This week on the Be Epic podcast, Brent sits down with Simon Miles, Vice President of Global Omnichannel at The Coca-Cola Company. They discuss the omni-channel retail space and innovations including those in retail media, AI, and e-commerce. Simon shares his global perspective gained from working with his team that operates in 206 countries and the important role of collaboration across functions and with retailers. Simon also offers guidance for students entering CPG and retail marketing, emphasizing the value of curiosity, action-orientation, and resilience in building a career.

It's very easy sometimes when you you know,

everybody's busy. It's very easy just to be very internally

focused as you put it earlier. You know, as you walk in, you've

got to do this. It's on your mind, you got a few things

you've got to do today. But build in, if you can some time

to explore, and to think about the outside world.

Welcome to the Be Epic podcast, brought to you

by the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of

Arkansas. I'm your host, Brent Williams. Together, we'll

explore the dynamic landscape of business, and uncover the

strategies, insights and stories that drive business today.

Well, today, I have with me, Simon Miles. Simon is Vice

President of Global Omnichannel at the Coca Cola Company, and

has become a good friend. So Simon, thank you for joining.

Thanks, Brent. It's so good to be back in Northwest

Arkansas again. We've been coming for a lot of years. And

it's always a great pleasure, good to see you.

Well, we're glad to have you here. Maybe from the

accent we can tell you're not from Arkansas. Right. So maybe

tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, I'm I'm from the south, but it's the south of

England. So I live near to near London. Yeah, so I've, I've been

coming over to the US part of Coca Cola for for many years,

I've been part of the global team for the last 10 years, been

at Coca Cola 17 years, so had a sort of long, long career in all

sorts of different elements of that. But you know, personally

married, two kids who are no longer kids, they're grown ups

now. And keen tennis player and photographer, and even drone

pilot for a bit of aerial photography occasionally.

That's right, quite the quite fun interests

outside of work. And inside work, you know, from a

professional perspective, a background in marketing, digital

marketing, e commerce.

Yeah, certainly in the last 10 to 15 years that's

dominated it. Although I have to say in in the earlier parts of

my career it was much more varied than that. So yes, there

was some sales roles, there was some admin roles, I was leading

teams on insights, on category planning, on shopper marketing.

So it was it was a good broad base from which then I

eventually kind of narrowed it down and started to specialize

as digital marketing, and ecommerce started to evolve. So

I could see the opportunity and kind of spent more time in that

space.

And then in this role, you're leading commercial

strategy with, for Coca Cola on behalf of most global customers?

Yes, so. So I do that across all of our regions

of the world. So we operate in these 206 countries. Clearly, I

can't cover all 200 metrics. So prioritization is always key.

But yes, I'm responsible for that for our overall omni

channel strategy with all of our key customers across the

different regions of the world. But of course, we have in Coca

Cola, we have nine operating units around the world. So I

work with our local teams who will do more of the kind of day

to day work on the ground.

Okay. Totally makes sense. Well, let's, let's

kind of dive into the omni channel world. Because what an

exciting place, what an exciting area you work in, omni channel

retail, you've got a good bit of history, you know, working in a

with retailers in omni channel. Yeah, just kind of what are you

seeing? And how do you see it evolving right now?

Yeah, it is. It's ever evolving. It's one of those

fascinating spaces, you know, it's changed a lot in the sort

of 10-15 years, I've been in that space. And of course, there

was the huge acceleration towards e commerce during the

COVID pandemic in a couple years back, which I think really

changed the game for a lot of suppliers. And certainly for us,

we're suddenly, from a very small part of our business, it's

suddenly become a very significant part of the

business. And I know the same is true for many retailers, too.

And that's driving a lot of change, I think in terms of how

people view the importance of the E commerce side of omni

channel. And so we're seeing a lot more investment going in. So

we're not going to talk about investment. I'm thinking people

resource, as well as you know, dollars and cents, and a lot

more focus in terms of our business planning and those

kinds of areas that we work on. And just to give you sort of a

couple of areas that I think have really sort of moving

forward a lot more recently, there's been a lot of sort of

capacity constraints and that kind of stuff, which came out of

the pandemic, it was difficult for people to meet demand at the

time, as that, as that spiked. And so there was a lot of

investment go into into sort of supply chain solutions and

logistics and those kinds of things to build the capacity so

that we can meet demand. So I think that's, that's a real

trend that really accelerated through through and beyond the

pandemic. And more recently, I think you've seen the

development of a couple of areas like artificial intelligence,

which is really making it starting to make a difference. I

think it's still early, and we're still figuring it out. But

it's starting to play out. And I think it has a lot of as has a

big future, if you like as to the things I'm thinking about

for the future. And the other one is the emergence of the

retail media area, which is driving significant amount of

inven investment potentially into the retailer, p&l from

different parts of the supplier organization here. We're talking

brand dollars rather than kind of traditional trade dollars.

But again, it's early days, we're still figuring it out. So

yeah, there's lots of beads. It never stops, right? It's it's

such a fascinating space,

It is fascinating, maybe kind of

diving in on both of those, maybe we'll start with with AI,

because we probably, we've done some work together on retail

media, which I want to touch on. Very early days of, you know,

generative AI being much more accessible to both individuals

and companies. Any like little tidbits of highlights of where

you think maybe this could make a real difference in omni

channel?

Yeah, I think the jury's still out, you know,

because we are at the early stages, but the way I look at it

is, I can definitely see. And I was talking about this with our

local team yesterday, actually, when you think about how people

shop, and the what they're trying to do is they're trying

to feed the family for the week, right? Typically, mom is saying,

you're saying like, okay, I've got, you know, the kids got to

go to school. And I've got lunchboxes to make, and then

I've got, you know, some friends come around on Saturday night,

so that she's got a meal plan in her head of a number of meals.

And at the moment, the structure of how people generally shop

online is called item by item or aisle by aisle right picking it

through, and I think what's gonna happen with something like

AI is you could actually put in, in sort of natural language, you

know, build me a plan for the week, I've got you know three

kids in the house, I need five lunchboxes, and I need a meal

for Saturday night. And it'll give you suggestions then of

products, which I think was kind of one click, you can add to the

basket. So that kind of ability, I think is going to change the

dynamics of how people shop online from, you know, frankly,

what historically, I think, has been almost imagine a floor plan

of a supermarket, put on a page of a computer screen. And then

we're made to kind of go through all the aisles, which perhaps

isn't the best experience we could have built. But it's it's

just we are where we are. So I think AI is going to make a

difference to that kind of thing. And I also think more

technically, how the digital shelf is built, I think, really

heavily influenced by artificial intelligence. So at the moment

is it's it's kind of quite a manual process in many ways of

images and texts, and the rest of it to kind of create the

pages that you see. But I think artificial intelligence will

take a lot of the effort out of that. So you know, most of the

use cases that we're seeing are in the space of time saving and

efficiency. And I think that's where it's really gonna start to

begin with where it goes beyond that, you know, you have to ask

a futurist really can get around that.

Well even your first example of meal planning

for a family, that that could be an impact of saving a family an

hour, you know, on the weekend that could allow them to enjoy,

enjoy family time or enjoy recreation. And, you know, I'm

excited about the ability of generative AI and enterprises

to, of course, take out the rote tasks that we probably as

humans, you know, could be using our time better. So I think

it's, I think it's exciting. I can't wait to watch it.

Yeah, no completely. And I'll give you

another little, little tiny example that I've been using it

for recently, when we were still having a lot of virtual meetings

at Coke, right. I'm part of a global team. So we hosted a

meeting last week with about 10 people on the call. And we

recorded the call, because there were some people who couldn't

make it. And so the the there's, you know, Zoom automatically

created a transcript of the meeting I needed then to

summarize it. So I just put that into ChatGPT and said, turn this

transcript into a summary of the meeting with bullet points and

action points. And it did it in 15 seconds. So you know, the

time saving for me, yes, I could have gone through that. But it

was an hour's meeting would have taken me probably half an hour

to have done that. So you're absolutely right, in terms of

the time saving is tremendous.

That is wonderful I agree. Well retail

media, which is really how you and I originally got to know one

another. And you individually, Coca-Cola, as a company has

really supported the Walton College in putting out thought

leadership around retail media. We put out our first white paper

early last fall, and are working on a second version of that,

that you're helping us with, again, so one, thank you for

helping the Walton College create thought leadership. But

one thing I love is that we're doing this together. And but,

you know, well, how do you see this space evolving? Because

it's been a space that really seems to have evolved really,

really quickly.

faster than either of those two. And so it's hard

to you know, and that's why we wanted to partner up with you

guys. And it was such an important piece of work that you

led last year, to give us a baseline of understanding on it

because there was a lot of there was a lot of literature out in

the marketplace, but it's all coming much of it was coming

with an angle. So, you know, an agency would publish or a

retailer would publish. And so we wanted an independent

viewpoint and that's what you gave us and that was really

helpful for us as a business to then be able to think through

for ourselves. What are the key things we want to be focused on?

What do we want to try and work out? So it's been a wonderful

partnership, and we really appreciate the work that you've

done. And it's definitely helped us, I think, to work with some

industry partners as well, to sort of take some of that

thinking on. And so, you know, retail media is one of those

areas that has, has such opportunity in it. And I think

it's quite easy, as you articulated in the white paper

last year to kind of understand the promise of that, with, you

know, consumers getting more relevant advertising and

retailers making some a new revenue stream and suppliers

being able to target in a way that hadn't before and measure.

But we've still got a way to go to kind of realize that that

promise. But there's been, you know, significant strides

forward, you know, we've been testing with a number of

different retailers in different parts of the world. You know,

what responds, well, how do you work through it? What types of

tactics work well, in this space, as many others have, as

well. And I think there's been a lot of work. And one of the

things that's interesting about this space, and, and it reminds

me of when I was first in E commerce, you know, over a

decade ago, there's quite a collaborative spirit in the

industry, which doesn't necessarily exist in other

parts. And so we've certainly partnered up a lot, you know, as

we did with you in the first instance, but with other, you

know, there's cross supplier forums, there's people like the

IAB are working in this space, there's a lot of collaboration

here. And I think the way forward in this space, and when

I come back to suppliers, and retailers specifically working

together to work out the right plans for the consumer

collaboration is at the heart of that. Because what I'm seeing

now, globally, is that these are all evolving in their own way.

So if you're a Carrefour in France, or you're Woolworths

Australia, or you're a Walmart in the US, you're developing for

your own platform. And so it's developing slightly differently.

And so there's a, there's a need to collaborate together to

understand where all those platforms are going, and how we

get more consistency in the industry. And that's starting to

come, we're starting to open that up. But I don't think any

one company has all the answers either. And so it's not one of

those things, we can just go out and try and make everybody fit

to our model, because we don't have all the answers either,

certainly. And so it's opening up a really fabulous

collaboration opportunity between retailers and suppliers.

And I think long term, this will fundamentally change the way

that retailer supplier relationships work. Because it

historically, you know, it's been owned by the merchants and

the key account teams, you know, it's been the sort of two, two

sides of the coin, if you like, and kind of working out and

negotiating together and building the plans. Now, with

the advent of retail media, where it's much more about

marketing and media, different parts of the organization are

brought into play. And you have to have both sides working

together in order to make that work. So you have collaboration

opportunities, within the retailer, within the supplier,

and between the retailer and supplier, which looks different

in the future than it did in the past. So it's it's an amazing

evolving space. You know, as you say, fast, lots of investment

going in, lots of progress, but still lots of development to

come.

What are my learnings out of that work last

summer, that speaks to this point was, you know, typically

you you thought about that relationship as you're right. I

mean, at least being I won't say owned, but maybe led by it was

more dyadic, if you will, you know. And all of a sudden, we

see multiple parts of the organization have to not only

collaborate across retail and supplier, but even within a

brand or within a retailer that we hadn't seen before. And so I

agree with you that the collaboration and the

integration, both internally and externally are going to be key.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And that

we've certainly been doing, you know, since we were working

together last summer, we've been doing a lot of that sort of

work, so you won't see it on externally. But internally,

we've been doing a lot to break down some of the silos that

exist in our business. And think about how do we plan activation

together in a way that's much more joined up than it was in

the past. So you know, the brand teams and the commercial teams

are much more linked. It's based off the, you know, category and

insight understanding, and the insights that the retailer can

share with us as well. So it's quite a different animal.

There's a lot more people involved, that's complex, and an

organization our size, you know, Coca Cola has something like

700,000 people globally. That's not easy to kind of, you know,

manage your way through that. So we spend a lot of time thinking

about that. And, you know, the good news is, I think there's,

there's an appetite, and an understanding from the

retailer's point of view as well, that the same thing exists

in their organizations. They're feeling that too. And we're

helping, you know, working together in a way that we

probably couldn't have done before. We're bringing some of

our expertise as media buyers and marketeers, which is

historically what you know, our organization has been been been

good at and been famous for. And we're bringing some of that

skill set and expertise on behalf of our retail partner. So

it's been it's been good. It's been good, overall positive

about the future of that.

I'm looking forward to the next iteration of

the work. So again, thank you for for partnering with us on

it. And you mentioned something that over the last year, as I've

gotten to know you, that you've helped me with, and that is

being able to get a more global understanding of what's

happening in omni channel retail, but some of the unique

aspects regionally across the world. And so operating in 206

countries, I think you have a great vantage point of that.

Just what are some of the things you see differently regionally

that you think are interesting?

Yeah, you're absolutely right, it's one of

the privileges of the role I have at Coca Cola is I get to

see a lot of different models working. And, you know, there's,

there's a lot of often a lot of similarities between places like

the US and Western Europe. But even that, you know, if I think

about, you know, my home country, the UK, built up its

ecommerce business based on home delivery. Whereas if you're in

France, or most other sort of developed markets, it's more of

a pickup market. And so there's nuances in terms of how the E

commerce model works, and where some of the costs are contained

in that, because obviously, from the UK model is quite expensive

to run, because you got to then deliver to people's houses.

Whereas if you get the consumer to work, do that work, then you

know, there's there's a slightly different economic return on it.

I think what's interesting as well is when you step out into

Asia, you know China's out kind of almost on its own and its own

sort of ecosystem developed very differently. Very mobile led, is

very socially lead. So lots of the commerce sitting within the

framework of the social media channels that exist in China,

which looks, you know, somewhat similar to the ones that we will

be familiar with, but operate under slightly different ways.

And so what's interesting is the influence of China in some of

the other Asian markets. So we take India, where I think

currently it's the market is still very, very traditional

trade led right so something like 96% of our business in

India, is still what you call traditional trade, so the

Khurana stores, and that, you know, mom and pop stores, that

kind of stuff. So it's only quite small, the kind of develop

side, but that's all just skipping a generation that's

going straight into social and mobile. So you see the models

very much sort of developing differently. But they are also

thinking about things like retail media, and artificial

intelligence, you know, so some of those threads that I've

talked about, are still manifesting themselves in

markets, which on the surface look very different. So yeah,

there's lots of lots of different areas that the other

bit that would, that I'm also responsible for, if you start to

step away from retail for a minute is kind of food service

and food service aggregators, quick commerce, that kind of

era. And we've seen that develop in a lot of different parts of

the world. So you have markets like Israel, or Turkey, which

are very strong in terms of some of the tech developments there

around for food aggregator platforms, which are very

sophisticated in terms of how they, how they will market

themselves, you know, what the platform looks like, how

interactive it is, and those kinds of things. So it's always

just fascinating. I mean, you know, that that expression every

day is a school day. And it certainly in my job, that's

absolutely true. And I'm always coming into stuff thinking, wow,

I never saw that before. That's amazing.

Well, you know, one thing that I think I can

tell, is, you know, you enjoy learning, right? And so being

curious, and learning and learning about what is happening

in the world is quite a privilege, as you mentioned, I'm

sure.

Yeah it is, you're absolutely right. And that's one

of the motivators for me is trying to understand the space.

And when I in the role, I have one of the sides of that, that I

think I owe the organization for the privilege of doing the job I

do is to be the person who's almost like the translator for

our business, to take the outside world and bring it in to

Coca Cola. So understand the trends understand the

differences regionally. But see the similarities between so that

we can draw the dots between various different whether it's

customer platforms, or whether it's, you know, different

regions of the world and try and see that and say, what is the

implication for our business in other parts of the world. So I'm

an opportunity spotter, if you like, on behalf of the of the

organization, and that, that keeps me intellectually

stimulated. Because you're absolutely right, you've got to

stay in that learning mindset, and say, how do I just not take

anything for granted here? How do I look at this fresh every

day? And try and figure out what's new and different? I love

that side of it.

Yeah you know, and I think that's actually

where I would, we would turn that sensemaking, you know, for

the organization. And that's actually something that I think

often leaders can forget is a really important part of their

role, right? Because I know for me, it's so easy to walk in at

whatever time you're coming in, in the morning, and the to do

list sort of takes over. But but it is true, right? There's so

much happening outside of the walls of the organization. And a

leader does have to be able to scan and make sense of it, you

know, for the organization for the strategy of the

organization.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I've

always taken the view if I'm one of the leaders in our digital

business, that I'm supposed to be driving that agenda and where

is most of that going to come from? It's not going to come

from the work I've set off, although you always do get some

fantastic work internally, I've got to at least have the view

outside to see what others are doing. And that's why I've

always taken time to attend, you know, conferences and you know,

things like this. You know, I always learn something when I

talk to people like you Brent and and others, you know. And so

it's important to have an external focus as well as an

internal one. Just to keep abreast of everything in the

industry, because there's so much to learn all the time it

moves so quickly, particularly in the digital space.

Yeah. Well, speaking of learning, one of

mine working together last year, was really about the

organization of Coca Cola. You know, I thought, Coca Cola. But

you know, it's a little more complicated than that with with

your bottlers and the relationship that you have with

bottlers. And I think most of us probably don't understand that

it's a little bit unique.

Yeah, I think it is. You're absolutely right.

People just think Coca Cola is like one big company, right. But

it's actually sort of the easiest way to think about it as

a split is two halves, right? So you have the Coca Cola Company,

which owns the brands, creates, creates the magic, if you like,

in terms of the advertising campaigns, and that kind of

stuff, and also owns the magic formula. And before you ask me

now, I don't know what it is.

Okay, now, that was my next question.

That's way above my paygrade. And so yeah, so that's

what the kind of company does. And then there is a network of

franchise bottlers around the world who take the syrup that we

produce, and then they then bottle and manufacture that

locally. So we have hundreds of plants around the world that

manufacture and they will then distribute that in the local

markets. And so that's, that's the sort of franchise model that

we have. But of course, it's a symbiotic relationship, right?

We are absolutely work hand in hand with our bottling partners,

you know, we we just would not be successful without them

clearly. And so. And in fact, I'd the first nine years of my

Coca Cola career, I was on the bottling side of the

organization in the UK. So I'm very familiar with that. So I've

sort of done the transition. So I've set both sides of the of

the Coca Cola system, as we call it.

So having the background with the bottler, I'm

sure gives you an advantage as you as you work with them in

this role.

Yeah, I think it does. I think it partly, you

know, commercially, I understand the economic model, and the

business model for the bottlers, which, you know, is very helpful

on a day in day out basis, because, you know, what, what

their agenda is likely to be and what the what they need to

achieve, and how it works, how to get stuff done. And that's

one of the, one of the challenges, I think, as you

enter business. And as you build a career, the most, in my view,

the most successful people are people who know how to get stuff

done. You know, there's a lot of people who are, you know, good

thinkers, or they're, you know, smart people, but if you can't

get it done, it's going to be a limiting factor. And so, for me,

you're right, that that history of mine in the bottling side of

the organization is very helpful for me to understand what what

would they need to make this work because that often locally,

they will be the people who will go and sell to retailers, and

they'll be building the local, you know, spin on the plant. And

so if you know that going in, you know, have feed that

information in the first place. And so that ability to get stuff

done, I think, is a really important thing to hold on to,

as you build a career,

Transitioning maybe back to the to the

business, just just to touch you know, the overall categories

that you're in the beverage category is one without deep

knowledge of the category seems to be innovative in some really

interesting ways. So I guess, what are what are some of the

highlights of that innovation? And where do you see those

categories evolving to?

Yeah, there's there is a lot of, of dynamism in the

beverage category always has been, but it's sort of, like

much of most things in life, it's accelerating and

fragmenting a lot. So we've seen you know, the growth of things

like coffee is a really, really big global trend, you know,

alcoholic beverages like seltzers, and things like that

have come up, you know, more recently, but huge innovations

in, in packaging as well driven by a sort of sustainability

agenda as well. So as you'll notice, as you travel the world,

there's lots of different ways in which that manifests itself.

And whether it's lightweight glass bottles, whether that's

different types of plastics, whether it's yeah, one of my

favorite ones recently I was in Japan, recently, they've got

what they call labeless bottles so another little plastic seat

sleeve that often sits on the outside of remove that and just

print directly onto the bottle. So there's, there's ways in

which we're innovating constantly around some of those

kinds of sides of the of the categories. But it's it is

amazing how much choice there is now for consumers. And of

course, that that also presents itself a challenge when you

think about the business side of it from assortment and display

and you know, planogram automation, all that kind of

stuff. We're working hard on to make it simple, simple for

people to shop the category to drive that but yet again,

another area that never stops innovating.

Well, and you know, I guess as the choice

proliferates, you know, for me as a consumer, going back to

retail media and some of the some of the innovations in

technology. I'm excited that that you as a marketer with Coca

Cola can increase singularly speak to me individually, and

helped me parse through all of that choice, knowing me as the

consumer.

Yeah. And that's the wonderful thing about where

technology will take us, I think and I don't think we're, we've

cracked that code yet. But we're certainly getting there. So

you're absolutely right. Because, you know, there's that

notion of the endless aisle, right, as you get a kind of

category like ours which got 1000s of SKUs in it, no one

wants to shop an endless aisle, what you want is to find the

things you're looking for very quickly. And that's where the

technology will help surface the right products in the right way.

And then provide a bit of inspiration. So that's where

that technology comes in really powerfully, I think and the more

that we can understand, you know, that the mission, you're

on the type of baskets, the types of products that you might

like, and we're able to synthesize that together, that's

what then surfaces, the inspirational content to you.

And so, you know, that's, I think that's, that can be really

powerful as a way of driving it, and driving up discovery side of

it. So it's very exciting.

Well, speaking of inspiration, I guess I'll

close with this question. And you've gotten to know a little

bit about our students, and, you know, the students of the Walton

College that I believe have a tremendously bright future in

front of them. If, you know, as you get a chance to interact

with, with young people entering into the field of CPG, or retail

marketing, what are some of the lessons learned from you, as you

sort of look back at this global career that's been quite

exciting?

Yeah, it's, I mean what an exciting time to be

joining business. Right. I mean, amazing opportunities I think,

for the for the students. I think there are some timeless

things which still relevant, I think, going forwards. I mean, I

think we've touched on a couple of them. So having a sort of

curious mindset, I think is really important asset to, to

think about. And so be seeking out and trying to learn

constantly, I think is a really important thing as as you

transition out of the sort of academic world into into a

business world and start to build your career. I think that

notion of being somewhat action orientated. So having the

ability to understand how the, how your organization, big or

small, how does it work? How does stuff really get landed?

How do you get to the end goal, you know, as efficiently and as

effectively as possible? I think that's really important. And I

think that whole kind of external mindset, you know, it's

very easy sometimes when you you know, everybody's busy, it's

very easy just to be very internally focused, as you put

it earlier, you know, as you walk in, you've got to do this,

it's on your mind, you got a few things you've got to do today.

But build in, if you can, some time to explore. And to think

about the outside world. I mean, for example, I always have the

first hour of my day, is used externally. So I'm reading or

I'm, you know, interacting with people on whether it's LinkedIn,

or whether it's, you know, some other platform. And that's about

learning that's just about opening my mind before I start

thinking about what I need to do for the day. And so, you know, I

have to because of the way I work, my brain works, I have to

diarize that. And so that's in that that's in my calendar, you

know, on hours of external stuff, otherwise, I just

wouldn't get to it, because I just start in what I'm doing. So

I think, you know, having that kind of curiosity, having that

external mindset, but being able to sort of think about how you

get stuff done, to achieve I think, is really important. And

it's definitely all of those has really helped me I think, as

I've developed my career.

Well I, synthesizing that maybe just to

touch a couple of the things that really resonated with me,

for our students is one I'll go back to one of your earlier

comments, which is the ability to get things done, you know, to

focus and get things done particularly early in your

career can really be something that sets you apart. And then at

the same time, be able to have a broad mindset, understanding

what's happening, so that you can bring those learnings and,

and a unique perspective to the workplace. I think both of those

are valuable and can be a competitive advantage for a

young person.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I

think the the other thing is just sort of fortitude or

resilience, I think is an important sort of human quality

to have, because rarely are our careers a straight line. Mine

certainly hasn't been mine has meandered all over the place. I

mean, just you know, just to give a bit of insight, you know,

I was made redundant twice in my career, you know I had to change

industries a couple times. And it's just that fortitude to get

back up and go, hey, you know, I've got stuff to offer. And so

have, you know, confidence in your own ability, I think is an

important area to drive things forward, you know, that there

will inevitably be setbacks of one type or another. And the

ability to dust yourself off and just go again, I think is really

important, too.

What wonderful advice to close on. So be

resilient to our to our students out there listening. Well,

Simon, I really appreciate you joining us today. I appreciate

your support of the Walton College and your partnership.

Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. Thank

you.

On behalf of the Walton College thank you for

joining us for this captivating conversation. To stay connected

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