CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
AFTER DINNER SPEAKERS
'Very relevant, provocative and entertaining.'
Morgan Stanley
SPEECH TITLES
Culture Change
Spreading the Passion
BIOGRAPHY
In 2009 Ellis Watson joined the board of FirstGroup. With 140,000 employees, the Aberdeen based company is the world's biggest privately owned public transport operator - with businesses ranging from First Great Western in the UK to America's legendary Greyhound Bus network.
Ellis' new role came after spells as MD of Menzies Distribution and Mirror Group Newspapers, where he was responsible for five national and 240 regional titles. He was previously Managing Director at Celador International, heading up commercial sales of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? He licensed the format in more than 100 countries - creating a global television phenomenon (and sowing the seeds for the hit film Slumdog Millionaire). The show also spawned 130 separate consumer products.
Ellis' first step on the management ladder was as a remarkably young Marketing Director at the Sun and News of the World, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch. He helped reverse the decline in sales and launched a number of what were then cutting edge initiatives, from brand extensions to Books for Schools. He also conceived CurrantBun.com, which quickly became a successful ISP.
In keynote presentations Ellis argues that a significant external shock like recession can be a springboard for very positive internal change. He shows how to inspire passion even when under pressure, and how to move from mere mission statements to true company culture - where the quality, integrity and diversity of individuals are properly harnessed.
An enormously entertaining and inspiring speaker, Ellis also reveals what it was like to work for the idiosyncratic Mr Murdoch. And he might describe how the Colombian Minister of Information insisted on hosting 'Millionaire' himself, giving glamorous female contestants a helping hand!
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Q&A
JLA: Are there any positives to be taken from the recession?
EW: Many companies are responding to recession like Chicken Licken, and totally missing the opportunity to radically overhaul the focus of their team. Any significant external shock can be used as a springboard for internal change that's staggeringly positive. Give me a room full of despondent executives in a downturn for an hour and I'll turn them into a bunch of change-hungry, tenacious go-getters because of the opportunities of the economic change.
JLA: What lessons can a large organisation learn from entrepreneurs and small businesses?
EW: Getting big companies to be bigger is hard, as the people running them often have forgotten - or weren't part of - the entrepreneurial aggression that made them big in the first place. Getting large organisations to be as hungry and aggressive as a small one is a cultural challenge - it must force executives to think outside their big resources, comfy positions and self-important success. If left unchecked, big organisations become lazy and complacent - get it right, and they can make a powerful cocktail from brilliant scale & assets that smaller competitors can't harness and a real drive to make them work damn hard.
JLA: How do you inspire trust, build trust and foster ambition?
EW: Talent can't sit behind boardroom doors and deep carpets - it has to rush through its organisation infecting their passion and drive across the whole company.
