Gracechurch and Refraction Cellar Club, Thursday 22nd September:  John Bullough talks about his experiences as CEO of the largest property company in Abu Dhabi.

John Bullough, former CEO of Aldar Properties, gave a fascinating and candid talk about his time as CEO of a company which was literally ‘building a nation’. With John at the helm, Aldar was responsible for a substantial portion of the huge national development programme for Abu Dhabi.

John also happened to become CEO at the point where the world economy was in meltdown and so had to manage, not only an incredibly ambitious development programme (“things that would have taken four or five years in the West, we had to build and complete in 18 months”) but also the impact on Aldar of the bursting of the speculative property bubble in the UAE.

Aldar’s most prominent project was the the Yas Island development, which included the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 race-track. This became the iconic centrepiece of Abu Dhabi’s development, slated to be a showpiece to the world: failure to deliver on time was not an option.

Against this backdrop John reflected on his ‘unconventional’ appointment and the subsequent challenge of managing a company and delivering an incredibly ambitious development programme at the same time.  At his disposal was a culturally and nationally diverse, largely expat workforce all with different notions of how to behave in commerce.  At the same time John needed to manage the expectations of the Emirati ruling elite. On top of all that Aldar needed some serious upgrading in terms of basic business processes and systems – it had, after all only been in existence for four years.

John recounted a number of humorous and frankly scary anecdotes about situations he had dealt with in the development phase, culminating in the exhilaration and relief of delivering the F1 Track on time. He told the audience that his keys to success were hands-on management, intense focus on and sensitivity to the cultural differences in his teams and establishing good business practices, processes and commercial behaviours.

While John was refreshingly honest about the frustrations and difficulties encountered he also emphasised the phenomenal spirit, hard work and sheer enterprise that his team, contractors and the workforce showed in making sure that key projects were delivered on time – a true 24-7 culture. John’s optimistic view also hinted at the potential for Abu Dhabi, especially that of a thoughtful, talented outward-looking Emirati leadership group that has a clear line of sight on building a nation that will be about much more than oil wealth.

There followed a lively bunch of questions ranging from the impact of the Arab uprisings to to the sometimes novel approach to planning control in the UAE.

Everyone agreed John was a breath of fresh air as CEO’s go and we’d had a realistic and rare insight into the opportunities and pitfalls of doing business in the UAE.

Does London have a future?  A challenging question. And one that our guest speaker, Stuart Popham, addressed at our 4th Cellar Club event.

Stuart entertained us with a brilliant and thought-provoking description of London’s path to success – from its  founding by Brutus of Troy – to its present day profile as a leading services centre.  The statistics are compelling;  85% of London’s workforce is employed in the services sector, the highest of any capital city in the world, 100 of the Fortune 500 companies are based in London, as are 4 of the 6 largest law firms and 2 of its universities are in the top ten in the world.  Notably, two million of the 7.6 million residents were not born in the UK –  so London is truly a hub, a gateway to, and magnet for, the rest of the world.

But is London’s success sustainable?  Stuart posited two future scenarios;  the depressing first, a City in decline, with immigration restricted, tax breaks removed and Financial Services companies gradually drifting away to other more welcoming locations around the globe:

“A strand of the fabric of London is pulled and the tapestry of the talent starts to trickle away and buyers and sellers start to set up in another place as they try to attract customers…”

The second more positive scenario is of a City which recognises and promotes its strength as a services hub – not in the commoditised areas (we can’t compete with the workforces of India or China) but a centre of excellence for setting standards for the rest of the world in key services sectors – engineering, law, accounting, media & creative and financial.  Achieving this will enable London to continue to attract the best talent and create demand for the workforce on projects all around the globe.

Stuart prompted the audience to discuss  likely outcomes, but before doing that he prevailed upon Government and other opinion leaders to recognise and understand the services industry and not to opt out of vigorously competing with other Cities who want to take what London has.

Stuart’s reputation precedes him and this subject obviously appealed,this being the best attended Cellar Club event yet. It was again held in the Vaults at the RSA – a venue appropriately redolent of London’s history.

Stuart Popham has been described as ‘the most connected lawyer in the City’:  he recently retired as senior partner of Clifford Chance and is currently Chair of TheCityUK, which represents the UK financial services industry.

The Cellar Club is a regular networking event run by Gracechurch, attended by opinion formers and senior decision makers from major financial, professional and advisory businesses.

A big thank you to Tony Angel for leading the conversations at our first ‘Cellar Club’ networking event last night. We all enjoyed his talk on ‘Trust after the banking crisis’ and the difficulties we now face regaining and maintaining trust in the post credit-crunch environment.
Of particular interest was his list of seven points to help organisations regain that trust from their customers and employees. Key to these were exhibiting transparency and integrity, backed up by good corporate governance and regulation.
The other interesting point which emerged from a comparison of his times at Linklaters and now at Standard & Poor’s, was the relative involvement of Partners when compared to the Board members at a corporate. It seems that Partners feel more at liberty to challenge the senior team on issues concerning the running of the firm than do their corporate counterparts. While I am sure there were times when these challenges were awkward to deal with, Tony did comment that it gave him an excellent all-round view of the business at Linklaters.
We’re all looking forward to the next Cellar Club in July and hope you are too!?

It seems like a good time to ask.  Most of our clients are beginning to emerge from recessionary trauma: intact but trimmer.  During the tough times, we have all been glad of any work to come our way.  But now there is a growing sense that rebuilding requires focus and that the focus should be on our most important clients.

The problem is that very few firms had well run key client programmes before the recession – even fewer now.  Back then, the obstacles were largely the result of success.  We were all too busy and making good money without the additional burden.

Times have changed. We need a programme that works, and window dressing to tick the “key client” box will not suffice.

There are many reasons why key client programmes fail to deliver.  In a moment, I’ll reflect on our view of the key ingredients for successful programmes.  First though, an observation- something strange has happened!

Most key client programmes fail because they become, or even start as, a burdensome process which fails to bring the client’s voice into the organisation.  In the end, if your key client programme doesn’t make your clients feel more valued, it’s not working.  Numerous clients tell us just that.  They are indifferent to or oblivious of their advisers’ key client programmes.

Here’s the weird thing.  Many of those self same firms also conduct some sort of client research – not always good quality and too often compromised because it’s not independent – but nevertheless they do it.  Somehow the feedback doesn’t link up with the key client process.  They are treated as seemingly different things.

So let’s tear up the old way and put in place some new wineskins here.  The figure shows what we have in mind.

Develop an approach where the key client programme drives proper intelligence gathering.  Part of that (though by no means all) should be independent feedback from the client.  That feedback should be giving the key client team clarity over:

These questions will not be honestly answered if it’s someone within your firm asking them.

And getting the feedback itself is not sufficient. Your firm needs a means of engaging the client team and doing things differently and better than your competitors.

And so our view of the critical success factors:

It’s a short list – and to deliver to it is a longer list of activities. 

But looking at that list, let’s ask again the question we started with:  What state is your key client programme in?

Hello world!

We’re excited to launch our first official Gracechurch blog.

This blog is still under construction. Soon we hope it will provide you with a deeper insight into our work and who we are – we’re very excited to be out here talking to you!

Keep on the lookout for posts from our team members in the future. If you’re interested RSS feeds are available for all posts or specific categories.

Thanks so much for visiting our blog.

Enjoy!