Welcome to another episode of In hundred days and beyond, this time with an absolutely brilliant guest. His name is Harrison Tull. 

Introduction 

He is a director at Altius, He has got ten years of experience in operational leadership roles and has demonstrated a track record of driving new business wins, having the ability to communicate with people, and launching organisations from the ground up. That’s already a big one, restructuring teams, forging mission, critical partnerships and alliances that are again, people and then delivering top-line growth and profitability. He has been a senior manager of operations, and excellence at PWC. 

Background  

Harrison Tull was always interested in sports marketing, and also did various internships and Jobs in the same niche. Later on, found management consulting strategy exciting and took stepping stones to get his first job in a consulting firm. Eventually building credibility to get into a price water house PWC. Flourished his skills to focus on private equity space, pulled together a team of people from ex PWC & started building a firm focused on value capture for private equity.  

Team management and challenges  

Harrison developed a team to deal with internal and external stakeholders. Taught them how to present in front of the client, and when is the right time to present in front of the client was the biggest challenge. Getting the team exposed to highest-level conversations as early as possible to own a key part and key deliverables. Building a culture in a team and bringing some values is a challenge too.  

Some good attributes of an integrator  

The good attributes of an integration person should be a generalist who can move across functions in an organisation. He should be a problem solver, how quickly he is able to move from one problem to the other under intense pressure. He can make the right assumptions. EQ is huge, being able to quickly, confidently and concisely communicate. He should be able to build great relationships with clients and put themselves in their shoes. There are a lot but these are some of the few summarised really well by Harrison. 

Value creation and integration  

In content distribution companies, each country was running their own process having different products, selling at different price points at different costs. We realised that we could really leverage some low-cost areas. We focussed on content distribution which is a brand-new function, taking in the front office, and touching customers. We looked at finance and accounting, indirect procurement, infrastructure and product development to cut the cost as quick as possible.  

In the deal-making process, the teams are all about paying the lowest amount for assets. It will cut costs by bringing the assets together and that way exit as soon as possible by having increased EBITDA.  

Importance of a mentor 

Harrison has two really great mentors at PWC. He thinks having a great mentor who has a lot of faith in you will put you in spots to help you learn and grow. They will vouch for you on the right project and give you opportunities. He was pushed to manage a project in Abbot for a year by one of his mentors. 

Now mentoring someone else is different. It’s called coaching, you have your coach, and then you have your partner. And then you have a relationship partner. So you have three that are very set in terms of how your career pathing and who you work with.  

Specialist vs generalist  

Thinking about specialists, Harrison thinks deep technical expertise in a given function are specialist. And he thinks that he is a generalist, as he got to work in multiple functions, usually mid and back office, heavily within finance and accounting, HR and indirect procurement, pulling in the right expertise. These were some of the few summarised points discussed in the podcast with Harrison tull, who has a brilliant background in having collaborations with 21 territories (157 countries) to generate $220M in annual savings. Also revamped 800-person global finance spanning 30 countries for a $20B consumer packaged goods company to realise $60M in annual savings. To know the whole of his journey, tune in to the podcast.  

Connect with Harrison tull  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrisontull 

Links: http://mergerintegration.co.uk 

http://www.skilfulpursuit.com