay repay or whatever it
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might be their due that's where I see my responsibility and I think we've continued to innovate in that space and
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when you look at what we did during Co where there were so many cancellations we massively restructured our kind of
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customer services processes and our refund to just whenever possible make it as easy as it is and and I get that
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there'll always be stuff on social media and I actually got a surprising number of emails of people actually saying
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thank you for making that so easy and for all those people who do have challenges and I do get there are there are challenges we have a lot of very
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very happy customers and I think that's the thing people think about train line it's the it is the kind of company the
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brand they trust to help them navigate Rail whether there's disruption or to find the very best value it is so
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frustrating isn't it when there's cancellation after cancellation you're relying on the rail network for getting to work and having that reliability is
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so important it must be hitting train Line's reputation to a certain extent
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because so much of that is outside of your control right you're not running the trains you're not responsible for the infrastructure but you're selling
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the tickets you're giving the information does that does it impact train Line's reputation at all is that a
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risk I I that's not how it kind of how customers talk to us I I think what they
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do is they look at train line to see how we can make it as easy as possible to
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navigate the the rail network there's a lot of I mean I I've commuted for the last well probably 10 years from St
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albin's down to London and genuinely I can count on maybe like three hands like
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the number of times I've really been more than a few minutes delayed so there'll always be these sort of points
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in the network or some challenges there but I think for the vast majority of people they commute and it actually
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works really pretty well in those cases it's our job to to help them um wherever we can and and sort of work and and
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feedback information into the train operating companies where we can help them think through ways to to solve some of those problems of course different
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areas of the UK have different issues you mentioned about St Alburn to London yeah that's a more reliable line than
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the northern lines in the Northwest Yorkshire Northeast
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trans penine Express these companies have had issues for years now how is
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train line dealing with that unreliability and that difference between if you're living in the north to living in the South sure and and in the
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end I think you come back to kind of issues on investment levels and that kind of comes back down to a government question on for you know if I look at
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the line I took up to this morning here that was a great service and and it moved very fast and and I think everyone
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would have said the journey was was was excellent much better than taking the car for example and as a reminder be
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like a third of the carbon footprint so there's lots of good reasons around rail I think with some of the regional
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services in the end it comes down to the level of investment and that's that's a case question in the end for the government almost rather than the rail
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industry of how much you prepar to subsidize um particular Regional networks and that's the same question
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honestly throughout the whole of Europe and you can have that about almost any form of transportation how many roads
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should we build what airport structures should we have and and those are the questions that in the end government have to answer it's train Line's job is
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to sell tickets and to help people on the journeys once they take them and if the government called you up kiss arm
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called you up and said Jody we need you we want you to be the new transport Minister Minister for rail what's in
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your inbox what are you doing what's your plan how are you going to improve the UK rail network so look that's I my
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job is very much to uh to to create basically Europe's best app to help
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people buy the tickets find the value um and to when there are disruptions support them there I you know it's it's
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it's Way Beyond me to to tell you how how K or starma should um in invest in
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ra I obviously believe rail is a really important part of the country's infrastructure and something that we
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could continue to invest in and I see what that means for customers and I see what that means in terms of reducing
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carbon and there's obviously opportunities and we'd be very Pro investment and whether that's around hs2 or or
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generally improving Services I think those are great opportunities and and beyond that the I guess the other thing
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we really like and perhaps end up talking a bit about it is in Europe we see the the value of kind of competition
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on some of those um High speeed lines and I think there's service that many people will be aware of lumo that runs
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from London to Edinburgh and has really bought a different kind of of travel experience so it's it's it's the sort of
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easy jet or ryion a of rail and I think giving people choice making in those cases making it it cheaper um for people
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to travel is a great way of attracting people into Rail and I think looking at more what they call Open Access uh
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players um operators into other parts of the network is something I would certainly be encouraging any government
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uh to be looking at and I and I you know there are plans to run on other lines and I think that's a way to I think
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competitions wherever it's possible and sort of make sense from a infrastructure point of view is something to be embraced so that' be kind of one area
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I'd look at one thing we talked about reliability or sometimes the unreliability of the train Network another thing is the price you
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can't always buy Super Advanced tickets because Business Leaders for example need to come from Manchester down to
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London of a day two days notice and they're looking at couple hundred pound 300 400 sometimes for a single ticket
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which is absolutely outrageous what can train line do do you have any powers about setting the prices
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because when they're complaining on social media they're screen shot in the train line app and it's your name next to a ridiculous price so look we don't
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have any powers as it related to the the headline price of train tickets as you'd expect um what we do do I think a really
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good job of is helping customers find um the best prices and you know if they are
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able to book in advance and I think it's like all form of of of transport and many other type of goods if you buy
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something at the last minute and going at peak times you are going to pay a often a significantly higher price
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whether that's your Uber surge price or whether that's a plane ticket and it's the same for trains I think if you're
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able to buy a few days in advance there are really good prices to be had a large part of the country be surprised how
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many rail cards the people um access to if you're traveling with a family or with another individual or you're a
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senior or a young person there's just lots of different rail cards which often take 30% or more off the fair which is a
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great way and then some kind of we we innovate wherever possible and you may have experienced split safe which is
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sort of what we saw there were customers were queuing up in stations to um effectively buy two tickets and to put
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them together to make it cheaper to almost get half of the ticket to be off peak and we've sort of bought that out
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to everybody and that's been another way that customers are able to effectively save money um by traveling on on the
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trains and using the Train onine app and of course you're not a train company you're a tech business you not come from
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a from a sort of tech background you must have had to quite a learn learn quite a lot over your career about what
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goes into the back end of an app to make sure that it's working all the time and there's the updates constantly about
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what's going on across the network that must be incredibly complicated so um
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yeah I mean the look there's a lot that goes into any app whe whatever the the
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whatever you're doing it could be a lot of transactions it could be that you need realtime information we work with
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the rail network to understand the updates of how trains are performing and and where they might be on time or or
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late and increasingly we're looking at things around the location of the individual to help kind of add to that
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and be able to guide them and and look at the ways that we can use that data for example if you are you know if
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you're in a kind of congested area and you're actually trying to work out what train you're on especially if there's a lot of R TR there's now an option in
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there that says find my train and actually we look at your location we look at the your movement and actually tell you which train you're on so you
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can understand what hang where does it stop uh is it on time um what platform is it going to arrive that and you can
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begin to think about the connections you've got so yes we're always looking at how we can improve and innovate um
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and we work with the industry to bring those things and we have kind of over 500 engineers and increasingly data
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scientists who do that to to bring the Innovation to customers on TR line of course it's not just a UK company it's
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European as well tell me about the expansion across the continent and how important that is the company so hugely
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important uh to the to the company and that's very much one of the reasons I sort of got excited to take the role
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sort of just over four years ago now and really what's going on there is uh train liners you built this great position
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supporting so many customers in UK and we've developed this app and this platform and we said well hang on a moment we we can do the same across
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Europe and so there was an acquisition actually prior to my arrival prior to the IPA um of a company called captain
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training in France which kind of gave us a bridge head into France and into Europe but since um around four years
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ago there was new legislation across from Brussels that said the that
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domestic markets need to offer competition allow competition to their incumbent um rail operator and so what's
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happened is you've got uh companies a bit like lumo going to Edinburgh from London you've got these companies coming
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in and if we take Spain for example there are now four different services that run from Madrid to Barcelona and
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now if you think about a customer going well you know which trains should I take what time and there might be 40 50 trains what time a day and then all of
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the prices off all of those different operators and then you go well hang on can I look at three or four different apps so I have to get a pencil out or
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you can use train line and put all of those in one place and that's meant that we're really helping customers there and
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recently just talked about our um some of our results we're now selling um about 16% of all the tickets between
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Madrid and Valencia and that's having sold 0% only like two and a half years ago so it's super exciting market for us
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yeah and how does the European ra Network compared to the UK he said
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earlier it was fantastic I'm quite sure I believe you when you say that so I think there's a spectrum here I think if
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you compared us to Germany deutan uh you you really would say I I believe that
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the the UK network is is is is very strong compared to the German networ
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there's you know I think we we all found this out you know the the news stories that came out of the the European
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football competition in Germany a lot of people were trying to get round and there's some stat I think it's something like you know maybe one in five TR in
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Germany don't reach their destination I mean it it really is it's not maybe what you imagine but it's it's truly
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difficult even there was Article recently in The Economist that talked about how Swiss border is often closed to German trains because they slow the
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whole thing down so that that's sort of one extreme I think what's been really exciting is to see the investment in
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highp speed and that's something obviously we have the highspeed uh rail that goes down towards Paris and high
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speeded one and there's been a lot of discussion about high speed 2 but in Spain there is now a kind of really developed High spe the network
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throughout the country and likewise in France and in Italy and that creates
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capacity which is really important it's partly about the speed partly about the ability to run sort of regional trains
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commuted trains fast trains freight and that's often what they have done well in
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some of those European markets do you think there's anything from Europe that the UK rail network can learn from I
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think there's things that everyone can learn in in many different uh directions actually large part of Europe has has
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looked towards the UK over the last 20 years because of the the the increase in volume this point about having doubled
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the number of passengers is actually a huge achievement for the UK rail network there's doesn't mean there aren't things
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that can't be improved I think when you look at the European Network I think this idea of running kind of
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high-capacity fast trains between cities and really driving substitution from Air
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is is is great and also the way often they do very good connections with um the local the airports and other sort of
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Transport hubs is something that over time in the big infrastructure projects we could look at obviously in the last few years hs2 has never been far from
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the headlines previous conservative governments did cancel that high-speed element between Birmingham and
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Manchester still going ahead with there's a little bit uncertainty about where it's going to go actually into Houston what's your view on hs2 a lot of
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people in the north would say well we want reliable trains before we want to get to London a little bit quicker
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what's your view so I think the the arguments around hs2 often were to this
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previous Point around capacity when you speak to um industry experts and I'm really not one in terms of where we
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should be building our our rail tracks I it's this point about driving more capacity and being able to carry more
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passengers and and then to the earlier Point you're able to have different services and it comes back to being able to offer kind of really great value at
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that point so I'm a big believer that that we should invest in the high-speed infrastructure I'm probably not the
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right person of exactly what the trade-offs are in any given part of the the country around that but very pro-
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highspeed R thank you to our sponsor Blackboard a
17:36
global technology company powering social good across the world blackboard's corporate impact team
17:41
empowers purpose-led organizations to drive change in their communities Jody
17:47
well thank you for joining um the black board sponsor section of board CED um
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first question really is you know we're seeing a lot of employees look to choose their employer based on their value and
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a lot of employees are staying within an organization based on the activity of
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CSR but what does CSR mean to you as a leader well for us it's it's actually
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core to our purpose um and really the thing we we talk about all the time within the company is the sustainability
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part of that and the the vision of getting people to travel by rail which you know by the way is like a third of
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the carbon emissions of car and a seventh of um of air and what we is that
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that really attracts Talent people I think many people have felt like they weren't part of the problem historically
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but they want to be part of the solution and train line is very much uh seen like it's part of the solution and people
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come to us so they can feel like they are doing their bit to get people on to rail and help the
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environment Dr line of course had a very successful 2024 um sales and profits up um it comes
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to the cost though you recently announced some some job losses what impact does that have on you as the CEO
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you've got to make that ultimate decision that's that's going to happen is that incredibly difficult for you to
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deal with so look as you say it was a um a successful year and and there are
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always going to be moments where you have to um sort of restructure a business or or or look at kind of like
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sort of saying this one to kind of uh refining where our resource was um there
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and I think as it relates those things are always difficult I mean they they're a natural part of business and you go
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through them from time to time and you H they don't happen very often but it's setting you up really you you you would
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argue for 2025 and growth onwards um what are your plans for 2025 and onwards
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so um it comes back a lot to to Europe so I think um when we look at the
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countries we want to move into and we've got a really great brand already in Spain Italy and France
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um Spain we've seen huge growth over the last three years because of this competition and we want to what we call
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it kind of aggregation the ability to help customers choose from all of these different um Services which is the best
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one to take so we'll keep investing in Spain and we're trying to build we're building our brand there um so whether
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that's around uh sponsoring um you know recently sponsoring real Bettis a football team in Seville because there's
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new train Services going down there or doing station takeovers to really bring to life this idea because Spanish
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consumers aren't really they don't really use the kind of rare appps they just Ed the historic one and so we're
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going to continue to bring that to life and then over the next year at some point we will see more entrance into the
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Italian market and so we have a great brand there a lot of customers already use this but we think that's the opportunity where it will sort of
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supercharge uh the Italian U market and so we'll continue to invest there and then in France whilst the whole Market
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won't yet become competitive that'll happen over the next three or four years we increasingly see competition on the
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roots down to Leon Paris Leon and Paris Marseilles where they're sort of routs number one and number three um in uh
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France and with that competition will'll be investing in bringing that kind of aggregated experience helping customers
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but also bringing our brand to life investing in our brand there you're going up against established players in those countries as well what are you
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doing to differentiate yourself and trying to win over those customers yeah so I mean we already over the last year
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we became the number one rare lap in um Europe we have probably probably about twice the size in terms of app uh
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downloads and usage than someone like sncf so we have the scale and we
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continue to innovate on our product um in ways you know having so many customers in the UK allows us to be in a
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position where we can kind of export our Tech to Europe and that gives us real strength and and real opportunity and
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then when you think about any one of those markets it is real sort of what we refer to like product Market fit right
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there's real differentiation in the fact that we have all of these different players in one app um in a way that
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others will just be talking about their own trains and that's really distinguishes Us in the mind of uh
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customers I read some where I was doing research with this that you're a self-confessed train geek is that true
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yeah so the the kind of where that comes from is uh earlier much earlier on in my life when I was sort of a kid I was
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moving between my moms and my dad's house and so every other week we would go down from um pachur to King's cross
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and I sort of was really into the whole training experience and I don't tell anyone right but I used to sort of write
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down the numbers of the trains and and kind of do that now I I think that has
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led me to always be into Rail and understanding Rail and what that what that looks like and and kind of how it
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works so the opportunity to come and work at train line and kind of combine
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something I was kind of really into around Rail and just like I kind of like the the the travel of being with people
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and on well and the way it kind of connects the the country and now Europe together um with my kind of know
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previous professional experience in Tech was just a too good opportunity to to miss so this is a dream job then when it
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came up it absolutely yeah yeah do you ever want to go into the rail network itself that wasn't something I thought
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about when I was uh younger I was kind of more um the kind of shiny objects around kind of mobile te Telos were the
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things when I was sort of prob as a as a a student I was excited back by then but now I get to kind of combine them
23:31
together tell me about growing up then did you always think that you want to go into a business career or was it were
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there were other avenues that were open to growing up it was always business I was always really interested I didn't know what part of business and and sort
23:42
of the later on you get the more you begin to understand what's there but um I was very clear it was going to be
23:48
something in business I think I um I I kind of was interested in computers very
23:53
early on I had um probably remember but zx81 which was that very first Tiny sing
23:58
CL computer that you sort of coded programs on and I and I that was proba the only time I've ever coded in my life
24:03
but um there was there was a game that was like this little cricket game I I sort of coded in having read that and I
24:10
just thought I want to do something with computers I had no idea what they were going to become but computers and
24:15
business were the the way I saw it so tell me how you got onto that first rung of the ladder so um at University I
24:23
applied to a lot of different places and you know had a did an internship as an a
24:28
and thought actually I don't think pure counties for me and then I sort of realized there was this um graduate
24:35
course which was actually Consulting um in in various uh kind of companies but combined with a a sort of Finance
24:42
qualification or Finance background and that seemed like a pretty good healthy first step and so I I took that as my my
24:49
first uh job and then while I was there I was always trying to angle into the Telco uh division of that area and for
24:55
whatever reason it never really worked out and then it was the kind of Heyday of mobiles had just come out there's
25:01
GPRS technology and they were bidding on the 3D licenses and orange again a brand
25:06
that's left the UK is still around Europe um was really changing the way people thought about technology was
25:11
making it human and engaging and I thought well I'd love to work at Orange and so I saw this job and applied there
25:18
and ended up getting sort of it was ended up being my second job at at Orange in my sort of dream area of TCO
25:23
yeah tell me about your experience at at Orange what did you did you do and you rise the ranks and
25:29
what happened so um it was it was a great time to be there I was sort of in
25:35
a strategy team that worked on all sorts of of different things through that period some of them were really looking
25:41
for the first time at like we there was a lot of talk about data but no one really knew what data meant you know
25:47
people were just making phone calls and back then sending text messages but became very clear um that there was
25:53
going to be a lot of interest in what was called personto person and now I didn't go away and invent what tap or anything like that but but it became
25:59
very clear that was the future we talked a lot about orange and back in those days it was like it seemed like the
26:05
vones and the oranges were going to win this sort of create these wall Gardens and we spent a lot of time talking about
26:10
that and then we actually went through what was then the orange IPO and so we um sort of brought that to life for
26:16
investors and for consumers really predicting what you know one of the years we looked at was 2020 which
26:23
obviously we've we've now passed but we were talking about people being able to stream football matches or films or bet
26:29
on games or communicate with others and at the time it it seemed slightly hyperbolic but now it's all come true so
26:36
kind of being involved in things like that were always very interesting yeah and then you moved on to eBay yeah I I
26:42
took a bit of a time out and did a um did a went to business school for a year
26:48
having worked with a few people I thought actually this would be a great moment late 20s um go and spend a year
26:53
out of um industry and that was a fantastic experience I actually studied
26:58
in in in France um with people from all over the world I mean less than 10% of the course were uh British and so that
27:05
was my first chance to really work just with a really International crowd and then I after that went and did a
27:12
effectively like a six-month internship at EB and this was the first time I was like oh wow this is actually what I want
27:17
to do the first time I worked in a what was in a web company I saw this kind of connection between buyers and sellers
27:23
and the idea of a Marketplace which is something you'd sort of thought about as a you know through economics and other
27:29
things but I'd never actually seen what it really looked like and I did that for six months I had already committed to a
27:35
consultancy um job back in London but as soon as I got back I was like okay I need to find a way back to eBay and
27:41
about two years later I took my first job at eBay running um eBay Motors in the UK and you Rose up the rank there
27:48
but tell me about getting getting those ever higher positions did you ever feel
27:53
imposter syndrome at any point did you ever feel uncomfortable or did you feel that every promotion was was something
27:59
that you were excited to take on and you felt comfortable pretty quickly I I mean I can't speak for other people I think
28:04
there's always those moments when you get these new roles where you're trying to work out how you're going to do it and you know kind of making it up till
28:10
you get it right I mean that I think that's that's that's life right and you want that position but then you arrive
28:16
and so I remember getting my first job at eBay running eBay motors and i' suddenly had people calling me
28:21
officially boss and I was like wow I'm actually responsible for them and their career and and and that was like a okay
28:27
I've got to think about what this means not just for me but for them and and work through that and then as as those
28:32
teams get bigger you realize there's not just your immediate uh team but there's people Beyond them in their teams that
28:38
you need to provide a vision for engage with them and help them think through their career Ambitions and that's
28:43
something that's just always been I know always been very passionate about how can you develop people and it's super
28:50
rewarding to see them grow and then do the roles and grow to do the next role and become the manager or the the
28:55
director so you know every point I think as those things happen the first time I was standing up in front of maybe four
29:02
or 500 eBay sellers and they're looking at me going well you're kind of responsible for this platform and and
29:08
helping us sell them their personal livelihoods you realize that's a real responsibility on you and it's not just
29:13
about you it's about them and the broader to the ecosystem at eBay how do you deal with that responsibility you in
29:20
obviously a top position now you you got more responsibility than you did at eBay how do you deal with that so I think
29:28
time is as ever just a way to get comfortable with doing things and things that looked very sort of challenging or
29:35
or look like a huge responsibility when you look back 10 years or 15 years you've kind of got comfortable um with
29:40
that and I think you have to sort of take seriously your role and the people around you but you also have to find
29:47
ways that you're able to switch off when you get home or at the weekend and and try whenever possible bring those things
29:53
um in Balance um that's not always possible but whenever you can uh being able to reset be present for your family
29:59
and having other interests those things I think are the the sort of counterweights to what can be a lot of
30:04
responsibility and he first became a CEO at moonpig when you got that role did
30:10
you feel that you'd achieved a career ambition a long career ambition or was
30:16
it something that that was never particularly the aim and you just sort of taken the opportunity when it came
30:22
along so that was interesting it was I was actually based out in um California was working for Bay for in Silicon
30:29
Valley which was an amazing um experience to sort of spend time there and my one of my old sort of bosses
30:34
called up and said hey J have got this really great role at moonpig um what
30:40
what do you think and so I I kind of went and met the the team there and and spent time with him and understood the
30:46
business I was like actually this is this is the right right role and it feels like it's it's scary but not too
30:52
scary is probably the way to to put it and so having kind of come back and and
30:57
then step up there it was another moment a bit like that first moment having a team who reports to you suddenly standing up and realizing there wasn't a
31:04
I don't know a divisional senior vice president above me or or someone when things went wrong there was no one to to
31:10
sort of cool that is definitely a moment and honestly I I think that take took a year or two to really get um kind of
31:17
comfortable with and there's moments of you know just sheared Joy but there's moments where you know obviously things
31:22
go wrong or they stress or you don't hit your numbers and you realize it's you and that that did take time to get used
31:29
to and then to this question I I don't think I was thinking when am I be become
31:34
a CEO it just felt like it sort of just evolved as a lot of roles appear in front and you're like okay this seems like a very sensible Next Step it's not
31:41
been the case that I've looked up and said this is the thing I need to get to so how did it come about that you got
31:48
this current job that you're in at the moment did they come to you did you apply tell me about that
31:53
process so um I actually concluded the
31:58
the the at um in the previous um role um at moonpig and and took some time out I
32:04
was just like I have an opportunity to spend best part of a year um with uh my
32:09
family and and these these opportunities roll around very rarely so I thought let's let's really spend some time and
32:14
maybe we'll travel and do all these exciting things I'd made a commitment my wife is um is kind of half Spanish and I
32:20
was like I'm going to really get good at the Spanish and I got a little bit better but I definitely get really good
32:27
um and then a CO struck halfway through that time period which just changed everything for obviously a lot of people
32:34
and I knew the train line business well I actually knew a number of people who worked there and there was a a new
32:39
chairman there and and I knew the CEO well and so at that point it became a sort of really interesting conversation
32:45
about joining um and looking at what that role could become in in in the
32:51
future and I sort of I think the other part of this is there's you know if you're based in London and want to be
32:56
based in London and you want to work in a tech business there's a you know only a handful of really what I'd call scaled
33:02
businesses and I was pretty clear on that and Trine was really you know recently ipoed it had a I thought a
33:08
really great growth trajectory ahead of it but clearly was in the middle of Co and it was it was a challenging time and
33:14
I sort of you know a number of conversations inside this was the one that I thought was going to be the the
33:19
kind of one I wanted to make the the the bet on and and and be involved with and talk to me about your leadership style
33:25
if I had a train line employee here and ask them what they were like you know what would you what what you're like as
33:31
a leader yeah what would you hope that they would say what do you think that they they might be two different things
33:37
but um I you know I'd hope I guess that they would they would say know I
33:43
think a kind of really human element to uh leadership and and and sort of in the
33:49
end leadership's about people right it it's not really about spreadsheets and plans they're all all obviously part of
33:56
it but how can you kind of engage and Inspire and and lead people towards something so I sort of a human pieace
34:02
coupled with I think a reasonably high energy um engagement in frankly
34:07
whatever's going on whether that's about how we launch a new app Feature or how
34:13
we um Chang marketing or or promote our Spanish service like those are things
34:18
that I I you know get very energized about and I hopefully that energy kind of carries carries through looking back
34:25
over your career you've done several different jobs working for high-profile companies is there a success that stands
34:31
out to you that you're particularly proud of I'm I mean right now when I
34:37
look at what's going on at Spain I'm really proud of what the team have achieved there I think to go from this
34:42
place of being almost no one's heard of us um to being you know in many cases selling the very first ticket um for
34:50
these new operators that have have launched in that market and to see the growth that we've sort of achieved there
34:57
is I'm I'm really proud of that and and sort of delighted for the team and what they've achieved and that that's it's
35:03
kind of rare you get those things in such kind of clean isolation and it feels like we're just at the start of
35:09
something really big here so that that would probably be a Spain and no careers without blemishes of course you'll have
35:16
had your challenges over your time in business so far is there a particular
35:21
incident a failure maybe that stands out to you that you think I could have done better in that situation yeah I mean
35:27
there's a few right I I think the the the challenge part I I think coming in
35:34
uh to be um into train line and then ultimately I took over as CEO within
35:39
that period and and it was covid and we couldn't have everyone in the building and I whilst I
35:46
could you know talk and get to know my immediate sort of Team it was very hard to get a sense of the energy um and
35:52
there was a lot of people questioning whether this was even the right company to be at were we going to survive Co was
35:58
you know maybe a few people were kind of asking that question and and so to give that um belief in the future but have to
36:04
do it in a way where you couldn't get everyone in a room or even get a kind of group together and meet them that was
36:09
that was really challenging and and that sort of learning of just having unshakable belief in in your own sort of
36:17
expectations and being able to convey that was was was clearly one if you want a sort of more click up failure um I I
36:25
guess there was a period when I was at eBay where I was responsible for um you what's referred to as sort of SEO the
36:31
traffic from um Google that we naturally got and the teamw creating these really kind of cool new pages that were
36:38
bringing us a lot of new traffic and and everyone was clapping a lot but a couple of kind of wise head said to me are you
36:44
sure these Pages really fit within the overall um sort of Google structure do
36:49
you think they're long-term um going to work for us or is there a risk they sort of get dropped down and and I asked
36:55
maybe a couple of questions but I didn't ask enough questions on that and sure enough you know whatever it was three
37:01
four months later um they got the index dropped down and suddenly eBay had this
37:07
big drop and that kind of Hit the CEO and I was suddenly very publicly responsible for that kind of you know a
37:13
failure and I and I I I learned a lot through that around how do you sort of take responsibility but also how do you
37:21
challenge the people in your team and how do you listen to the right people who maybe have seen this movie a few more times than you have how do you
37:27
bounce back from a very public yeah failure like that in the end I think you
37:33
look to the people who believe in you and I I think what really helped there was you know my you know boss at the
37:39
time and a couple other people just said look Jody yes this is a mistake and you need to own that um but I believe in you
37:45
and there's other things that you've done that have been great and and you will learn and you will get better and
37:50
and I'm sure you won't make it again and I was like no for sure I would so um I think that's that's the that can be real
37:57
support and then you have to sometimes just go down deeper and sort of just turn up and and face into it and and
38:03
kind of just take steps forward and look it happens to a lot of people all of the time right like things are always going
38:09
wrong and you have to just keep moving forward what more do you want to achieve
38:14
in your career over the next few years or so have you got goals in mind that you want to hit so I think and I'm um
38:22
what I think about training I think there's multiple years ahead of us where you I've talked a little bit about Italy but France is a huge Market um the same
38:30
size as the UK um I think you know the number of different services that are launching there tr9 has the opportunity
38:36
to to really be the go-to app and I sort of look and I think that's something very exciting that I would love to to
38:42
lead um towards that I tend not to think in to my earlier point in like big kind
38:48
of career goals beyond what I'm sort of engaged in at the moment I guess one of the areas that I'm sort of sort of a
38:55
professional level and a personal level is how any Ro that I can play in supporting um UK Tech scale and grow I
39:04
think it's so important for this country that we have a really active Tech sector
39:09
and and scaled and I think one of the challenges is that if you look at multiple other sectors over the last few decades you look at you know HSBC and
39:16
Barkley or you look at uh galaxo or you look at Unilever or BP and shell we've had in these big Global Industries we've
39:22
always had these World beaters and when you look at Tech unfortunately we don't have one of those and I think it's
39:29
critical when you think about the success of the country that we develop a the talent um there in the tech space
39:36
but also we create the companies that are worth even like tens of billions or potentially hundreds never mind
39:41
companies that are now sort of in the hundreds and Beyond a billion scale so
39:47
any role that I can play in in in that would be something for the future I think brilliant Jody thank you very much
39:53
for coming on board and recovered thank you for having me cheers [Music]
40:08
[Music]
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