Meet Grant Hackett OAM, Olympic Gold Medalist and CEO of GDG

Good morning, Fabian.

Yeah, I'm very well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah. Yeah. No, we've crossed paths on many occasions, actually. So probably my early days at Generation Life and GDG for sure.

Yeah, the ASX-listed business which is GDG. So, and we've got three businesses now beneath that which we didn't back then, probably when we met in around 2017-2018. We've got Lonsec, which everyone knows in finance, the research and ratings business, and also Evidential Managed Accounts, which is now a combination of Lonsec investment solutions as well as the Evidential Managed Account tailored portfolio solutions, and of course the life company, Generation Life, which is big in investment bonds and also lifetime annuities. So yeah, and I'm sitting up there running the group entity and yeah, it's been a lot of fun. We've made quite a few moves over the last sort of 12 to 18 months and continue to grow pretty sharply in each of our segments, which is great, but yeah, you're always sort of paranoid about, you know, maintaining that too.

Absolutely. It's probably something I've done for a long time now. I think I've been doing the listed company role since October of 2018. So I've spent a lot of time with investors over the years and a lot of them have been on the journey with us as we do various capital raises. Obviously new investors come in, particularly on the institutional side, but a lot of our retail investors have done very well out of the stock. I think I came in, I think we were sitting around 50-odd cents, about 52 cents at the time. We're trading today close to $5. So it's been a significant amount of growth. A lot of hard work. It's funny, you kind of look at where we were and where we are now and it's chalk and cheese. We've gone from a $40 million market cap company to almost a $2 billion business, but I feel like we've built it brick by brick. So, and it's been an amazing team in terms of the focus around execution. So, we knew we had very good products. We knew we had a product that would probably sit well within a portfolio for a financial advisor, particularly in the life company. We had strong brand recognition on the Lonsec. So we knew we had a real opportunity to be able to turbocharge the growth of some of these assets if we focused on the execution side and really got the sales and marketing correct and right leaders in place as well. That's absolutely critical to, you know, driving any sort of successful outcome, particularly as you grow as a group. And for me now, I guess a lot of my focus, just to, I guess, answer your question in summary, really probably 30% of the time really is with investors now. So we're explaining, you know, the strategy, what we're doing, how we're executing against that, you know, talking through our latest updates, whether that's a quarterly, half-yearly or full-year updates. So there's a lot of time spent on that when your register gets quite broad. Then the next probably, you know, 20% of time you're really focused on strategy. So what are you doing with the team? Are they executing that well? What's the strategy that I'm looking for, not just for the next 12 months, but next three years, next three to five years? Where do we want to be? And having absolute clarity on that's really important. And then a lot of my time is spent really around the execution of the business. So working with the CSOs, CEOs of the various assets, making sure that they're aligned to the strategic plan, helping and supporting them and delivering that, and then making sure that we've got the right people on the team. So, and then you've got to manage all of your key stakeholders around that, such as, you know, you've got various boards in there. We've got the group board, but we've also got subsidiary company boards as well. So yeah, there's quite a bit in that from a day-to-day point of view, but I'm very, very focused. I always allocate time in my diary to make sure that all the catch-ups that I need on my direct reports to keep them accountable to what we all signed up to deliver is very important. And for me, it's the boring little disciplines that I never let go of because they're the things that you can let go of and a bit of complacency or hubris can, you know, sneak into a business, particularly after such a period of growth as well. I've been through ups and downs in both business and personal life and I know which side of that I prefer to be on. So for me, I think the older I get, the more paranoid I almost get about performance and business and making sure that we're continuing not to deliver, but I would love to be able to deliver in most parts of the business above expectation.

I think so. I think there's been, you know, I think everyone kind of, if you're willing to work in and on the business, particularly in those early days, I think a lot of your teams see that. So, you know, I'd be on a plane every week, sometimes every second day, going out there, seeing financial advisors, talking to dealer groups, forming new relationships as part of the group, you know, educating the market on our products, how they operate, and then the whole team rallies around that as well. So, if you're willing to lead from the front and do the hard yards, they'll dig in and support as well. And then, you know, everyone starts to get rewarded around that. It feels good to be winning. It feels good to get good results. It feels good to get the recognition that they've received and deserve as a team. But you can also, you know, momentum can very quickly go the other way and I've been on both sides of that. So, I think for me, as I've gotten older and more experienced, I think I'm probably pretty fortunate that I've had that world of sport where, you know, there's sponsorship, there's profile that comes with it. There's the glory. You can do no wrong. And I've seen how that can come undone quite easily as well. So, I think for me in business, regardless how big we got, it wouldn't matter if we went from a two to a 20 billion business, I think I'd still feel much the same.

Yeah. Yeah, I was born on the Gold Coast. So, yeah, grew up there and moved around Queensland a bit because dad was a detective for the Queensland Police Force. So, he got transferred as he sort of got promoted through that job and we ended up in North Queensland in Innisfail actually. So, that's probably my first memory. We were on the Sunshine Coast just before that, but Innisfail is really where I got into swimming, started school there and yeah, so I was very much from far north Queensland, regional area. So I'm a true blue Queenslander, so to speak, or true maroon Queenslander, I should say. But yeah, and started swimming up there purely just because my brother did, who's six and a half years older than me. I was four, he was 10. And then yeah, we sort of built out the swimming journey from there.

It's weird. I always knew if I really wanted something. I always felt this as a kid. I don't know why. It might be blind confidence, but I always felt like if you worked hard enough and you focused on your goals, you could really achieve anything that you want to. And I made the decision when I was 13 that I was not only going to go to the Olympics, but I was going to go there and win. That was honestly my goal. And the reason that was the case is because Sydney got the 2000 games. So this was 1993 and I just remember the hype around that. I was doing three sports. I was doing surf life saving, probably loved that the most at that point in time, playing rugby up in Queensland, and I was also doing swimming. But I could only go to the Olympics for one of those sports. So it wasn't the fact that I was completely in love with swimming. It was more I wanted to go to the Olympics and win, and that Olympic gold medal was the real pursuit and purpose for me. So I think then I laid down the foundations. I looked at what was the Olympic champion, the world record holder in my event doing at the different age groups, you know, 13, 14, 15, 16 and beyond. And funnily enough, three years after that, I became world champion in the 1500-meter freestyle, which was my pet event, and didn't lose for 11 years after that. So it sort of worked out. But I think the reason I didn't lose is because I'm a bit like I am now, but I think I'm even more so like this now and comfortable about it, is I was never as good as my last race. I was always as good as my next one. And that was always my focus as an athlete, but 13 was probably that defining moment.

It's funny because your vision changes and it needs to in business as well. So for me, you know, winning the Olympics was everything. I went to my first Olympics in Sydney. I just turned 20, came away from that Olympics with two gold medals, but the vision changed. I wasn't the world record holder yet in the men's 1500-meter freestyle. Kieran Perkins, a fellow Australian, still had that. So I thought, well, I've got to get that mark. So the next year I got that and broke that by seven seconds. And then I remember Alex Popov, who's a very famous swimmer, particularly in the '90s, said, you know, you're good if you win one Olympics, you're great if you win two, and you're a legend if you win three. And so I kind of thought to myself, I'd like to be great. So I really wanted to be a legend. I did go for three, but got silver in the last one. So that vision really changed. And I then competed in 2004 and had a partially collapsed lung. Wanted to win three Olympic gold medals. That was my goal, was to step up. So my vision again changed. And I was just motivated by being better, trying to improve, seeing how much I could actually give and where that took me, and seeing the other people around me, what they did was inspiring. So, you know, I was in an era where Michael Phelps was at his best, Ian Thorpe was at his best, Kieran Perkins was at the tail end of his career. So some real legends of the sport over the last century, literally. And I was fortunate enough to race them all. Pieter van den Hoogenband's another name that was quite big globally in the sport. So I think I just had so many people around me that just kept lifting the bar all the time. You felt like you had nowhere to go, and even if I would win the 1500, I might have finished second in the 800 or the 400 to Thorpe. And that really motivated me to step up again and improve. So yeah, I think for me, the vision has to be, it's not set. And I find the same in business too. We wanted to hit a few key milestones along the way in business. And as soon as you hit those milestones, you've got to recreate the vision. And I think as soon as you don't feel like you want to do all the small little things, all the little disciplines, you're not feeling as paranoid as you used to, I think that's time to move on. And for me, I knew that after three Olympic Games, I was done. I was happy with what I'd done in the sport. I reflect on it, I would always like to do more. I don't think I'm completely satisfied. I think that's just part of your makeup more than anything else. But I was ready to move into business and I wanted to go into something different.

No, I think well ahead. Well ahead. Almost scary sometimes how far I think ahead. So I probably am very structured. I'm more of a planner. Five years out, I was meeting with Rob Coombe, who's my chairman of the group that I run right now, and Tim Bishop, who was the CEO of Macquarie Bank in America. Sit down and talk, what should I be doing right now? I was studying commerce law at the time. But to put myself in a great position, I knew I would retire after Beijing. Three Olympics was as far as I wanted to go. I wanted to start my working life because I was close to 30 years of age. So I felt like everyone had a bit of a jump on me who got out of uni in their sort of early to mid-20s. So yeah, so I always had that plan and then it was a matter of the moment came where I'd almost been global CEO at what I was doing. Like I was right at the top of my game. I was really well respected for it. I'd, you know, done things in the sport that people probably thought were almost impossible or difficult to do in the 1500-meter freestyle at points in my career. And then I started working in finance and I went from being the best in the world to, you know, calling street on a Monday morning, not being the best at the table. And the sooner I realized that, the better it put me in a stead to move forward in my career because I kind of put the ego to the side and just said, well, okay, if I've got to do all the small stuff, learn the skill, I need to do that now. So I didn't actually think back to when I was at the peak of my sporting career. I actually thought about, well, what did I do in those years when I was 13, 14, 15, 16, because that's effectively where I'm at right now in my professional business career. And so I thought about all of the objections I heard, all of the noise that you had to cut through, the clarity that was required on your goals and the dedication to the process of achieving those goals. And for me, that's what I focused on in business. And I think within two years, I probably got myself into a position where I was feeling pretty proud of what I was doing and where I was going.

The best advice I can give is hang in there because you're going to go through a period, probably a few months in, maybe six or seven months in, where you think, oh, this is not for me. And the reality is, if you're a professional sports person, your name's well known, you've retained some of your sponsors even post your sporting career or some other commercial opportunities outside of, I guess, your day-to-day work. It can probably give you that optionality. A lot of people who don't have the optionality are often more successful. Sometimes when they don't have a plan B or something to fall back on, they've got to stay focused and remain in something that's not necessarily making them feel great right now. But, you know, if you're able to persist and get yourself into a certain position that you know you would enjoy the responsibilities of that position or the opportunities that it would bring. So if there was a call out to any athlete, I would say persist through those times and give yourself an absolute concrete chance. And that takes a few years to do that. You've got to be willing to persist for a few years. And I think then you've got a new skill set. Then you've got something else to offer. Then you can combine the leadership skills that you not only got from sport but in business as well, and it can really put you in the driver's seat to create some pretty great opportunities for yourself. But you've got to be willing to persist through that difficult initial period, I think.

Yes, I was in the private bank. So I just started out with a team there and worked with the team and managing the customers that we have within the private bank. Moved around to starting a business in there that we called Alpha Sport and Entertainment. A lot of athletes, you know, make a lot of money when they're younger, don't necessarily know where to invest it, don't necessarily have a lot of great people who are truly in their best interest around them for those investments. So we wanted to make sure that we had four different things. There was four key elements. One was making sure they had the right relationship manager, the right financial advisor, a credit policy to be able to support them because a lot of them don't, they're not asset rich, but they're cash flow rich at that particular point in time. They might be on a five or six hundred thousand dollar contract but not have more than twenty grand in the bank because they've just signed that for the next three or four years. And then you want to make sure you've got the right insurances. So if they were to have a career-ending injury and what insurances they've got if they've got a big mortgage or some other liabilities that need to be paid out. So we created a proposition around those four areas and yeah, we ended up growing that business. I think it had three-year CAGR growth of about seventy percent plus.