SPEAKER_00 0:00

Anyone can take a risk and anyone can throw all their money down in black. Yeah. Going through something that's that's difficult initially that then becomes easier and easier over time. That's probably more my my jam. Where everyone else falls over is they don't have access to talent at the speed that we have access to talent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm becoming slightly irrelevant these days.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Which is the objective of any CEO, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Yeah, it is. It just feels a bit sad sometimes. On a call with a CEO of a huge robotics business, we were able to pull up a list of 10 people who could do the job there and there on the spot. That wasn't possible 18 months ago.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

This episode is proudly sponsored by River, the conversational intelligence platform built specifically for recruitment and staffing businesses. Recruitment firms generate huge amounts of valuable information every day through client calls, candidate interviews, vacancy briefings, and business development conversations. The challenge is that most of that information never makes it into systems, processes or decision making. River captures, transcribes and analyses every conversation automatically, transforming unstructured discussions into actionable intelligence for recruiters, managers and business leaders. Whether that's improving CRM hygiene, generating candidate and client summaries, identifying commercial opportunities, coaching, or uncovering trends across the business, River helps staffing companies get more from every conversation they have. Unlike generic AI note-taking tools, River is built specifically for the recruitment industry with workflows, automations, and insights designed around the way recruiters actually work. If you'd like to see how leading staffing businesses are using a conversational intelligence to gain a competitive advantage, visit river.ai and book a demo today. Good afternoon and welcome to another episode of Recruiting Alchemy. Today's guest is Rory Gaston, group CEO at Saragossa, a very fast-growing staffing business with offices all around the world. Rory lives in Chicago, but is an Ulsterman by birth, um and with an unmistakable Ulster twang, I have to say. Thank you very much, Andy. Um first of all, welcome back to the UK. Um you landed from Chicago on Monday into what is probably bit well, did you were you did you gate crash into the heat wave or not? It wasn't as bad as it was last week, apparently. Oh mate, it was wild. Um Chicago hot in the summer, cold in the winter?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, I think it's a pretty amazing climate, genuinely. Right. I'm just gonna do a quick pitch on Chicago. Right. Uh so in the winter it gets quite cold, but it doesn't rain. Ah, okay. Really doesn't rain at all. In the summertime, it ranges from in Celsius 25 to 35. Right. But we've got air conditioning, okay, which is a real lacking commodity here.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

So yeah, I mean it's I mean, yeah. I think I think I think it's becoming more and more like clear that you need aircon in this country as the the climate develops. Um well look, thanks for coming on. Um and we we don't have much of a structure here, but the two things that we do have, or the one thing we have is the two beginnings. So I thought what we would do is think and talk about a bit about the Genesis story of Rory Gaston. Um then a little bit later on, I think the second beginning is really the day that you made the decision to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. Sure. Um and and and really for some people that was a big bang, for others it was a slow evolution and and everything in between. But we'll get on to that. But why don't you yeah, take us back to the beginning?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Where where did the story begin? Okay, so I was born near Belfast, not actually in Belfast, um not too long ago. I'm still relatively uh young and fresh. Um, and I actually grew up on a farm with horses and chickens and country bumpkin, country bumpkin through and through. Right. Still like going back to the farm in the countryside, doing that this trip. Um, and yeah, a really fun, interesting, eccentric childhood with uh lots of activities, you know, outdoorsy, very, very much so. Road horses, right, skied. Where when you said near Belfast, give me the name. It's a place called Ballygown.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Ballygown, it's very northern Irish, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Very, very northern Irish, yeah. Yeah, um, and so yeah, so I I went to school in Belfast. Um, you know, good school, good fun. Yeah, made some really good friends. And then uh after that, I went to university in Bath. Um you're a smart kid? Did okay. Good university, right? Yeah, did okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

So did you what I mean is did you find it easy? Did you work really hard or a bit of both?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

I definitely didn't work very hard academically. Okay. I find it relatively okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Um did you inherit decent sort of you know, brain power? Was that was it was it passed down the heredity line? Probably, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Probably did okay in the genetic uh modern. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so my mum's actually uh triple doctorate and professor of psychology, okay. Uh, which probably helps on some of the brain power. Right. My dad's actually an entrepreneur. Right. Uh he did quite well when he was younger and has lived quite a charmed life. Got it. Sounds nice. Nice combo. It's a yeah, it's a good combo.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

So, University of Bath, very, very impressive place. Um, tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah, so I did a few different sports there, a bit of swimming, actually played what Americans would call field hockey there as well. Okay. Uh, made an amazing group of friends, uh, which was definitely very shaping in my in my life. Um, uh, I'm actually flying to Kenya at Christmas to marry two of the friends I've made at university. I'm the the wedding officiator for the ceremony. Uh in Kenya. In Kenya. Is either of them Kenyan? One of them's Kenyan, yeah. Right, okay. Yeah. So that's I guess that's a good marker of the kind of relationships you build at somewhere like Bath. Yeah, yeah. Um, and yeah, there's just loads of really cool connections across my life from from that time. Right, okay. And then out of bath, you did a four-year degree? I did do a four-year very well read. Yeah. One of those years was actually in Australia. What one of the as part of the course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

That's what you're getting at a proper university, innit? Yeah, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

I'll just stockport. Um one of the one of the unique situations about that is I actually played polo in Australia, horseback. Okay, that is a proper sport, mate. It was pretty good fun. I got got paid to do that. Can you ride horses?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah, I've ridden since I was four. Ah, right. Mate, I I've never ridden a horse, I never would. That's another story. But I went to my wife is from Spain, and um we went down to Soto Grande last year, which is the kind of European epicenter of horseback polar. Yeah, and I have never seen a more insane sport in my life terrifying mate, like the power of those things because they're right up in front of you as well. Um when you you hit each other at speed, real spood. I mean, I would I mean you've got to be a lunatic to do that.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Um, mate, I don't know, but um but you I mean enjoyed it, yeah. I loved it, yeah, yeah. Right, okay. Traveled for about 18 months during that that year, right? Um, so yeah, it was good good time. Amazing, good learning curve. Yeah, where in Australia? That was in Melbourne, um, but went all over Australia. Okay. Uh my friend was in New Zealand actually with the uh Auckland Blues. That was his placement year. Right, okay. So he flew across to Australia and we we went all the way up the East Coast. Amazing. It was pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yeah, yeah, that is amazing. Um, and then back from Oz, finished degree. What does the road ahead look like at this point? Is there a is there a does the 15-year-old version of you have a big ambition, rocket scientists a little bit bumpy actually, for uh a short period of time.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Right. So I actually got on a grad scheme in London. Okay, and at the time it was 2009, so jobs were a little bit scarce. It was in advertising and something like 60,000 people applied. We got down to 12 people went to London for kind of a two-week experience. Right. At the end of that two weeks, two people were offered a job, and I was actually one of those people who was offered a job, but I was like, this is terrible. Just not for you. This is really, really not for me.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

What was it that what was it? It was very corporate, right? So you've gone in and had a taste of it.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and the the the idea was the 12 people who went through this period, only two of them were offered a job, and I was one of the two or two, but it wasn't for me. Right. Um, so I was the so you'd left Bath and come to London.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yes, but you didn't you don't have any connection. You you went, you're from Northern Ireland, you went to University in Bath to London. Was this was your first taste of life in London? It was the big smoke. The big smoke where the streets were paved with gold.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Yeah, so I actually retreated from London back to Bath. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

And just without really much of a plan at this stage, just looking for a job and open-minded away.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

No, no, actually, I had a plan. So I realized when I was at uni, even though it was an incredibly academic or sorry, uh, incredibly sporting university, they didn't have very much healthy food. Right. So I put together this business plan to open up this uh kind of I saw a lot in Australia, these kind of like um all-in-ones that do healthy rolls, salads, and sushi. I was like, this is great. Yeah. Took it to the university. They said this is actually a really good idea, but we're just gonna do it ourselves. So that's so that's nice one. That was my first real lesson on maybe getting NDAs in place and things like that, first of all. But um, yeah, so I I I did try that. I then tried a few other things kind of akin to that. I'm quite into food, I love food. Right. Realised it's actually a lot of hard work for quite little return. Right. And then um I actually applied for a role in a in a recruitment stroke staffing company. And I met Jimmy Lloyd. Okay. And uh so I was he's your co-founder at Saragossa. Yep, that's what I was just about to say. So basically, I I went to an interview. I was actually 10 minutes late, Andy. Um, the reason I was late is I got lost, but I paid the taxi. I find a taxi driver and I paid him and I said, if you can drive me to this location, I'm gonna follow you. I didn't have any sat nav or anything like that. I'm gonna follow you and I'll I'll like park up and I'll pay you the fare. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

I guess you know, I guess pre-sat nav, that was that was as good as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

So when I got there, I told him that story. He was like, Well, I can't really correct you for that. That's pretty that's pretty good. Interviewed with him, pretty smart, met some of the rest of the co-founders of that business, and I was like, I just This is in Bristol. In Bristol. Had you ever lived in Bristol? But back. Bristol's like a stone throw, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, I'd been out in Bristol, but never, I'd never lived there. And so I just said, Listen, I want to work with this guy. Um that's how it all started. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Um was your first proper job and first taste of sales? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah. What was the tell me a bit about the environment? It was it was a really good environment, it was incredibly supportive. Um, I was their first ever graduate that they'd ever hired. Okay. So I got loads of focus attention, yeah, etc., which is really, really good. Um, brilliant training. Um, you may have crossed paths with Hannah Keep. So she came in and trained, she's a train, she worked at S3. She worked at S3, that's what I was saying. Yeah, yeah. So she came in and actually did some stuff. So literally every bell and whistle that I could have had as a you know, in a first job, I I got it all. And so that was brilliant, and that helped me do quite well. And so I think in my second year I was their top performer in permanent, and then started doing contract work as well, and did quite well at that, and ran a large team, and so I kind of really rode the the coattails there. Did you did it just click quickly? Um I think you get to a point where it does just click, and I think that was about six months in, okay, and then it became relatively straightforward. But not, I wouldn't have said from day one it was yeah, easy. What market? Well, they didn't really have proper markets at that point. Uh that that firm didn't have proper markets, so uh I started looking at London and then realized these these hedge funds that I didn't know what it was beforehand, but these hedge funds seemed to pay people pretty well, right? And people seem to want to work in them. And I remember going to one of the offices for a meeting at breakfast, and the chef was cooking me poached eggs, and I was like, this seems my kind of speed. So I started just really focusing on on hedge funds and asset managers. Um in London. In London. From Bristol. Yeah. So I ended up spending a lot of time in London. Right. So coming up and down, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that that was kind of the that was the real clicking point when I realized, okay, there's a way of working in this world that maybe isn't as uh familiar to everyone, but it's very, very attractive to the right kind of person. Yeah. And so I'm kind of focusing on that and niche on that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

And do you remember the day that you were like, I'm gonna make a career out of this? Was there a moment you were like, This is a bit of me? Because I think for a lot of people, their their early part of their journey. I always say to people when I was starting out in staffing that there comes a point where you've just got to go all in on it. Right now, that doesn't necessarily have to be a moment in time, it might be an osmo, a period of osmosis, but do you recall thinking this is I'm gonna make money out of this?

SPEAKER_00 14:20

I think what actually happened was I got to a certain point at that organization and uh it's a company called Red Rock, and realized that I wouldn't be able to, you know, I guess run the company or sit on the board. Right. Um and so for me it wasn't that I I couldn't keep working for someone else. Yeah, I wanted to kind of be a bit of a master of my own journey, but I didn't actually know if that was going to be in staffing or something else. Right. And so I decided to, you know, uh turn in my chips. Um, but unbeknownst to me, Jimmy was doing the same thing at the same time. Okay, so he was a colleague at Red. No, he was a he was uh director, yeah, he was an equity partner.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Okay, at the same business you worked in.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah. So there was he was more senior than you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, okay. Yeah, um, he was one of the founders. Okay. So so neither of us realized that the other one was had had had had enough. Sorry, plotting sounds quite nice. Yeah, definitely no, it wasn't plotting at all. It's just like considering. Yeah, I I I can't see how I kind of get to the next point.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Yeah, which I think is a completely normal and natural point pat vantage point, right? Which is yeah, you know, what does the next step look like? So was how did it all come tumbling out?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Well, basically, we were both handing in our notice at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

It's weird how that happens, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:41

And serendipitous. Uh the MD's a very, very sharp guy, uh, guy called Dean Hart. And he basically said, Well, listen, if you're both kind of gonna leave, why don't we invest in you guys to spin up something new?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

And I hadn't actually considered because I didn't know that Jimmy was was leaving and he didn't know I was leaving. But you were mates? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But just you know, it's the it's the kind of Chinese walls thing. I'm very I'm uh I I've got a lot of very strict boundaries about stuff like that. So I wouldn't have volunteered. Jimmy's my best mate, but I still wouldn't have said it, if that makes sense until it was all done officially. So anyway, so Dean came up with this construct where Red Rock invested in in the new company. Right. And they they had some, you know, they had equity in it, and Jimmy and I had equity in it, and off we went.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

And that was the beginning of the Saragossa journey. Yep. So when was that? 2015. Okay, so just over 10 years ago. What a journey, I mean, what a journey you've been on in 10 years. We'll come on to that in a minute. So prior to that though, would you have just gone on your own and set it up and done some deals? I had no idea what I was gonna do. But you just knew you wanted to do something.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

I want to do something else. There was lots of ideas at the time. Right. I didn't actually think it would be going back into staffing. Oh, really? No, no, I did I genuinely didn't. I didn't quite know what it was gonna look like.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

But why not? Because if you're in staffing, the natural logical thing is for most people, it's like I'm making money for you, I could probably make money for myself. It's not that big a leap.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Because then it'd be something more challenging, maybe. Right. As in like doing the same thing. So let me just rephrase that. Doing the same thing and being good at the same thing isn't as appealing for me as doing something that I have not done that's gonna be hard for me. Are you a natural sort of risk taker?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Sounds like you are. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

A big healthy appetite for I it's I think it's I think everyone likes to define it as risk taking. I think it's more seeking challenge, is a slightly different way of looking at it. Like anyone can take a risk, anyone can throw all their money down in black. Yeah, but going through something that's that's difficult initially that then becomes easier and easier over time. That's probably more my my jam. And that does come with taking risk, yes, definitely. But it's it's not just I think that's quite a simple way of defining are you a risk taker versus yeah, do you like doing hard things that then you can get better at? Got it.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

So the opportunity opens up. Yeah, but were you all in from the minute one? Did you think this is actually perfect?

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, yeah. Once you know, as I say, someone else came up with a construct, but once the idea was put in front of me, I thought this sounds like a really really good idea. It meant we could completely niche in in on what we call the buy-side space. Um, just working with you know, hedge funds, asset managers, private equity firms, being control of her own destiny that way.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Did Jimmy work the same markets as you? Nope. So he was in a different world. What was so strategically, what was the what was the initial plan?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

The split was Jimmy would bring people into the organization and develop them, right? Because that's what he did with me, and he's brilliant at it. And I would go out and win the the clients and build the business. Um, and that's kind of actually how it's worked. Ever since. Ever since, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

And that's and that that plays to both your strengths. Yeah, and I think that's what you want. You you don't want people who are just identical of each other. You need you know, you need a yin and a yang, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:15

So I think he does all the hard stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

He probably thinks you do all the hard stuff. Exactly. That is so true. Because in my in my in in in River, my current business is that I think that's somebody else said at the end of the day is that they I think they do the hard bit and they think I do the hard bit, and that's probably a nice vibe. Yeah. Um, all right, so you're in Bath, it's I know you're in Bristol, Saragossa is born. I have to ask you about the name.

unknown 19:44

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

I was doing some research, and it was either well, first of all, I assumed it was the city in northern Spain. But that's spelt differently. It is. So I was like, can't be that. And then the only thing I could work at is there's a chess move called the Saragossa. So is it the chess thing? Yeah, it is. So basically, it's a cool name.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

I like it. It was old Jimmy. Right. He's much more creative. It is cool. Yeah. If it was up to me, it'd be called Rory Corp. So um I'm glad he I'm glad he had some uh some involvement there. Yeah. Um basically, when I when I started off, a lot of these kind of senior technologists and quants and people like that, they would naturally assume that maybe you weren't quite the same level as them intellectually. Right. Which is which is a fair enough assumption. And so I used to meet them in coffee shops and pubs, but bring a chess board with me. And pattern interrupt, that isn't it? And we play a bit of chess. And you're a good chess player. I'm okay. I'm not But you enjoy it. I enjoy it, and I could play well enough that it would show there's an intellectual maybe not parody, but something yeah, yeah. Leveling up. It's kind of ballsy as well. Um, and so when we were sitting with these very creative people and names, I think at one point we actually got uh a book that had all of the National Trust property names in it, and we're looking through, and you know, we had like Beaufort, and so we'd look that up and that's that's taken, and you know, basically the whole of the National Trust property book is is actually a company somewhere, right? So we're really struggling, and and Jimmy started looking at some stuff and started looking at some stuff, and he came up with a name and the creators loved it, and I thought I can't be bothered talking about names anymore, so let's just do it.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Let's go for it. I love it. I think it's a great name, actually. And look, and this is I won't this is no shade at all on on anyone, but I just think you know, when you you know when you got that sort of portmanteau of two surnames that sounds like a solicitor's firm or a bit of a I never I never wanted to do that, and I was like, it has to be something can't be that, you know. So I think I'm I'm with you. Yeah, I despise all of those sorts of yeah. I mean, I'm I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't choose quite so robust language as a lot of people. No, we're all we're all different, you have to be more diplomatic. Um So Saragossa is born and did you have a vision? Did you have an, you know, did you sort of see, I'll do this, you know, you've obviously grown incredibly well. And and and for those of you, and I won't put words into your mouth, in fact, no, let tell us if you were to describe Saragossa to someone today, how would you describe it as it is now?

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yeah. I think that's actually quite a key point because we've been talking a lot about staffing and recruitment, and the business has evolved much beyond that. Yeah. So these days we would describe ourselves as a technology solutions business. Right. And we've got three main parts of the organization. Uh so the staffing part powers everything. Without that, nothing else works, um, which is great. Uh, but in 2021, uh a large private equity firm came to us and said, Hey, listen, we want to outsource all of our technology. So, our desktop support, our service desk, our application support, that whole layer. And we've spoken to IBM, we've spoken to Accenture, but we want to go with you. And I said very honestly, I don't really know what that is. But if you want to figure it out together, let's let's have a go. And that that business has has really exploded. And the reason for it is most of what I now know are called MSPs. I didn't even know what an MSP was when we started, but what were now called MSPs, they're usually resource constrained. So, you know, your hedge fund in New York, your support person leaves to go and join somewhere else, and it takes the MSP six to nine months to backfill that role. Right. Because they don't have a recruitment company tied into it. It's not quick enough. Well, they have to go to like a third party and they don't pay enough. You know, you know what it's like when you're working with sorts of firms. So we've never had that issue. So if someone leaves a service, it takes us a couple of days to bring someone else in who we know that we've worked with elsewhere that's properly vetted and aligned to the industry. Yeah. And so we've just found that versus the traditional MSPs, we've been able to uh take a lot of market share. Right. And so we currently have 20 companies on our platform that we are providing end-to-end support services for, whether it be application support, as I say, desktop support, service delivery. We're also doing a lot of what we now call AI operations, which is when firms have started building a lot of AI capability. They need people to put structure and governance around that to make sure to make sure that they're um not building uh tools that uh don't fit with the the the strategic direction of the organization. So that whole that whole thing's completely changed the landscape of the of the business. Right. But still, the if without the staffing part of the company, yeah, the MSP part doesn't work at all.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

So the so the staffing layer is is what the the engine room that that that I guess gets you into the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

It's like you've been reading our internal literature. Yeah, the the the the the staffing business is is two ways. It's a Trojan horse. Yeah. So we speak to all of the CTOs and COOs of these buy-side businesses anyway. Yeah. And so we understand what's going on from a strategic direction, but also it builds trust and it also allows us to deliver people quickly. Right. So it kind of does all three parts. Um, but then the second uh the second evolution was maybe about three years ago, some firms came to us and said, listen, when we're delivering projects, we either hire people from Saragossa and we know they're really good, or we bring in contractors from Saragossa, yeah, and we know they're really good. And it tends to be all of the people on a project are your people in some way, shape, size, or form. And I know a lot of staffing firms try to do this, yeah. I'm gonna make that point very clearly. They they you know talk about SOWs and things like that, but it really is dressed up staffing. Yeah, we've worked very hard to move away from that. So we've brought in our own internal program management, project delivery teams, and we then use those teams to basically build project teams very, very quickly to scale up and deliver outcomes for clients. So it's not just here's some people under an SOW, which I know is a very common approach. It's more so this is the project's outcome, this is the project's goal, and we'll put in place the PMO and the governance and the standards and the solution. Yeah, and then take that from start to finish. And so that part of the organization has also exploded pretty rapidly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we've got large projects with very, very big tier one uh private equity firms and portfolio companies. Um, and again, it doesn't work without the staffing engine because one of the big four might be resource constrained on a on a particular system integration or or data program, and we can come in and build up a team in days versus months and start delivering.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

That's really interesting. So you're committed to the staffing layer, you don't see that as a oh well, eventually we'll get rid of that.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

And that is the secret sauce that everyone ignores.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Because I think what's really common is the logic that, oh well, eventually we can just move, we can leave that behind and we'll transition into this SOW, MS, whatever label you ought to put on it.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Um, because it is perhaps perceived as unsexy, it's perceived as dirtier, but it's it's completely incorrect. Yeah. No, nothing where everyone else falls over is they don't have access to talent at the speed that we have access to talent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm very, very, very bullish on that. And also I'm very certain that anyone who thinks that they want to evolve away from that and see that as dirty work, they're they're making the wrong bet.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

From an enterprise value perspective, you know, what you know, I don't think you have to be a genius to know that you know the multiple the the multiple on contracts is better than the multiple on perm and the multiple on SOW is better again, and you know, whatever, and for all of the obvious reasons, you know, forward-looking, all that stuff, recurring revenue, etc. As you uh talk to the wider world, it's a it's a different business. Is the are the is the conversation with I don't know whether you talk to investors or or partners, but uh do people view your business through a different lens because of this this different construct?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah, and I think I'm very uh clear with people uh when they when they want to talk to us about the business that both the consulting arm and the managed services arm are continuously evolving and professionalizing more and more and more. Right. I'm not saying it's completely built out, but what's the excitement from you know an external investor perspective if it is completely built out? Exactly. Um, but yes, it does change that that conversation and and it's it's been a very hard and deliberate two years of of shifting the the kind of both internal and external view of the organization. Um, but you know, very, very happy that our perception is it's basically a quality organization that can be used for the different arms of human capital.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

That's kind of if you're gonna boil it all down, that's what what companies see when they talk to us.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Um but but it it changes the perspective though, because the truth is if I'm in contingent staffing, my job is to do deals, right? I don't really care what comes after that, to a greater or lesser extent, right? Um, whereas the problem you've got is it's not just about doing deals, you've got to get the right people in the right place because you are on the hook beyond the placement. So, and I'll give you a good example. I remember I used to go in, uh we were on the when I was in staffing, we're on the PSL at some big bank, and you go in and you go through this annual review process, and they're like, right, we hired 975 people last year, you placed 114 of them, so you came third, or whatever it might be. But I was like, But you're not bothered about whether we placed any good ones, you know what I mean? Like so it was it was purely about the numbers rather than well, why don't we evaluate who are your top performers and then where are they coming from, type thing. What's your view on because does does it is it a different is it a cultural difference between contingent staffing where it's just about placements and then outsourcing, which is about delivery, and they're they're two radically different things.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

So I would challenge your view of contingent work working in the first place. So maybe in banking, where it is very much numbers, and you were probably on a managed service delivered by Robert Walters, and you're in into them, so there's a couple of layers. All of our clients have always been buy-side firms where it is about quality, right? It's not about the numbers. And uh for the record, I was like a volume cowboy, just to be clear. For the record, we have pretty much zero customer attrition, right? In fact, I can give you two clients in our entire career that we we've either fired or they've parted ways with us. Right. That's like it. Got it. Um, and I think that's that's kind of part of the beauty of it, is we've always worked in that way.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Okay, so it wasn't a big departure.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

No, no, no. It's it's it's relatively low margin, relatively high fees, yeah, lots of consistency, yeah, lots of quality control. And a very well uh very well-known hedge fund in London. A couple of years ago, they realized that the team that we had internally from a staffing perspective was so good that they asked us to come on site and basically be part of their recruitment business or their recruitment team. So not one of those, you know, deals that you see where like a like a talentful type thing. It was it was very, very different model from that. It was basically come in, help us rework some of our processes, get hiring managers more engaged. And by the way, no change in terms of the fees, but everything will flow through through your organization. Yeah, I've not seen I've not seen it, I've not seen a deal quite structured like that before. But it was a real testament to what we have built as an organization with the quality. So, you know, I would definitely counter your point in terms of yeah, yeah, traditional staffing has to be that way.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah, sorry, maybe I should have been more clear my version of traditional staffing was more like that. Um but but the truth is, whether you like it or not, when you are in contingent staffing and you are paid only on a success basis, it does create slightly perverse economics, which is it is in my fiscal interest to get this candidate into your organization, whether or not he's the best candidate or not. And and and so, and that's an undeniable reality of contingent staffing, where the fee is directly connected. If you want to build a really sustainable niche business, yeah, but but it doesn't work now, and and I couldn't agree more, right? And and that's what I'm saying. That's why it's utterly illogical to say to four recruitment businesses, here's one job, three of you won't get paid.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Ah, so that's the thing. We very like in fact pretty much never work against other firms. Right, okay. It might be contingent sometimes, quite often it's retained, yeah, but it's always exclusive, or maybe one against another. Yeah, yeah. If there's if there's anything else than that, we just need to bother. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

And is that so so you've got a very a very 70, 80 of you now?

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Is that about in the staffing business? There's uh about 75 people in the different ways of looking at the kind of consulting world about 150. Right. So it's a big business, and the managed services about another 120. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

So, but that's that's not just scale, but it's complexity. Yes. So, how do you guard against that kind of cultural drift? As you cannot simply be on all things now. So, and and and your point is you've got it sounds like quite a demanding customer base. Yep. You've obviously got very high standards around how you wish to deploy or to deliver. How do you guard against that drift of like standards and keep how do you keep things tight?

SPEAKER_00 34:37

So, in the last two years, we've really heavily invested in the internal team. Right. And so we have selected certain leaders that have been in the business for a number of years and really worked on developing them. We've also brought in some external leaders, we've brought in people to run the consultancy brand and to run the IT managed services brand and the professionalization that needs to go into that with different uh people in the org chart. Yeah. And so realistically, whilst I would love to say I, you know, I come into one of the offices and make a huge impact, I'm becoming slightly irrelevant these days.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Which is which is the objective of any CEO, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Yeah, it is. It just feels a bit bit sad sometimes. Yeah. Um, but no, no, seriously, the the people that run the individual PLs, they are definitely better at what they do than me doing that. Right. And that's that's not me, you know, giving a you know humble brag or anything like that. It's just true. Yeah, they are exceptionally good at running those PLs. Yeah. And then it's my job, I guess, to give them the structure for the whole organization to grow.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah, okay, understood. And then so you're at uh, I mean, a it's a big business, complex business, multiple service lines. You mentioned a sort of deployment project you you referenced talent for who who but have you ever looked at that talent as a service model and considered that?

SPEAKER_00 36:02

We did, we did in when in 2021 when we were popping out ideas left, right, and center. Printing money. It was one of the things that we thought about. Um, but my view was I didn't want to become one of those TAS as business. And I mean, it some I mean some very successful. Oh no, it's no they're great, but that would mean replicating what they did or trying to change it. Whereas I saw a better path with the IT managed services, which I felt was a very uh steel industry that could do with something slightly different. Um, and so I felt that was an easier kind of or a better move, probably. And also just with the demand for clients for us to take more accountability for delivery of projects, I felt those two were a better match than than the talent as a service.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Not that we want to encourage competition for your for your um growing business, but for lots of people who watch this show, they often will be in contingent staffing. Some of them are pretty exhausted in a long few years. Yeah, they're often maybe looking at how to rebuild my company from its peak in 22. Lots of them would love to be in something more akin to what you're doing, uh-huh, but just don't know where to start. Um you mentioned IT managed services. I guess let's just explore what that really means. Is it uh is it fair to say that are you selling this model to the customer, or is the customer already comfortable with the conceptual model and you're just maybe you're just one of one of X providers and your jobs just to be the best option, or are you trying to convince them that this is a good idea?

SPEAKER_00 37:47

I think it's a bit of both. I don't think we're trying to convince anyone it's a good idea, right? I think that there's a lot of demand for it. Um, if you think about the way an investment firm works, why would they run their own support when that's not their core business? Right. So it's often a better idea to outsource it to someone else. They don't make money from it. Yeah. So it's often a better idea to outsource it to someone else. So some people will be already thinking about that journey, and therefore we're an option to do that. And then sometimes people are frustrated with the existing providers. Um, because just like when we're talking about the contingency recruitment uh piece, yeah, often firms will come to us because they've done the traditional contingency recruitment piece and it's not worked. Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

So they've been they've been filling their own roles, managing it themselves. It's just a constant hamster wheel of headache.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Yeah, but yeah, and uh, but when they've got an sorry, uh to be more clear, when they've got an incumbent MSP, they are like how other contingency firms are are in terms of from the food chain perspective versus us. Got it. So we're showing them a different way of how an MSP can work.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Right, okay. But you're you are the are you are these people on site or are they your are they remote, offshore?

SPEAKER_00 38:58

So we have a uh a site in Buenos Aires. Okay. Um, and that's really useful because it's halfway between London and the USA. So time is it it captures a a lot of the the kind of support core ours. Um, and then it's on-site VIP support in wherever the client's officers are. So a lot of it in New York, San Francisco, LA, Miami, London, Tokyo, Sydney.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

But but servicing that from Buenos Aires as well as on-site. Yeah. So a hybrid essentially by saying, look, we've got a resource center here. And would this person would this person be fully on one project? Or yes, they would be. So you'd be a fully deployed on one project.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Yeah, yep. So the whole model, a lot of other MSPs, they they share resources. Everyone's dedicated to that client with us. So the ones in Buenos Aires, uh, that's where you're doing the first line support. I've locked out of my, I forgot my password, I can't access this folder, etc. And then the on-site will be the type of people where your your laptop's not rebooting properly, or you need some new hardware or whatever it happens to be.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

So that first line and second line delineation.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

But do you think, Rory, if you wind that go back 15 years, the idea you've got 150 people working in Buenos Aires might be quite a mad idea.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

But it's not not all of those people I mentioned in the IT line services are in Buenos Aires, just to be clear. But yes, it's it's quite a it's quite mad to be like, how did this happen? Yeah, I think when I first suggested it to the board, they thought it was mad as well. So and why Buenos Aires? Basically, uh, I wanted to move away from the traditional offshore locations, you know, Vietnam, Manila, India, etc., because everyone was doing it there and I wanted it to be different. And so we did a large kind of survey of different options and we kind of ranked them against uh quality of English. The guys in Buenos Aires speak better English than me. Right. Uh, education, their uh education is very similar to the British education system, it's very, very, very high standard. Um, then you're also looking at attrition, and attrition is super low in Buenos Aires. Right. So we basically stitched a lot of things together, and it came out over and over and over again as the place to be.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Wow, it's amazing. And is that is that is that is that if you if you think about where your energy goes as the CEO, is that the line of service that you you're most ambitious about?

SPEAKER_00 41:32

I'm sure you're ambitious about it all, but we're actually we're actually looking at spinning up another business right now. Okay. And so that's taking a bit of my a bit of my attention. Right. Um, and that's more in the kind of uh AI for deployed engineering space. Okay. Um very hot market. It is, it is, and we've got a proven track record in building teams in that market. So we're looking at building our own team and keeping that as a as a captive uh business and and selling that service or that capacity back to clients.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Well, I guess the thing is one now that you've got experience in that with that model, you you've got some chops to be able to we know how to do this, then you can do it again, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:16

Which is yeah. So that's at the moment, that's probably taking up most of my time is speaking to the different private equity firms that we work with, seeing what the demand's like in their portfolio, and then seeing how quickly we need need to scale the business in order to satisfy that demand.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

So if we think about this, and you you don't need to you don't need to sort of um fess up all of your strategy. So feel free to tell me to get bent. But are you going into the private equity? You get into these portfolio companies via the private equity investor and saying, hey, we can help you with all these different solutions, and they might have 50 companies in their portfolio that they can open doors to you. Is that strategic?

SPEAKER_00 42:54

It works, it works both ways, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Uh sometimes bottoms up and top down, yeah, yeah. And it's a pretty sensible way to do it, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:00

You get in at the top and work your way through it. It's a hard, it's a long, hard graft, is what I would say. Um, it takes a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

But it sounds like you are culturally used to play in the long game, yeah, rather than quick wins and and you know, wham bam thing, you know, you're you're comfortable with that. Was that part of your upbringing and staffing? We was that, or were you always just that way inclined? Um because the truth is, for all the reasons I outlined earlier, it's not that common. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's not that common to be willing and able to play the long game.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

I think it's it's always been trying to do things differently. Right. That's probably uh a very, very neat way of kind of defining it. Yeah. Um, so when I looked at the way other staffing firms worked, where there's very few inverted commas competitors to Saragossa that work only in the buy side space, that primarily focus on technology, that have the kind of scale that we do. And there's others that Have been in that market and are no longer in that market. And so I think we've got quite a niche there. And then I also looked at how other firms did things whereas you're talking about you're part of a large PSL. I don't think we're actually on any PSLs. Genuinely, I don't. I I think we might be one of the companies that a firm works with, but typically when they engage us, it's on an exclusive basis, as I say, or one or two. It's not being part of a PSL.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

And I and I think that you know that's that's what we see all the time, right? It's about how do you get into a different bucket? Because, you know, I I remember you know, we were we were up, we were doing some project work and the Lloyd were charging 1900 a day for their for some grad basically. It was just coming out of a different budget. But it's all just about the lot, you know, the the internal budgeting systems that a company will have. And if you can break free from that categorization, it opens up a world of opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

It's also about trust. Yeah. Because your trust, you weren't able to build that level of trust because you were working through a third party you were working through, and whose whose job it is is to keep you on length. Well, also keep you in that bucket, yeah. Because if you start them providing services a different way, their revenue's going down because the spend is still the spend. Yeah, it just depends which bucket it's coming from. Yeah. So again, very early on, you know, don't mind mentioning it. We had some uh relationships with resource solutions, but I just refuse to work through that process, it didn't make sense to me. Yeah. I and so we often got in trouble because we weren't working through the defined way, and I think that's kind of, you know, it was just illogical. So I wasn't really willing to settle for it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

And so you're 10 years old, more than 10 years old as a business. I thought you meant me.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

I was looking really good for 10 years old.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Yeah, you're looking great. Um, you're more than 10 years old. Um, you're obviously still a young man. Have you got a vision for the future? Are you thinking we're gonna get a load of private equity money in and go and buy a load of companies? Are you gonna scale? You're gonna have global domination, you're gonna, you know, what what what is if what what if we wind the movie forward five years, what does the world look like to you then?

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Yeah, I think um I think we've got to this point uh bootstrapped, okay, which I think is the trendy word. Yeah. Um, and so we've never we've never taken outside investment apart from that kind of initial, you know, sit up, set up um investment, which we we paid down in, I think it was like six months or something like that. Um and so the next stage, in order to kind of, you know, with the different ideas that we have in the different service lines, the next stage will be uh looking at some sort of um institutional backing to do that. Um and I think quite quickly the business accelerates to sort of, you know, with the with the uh different service offering to to about a $200 million business in the next sort of 18 months to two years. So it's on a it's on quite a fast upward journey right now. Um, but that has only come from years of being patient whilst we build out the the managed services business and the consultancy business. So again, going back to your point earlier on, if it was just quickfire contingency work, you just we wouldn't be able to get to that kind of point. Yeah. Um and having that trust with the buyer from years and years and years of working in the same market and and showing up, yeah, doing what we say we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

And are you is sector expansion an option or part of the story? No, it's you want to stick to the knitting and what you know.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah. The for me anyway, the fun is in the niche, the value's in the niche, and actually we've got good diversification within that niche because we work with hedge funds, we work with private equity firms, asset managers, wealth managers, and something very funky called high frequency traders, which I'm sure you know who what what those sorts of businesses are. But the way the market works is one of them's always doing really, really well, one of them's typically not doing as well as they as they have done in the past, and then the others kind of float somewhere in the middle. So you're never at a point where all your chips are kind of falling on the floor, and I think that's quite unique. So even during kind of 2008-2009, the hedge funds did actually overall pretty well. Yeah, so did the high frequency traders, and the other firms may have had a had a tougher time then, but it wouldn't have mean meant complete collapse.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Yeah, it does seem to be insulated from the usual uh economic merry-go-round that we all seem to live on as a sector. So I think that's something to to be to be you know to appealing about it, I guess. And and in terms of the the organizational as the you know, no, actually, let me ask you another question before we go on to that. On reflection, it's easy to talk about all things that have gone well. On reflection, is there anything you wanted on? Can you think of any colossal fuck on loads? Um, even today.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

I think um I think for years people kept saying, you know, you you need to hire people for the next stage of the journey.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Now, what you what got you here won't get you there, type stuff.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

Yeah. And I think for years, you know, as I said, it was it was all self-funded from Jimmy and I. It was kind of like, yeah, that's that sounds great, but we're focusing on this, or we need to do that, or we need to do that. And so I think probably the big things is we took too long to open up a London office. I think that took us about three years from starting. We probably should have just done that straight away because that was where the core market was. We then did try to open up in America sooner, but um there's certain issues around the the the trends in visas at the time, which delayed it, and then we had COVID, which delayed it further, etc. etc. etc. So in an ideal world, we would have opened up in the US in 2019. Okay. Um and so that that was definitely something that we could have got better. Um, but I do think uh focusing on the internal talent over the last sort of three years has been a real game changer, and we've brought in some amazing people. Um and that's really been driven by um our now chairman, uh, a chap called Paul McGuire, um, who's been pushing me since the day he joined to really start leveling up the organization, and he's he's done a really good job. How long ago did you appoint Paul as chairman? I think he became chairman officially about a year ago, but he's brought been working with the business since I moved to America, so about three years ago.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Okay. Has that had an impact on you as a CEO?

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Yeah, massively.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

Then how would you articulate that?

SPEAKER_00 50:57

I think just obviously had did you have a chairman before? No. Okay. Uh so Jim, as I said earlier on, Jimmy and I are best friends, and so we pretty much fight every day, but in a in a healthy way. Yeah, in a top and jerry style. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um and I think Jimmy is very good with me in terms of shaping my thoughts and my opinions, and not letting me kind of run away in a certain direction. Um, but then Paul's also a very good voice in the room, which sort of says, I've been here before, I've skilled the company very well, I've had one of the few exits in the industry. Just trust me on this. I know what I'm doing, yeah. And so I think that's a nice balance. Yeah. Because I've got Jimmy just trying to rein in some of the continuous ambition. I've got Paul just coaching it right in the right direction, and so I think that balance works really well. Yeah. And you live in Chicago. I do.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

How long ago did you move there? 28th of December 2022. And were you first boots on the ground, or did you have people? Yep. You were. Yeah. So that was always part of your vision for, or was it like to hell with it? I'm gonna move to Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

I just I just think if you're gonna go and do an expansion, you should do it yourself.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

And you family out there? Yep, everyone moved out at the same time. Um why Chicago? So there was family ties to Chicago, okay, which is really helpful, as you can imagine. But I think there's a couple of really good strategic reasons for it as well. It's about 40% cheaper than New York. Right. Uh, so office space and things like that. It is about a two, two and a half hour flight everywhere. Yeah. Apart from maybe LA and San Francisco, but anywhere we work, it's pretty much two, two and a half hours flight. Yeah. So that's super helpful. And there are 12 universities around Chicago that if you graduate, you're likely to move to Chicago. Right. And you're likely to stay there for a long period of time until maybe you're ready to upsticks and go back to Indiana or somewhere like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've got it's very similar to Bristol, you've got this captive population that, you know, have newly graduated and are looking for an entry into the in the working world.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

I just love how mobile Americans are. Like, I I remember like we, you know, I can't convince somebody to take a job in Liverpool Street because their train comes into bank. Oh, yeah, yeah. And you're like, mate, some it's 500 meters away. Yeah. Whereas in America, they're like, yeah, I'll just move to Atlanta.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

I know, and they'll do it on a heartbeat.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Yeah, yeah, on a whim. Yeah, yeah, I'll just go there, no problem.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

It is it's very, very mobile. It's also very um, I find they're just very business positive. It's very much hell yeah, let's let's give this a go. Yeah. Versus what could go wrong. Yeah. How long have you been in? You've been three years in Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

Do you feel at home?

SPEAKER_00 53:52

Yeah, I I really enjoy the city. Right. Um, as I was saying earlier on, it's the the winters, yeah. People talk about them being cold. I actually made this really silly bet with someone when I moved to Chicago. I um he's he's had a client, and I I said, you know, how do you get in and out of work? And he said, Oh, I I cycle or I run, but if it gets too cold, I I can't cycle. And I said, Well, I'm pretty sure I could cycle in any day. And true to my word, even one day when I think it was minus 24 Celsius, I have cycled in into the office. You know, um I mean that's cold. Yeah, it's fine, it doesn't rain. This one keeps telling us well, that's one thing. It's dry, so it doesn't get in your bones, and then in the summertime, you're on this beach and you know, huge lake, and everyone's out and running, and it's just it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Yeah, I absolutely love it. I've never been, um, but it's um, and I get that was the question. It's you know, it's in in in if I think about the UK staffing industry who see the US as the great, you know, the wild, you know, the great opportunity, it seems to be constantly New York, Austin, San Francisco as the three places. Maybe you get the odd outlier in Miami or in Raleigh, North Carolina, but Chicago seems to be, I don't know, maybe just less popular, which is maybe indifferent. I was gonna say this contrarian personality that that seems to be, you know, part of your maybe part of your um your one of your your your strengths, really. And and was that was was which have you got an office in Chicago?

SPEAKER_00 55:33

Yeah, yeah, that's a team there now, yeah. It's it's our biggest office now. Right, okay. Um so yeah, good sized team in Chicago, and then similar sized team in New York, well, not a similar size team, but a very fast-growing team in New York. Right. So we opened up that in September of last year. Okay, very similar to the Bristol London strategy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's two-hour to get there type thing, roughly speaking, on a plane, two hours in a train, and landed in Chicago and then expanded into New York.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Yeah, yeah. And then I guess looking forward, your kids are in Chicago, they got American accents.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Well, one does and one doesn't. Right, okay. And so I probably shouldn't say this, but I I do enjoy it. Quite often if I if I'm in a what do they call this, a grocery store a grocery store in America, I have to remember what the American word is for things and vice versa. Um, people will come up to me and go, oh my god, your kids are so cute. Right. One of them must say one thing and one of them must say another thing. And I just say, Yeah, I found them both in the parking lot. Um it doesn't land the same way in America as it would here. It would be like a funny joke. Weird guy. It's kind of like, you've stolen two kids. No, no, I haven't really. And is um, do you think I know it's hard to say, but you you you'll come home? Uh yeah, I'd I'd like to. Um, and I I think that's pretty much the the roadmap is probably back here next summer. Okay. Um that doesn't mean I'll be back here forever, but for certainly for a for a period of time.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

And then I guess the one thing that we always finish on is AI. Um you have a worldview on it. All finish on AI all the time. Well, it seems to be the topic of conversation that dominates the headlines the most. Yeah. And it you you're either a an optimist by nature. It's either the end of scarcity or the end of humanity, one or the two. Do you yeah, what's your worldview on you're you're working at the very cutting edge of technology in your day-to-day business because the people you're serving are essentially building the future of uh you know of this kind of stuff. So you've got a bird's eye view on what's happening.

unknown 57:50

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

You're running a staffing business that's you know that that's um that's that's incredibly successful, or a technology solutions business. What what are you seeing out there in both in staffing terms and in the broader world? And yeah, what's your what's your world view on that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Sure. Um, so I think for me, uh, really clearly we are we have two AI developers in the organization already, like full-time doing stuff from a staffing perspective. We've also got teams of AI people deployed at clients across you know our our uh different portfolio. And I don't sit in either of those two camps of you know, end of humanity or the end of scarcity. I don't sit in either of the two camps. I can see massive business improvements from having AI, you know, an example, we're working on a super niche uh requirement at the moment. And because we've been clearing this data for the last 11 years and we've applied a lot of AI to this data on a call with a CEO of a huge robotics business, we were able to pull up a list of 10 people who could do the job there and then on the spot. That wasn't possible 18 months ago. Yeah, and it's super powerful to see it kind of in action. But I also think like a lot of things, humans kind of get in the way. So if the human adoption isn't there, it doesn't matter how many clever workflows and processes and re-engineering you have, it still doesn't have the same sort of level of impact. So I I probably sit somewhere in the middle, which is I think it's called Jevon's paradox. You're right, companies are actually now hiring more developers than they were 18 months ago because they the developers can do so much more. Yeah. So rather than cutting, everyone talks about all these huge cuts in technology, we're seeing it completely the other way. Yeah. Completely the other way. Salaries are going up and volumes are going up. Now that should be interesting because we could just be in a our own bubble, maybe, but that's what I see right here on the cool face day-to-day. Yeah. And the same for the demand on projects and the same for demand on outsourcing. And with the managed services business, we are able to get a 30% reduction in ticket volume using AI, which is amazing, by the way. So it means people are doing less crappy stuff, but they're also then doing more interesting stuff with AI to improve the workflows and the efficiencies of the organization. So the quality of the work goes up. So again, I am not seeing this uh point in in history as a massive cull of the workforce and a massive change of the workforce. I see it as a as a as a reshaping. Yeah. And I see it as a huge opportunity to be involved in that reshaping and and get ahead of things rather than you know, doom or boom. What's your signature dish? Oh, I really like to make coco van okay. Um, and get the whole chicken, quarter it, sear the breast, sear the legs, take your time. It's a labour of love. Beautiful. What's your favourite holiday destination? I don't think you can have a favourite holiday destination because every single holiday has its own purpose and meaning. But I love going skiing in Banff. And my kids are five and eight, and they're incredible skiers. And I think it's because they've gone and done hard things on hard runs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

What's your perfect Saturday afternoon?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

Oh, afternoon. Um in the afternoon, probably actually just messing around with the kids at home. Um, I like doing really immature things like turning off all of the lights in the basement, turning on um a strobe light and playing laser tag with the James Bond theme tune in the background.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

Amazing. What did you think you were gonna be when you were 15 years old?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

Oh, I don't know, but I do know uh true story. When I was five, the teacher said to everyone in the class, what do you want to be when you grow up? And they went round teacher, farman, astronaut, and apparently I said, I want to be a millionaire. And the teacher just looked at me like, how would your best friend describe you?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

Weird. How would your how would your um chairman describe you? Probably weird as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

Um, and last but not least, um, what's your favorite sport to watch? To watch. I'm actually really enjoying watching American football these days. Really? On a Sunday, yeah. Not into it before you went? No. Interesting. Didn't really even understand. I still don't properly understand the rules, but I really enjoy watching it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

Rory Gaston, thank you very much. My pleasure. Thank you. And a URG.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

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