Graham Charlton , CFO at Softcat (PART 2)

How do you preserve culture? Because there's a lot of companies that you mentioned, if they do get listed, shareholders coming or investors come in, it comes more hierarchical, and things change and companies evolve over time. How do you make sure you maintain that culture when investors come in?

Absolutely. So after eight years, you are set to take the reins from Graham in August, and that was announced I think last year now. The transition was announced to the press already. What was the thinking behind announcing something that is not going to happen until August?

Well, it goes back to that point of transparency really, which is once we knew internally that's what was going to happen, and Graham Watt has to take a massive amount of credit for this because for him it's a big change and he's moving out of an exec position to non-exec position. But he very quickly, once we realized that was the right thing for him and that I was the right person to take over for the company, his thoughts went immediately to, 'Right, how do I set this up best?' Because it was never about him. It was all about what's the right thing for the company and what was the right thing for me. So I'll be ever grateful to him for the strength of character that he showed me just getting it out there. Again, it goes back to transparency and leadership. Why would you, once you know something, hide it from the rest of the world? Particularly when you're a public company, there's an obligation to kind of announce anyway when you get to a certain point. So we just thought it was the right way to allow that handover to happen. So we announced it earlier, and I think it's been really helpful to have it out there in the open.

Now I mentioned this at lunch about... You maybe haven't... Did you have to think twice about doing a CEO role? Because every time I look at CEOs of companies, they're either very accounting focused, finance focused, and sometimes I'm not saying you are, Graham, but maybe not in touch with the sales force, or there may be a sales or marketing person and not quite in touch with the finances. Was there apprehension from you to sort of think, 'You know what, I'm going into a role... excuse my French, I could really [expletive] this up'?

Yeah, yeah, let's not escape my notice. Well, and it's big shoes to fill. I mean, look at Softcat's success and you look at the people who've led it, and I'll be just the fourth chief exec in its history. So, and I don't like the limelight. I do not like being center of attention, so that's the downside for doing that. A lot of people maybe think, 'Oh, it's a no-brainer, everybody would want to do that job,' and I get that, and clearly a lot of people would want to do that job. But for me, yeah, I did have to think about it very carefully because there's a ton of responsibility comes with it. And I think it's only when you recognize that responsibility and consciously get comfortable with it that you're then in a position to hopefully do the job well. So yeah, I had to think about it quite carefully. What really always mattered to me, because like I mentioned before, I think there's a spectrum of finance people and I've always been a slightly odd person because I'd never got into it because I like numbers. I've got an affinity with the numbers, but I got into it because I wanted to do something with those numbers and kind of help make decisions better. So I've always been more of a general manager than a finance person. And maybe a numerate general manager is sort of maybe how I think about myself. What I like to do is talk to people, understand different perspectives, piece it together, and then you can set a direction. I'm very happy to make decisions. I don't mind taking that responsibility. What I really dislike is when you're not making decisions. So yeah, there's reasons why I really wanted to do it, reasons why I had to question it. But the thing that really mattered was whether or not it felt to me that I was the right person for the job, and that the company wanted me to do it. The people in the business, the 2,200 people that we are today, felt I was the right person for the job. And you'll never perfectly assess that, but there was a lot of things pointing in that direction and a lot of support internally. It felt for me doing it, and I wouldn't do it if I didn't think those things were lined up.

Do you ever get ground where you think, 'What if this goes wrong?' Do you ever have that fear of it? You're thinking, 'You know what, I'm a public listed company, very, very successful company. I'm now in the spotlight.' Because whether you like it or not, you're around no, you're now going to be in the spotlight. If it goes wrong, they are going to be looking at you.

Yeah, yeah, that's you can't get away from that. You can't get away from that, no. And again, to take the job on and to be in the mindset to do it well, I think you've got to fully accept that it's ridiculous to pretend that isn't a possibility. And I kind of think of it as, you know, if it goes well, it can't be because of me, right? There's 2,000, hopefully 3,000 people one day in Softcat, and I can't go and sell to all of our customers and say, I can't talk to all of our vendors. It's just, it can't be because of me if it goes really, really well. But if it goes badly, it can only be my fault, because my job, this leadership team's job at Softcat, is to let all of those great people with all of their great attitude get in front of customers, talk to vendors, do what's right for the people who buy from us, build trust and loyalty with them, to never let them down. My job is to facilitate that and not get too much in the way of it, keep it pointing the right direction, provide vision, leadership, try and set an example. But if I fail to do that, it won't work well. But if I do that well, all of those people will continue to drive Softcat success. And you know, there's no false humility in that, by the way. That is exactly how I see it. It's me helping, but largely getting out of the way as well.

Did you have a job spec when you got the role? Because every time I see, and I've recruited for sales, sales director, sales managers, and MDs, and I've there's been a detailed job spec. But I always wonder when you're in situ and you're given the role... When I speak to sometimes, normally expect actually it's done over a... Did you look at it? I don't know.

So if there is, I haven't looked at it because... yeah, there must be one, but I don't know where it is. I mean, that actually, whether it's the role of chief executive of Softcat or anything else, what's written on that bit of paper is relevant only as a way in, isn't it? It's kind of a framing of, 'Here's what we do.' The job changes on a daily basis, and good people define the job anyway themselves, and by talking to people around them. So what I need to do and what that job is is utterly clear to me, but it's probably an image in my head rather than something written on a bit of paper.

Fair enough. Now there's been a lot of consolidation in the market, M&A activity across the tech industry. Computer Center have been making waves internationally. Up till now, Softcat's focus has been here in the UK. Will that strategy change, or will you implement a different strategy?

So the beauty of Softcat and the way that we've grown and expanded is we've never had sort of a grand plan of 'Here's where we need to be in five years' and a pathway to that. We just kind of it's always been iterative and agile, so and always in response to kind of what customers need from us as well. So right now, because customers have needed us to get better technically and with the service offerings that we have that sit behind all of the sales people that we have, that's led us into bigger projects, more complex projects for larger customers over time. And those larger customers have operations overseas, so we're now starting to get pulled out of the UK into the overseas operations of a lot of our customers. And so by responding to that, we become more international. And so yeah, it's a natural next step for us to start to explore and to build on that. We're creating a small team in the US to help serve customers over there. We've got branches in the Netherlands, the Far East, and we'll just keep pushing in those directions in response to where customers are taking us. We'll keep pushing those directions. Then we've never made an acquisition in our history, but we've kind of thought about from time to time. You look at it, you've got a strategy, you've got a direction you're heading in, but you realize you can get there quicker potentially sometimes by buying other businesses. Now we've never done that because it's never been right, but it's still a possibility. And as you start to move into overseas markets, the relevance of that maybe increases as well. So yeah, it's an option.