Episode 3: Leeson Brook | Beyond Readiness: How Broad Experience Builds CEO Capability

In this episode of Your Path to CEO, Mike Dickson from [axr] Executive Search speaks with Leeson Brook, Regional Managing Director & CEO of STIHL Australia, about a career shaped by ambition, discipline, and deliberately broad experience across global FMCG and manufacturing leadership roles.

Leeson reflects on growing up in Adelaide and the formative experience of seeing financial pressure in his household at a young age - an early catalyst for his drive to build a career defined by growth and security. From the outset, he recognised a natural inclination toward leadership, finding motivation in influencing others and stepping into responsibility early through school and retail roles.

His corporate journey began in supermarkets before moving into Telstra and then a foundational development path at Kellogg's, where he built core commercial and sales capabilities. This was followed by a progression through senior roles at Johnson & Johnson, where Leeson made a deliberate decision to test himself beyond familiar support networks - moving into category, regional, and cross-functional leadership roles across Australia and Singapore.

A defining chapter was his move to Singapore in a regional shopper/category leadership role, where he managed influence across 16 countries and 180+ stakeholders without direct reporting lines—accelerating his ability to lead through influence, cultural nuance, and strategic clarity.

Leeson later stepped into enterprise leadership as General Manager of New Zealand, successfully transforming the business from underperforming to one of the strongest in the region, before returning to Australia in senior commercial and CEO-track roles, including Sales Director at GWA Group and ultimately into his current MD & CEO position with STIHL.

Key themes from the conversation include:

• The importance of broadening experience early to avoid being “typecast”
• Why reverse-engineering your career path creates direction without rigidity
• The reality of loneliness in CEO roles and the importance of mentors and peer networks
• How leadership success depends on clarity, repetition, and simplicity in communication
• The need to make timely people decisions while balancing empathy with performance
• Why strong leadership is built through doing the job exceptionally well before seeking the next step

A practical and honest conversation on what it really takes to move from functional leadership into enterprise CEO roles - and what changes once you get there.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

So you want to be a CEO, but what is the pathway? This podcast from AXR's Executive Search Specialist will show you how to make this step. You'll hear Australia's leading CEOs talk candidly about their journey, lessons they've learned, and advice they wish they'd had. We'll also deep dive into the role of a CEO and get the perspective of key stakeholders across the C suite, the board, and investors. As an aspiring CEO, you will not get these insights anywhere else.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Welcome to an episode of Your Path to CEO with your host, me, Mike Dixon from AXR Executive Search. Today I'm joined in the studio with Leeson Brooke, Regional Managing Director and CEO for Still the Global Garden Power Tool Business. Welcome, Leeson. How are you? Thanks, Mike. Yeah, I'm really good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. It's been a little while in between podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

It has. It has. For those of you who don't know, Leeson was one of our regional podcast guests back in the day. We're doing it live on Zoom calls with um, I don't know, hundreds or so people listening in and asking awkward questions. That became too hard. So we we've gone to the studio, but that was back in the days of your future in sales and marketing. But your career has moved on, which we're going to explore today. Hence you're on Path to CEO. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So thank you. Yep, you're you're welcome. So let's let's get into a bit about life before the career, as we like to do. Where did you grow up? Tell us about life before the career started.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah, so I grew up in Adelaide, so I'm an Adelaide boy. And from a loving family, mum and dad really hardworking. So dad, dad had a career in telcos, sort of middle management style. Mum was a nurse, very simple, easygoing, loving. I do remember mum and dad divorced when I was about nine. And I think that time really shaped a lot of my ethics and the way that I work, and it shaped a lot of my now career decisions. One of those moments that I'll I'll probably never forget is I remember being sort of 10, and because mum was a nurse, she never earned a lot of money. We never went without, but we never had huge amounts. And I still remember walking out to the kitchen one day, and mum had a bit of paper on the table with a list of bills, and she was trying to work out which ones she could afford to pay in that particular week. And that was one of those real pivotal moments for me that I decided I never wanted to do that. I never wanted to be poor. I never wanted to go without. And I think that sort of shaped my unhealthy desire to grow, develop, and work really hard to get there, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Yeah, yeah. That's what a very vivid memory. Yeah that that is.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

But uh I don't share that very often, but I think it's for me as I was reflecting on today, it was it was one of those moments that really, really pushed me s to go, I've got to work hard to get to where I want to go because I don't want that. Yes, yeah, very very farm.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

And and talking of I guess that kind of time. Because often we're that age, we we don't really have a sense of how that manifests from a career point of view. But did you have early kind of childhood career kind of thinking, ambition?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Uh I learned at an early age that I I loved influencing people, and I I didn't know how I did it, but I worked out that I could use my words and my actions to to really shape how people behaved. Yeah, and I loved it, and I wanted more of it, and I found that I was naturally drawn to more leadership roles even in school and even after school when I was working in supermarkets. I found that I wanted to be the boss of the team or I loved influencing people. So I knew that I wanted to lead and I was forming a way of how to do that, and I seemed to be okay at it even at an early age. Yeah. So yeah, I always knew that I wanted to lead people, but I couldn't articulate what that looked like.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Yes. I I think back to when I was a kid, I wanted to lead, but I thought that was like leading the Scottish rugby team. I was convinced I was convinced I was going to be an international rugby player because clearly that's that was the path for me, it didn't happen. But um leadership's interesting. So but look looking at your career, let's kind of build on that, Lee. So your early career was with Kellogg's and now now Kellanova and and now now Mars, but it's uh uh as as life moves on in the corporate world. But um talk a bit about you know the early days of Kellogg's and and how the career mindset was starting to evolve.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Yeah, so I started at Kellogg's. Well, I started in supermarkets, and then I needed to learn how to sell. So I did a short stint at Telstra, uh, which I hated. And I think I shared in the last podcast, like it I vomited in the car park every morning because it it was just so hard and so foreign, but I needed to learn how to sell, so it pushed me through, and then I was offered a role at Kellogg's as a territory manager, and that was and Kellogg's as a business was is fantastic, it was a fantastic training ground, and it taught me how to you do what you say you're gonna do, you how to negotiate, um, how to manage through a complex big business. And it was such a good grounding. And I'm so, so thankful for the the leaders on that journey who taught me the the fundamental skills that I've taken all the way through my career. Yeah, the Karen Hallams, the Ben O'Brien's, the Grant Milmlo's, James Fitzpatrick. These people were really instrumental early in my career.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah, all great people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of them stewarding my son in his his career right now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

And I love seeing that. I love seeing that your son is doing exactly what I did and starting in the same way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. And you got to National Cap Manager, you're working on Willie's, the the biggest customer, and you moved to J and J to do the same role, uh, ostensibly. What was your thinking there? And I and I'm I'm curious as to because we're gonna get into your kind of career mindset and planning because you you are a very structured planned person in terms of your career, which will which will come to life. But that feels like a very deliberate move to me.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Yeah, it it definitely was. So I was very fortunate through my short time at Kellogg. So seven years, I started from territory manager knowing nothing to Nam or Woolworths, one of the biggest jobs there. The next path after that was probably overseas to Battle Creek. I didn't want to go to Battle Creek, but I also wanted to know that I could be successful outside of the support of those people who I named before. They were they were really, really instrumental in shaping me and my career. I was questioning myself, could I do this without them around? Was it them or was it me? So that's why I wanted to find another tier one, great business, great brand, to see if I could be successful without that safety net that it felt like around me. So that was the reason for that move.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Yeah, great. And and I mentioned before, you're you're pretty organized, you're a you're you're a planner. Does that kind of direct your thinking around career decision making?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah, it absolutely does. Yeah, one of my big traits that annoys people is I I do plan a lot and I do set myself goals. I'm driven at fault that I have to be working towards something. So even at a young age, when I started at Kellogg's, I was 19, and said, okay, I want to be a sales director by 40. Because I saw a sales director and average sales directors were about 40 at that time. I was like, if I can be a sales director at 40, I've made it.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

And then I I worked the steps back to go, okay, well, what skills do I have to have to be able to get to a national account manager, business manager, maybe a category stint to form the skills to then be a contender, to be a sales director in a tier one FMCG? So that that was the plan. And because I'm probably ruthlessly ambitious on myself as well, I I push myself really hard to try and get there as fast as humanly possible. Doesn't always work, and we'll probably touch on that at some point. But yeah, so I always have okay, well, if I want to be here by a particular point, what are the skills that I have to build? And then what are the roles that I could take or what what could I do to really form those skills so I could demonstrate that I can do it?

SPEAKER_02 8:34

I love that. You make a great recruiter because exactly that's exactly what we do is to help people reverse engineer that that that play and and set goals and and goals change, right? But uh you've got to have some sort of Nostar and then think, well, what do I have to do to get there? Because it's never linear, is it?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

No, it's as frustrating as that was at the time, yeah, but it's proven that it's been the best.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, yes, I mean seven years at Kellos, kind of same at J and J. So there weren't Charleston, they were pretty, they were pretty chunky, I guess, time periods of your life that you were investing. But you had a number of roles in each organization. I and I do and I I do like that, but just you know, four roles, I think eight eight roles across those 14 years. So it's it is going through experiences very quickly. Now, is that the ambition? Is that being good in the role? Is it having the mentors around you? All of those things? It's all three of those.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah. As I was reflecting on for our chat today, is every role was somewhere between 15 months and two years, which probably isn't quite long enough to go through a cycle. You go through one cycle, you're not really going annualizing what you're doing. But I found early on that I had great people who backed me in every business in most roles, but you could only do that by being really good at your job, do what you say you're gonna do, consistently deliver and add value. And that were the things that I learned at Kellogg's that then I talk into JJ that then helped open more doors. Yes. But none of that would be possible if I wasn't doing my job well. Yeah. So I push myself to learn, to deliver, to add value, and then that creates more opportunities for what's next.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

100%. Yeah. Do do the job very well. Correct. But but don't forget, you know, the openness to conversation, the the building profile within business, the yeah, uh, the value creation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Paul, the sales director when I was at J and J, Paul Tonkin, an amazing man, really great credentials and a great leader. He was he was the one that shaped a lot of that thinking and helped me learn around how to how to build your profile. So it's partly around doing your job, but navigating through the organization so people know what you're doing, but doing it in a way that's not tensious and shouty and the loud.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right because people often shy away from it's not a very Australian thing to pull your Trump, but it's not that. No, it's not it, it's it's profile is about um sticking your hand up and just putting yourself forward and and and you know, asking for uh views, experience, experiences, uh building relationships across an organization. That actually help you be better in your role anyway. Yes. But but you you've then got a bunch of advocates who who have an it start to have an interest in you and and and that and that helps. Which may may have an impact on your next move because I want to explore this. Most people think about overseas when they're and these moves often happen when they're a bit more experienced, further down career, the business is prepared to invest, you're going as a senior leader to be tried in another market. You you moved to Singapore in shopper marketing, yeah. More kind of mid-level kind of kind of kind of role. How did that happen? And what and and what was your kind of thinking around that move?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah, it was that one was really led by Paul pushing me at the time. So because I I set myself, I want to be sales director by 40. Yeah, I had a really linear sales path, and I wanted to be there yesterday, yeah, which is one of my downsides. And Paul was really pushing me. He said, You will never be sales director if you don't do a stint in category. You you are just you're so narrow, your path is too linear, your skills are not broad enough, you you won't make it. So he pushed me really hard to take a role in category first. One way to get me not to do something is tell me I need to do it. So it took me a little while to process that. And and I eventually came on board and I did the role in category in Australia, and I was I loved it. It was one of the best jobs that I I had done. I could shape strategy, I could influence without a direct reporting line. I was reasonably good at it. And then that opened the door as JJ started to regionalize and create a regional hub in Singapore. And because I had a few people that backed me in the business, Paul and a few other senior stakeholders, my name was put forward as they were building a category team, a shopper category team. Yeah. So I was given the opportunity to move to Singapore at the time and and take on that newly formed regional job.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Was that was that daunting or was it kind of confidence building?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

It was really daunting because it was a one-way move. It wasn't an expat gig. Right. No, so it was it had none of the the shiny toys that an expat role had. It was a local contract plus plus. Yeah. So you get housing and local contract. It was a one-way move. There was no guarantees, it would work. There was no pathway home. It was a go and prove yourself. And said to my wife at the time, well, let's go. The worst that happens is we've got some money put aside, I'll come back and look for another job.

SPEAKER_04 13:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

And it was it was humbling in ways that I never thought would be the case. Because I've had a really successful career up to that point. I thought I knew my stuff.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

I was like, great, I'm gonna go in. I know how to do this. I'm a white guy in a sophisticated market. I've dealt with cult like really complex customers. There's nothing that I can be taught that I can help in a developed market or developing market. Uh how wrong I was. A white guy from such a linear career path knows nothing about how retail works in China, India, Philippines, Indonesia, and how to work across cultures and the cultural nuances. That was one of the one of the hardest and best experiences of how to lead with influence in a role that has shaped how I lead now.

SPEAKER_04 14:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

I couldn't do what I did, I do now without having gone through that period. I had 183 stakeholders and no direct reports across 16 countries. And success is dictated by how much value I can add to those 183 stakeholders. And I got to do that without a direct reporting line. So you learn really quickly how to add value, how to navigate cultures and how to get things done.

SPEAKER_04 15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

And I loved it. It was so good. It was really hard, but so good.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

And no ticket home. I kind of like the gutsiness of that, Lee.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

I think being able to back yourself and put yourself out of your comfort zone. Particularly, as I say, at a mid-level when you you you you're probably at a level in career, you know enough to have the confidence, but actually you don't know what you don't know. And that just kind of taught you what the what the gap was.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah. Yeah. And the the hard when we were there, the doors open for so many other things. Yeah. But it was really clear that there's no path back to Australia. Yeah. The path back was probably a 10-year round trip, if things went well, to come back as managing director. But the door had closed on all other roles. Right. So yeah, that that's when I worked out, okay, well, there's there's a few other paths to maybe get back. What's the right way to do it?

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yeah. Yeah. And one of those steps in the way was your first internet enterprise leadership when you got the for GNG, you you got the the GN to run New Zealand. Yes. Which was which was great. You know, was that a role that you were kind of ready for? Or was it just a your mindset evolved to say, like, there's a lot of stuff I don't know. I won't know this, but I'm I'm I'm prepared to step into something new.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Yeah. I don't I don't think you're ever ready for the roles that you move into. You might be ready in your mind, which is probably the hardest part, but skill set, you know enough, but you never know all of it. And the role in New Zealand was wonderful because the New Zealand business was in a lot of trouble. Lowest engagement scores around the world, underperforming, the third worst performing business in the region. It was the poison chalice. And I remember apart from the two people who asked me to do the job, everyone else I spoke to about it was telling me, don't do it. It'll kill your career, you'll be ruined, don't ever do that, stay away, say no. And my I suppose my my inner determination was like, hold my beer. I'll show I'll show you that I can make it. Don't tell me no. Don't tell me no, I'll show you that I can do it. Yeah. And that made me even more determined. Yeah. So yeah, we moved from Singapore to Auckland, and it was a wonderful business. And I feel really proud that the team took it from the worst performing and lowest engagement in 18 months to the highest engaged business in JJ globally, and the second highest performing in the region. And that was a really quick turnaround, but it was really hard. But it was the people who did it.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

And your your first enterprise leadership role reasonably early on in career. I was, I would say you're you were you were still pretty young at that point. Yeah, 31. 31. That's that's that's you beat your sales director target.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

I did. I I still remember that. That was one photo that I still have on my desk at home. Is you know, every business has symbols, a symbol of success. So sometimes it might be a corner office or it might be a door, or you have an office. At JJ, if you had a door, you'd made it. And I remember that that was this that was a symbol for me. And I remember taking a picture the first day that I was there with my office door.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Did you have a name in a door?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Yeah. I was like, wow, I've done it. Never had my name in a door. Yeah. And but it's never the end point though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

No, no, you're thirty th you're 31. And and the next step I do find interesting because you you move back to functional leadership. And but you know, new business, different sector, back to Australia, sales director of GWA, the the um bathrooms um business.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Why that move? Yeah, it's that's a really interesting one. Things were going really well in New Zealand. Yeah. We just had our daughter, really happy. Uh we loved living in Auckland. It's a beautiful place. GWA reached out. I remember I got a call on a Friday. I was at my desk, and and the the person at GWA was like, Oh, you thought about moving home? I was like, no, I'm happy. I hung up the phone. And they were pretty persistent. I said no three times. And they wore me down. And they said, Well, why don't we just have a chat? When are you in Sydney next? Let's catch up. And I was in Sydney on that Thursday, the week after. So went and had breakfast. And from a breakfast, I had three meetings in that day, the day after I was offered the role, and two months later, we were back in Australia. It was I did it for a couple of reasons. I did it because I wanted to it was sold to me initially as this is a fast track path to a big CEO job. So come in, prove yourself, and the weld your oyster in this organization. So and that that interests me a lot. And the second part is I'd never worked for a listed business before. I'd worked in big multinationals, and I could double the size of the New Zealand business for JJ, and it would be a rounding error on the regional PL. It it just wasn't big enough. Whereas a company like GWA, ASX200, there's nowhere to hide. What you deliver is what the market sees, and there's a different level of accountability that goes with a role like that. And I wanted to be able to learn what it's like in the different business types. So while it became pretty evident very early in that journey that I was nowhere near capable of doing the CEO job, so that was never really a viable option. So I then re-pivoted my mindset of, well, I'm not going to get that. That was never, that was just a sales pitch, probably to close the deal and get me there. But I learned I wanted to take as much from that experience as possible. And it taught me more around messaging, accountability, leading people than any of the roles before then. And it was a good stint. It was five and a bit years. And it was one of the longest times that I'd had in any one job because most of the roles up until then were two, two and a bit years or even less. So I was able to go through a couple of cycles.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a good lesson. Sometimes expectation and reality are different. Yeah. And but uh don't let that derail you. Yeah. See the opportunity for what it is, the reality that you're in, and and work at it. You don't have to bounce out five years. You you got what you could out of it before you then moved up into the the MD's role still, which we'll explore in some depth because I'm really interested. But I think it's a great lesson there. Yeah. So most of our listeners will know the brand. I know that I've got three power tools at home, still power tools at home. You'd be pleased to know. I'm very pleased to know that. Thank you. My wife uses more than me, but that's fine. She also wears the trousers in my family. But maybe not everyone knows that the company. So give us your elevator pitch.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yeah, so Stiel or Steel. Steel or Stieling Australia. So Stiel is a hundred-year-old manufacturer of outdoor power equipment. So the world's market leader in chainsaws and Australia's most trusted brand in outdoor power equipment. Make everything from chainsaws, lawnmowers, brush cutters, blowers. Most of the crews that you would see councils, arborists, landscapers use our products, heavy Pro Focus, and an amazing business. Family-owned, third generation, no external finance, wonderfully innovative.

unknown 22:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

And 100 years is not to be sniffed at. You just literally celebrated that last week.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yeah, we did. We had one of the third generation owners out last week and a national dealer conference the week before that with 700 of my closest dealer friends. So yeah, so it's an amazing achievement. And it's phenomenal. It's not the end. What I love about it is yes, we're celebrating 100 years, but this is the start of the next century. It's not this is the end of the road. There is so much stuff coming. So the business is re-pivoting and pushing really hard to continue to innovate, which is great. Brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

And for you, your second move into functional leadership, a bigger role and uh a broader remit, you you kind of moved geography, moved again again, moved um sector again, uh, and but but into that kind of enterprise leadership role. On on reflection, were you were you ready for that step? I mean, we talked about maybe not always being ready, but how how ready were you?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

In mindset, I was definitely ready, but in reality, you I don't think you're ever ready for those things. It is always way more challenging, complex than you could imagine it to be on the outset. So yeah, I felt I was I was ready for it, but it was still such a big challenge early on.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

And talk us through the the process of recruitment. One of the principles behind the the executive search practice we've set up at AXR is to help the best function leaders in our world understand what the step is like, what the role is like when you move up to CEO and enterprise leadership. But some there's some real practical stuff around, okay, what's the recruitment process like? For you, how did it happen?

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yeah, so I same as the other roles, I was had a call one day from a recruiter to say, there's a business, they're looking for the skills that you have and some of the history that some of the background. Uh, would you be interested in the conversation? And normally I would say no, but I said yes this day. They sent through the position description. And I think I'd said to you before, I was reading through the PD, and it was like I was I had written a PD for my ideal job around the culture, the business, what what they were about, really people-led organization. But it was a really long process. I suppose what what the business wanted was somebody who had broad experience, commercial experience, so sales background, but more than just a sales director. Someone who had broader experience across a couple of different markets, maybe a couple of different sectors, because it rounded out what they were looking for. It wasn't just a an FMCG person, but the FMCG background was really important because of the grounding that you get in those roles. The customers you deal with are harder, more complex. So that's what they were looking for. And and my background fit the brief. And it was a reasonably long pro or very long process. I had nine interviews over the space of three months, full day psych and aptitude test. And as we went through that process, while it was really cumbersome and hard, there was nothing that we didn't know about each other. So it was eyes wide open. I knew the challenges of the business, which was not in a good way. Culture, same as New Zealand. It was culturally really bad. They had 20% staff turnover, but the fundamentals of the organization was still really strong. And what they wanted, they wanted to see where my gaps and opportunities were.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

It was so you got a clear brief on what the expectation was of you enroll. What's the assessment more difficult, different, you know, for their testing and so forth? But you know, who was that being led by a board? Was it being led by the recruiter who was kind of uh putting you through your pieces? Both.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

So the board, the board and my boss in Germany wanted to know where my gaps and where my strengths were. Yeah. And in ways that you because some people you can put on a fantastic front. Yes. You can have a wonderful first impression. But as you know, as you peel the the layers back, there's not quite the same substance there. So they they wanted to know what was there, where where my gaps are, where my strengths are, was it in line with what I was saying?

SPEAKER_04 26:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

So, like I say to anyone, you just be you, and if you're right, you're right. You can't fake that. Yeah.

unknown 27:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

It's it's a uh fascinating process. And I think what you said at the beginning is really interesting for our listeners. Is one of the reasons that you made it onto the long list, onto the target for the recruiter was was was the breadth that you had. It wasn't one core functional experience. You weren't just the best sale director you could be. You'd push yourself, as we discovered in the last uh 20 minutes of our chat, into other spaces.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

And and and giving yourself perspective that they were looking for.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Yeah. Yeah. And I wouldn't be doing the role that I have done now if I didn't have that time in Singapore, if I didn't push myself to go to New Zealand and take on a smaller functional lead. If I didn't do my stint at GWA, I wouldn't have been able to go from J and J to this role. It's unlikely. I I I couldn't see that I wouldn't have made the long list. I would have been too typecast. So yeah, for all of those reasons, I I encourage anyone who asks me, and I get asked often, well, how did you do it? You're so young. I look like I'm 12, but I am older than that. Um they do, I get asked, is like, how did you do it? And I I say the same thing is broaden your experience as early as you can from someone who resisted it really early is take on as much as you can.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

It's only going to pay you back.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Yeah, it's it's I I concur completely. Would you do anything differently to manage yourself through the through the step? Any any lessons learned?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, oh, so many lessons. The the thing that people don't tell you about this job is how lonely it is. Yeah. That's the hardest part. Everything else you you you have. But when you're in functional roles, you've got functional peers. If you're a sales director or marketing director or CFO, you've got four or five peers at that level. And if you're reasonably good with people, which almost all of your listeners are, you build those relationships and you use that network to bounce ideas off, to have conversations, to form your opinions on things. When you when you're the MD CEO, you don't have peers. And your shadow in the business is so long. Everybody watches how you behave, your body language, your tone, how you show up, not only what you say, but how you say it, and every part of that. So you miss the opportunity to be able to go, hey Mike, I'm thinking about doing this, because uh you don't have peers to do that with. And the the role is early on really lonely. And you've got to, I found that I had to really slow myself down to find what was going on behind the surface. Because everyone wants everyone wants to show you that the best version of what's going on, and that's never always real. And someone who moves very fast, thinks very fast. That was the one thing that I would encourage anyone to do is slow yourself down. Give yourself the first six months to not make any decisions. Listen, form views, assess capability, see where the gaps and opportunities are in the business before you make any changes and put your stamp on it. I I was fortunate enough that the chairman of our board and one of my mentors gave me that advice and said, I'm not expecting you to do anything in the first three months. Get in and learn and ask questions. And I'm so glad that he did. He he pushed me to do that early on. Otherwise, I would have been gung-ho and going, yep, I know this, I've seen this before. I'm gonna do that. Yeah. And I would have got it wrong and had to course correct a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

Yeah, really good. Respectively, I think often the best functional leaders are there because they're really good. Well, they are that that's by definition. And and they're great at fixing things. And they see things quickly and and and they want to step in and and make that change and have the impact on the outcome. But when you're at CEO, they they that can be pretty devastating to do it too fast. Yeah because there's so many moving parts. Yep. And and you might not see half moving parts to begin with. So you've got to just pause and wait and observe and and and do say dig deeper and dig deeper before we make your decisions. But it's a different mindset to to to take. And you mentioned before chairman and mentor. It is a lonely role. I I hear that all all the all the time. And and it it's you know, it's it's uh that's a common common mindset. What what do you do to kind of give yourself advice and and people to kind of share and use a sounding board? Is that internal, external? What have you what have you built around you?

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yeah, both. And what our first podcast was on all those years ago is using mentors. Yeah. I still have mentors. One of them is the same, and there's two others that are new. So I use mentors around me for that exact piece, is people who have either been CEOs or are still CEOs or sit on boards and can add the perspective as a sounding board without judgment. So I I use my mentors for that, and I've got some great peers around the world. So there's eight other regional presidents slash CEOs, three of them I'm in contact with quite regularly. So my peer in North America and one in Western Europe. We talk every other month or every month, and I use them and they do the same in return. Of I've got this problem, I'm thinking about this, and you just talk it out. And that's how I'm able to navigate through some of the the really hard ones.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Yeah. So I guess that the lesson there is you could you can accept as lonely, but but actually you've got to proactively step up, step out and build that extend on the door to make out.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

It's on you, yeah. And there's no one else unless you do it. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Talk a bit more about the the scope of of role that you have. So the role's expanded. Uh now you you're regional MD and CEO. So you know, you get to the the MD or CEO role. It doesn't stop, you know, the role keeps evolving. But so talk a bit about how the role's evolved and and also the scope of responsibility you have around governance, reporting lines, KPIs, etc.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Yeah. Being a family-owned business, it's probably a a little bit different. It's it's a bit unique in that sense. My direct boss is the global CEO based in Germany. So he's my functional boss, I guess. But I have a local board, uh, governance board. The chairman of the board used to be the managing director of New Zealand for 20 years, great credentials, well respected by the family. And then we have independent directors on that board. One of the independent directors sits on a number of other boards, JB Hi-Fi, 7-Eleven, Babcor, so very, very experienced, and then two other directors from Germany. So while I've got a direct reporting line into my functional boss, which is your twice-yearly check-ins, I've got quarterly board meetings across all the markets that I look after, which is more of the governance role. Are we in line with the strategy? How are we going versus our strategic objectives? What's the financials look like? Is our PL balance sheet cash flow in line with where we said it would be? Are there any changes in the market that we need to pivot on? And they are they're great to help with the shaping the strategy and making sure the business is on track.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Yeah. Great, great. So it's quite a different structure. And I think that reporting line piece will vary by by by company. But the common is it's not as linear as I got one boss.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

No.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Rarely as it does a CEO of one boss. No, yeah. Almost many, many people to kind of to manage up to, but also to see guidance from.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

As well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

What are the skills you've had to dial up as a CEO that perhaps um would surprise people?

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Yeah. It's a really good question, Mike. The thing that I I've realized I've had to do more of is be crystal clear in the way that I communicate. The way that I try and explain my role is I'm probably a chief repetitive officer now, is I help set a strategy. So this is the this is the direction of the organization in the next five, 10 years. So these are the things that are the most important. And then where I've had to dial my skills up is how do I make that super easy to understand and crystal clear and as repetitive as repetitive gets. Because we're every business is done through people. People respond well with simplicity and clarity, and you get a better result faster. So that's where I've spent most of my time is articulating the strategy. Why is that important? What does it mean for you? And then what does good look like? And just staying true to that. That's something that I hadn't done in previous roles to this degree. And as I have moved through multiple markets now in this role, it's that's the consistent piece is the the clearer you are in the way that you communicate, the more aligned the organization is, and the better the results faster.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Yeah, yeah, great. On your role, actually, just to be clear, so your regional responsibility is beyond Australia New Zealand now? Informally, yes. Yeah. Yes. Okay, great. Okay, good. Just to love to uh finish on Lee, and this conversation goes, they always go so fast, but um just a bit about advice. Although we've had we've we've had some great perils of wisdom through the session, but um if if you could talk to people on the cusp of general management, enterprise leadership, what what would you advise would you give them in terms of getting themselves ready, equipping themselves for this step up?

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Things that we've touched on already, which is broaden your experience as much as humanly possible. Yeah. If you're a functional lead, head of sales, head of marketing, CFO, get an understanding of how the total ecosystem works. You you're unlikely to move across from a CFO to be sales director, but get curious and understand it, learn about it, get in and do it, or get involved in it. So broaden your experience as much as humanly possible. Because while that I think that will also put you in good stead for the enterprise role, but when you're in the enterprise role, it gives you more to draw on to ask better questions and get more clarity. So if you have a better understanding, you'll get a better outcome. So for me, it is broaden your skill set and surround yourself with people, build your network of mentors and people who can open those doors for you. Great.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

And is there anything that you wish you knew before the step to see you that you know?

SPEAKER_01 37:51

No, there's always things that you would do differently. Absolutely. For me, I would move faster on some of the people topics that I left longer than I should have.

SPEAKER_04 38:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

You form you form your instincts through your career, and as you as you grow, you you you refine them even more. If I had my time again, I would have moved faster to build a really strong core team in every one of the enterprise roles that I've had. Because I'm generally quite a nice person underneath the the young exterior. I I give people more time than I probably should. And for some things I knew early on, but I let it go longer and it just slowed down some of the progress. Right. So for anyone who's coming into the role, yes, take your time to form your view of what you're gonna do, but when you formed it, do it. Make your decision. Make your decision and back it and do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Yeah, great. Fantastic. Back to your career. Yeah. It's clear you are an ambitious person, and that that's right from the start, you know, uh from those very early childhood days, and and it's um it served you very well. What does your future career have in store?

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Never know. I honestly don't know. I don't have a plan from here, which is unusual for me. Yeah. I do the plan that I've set myself is I want to continually grow and learn. And if that's in this organization, amazing. Is it another big role in another big market? Maybe. For the moment, I can see the next couple of years, I've got enough to do. Yeah. So I'm definitely not getting itchy feet and I'm not getting bored. I want to be able to leave what I've what I've determined for myself and what drives me is I want to leave a legacy. So I want to be that person that in 10 years' time, people that have worked for me look back on and say, I've learned more, I grew more, I did more working with Lee. If I can do that, then that's success for me. So the more people that I can help shape a career with, that's a win. But I don't know what that looks like yet. Yeah. But I'm pretty ambitious, so it probably won't stop here.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

It won't stop. And and it doesn't, you know, you're you've you this is your third kind of enterprise leadership role already. Lee, uh, and and and you're you know best play mid-career age term.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

So you've got a lot of 20 years to go.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

No, 20 years to go. So so there's loads more to do, career-wise, and and I think that's one of the most important lessons, you know. You get to enterprise leadership at different different ages, different stages of career, but you're not there once you get there. That there's so much still to learn, yeah, and and there's many more roles to do. But um, fantastic. Love the journey and the story this time around, and and uh and and taking a different perspective and and layering on the the the enterprise leadership piece. I think there's lots to learn from that. I've got one final question for you, and I want to ask this of all our guests on the podcast going forward. Lee, if you could spend time with any leader, alive or or or past, who would it be?

SPEAKER_01 41:06

There's two. I'm gonna take the opportunity to say that there's two for different reasons. The first, for the way that they the values-driven leader and the way they communicate is Barack Obama. I I admire the way that he communicates and the decision, the way he takes decisions are values-based decisions, not popularity-based decisions. So I love that, and I'd love to learn more about how he does it and why, what makes him tick. So Barack would be one. And in the commercial sphere, it's Greg Faran. So Greg used to be the so Woolworths fame, and recently was Air New Zealand CEO and Walmart, and now moved back into groceries. I I love that he's such a servant leader. I I was lucky enough to have dinner with him when he worked at Woolworths. So I won a prize, and a part of that leadership course is I was able to have dinner with Greg, and I loved the conversation. I love the way that he worked. And when I lived in New Zealand, he was running Air New Zealand, and I was flying from Auckland to Wellington, and he was on the flight, and he got up and he served coffee and tea with the hosties. I was like, okay, you you look after 11,700 staff, a multi-billion dollar business, and it is not above you to you're not above the broom, so to speak. Like you you would clean the plane and you would be in with your people. And I I love that, and I try and emulate that myself is if I'm in the warehouse, I'll pick up rubbish, I'll pick boxes, I'll do whatever. And and I I want to learn more from people like Greg. Two great people. Fantastic answer.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Thank you. Lee, thanks for the the fresh take on on your story. And we'll have to do this again in another five years and see where see where it goes next. We've got many more guests from our CEO and MD Network lined up for you listeners, coming up, leading some of the most exciting SMEs to the largest listed businesses. So can't wait to bring those journeys to life. Now, if you're inspired to reevaluate your career plan, reach out to me, Mike Dixon, my colleagues in Executive Search here at AXR, Greg O'Shea or Shanthy Smith for a career conversation. We're interested in your career at any time, not just when you need a new role and we think you're right for a short list. We want to talk to you about your career whenever you'd like. If you're not yet knocking the door of CEO, then jump onto our sister podcast, go to CFO or your future in sales and marketing. Now, from me, Mike Dixon, again, thanks for listening and see you next time on your path to CEO. We hope you enjoy today's podcast from Exile Recruitment and Search. Thanks to being a part of our executive community. Keep listening for more insights and information. Advice to help you on your path to CEO.