In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - Rentokil Initial CEO: Pest Control, AI and dealmaking

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

In this episode, we delve into the world of pest control with Andy Ransom, CEO of Rentokil. Andy has steered Rentokil to become a global leader in pest control. We'll explore how climate change is reshaping pest control across the world and the unique challenges facing the industry. Plus, don't miss Andy sharing his craziest pest control story. Join us for an insightful discussion that goes beyond just bugs and rats.The production team on this episode were PLAN-B's Pål Huuse and Niklas Figenschau Johansen. Background research was done by Sigurd Brekke with input from portfolio manager Arnab Seal and Abhishek Rathod.Links:Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everybody, our special guest today is Andy Ransom, the CEO of Rent-A-Kill. Since ancient times, we've been using different ways to control pests, but now we are using special cameras, drones and AI. In this conversation, Andy touches on the importance of people, how to make good deals and some of the new technologies that he uses to combat pests across the world. We own more than 2% of the company, equivalent to 4 billion kroner or nearly 1,000 kroner per Norwegian.

Tune in. Now, many people have memorable stories about pest-related stories, whether it's removing ants, rats, alligators even from pools. So Andy let's kick off what's kind of the craziest story you have? Oh my word well hi Nikolaj thanks for inviting me along. We could probably spend the next hour talking about crazy pest control stories. Well that's what we're going to do. That's what we're going to do. Okay, well, you know, where to start?

I mean, we were hired by Libya to go and deal with bubonic plague. That was a bit of a surprise. We've done some work in Australia with mouse plagues where we had millions, millions of mice to deal with. We've had monkeys in Singapore. We've had camels we've had to deal with in the Middle East. I mean, you name it, snakes and everything. It's a crazy business in that sense. As you say, everyone's got a pest control story. And my wife always tells a pest control story about me when we were living in America and I was doing the garden one

day and I disturbed a nest of yellow jackets or wasps as we would call them. And one of them stung me, it stung me in the neck. And I ran like a scared kid and I ran to the house, opened the door. I then closed the door and I locked it. And my wife was saying, what on earth are you doing? Why have you closed the door? I locked it. And my wife was saying, what on earth are you doing? Why have you closed the door? Are you expecting them to come in through the door? Have they got a set of keys? But that's the sort of panic and reaction that pests generate in people.

So it is one of those subjects that, as I say, everyone's got an experience, everyone's got a story, but it is an amazing industry. What are the big drivers of this industry? Well, I think, you know, somebody once described the business to me as almost biblical, you know, the pests have been with us since the beginning of time and they will be with us till the end of time. And that is true, you know, the pests will always be with us. Right now, certainly global warming and an increasing temperature of the planet, there's no doubt that that is having a bearing. That is altering the breeding season of flying, biting, crawling insects. So if it's hotter, you tend to see the season start earlier and it goes a bit longer because of the temperatures.

So that's one thing. Regulation, legislation, the world is increasing with its regulatory environment. That's not getting easier anywhere. Rising standards. I mean, I remember when I used to travel to parts of the world years and years ago, and I'd go out to dinner and there'd be a cockroach would run across the tablecloth and you'd just flick it to the floor. You wouldn't accept that today in a nice restaurant. These cockroaches, they don't look so good on social media, do they? They don't look so good on social media, and that's a big part of why companies hire us. Well, they need their health protected, but they need their reputation protected as well,

and that's a key part of what we're doing, particularly for the businesses. So, you know, you've got regulation, you've got climate, you've got increasing standards, you've also got rising middle classes. And in big chunks of the world, particularly in the emerging markets, you've got urbanisation, the towns and the cities are getting bigger and bigger. And you've got people with more and more money. Why are bigger cities good for you? and you've got people with more and more money. Why are bigger cities good for you? Well, it's because, you know, if you take rats and rodents, for example,

they go where the food is, and people go to the cities. The cities are typically not so clean. Restaurants put the trash out the back. They leave it around. And rats in particular will find those sources of food, they'll find places to live. So the bigger the cities, the more urban they become, the more likely they're to be an attractive place for rats to come and move into. So that's one of the key reasons that urbanization has an impact, quite a big impact on growth in the pest control industry. I heard that in big cities you're never more than two metres from a rat. Yeah, I think that might be one of those urban myths.

And there's certainly some cities that you're probably never more than a couple of feet from a rat. But honestly, I mean, if you take a city like London, a city where I live, you've got sewers under the city. You've got a very, very old infrastructure. You've got restaurants and waste outside for rats to feed on. You wouldn't have to look too far to find rodent activity in London or New York or Paris. But whether it's, you know, within a couple of metres, I think that might be a bit of a stretch. Could you spend a bit more time on the climate?

What are the main effects of climate on your business? Well, I suppose there's two dimensions to that if you think about it. The first one is the one I've touched on, which is the environment for pests and pest activity. for pests and pest activity. In a world where the planet is warming and the seasons are more unpredictable and summers tend to be hotter and the winters tend to be wetter,

those are good breeding conditions for certain types of, particularly the insects, the flying, the biting, the crawling insects. So that does have a bearing on how soon in the season do we see activity and how long do those seasons go on for. If you flip it around to a more positive social side of the question in terms of sustainability,

today, most solutions for pest control still require some element of chemical treatment and going forward that will not be the case we're increasingly moving in a world of non-tox sustainable solutions chemical free solutions ours is a business that has a lot of people driving around burning um carbon in their in their vehicles we're making changes in that uh department as well so on the one side yes it's probably quotes net good uh for demand side of the industry on the other side we're a very responsible uh player very responsible company so like many other companies, we're looking to the environment in which we operate, say, okay, how can we do what we do, which is a necessary service? How can we do it in a way that has much less of an impact on the planet going forward? The fact that you cannot use

as much chemicals as you have done in the past, does that make your job more difficult? Yeah, it's a good question. It's a good question because in Europe, it's the first part of the world where they put in place a ban on permanent baiting. So historically what you would do, a customer, your hotel, for example, they just called us in and we say, okay, we can't see any evidence of rodent activity, but to prevent

them coming, we would put down poisons. Well, the European authorities say, no, no, no, no, no, you can't do that going forward. You can only put down poisons once you have a problem. It's quite an interesting change. So initially, when the industry saw that, this was going back a few years, the industry said, well, this is not good. You're going to have rodent problems everywhere because part of what we do is a preventative, as I said earlier, the prevention of the problem. I think the reality is with those rule changes as they've come through, it's forced companies like ourselves to become more innovative. So we've come up with solutions that say, okay, if we can't put down permanent baiting and poison

initially until there's a problem, what else can we do? So we've used internet of things, connected devices, we've used technology increasingly. Now we're using cameras to identify the problem. Once you see a problem, then you can put down the chemical solutions. We're also trying to come up with new solutions which don't use chemicals at all. I'm sorry for being a bit lame here, but why can't you use permanent baiting? Well, there's two things. One is the European authorities and increasingly California authorities, another one who's looking at it. They're trying to reduce the amount of chemicals that we put into the planet generally.

So there's a lot of chemicals going into the planet and farms in particular use a huge quantity of chemical bait. So that's, you know, that's the first thing. And the second concern is one of secondary poisoning. So there is a concern that if you put down chemical poisons too indiscriminately, not only will you kill the rats and the mice, but you could end up damaging other wildlife, birds, birds of prey, for example, that might feed on the rodent. So, you know, it's well intended and it's, you know, we don't oppose it, but it does require innovation and innovative solutions to come up with alternatives, which they're coming, but in some cases they're not there yet.

They're coming, but in some cases they're not there yet. What kind of emerging pest threats are you most concerned about now? Yeah, I mean, like I said, you know, the pests have always been with us and probably always will be. I think they go in phases. Certainly, if we go back to the time of the Olympics in Brazil, Zika was a massive concern. And Zika is just one example of diseases which are born and spread by mosquitoes. So I would say if you actually look and go back in time, malaria is responsible for more deaths on the planet since the beginning of time

than any other cause, more than war, more than disease, more than cancer. So things like malaria, right now dengue fever is significantly on the increase in markets like Brazil, where you see huge increases in dengue fever. So I think vector-borne diseases remain a big concern and they, you know, they're very serious consequences. You can, you know, you can end up dying or being very, very sick from vector-borne diseases. Less dramatic but certainly more topical at the moment. You've seen a lot of bedbug activity in the news, because we've got the Olympics in France, in Paris this year, and last year in particular, there's a huge amount of media coverage about the surge in bedbug activity.

Is it real, or is it because people want to have a go at the French? Oh, I don't know about the second, but look, I think it's a bit of, yes, it is real. There is real significant bed bug activity. I think there's a little bit of media hype in here as well. I think we've had bed bugs in the big cities for quite some time. But there's little doubt. Certainly, the number of inquiries we've had from customers in the UK, in France, and call-outs to deal with bedbugs has certainly significantly increased. So it's a little bit

difficult to say, is that because the bedbugs are increasing or is it because of the awareness of the problem? It's a little bit difficult to call that. But that'd be another good example of the increasing intolerance of people to pest activity. What are some of the new technologies that you are using? Yeah, and look, we are a really innovative company and we think innovation is really the lifeblood of future growth and internet of things, connected devices, remote monitoring devices. So these are, think of it like a burglar

alarm for pests. So you put down a monitor and if, in this case, a rat or a mouse triggers the infrared beam, we've got activity, we know there's activity, we can either send a message back to the organization you've got rodent activity and this is where it is or we can actually deal with the problem and kill the rodent in in situ so internet of things connected devices remote monitoring is the first wave of innovation we brought through about 18 months ago we bought a really exciting tech-based business out of Israel, which is using the next generation of technology, which is cameras. Camera-based technology, micro cameras that are in situ. So not only can they see the source of the problem, the nature of the problem,

the extent and the scale of the problem, but they can actually identify using facial recognition, the identity of the problem the extent and the scale of the problem but they can actually identify using facial recognition the identity of the rat so they cannot just say it's it's three rats and this is the activity we've seen they can say it's rat number 12 rat number 17 and rat number 24 have come through this camera 16 times in the last hour. So you can actually track the behavior. And if you can start to track behavior and you can mimic animal behavior, you're far more effective and far more likely to be able to solve the problem. So I'd say camera-based technology is probably the next big thing in identification of rodent problems and insect problems. Well, I have to say, knowing one rat from the other, it kind of takes it to a new level.

Yeah, it does. I mean, you can sit there and say, yeah, but what's the point? I mean, is it really that important that, you know, it's rat number three and rat number 13? But the fact that we can do it, the fact that the technology can do that, it does start to give us new insights. Andy, you are a really, really impressive dealmaker and you make new deals pretty much every week, buying companies and building Rent-A-Kill larger. Why is this important? companies and building rent-to-kill larger. Why is this important? Yeah, look, I mean, apart from the fact I love doing deals, and that's part of my DNA,

we do deals for, I guess, three reasons. The first one is it gives us density. So ours is a network business. So the way to think about it, if we've got, I live in a little town in Kent, and if we've got, say, 10 customers in the high street, we'll make a certain amount of money. If we had 20 customers in the high street, we make a lot more money. And the reason is, we're not then spending all of the time driving from one appointment to the next and to the next. If you can minimize drive time, windshield time, therefore you maximize the amount next. If you can minimize drive time, windshield time, therefore you maximize the amount of time that you're on customer site providing value-added work. So that's the first thing. It's about density, it's about shortening drive time, and therefore it means instead of doing six visits a day, maybe a technician can squeeze

in another and do seven visits a day, that gives you a much greater gross margin. So that's the first reason we do deals and a lot of our deals are density deals. The second, we call it the cities of the future. And so if you look today, I mean, a statistic I never get tired of quoting is that 50%, 50%, half of the world's pest control takes place in the United States of America. The other half of the world's pest control takes place in all of the other countries and cities and towns added together. It's a remarkable statistic. Well, if we fast forward 50 years, I don't think it's going to be 50-50. The growth in the big cities, and we talked about the importance of urbanization, but the growth in

the big cities, particularly in China, in India, in Brazil, in Colombia, there's a lot of cities that in the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, the growth in those cities is going to be very, very significant. So our strategic model says, hey, look, if we can identify the cities of the future and we can get into those cities now, typically through acquisition, and then we can build the density, then in 10, 20, 30, 40 years, we're going to have a series of very, very dense, very, very profitable, powerful positions in the biggest cities in the world. What's the secret to making a good deal? Well, yeah, that's a big discussion as well, isn't it? But let's start, I think, first off, strategic alignment.

Let's start, I think, first off, strategic alignment. You know, I would always say, you know, you should be really, really – strategy is a big word, but, you know, are you really clear where you want to be, which markets you want to be, which services you want to offer, which industries you want to serve? Are you clear how you want to grow? If you've got a clear strategy, and we've talked about cities of the future, and we've talked about density building. So that's the first thing. Is the potential acquisition on strategy, or is it a bit of a stretch? So that's the first point. Second, I'd say, look, I'm a retired i mean i was an m&a lawyer as well and i would

always say detail detail detail you know this is this is uh so critical that you do your due diligence you do your preparation you do your planning and it's thorough and you don't get seduced by the process a lot of people get halfway in. Oh, yeah, we found a problem. That's all right. We'll deal with it. No, no. No, you've got to be really disciplined and be prepared to walk away if what you find

is not acceptable to you. I do think forward thinking in terms of negotiation. I always encourage my team to think like chess players, try and think three steps ahead. We should do that. Try and anticipate the evolution of a negotiation, what's likely to happen. And to be able to do that, you've really got to understand, well, what does the other side want to get out of this deal as well? And I think that's a critical part. If you want a successful negotiation, too many people just work on, well, what do I want? What do I need? What am I prepared to pay? You've got to work out what the other

side to the table is looking for. Are they looking for maximum price? Is it certainty? Is it speed? Is it, what are they, what's important to them them? So now assume I have a Nikola Tang and pest control company, limited. Yeah. And you want to buy me. Now, what is your best negotiation trick? I don't know about tricks. I don't know about tricks, Nikola. I mean, I used to be a pretty aggressive negotiator when I first started out and I learned some pretty, as I say, aggressive approaches and I was quite a table banger. Have you become softer with age? Yeah, I've mellowed and I'm chilled and I'm a pussycat now,

so I'm much easier to deal with. But I actually figured out along the way that being hard and tough and shouty isn't necessarily the best approach to getting the best out of a negotiation. What I would say, and the way I do it, I won't pretend I'm the world's expert, I always say don't treat everyone the same. Don't assume that Nikolai is going to behave in this way or that way. And don't make assumptions that he's Norwegian, so he'll think like this, or he's

50, whatever, and he'll think like that. Don't make assumptions about who you're dealing with. Understand them, get to know them, and then flex your negotiating style according to who you're dealing with. And some people respond differently to different styles and techniques. But as I said, I think it's a trick. But my view is if you're more prepared, if you're more thorough, if you're more detail oriented than the person that is on the other side of the table, you should get the better of the negotiation. You don't have to be difficult and shouty to do it. You just got to be prepared to, you know, work at it. I'd also say negotiating tricks or not, be prepared to walk away. You know, somebody once told me the best

deal that you can do is to avoid a bad deal. You know, Never be afraid to walk away even at late stage. If the deal's not the right deal, walk away. So I think those are important things. I don't think they're necessarily tricks of the trade, but they've sort of held me in pretty good stead. And now you have bought me, what's the key to integrating my company in the best possible way into Rent-A-Kill? I would say the first thing and the most important thing is people. And in a business services, it's all about people. So the first thing we've got to make sure is before we even buy your business, we're going to make sure that there is cultural alignment. How's it going to work? Are we all going to be able to play nicely together? Are we going to

respect each other? Are we going to listen to each other? Are we going to learn from each other? Or are you going to feel bent out of shape and your people are going to feel like they lost because they've been sold? Or are we going to behave inappropriately because we, quote, won? So the first for me is no, no, no. You've got to get cultural alignment. You've got to get people feeling really good that this is a great thing. Then the second bit is really all about execution and and i learned that years ago that you know execution counts way more than strategy i think

those are those are absolutely key and all the time keeping one very very fixed eye on the people side and the culture so those would be the things i guess we'd focus on i'd focus on you mentioned the importance of um of people here and this is an industry where there's quite a bit of uh turnover in uh amongst the people how do you how do you retain them yeah look i i said um a minute ago for me i think the most important part of a business services business is about people. I'd say, look, I've been CEO over 10 years now at Rentagil and been privileged to have that role. The first five years, I think I focused on process. I focused on cost. I focused on structure.

process. I focused on cost. I focused on structure. I focused on innovation of getting out of bad businesses, focused on acquisition. The second five years of my tenure, I've really focused on people. And I think I was a bit late to wake up to this one. What made you wake up? Quite honestly, I was chatting to one of my guys um and you know we were doing well and we were making great progress and we had this conversation and i get a very open relationship with my team and and um he was giving me some feedback and um he said look and he said you know you're you're pretty good you know you're not, you're not bad. You're doing all right. We're doing all right. He said, but can I give you some advice?

I said, yeah, of course. He said, well, he said, you play not to lose. You play it safe. You play with inside yourself. And that's right. I'm a fear of failure guy. I don't want to screw up. I don't want to mess up.

And that's been my, you know's that's deep in my dna and his advice he said you know you should start playing to win and and stop playing not to lose which i thought was amazing advice considering this guy worked for me and it really resonated with me okay that is right actually you know that we're doing well and we're making progress we need to start playing we need to start making some more bold strokes. And it was about that time that it occurred to me in looking at all of our numbers that the single biggest enabler of success in my business is people. And your point about retention and churn, I said, if only we could drive up colleague retention, I said, if only we could drive up colleague retention,

then great things happen. Colleague retention goes up. If you've got happy, engaged, well-trained, safe colleagues who come to work every day and do a great job for their customers, then we get happy, engaged customers who want to buy more stuff from us who are interested in our story, our innovation. They'll pay our bills. They'll give us cash, and we reinvest that cash. And you you got 50 and you got 50 000 people you need to get out of bed every day right yeah 60 now 60 000 and how do you how do you get them out of bed and how do you

get them to come and be proud of what they do and and how do you motivate them i have to start very early and make a lot of phone calls yeah um, I think, you know, it is incredibly important, that whole cultural bit, and I do take it very, very seriously. First off, it's genuine. In our company, you know, people say, what's it like at Rent-A-Guy? I say, do you know what? It's a really nice company.

So it starts with this bedrock that we do actually care about our people. We do want them to thrive. We do care about their safety. So I'll give you an example. We put safety at the number one agenda item for every single meeting in the company without exception. Every single meeting starts with safety. And in the last tip, well, because

for me on a personal level as a leader, it's incredibly important. I've got a background, I used to work in explosives in my previous business. I had some fatalities on my watch that still affect me today. And I said, never again. So in a people-based business, in a route-based business with thousands of people driving, working at height, being exposed to chemicals, I've said the single most important thing in this business is our people are safe and everyone is authorized to walk off the job. If you don't think this is safe, walk off the job. No one's ever going to criticize you. So we put that agenda item number one 10 years ago.

Changing tacks here, what makes you an effective leader? Well, you have to ask others as to whether I am an effective leader, I suppose. I think I'm not a big quota of sort of business books, but I do remember reading Jack Welsh years and years ago when I went to business leader. You should surround yourself with people who are better than you and then get out of the way and let them do their job. And to a pretty large degree, that's what I've always tried to do. Now, that doesn't mean to say I'm not an interventionist manager. The legal training that I've had means I do detail. I'm not a micromanager, but I do detail like nobody else in the company does detail. So, but, but my notion is why would I try to be the

best at marketing? Why would I try to be the best at sales or innovation or IT or finance? I need world-class people surrounding me. I need to empower them and engage them. And then I need to hold them to account. So for me... How can you do detail without being a micromanager? Yeah, well, you can do detail. Your question was about efficiency, and I am a very, very efficient processor of materials. I can read a document incredibly quickly, and I can pick what I think are the kernels that I need to get out of it. But what I'm not trying to do is say, OK, I've read your report. Now do this. Now do that.

Turn left. Turn right. Don't do that. I've read the report. I've got the key. Now I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions. So my method of management is not to tell you what to do. Now, Nicola, my method of management is to say, okay, I've listened to what you said. Here's a bunch of questions. Have you thought about this?

That combined with holding people to account. In rent-to-kill initiative, you get a lot of freedom. You get a lot of entrepreneurial freedom. If you don't deliver, you will be held to account. That's my method, whether that makes me effective or efficient, others can judge. How do I get to the top of Rent-A-Go? Yeah, you have to move me out first, I guess. Look, I think, I look at my team, I had my team together on Monday. We've got huge tenure and longevity in my senior team. And I think that

is a tremendous compliment to the organization. When you say long, what do you mean by long? What's a long tenure? Well, my head of IT has been doing it 32 years and I would rate him as one of the best IT professionals I've ever worked with. I didn't think we had computers 32 years ago. Well, I know, it makes you wonder, you know, but he's still up to speed with AI and robotics and all the rest of it. I mean, I've been here 15 years. The finance director's been here 15 years.

The head of UK's been here 15 years. The head of Europe's been here 14 years. So quite a lot of longevity. Now, you could look at that and say, well, maybe that's too much. Maybe where's the new blood? Well, we have some new blood as well. But I think people don't stay that length of time in an organisation if certain good things aren't happening. So for me, comes back to something we touched on earlier, culture is so, so important. And we have fun

working at Rantico. We really do. We enjoy each other's company. We're high energy. We're nice, but we are very hard-edged. And I will say to the guys, don't confuse niceness with softness. We're not a soft organization. We're a very hard-edged, business-driven, performance-driven.

So I think how do you get to the top? You know, hard work, application. I would say be prepared to move, you know, be prepared to move roles, be prepared to move countries, be prepared to move cross divisions. So keep learning and don't just stick in that one tram line for your entire career. How hard do you work? My wife would tell you ridiculously hard. I think one of the things I've noticed over my career, and technology is really part of this, and I'm sure you're the same and many people listening would be the same. I think the way in which we work is radically different now. So I'm always on. The phone is always on. I run a global business, so I'm getting emails and messages

kind of 24-7. And as I'm going to bed, America's still firing. And as I'm getting up at the morning, Australia's not even yet back in the afternoon. And the way I cope with that is I'm back to efficiency. I just deal with the stuff when it comes in. And that I think is, you know, that makes huge impositions on your lifestyle. It means, you know, you're constantly on. And unfortunately for me, that means if I go on holiday, I'm still on. I'm very bad at the downtime. It means at weekends, I'm still on. But for me, I found a way of making that work, sort of splitting my brain a little bit so I can get on and do the work stuff and still do all the other things I want to do, you know, day to day and in my life. So I do resent it from time to time because it is a huge, huge imposition. But it's also an amazing job.

I mean, I think being a CEO of any company is such a privilege and such an exciting job and such a varied job. So I feel, you know, I feel it's not right for me to point out yeah it's bloody hard work and i work very very hard but you know how do you relax yeah um i do it i do it i mean i'm in dry january at the moment so i won't say alcohol and that that wouldn't be the politically correct answer but i enjoy going out with family in particular i enjoy going out with friends i'm a massive sport nut i'm a huge Chelsea football fan um I'm lucky I have a house in Portugal and I love going out and spending time in the sun um and I play some sport um but it's that sort of stuff it's it's family it's socializing it's sport um I'm not a I'm not an avid reader I

find my my brain is already full by the end of the day because I've spent so much time reading stuff. I enjoy watching various, you know, things on TV and films. I get a busy life. Don't get me wrong. My life crams a lot of things in. So I do find time to relax. But for me, my special place is Portugal and the Algarve.

That's where I feel I'm in a different place. If I can relax anywhere, it's in the sunshine in Portugal. Favourite Portuguese dish? Frango piri-piri. Chicken piri-piri, hot spicy chicken. Sounds like a plan. Andy, finally, what is your advice to young people?

Yeah, it's another big question, an important question. One bit of advice that I give when I talk internally into my colleagues here. I always say, when the shit hits the fan,

you've got a choice. You can either take a step back, avoid it, or you can take a step forward and move towards it. And what I mean by that is throughout our lives, throughout our careers, in particular, throughout our jobs, there'll be many times where there's a situation that looks a bit messy, that looks a bit complex, that looks a bit complex, that looks a bit scary. And my advice is, when you see those, grasp them, go towards them, take that opportunity,

it will make your career more interesting. This won't always work out perfectly. But I think if your first instinct is to shy away from the complex, the messy, the difficult, the challenging, you never get to find out what the alternative is. And, you know, back to how do you get to the top? Most CEOs will tell you, and I'm sure you'll be the same, is we've all got the scars to show for the things we didn't get right, the mistakes that we made, the things that we screwed up, the things that didn't go quite as well. mistakes that we made the things that we screwed up the things that didn't go quite as well and i do think i do encourage that bravery if you like and experimentation uh for younger people go and have some fun with it what's the worst that can happen sort of thing so i think combination of having a plan and executing that plan and talking and asking for help but also that bit of bit of bravery and if the shit hits the fan well

don't worry about it go and deal with it and get stuck in um i've always felt that's that sound advice um i've certainly um got a lot out of it over the years of my career yeah well andrew you for sure have taken a lot of opportunities and um big thanks for keeping our cities uh safe and clean and uh you know nicer than they would have been without Rent-A-Kill. And also, big thanks for being on today. Really great talking to you. Absolute pleasure. Lovely seeing you, Nikolaj.

I'll see you again. And thanks for the opportunity.