In this episode Sam McElroy sits down with Jordi Robinson, CDMO Commercial Leader, to discuss his career, craft and his read on where the industry is heading.

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Welcome to CDMO Career Stories, part of the Metric Podcast Network.

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The careers that shape the CDMO and biopharma industry rarely follow a straight line.

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This show is about the people behind them.

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Every episode we sit down with senior leaders and commercial practitioners to talk about the decisions that define them, how they build and lead high performing teams, how they win business and where the talent landscape is heading next.

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I'm joined by Jordy Robinson.

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Thanks very much for joining us, Jordy.

0:38

Appreciate you.

0:39

You are very welcome.

0:40

This is my first podcast.

0:42

So great.

0:43

We're welcome.

0:44

My cherries popped.

0:45

It will be fine.

0:47

Well, thanks for joining us.

0:48

Thanks for taking the time, I guess to sort of go right back to your, your origin or or I guess a long way, your, your entire career story.

0:58

What, what has LED you to, to pharma services?

1:02

What has sort of kept you in pharma services?

1:04

I, I guess can you give us a little bit of flavour as to, to your career story?

1:08

So I've been working in this sort of sort of chemicals, Pharmaceutical industry about 30 years now.

1:14

So I graduated as a chemist about more than 30 years ago, Terry finally, and for the first sort of 10 years of my career was spent in technical roles.

1:23

I worked in labs, I worked in pilot plants.

1:26

I was helping do process development, scale things up.

1:29

And then I ended up by factor of a redundancy at the end of last century.

1:34

I ended up in a very small company in a town called Daventry in the UK.

1:39

At the time I they joined, I think we had 15 employees or something.

1:42

It was really small and I was there to kind of do some development chemistry work and then there was a guy working in the commercial department.

1:50

He had the bereavement and his family took some time out.

1:53

They asked me to step in and kind of help out for a bit.

1:56

And then increasingly as he came back, I started doing more and more support on the commercial side and then we got taken over.

2:04

2:17

And I just kind of went to see the CEO and on day one and basically put my hand up and said, look, I've never really done this before, but I think I'd probably be quite good at it.

2:26

Can I have a go?

2:27

And he said, we'll, you know, give you a couple of months, see what you like, we'll get rid of you if you no good.

2:32

And then 20 years later, I'm kind of still in those, those, those sort of roles.

2:37

And did you ever consider going back, I guess, to the so technical side, or was it you kind of never look back when being brutally honest?

2:45

I was never good enough as a scientist to ever make a real career out of the site.

2:50

I was never going to end up with a Novartis or a rush, you know, solving the major challenges of drug discovery.

2:56

So I kind of always knew I would have to find a different way to use my scientific background.

3:02

But not perhaps, as I say, working in a lab.

3:04

I think there's far more intelligent people than me that can can do that.

3:08

My skills lay elsewhere.

3:09

I think I always, I think I always recognize that.

3:12

Sure.

3:13

And so do you think that your, your technical background still sort of served you in a commercial sense, or do you just think you'd have been a, a salesperson regardless?

3:23

It's, it's interesting because I, I kind of fell into chemistry because I was good at it at school and I ended up doing sciences at a level.

3:30

And then you sort of, you know, especially a long time ago, I didn't put a huge amount of thought into university.

3:35

So I, so I, I think I would have always probably ended up with some kind of technique, whether it was physics or biology or it would have been some kind of STEM subject.

3:43

And I think in this industry, the kind of people you're talking to, a lot of the time, you need to be able to speak their language to a certain extent.

3:50

They're not looking at me to be a great scientist.

3:52

No one's looking at me to solve their problem on the spot, but they need to be able to understand, I need to be able to understand what the is they're talking about, what it is they're struggling with.

4:03

And so I think having that kind of background is I really, I don't, I meet very few people who are successful on my side who don't have some kind of technical background.

4:13

And I think the fact that I worked in plants, I've worked in labs, I know what these places are like.

4:18

I know what the challenges you face are there.

4:20

I think I think that helps a lot just being able to talk on a level.

4:23

Yeah, exactly.

4:24

As I say, I'm not, you know, ever trying to pretend I'm on their level.

4:28

But I know enough to to be able to kind of converse in a sort of reasonably intellectual manner and reasonably being the active work there.

4:37

And then to go kind of one step beyond that, obviously kind of the transition to to technical to commercial is one thing and then the the transition then from commercial to to leadership is it is another.

4:50

So was there a particular moment at which you thought you wanted to you or you knew that you were going to go down the leadership track?

4:58

It's it's yeah, it happened quite organically.

5:00

A lot of it came about due to my own success without wishing to sound big headed, but there was I was successful particularly when my first kind of major, one of my major CDM OS that I work with.

5:13

I don't know if I can name them, so I won't, but but because the growth was, was quite strong in those first few years, we needed time or people.

5:21

And it was kind of because I was there already, I was, you know, the de facto leader of this team.

5:26

And then I realized I was, you know, quite good at that.

5:28

And I think one of the things that gives me me great pleasure about that is, is all of those, that particular company in certain parts of its business development team had a very, quite high turnover staff.

5:40

Yet the people I recruited are all still there, you know, from 5-6 years ago.

5:44

So I think, you know, it was, it was something I enjoyed.

5:48

I enjoyed the responsibility.

5:50

And I think that's partly what led me to take the role to go back to Naveen as a, as a chief commercial officer because I wanted to, you know, take it up a level and see what it's like, not just running a small team of people, but actually being responsible for, you know, commercial strategy, a commercial group.

6:06

And although that perhaps didn't work out quite as I'd hoped, there was a lot of changes at Navin shortly after I joined.

6:12

It was the organization I was at by the time I left was not the one that that I joined.

6:19

Sure.

6:19

And, and I, I suppose just to touch upon that, the current position and that then encompasses multiple functions and, and, and you I've mentioned global oversight and, and sort of a much broader scope.

6:33

So how have you found that transition and perhaps step outside of the the classic commercial position?

6:39

Yeah, I mean, taking on kind of operational responsibilities was it was quite a big step.

6:44

I mean, obviously I was very familiar with the way plants operate.

6:47

And, you know, I did a lot of some very active project management, particularly in the early days of my career where I was perhaps working for smaller organizations where you had to take a, you know, personal interest in what was going on in the planet, make sure things were being run appropriately, etcetera.

7:02

So it wasn't that I was completely unfamiliar with that environment.

7:05

But really, you know, looking ahead, scheduling, recruitment, you know, the planning side of things, that CapEx, what do we do next?

7:13

What technologies do we invest in?

7:15

It's yeah, it's been quite, quite, quite a ride actually.

7:19

So then when it comes to building and leading your, your own teams, what's your approach to, to talent and, and what do you look for specifically?

7:27

So beyond the CV, yeah, I mean, I think the the kind of first step in any team building exercise is to to look at yourself as well to look what weaknesses do I have?

7:35

Where am I, you know, what do I need in this team to make it kind of complete?

7:40

And that was certainly when I was a asynchem, that was the first kind of step I I took is like, where are we weak in, in this particular region?

7:48

What customers, what kind of what do we need more technical or more of a hunter type thing?

7:53

So I think, I think that's always kind of a first step.

7:56

But I think for me when you are kind of looking for someone, it's, it's the, it's the, the mentality, it's the attitude.

8:03

It's that's the bit because the, the, the people you are looking at, they will have a certain level of experience, they'll have a certain track record.

8:11

You can kind of see that from paper.

8:13

If they've had a relatively stable work history and they've had some success at other companies, there's a reasonable chance they can replicate it.

8:19

But I always ask those kind of same three questions that, you know, can you do the job, will you do the job and will you fit in?

8:26

And the can is usually fairly easy to see from paper.

8:30

And the will, the two wills if you like, are always the hardest thing because have they got the right attitude to really go out and drive this business?

8:38

Do you know how much support will they need?

8:39

Because again, a lot of the time I was in a sales role, commercial role myself.

8:43

So I've got obviously my own responsibilities and my own customers to keep happy.

8:47

And then at the same time you can't be kind of babysitting people.

8:51

And also culturally, because I've worked with UK, Indian and Chinese CDM OS and all three of them are very different culturally.

8:58

What you need to be successful there, what you need to be, if you like, I can't think of the word I'm looking for, but it's it's more about whether they will accept you.

9:07

You know what you need to build trust.

9:09

You need to build those relationships and it's different for for each of those organizations.

9:13

So I'd say for me, that's kind of how I approach it.

9:16

I think you can just say you work with a credit, a credible recruiter.

9:21

They will probably bring your profiles that are reasonable fit on paper, but then filtering that out to the kind of people you want to work with, you think will be successful, that really understand what it is you're you're trying to build.

9:32

I think that's, that's, that's the hardest bit to find.

9:35

I think that's the kind of hardest piece to fail.

9:37

Sure.

9:37

And and you touched upon sort of different cultures there and and different types of business.

9:43

Would you say that that's impacted the type of profile that you're then looking to bring in?

9:48

Are you looking to match profiles to the culture of the business or the culture I I guess that you were driven yourself?

9:56

Yeah, it's, it's a bit of both.

9:57

But I would say probably, I mean, ultimately, you know, I could leave, I could be replaced.

10:03

So if you bring someone into a business, they've got to be a fit with the business.

10:06

Yes, they might.

10:07

It's, it's good that they can work with me and that we get along and have a similar outlook, etcetera.

10:11

But ultimately I'm, I'm not going to be there forever.

10:14

And so if you bring in someone into a company, I think that that kind of cultural fit is important.

10:18

And there's very different, as I say, attitudes and approaches.

10:23

You know, for example, with a Chinese CDMO, if you want your technical colleagues, your your operational colleagues, you know, to be on the side, you need to really go see them face to face.

10:34

You need to build that relationship, that personal relationship.

10:36

You need to explain to them, This is why we're doing what we're doing.

10:40

This is what's going to happen.

10:41

And this is what, you know, I need from you guys.

10:43

And until you can kind of get that, there's always a little bit of wariness.

10:46

Where is Indian CDMO as I think it's, I wouldn't say transactional, but I think they, there's less of the need to build that kind of direct relationship with the, with the operations people because the hierarchical structure is, is it tends to be in India, they will kind of do what you ask them because of the role you occupy.

11:05

Whereas in China, you can be the CEO, but if they don't trust you and they don't like you and they don't think that you're credible, it's, it's, you know, if you're asking for people to do things outside of the envelope, if you like, that's, that can be very hard.

11:18

OK, interesting.

11:19

And, and just to touch upon again, in terms of the way that you, you then hire externally, has your approach to, to the way that you hire and, and so the way that you go to market when it comes to talent, has that been impacted at all by a, a particular mistake that you've made?

11:35

Is there anything sort of specific that you would point to?

11:38

I mean, one of the first ties I ever made actually was it wasn't a total disaster.

11:43

And I won't name the person because they're, they, they're not to blame in this, but they were clearly overqualified for the role.

11:50

They were, they were far too senior, far more experienced than what the what was needed at the time.

11:56

And also, if you like, when you look at career progression, what was really on offer is that kind of position.

12:01

But I was so excited to have someone of that caliber.

12:03

I was like, I don't really care.

12:05

Let's just get this person in.

12:06

I'm sure they'll be great.

12:07

And I never really stopped to think is they are they really going to, you know, want to stay here for three or four years because you everybody who's in pharma knows that the sales cycle is incredibly long.

12:17

It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort to build something meaningful in this business.

12:22

So if you're in a row for 6 to 12 months, it's very, very hard to have any really significant, you know, impact.

12:29

So I kind of in hindsight, obviously realised because that person left before a year was up and went off to a much bigger organization and was obviously using us as a bit of a stepping stone or just to, you know, quite possibly just to keep getting paid for for a year and nine months or whatever.

12:47

And so I think that kind of cultural element and not just as I say, whether they will fit with Chinese or Indian type, but in terms of what do they really want out of this?

12:56

What are their expectations?

12:57

Because you get a lot of people in the industry as well who are very experienced.

13:01

And you know, if I hire this person, they're going to want my job.

13:04

They're going to, you know, they're going to be wanting to run in the thing in a year's time.

13:08

But if that's not on offer, then they're just going to be unhappy and leave after a year.

13:12

So you've got to kind of balance, be realistic about what can you offer them as well.

13:16

And I think one thing I am so passionate about when it comes to is I'm brutally honest about what what, what it's like working with me, what the expectations are, what the business is like and where your career can go from this.

13:29

Because I don't want someone coming in thinking they're going to inherit a load of business, a big account, and then they have to find, they have to travel the world knocking on doors, as it were.

13:38

So I'm always is very honest about you know what it looks like working for me.

13:42

And I think that first mistake kind of informed a lot of that, right.

13:46

OK.

13:47

And and just to sort of touch upon balance because I guess that balance can also be applied in terms of the development and promotion of internal talent versus then bringing in external.

13:59

So how do you approach that and, and sort of how do you mix the 2?

14:03

It's been quite a, it's bizarrely, it was never something I kind of intentionally set out to, to do, but it's been quite a feature of my career actually.

14:11

And I, I've, I've promoted a number of people from within the organization into, into different roles and brought them into positions which perhaps originally in some cases, perhaps they never thought of.

14:22

There was one guy I worked with many years ago.

14:24

He was a very good scientist.

14:26

He had a very good relationship with a small group of customers.

14:29

And I kind of kept saying to him, you know, this is basically all business development is building trust, building a relationship and being a credible, you know, likeable, you know, responsive, decent person.

14:40

And he never saw himself in that kind of role.

14:43

And and for the last, I'm trying to think now, because time flies, doesn't it must be the last five years or so he's been at least he's been in full time business development and he's extremely successful.

14:53

And so I'm kind of very proud.

14:55

I actually recommend it to a friend of mine when he was looking for someone.

14:58

I said, because he's coming to me.

14:59

And I said, look, it's I'm not the right person for you at this time.

15:02

I said, I know a guy.

15:03

I said, don't even interview him.

15:05

Hire him.

15:06

You'll not regret it.

15:07

And about a year later, he did hire him after several interviews.

15:10

After a year later, he said, yeah, you were right.

15:12

He's the best person we've ever hired.

15:14

We should have just gone out and got him straight away.

15:16

So, so, yeah.

15:17

So I think I, I like to work with people that I can trust.

15:22

And I think one of the great things about promoting someone from within is you already have that relationship.

15:26

You always know, you already know what their character is like.

15:29

They don't have to sell themselves to you.

15:31

And so if they've got the kind of right skill set as well, it can be quite a, you know, really strong kind of thing for customers as well.

15:38

To see this person really knows the business, really understands it and also has got that kind of energy and drive to sort of prove themselves, which you know again in this industry is quite a quite a big factor.

15:48

Great.

15:49

Yeah, I guess that's that's all it is, right, In terms of selling services that sort of developing that trust and yeah.

15:56

OK.

15:57

And in terms of the the current talent landscape, if we are to then look external.

16:02

And is there anything in particular that you've noticed in terms of trends or or anything specific that you think has changed in the last say three years or so?

16:12

Yeah, I think, I mean, there's a few factor the few things, isn't it?

16:16

I think maybe pre COVID, maybe post COVID, not really sure when it's because it was always in the US you would you would find people who had, you know, a lot of jobs in a short space of time and it seemed to be a much more of a sort of fluid job market in the US, But in Europe to people tend to stay put for a lot longer.

16:32

It tended to be a bit more static.

16:34

I've definitely seen that change in the last five years.

16:37

People are more frequently changing jobs.

16:39

I think also one of the biggest things I've noticed is you are starting now to to really see the fact that 5/10/15 years ago there were a lot fewer people going into STEM subjects.

16:50

And so that kind of, if you like pipeline of new candidates is quite thin and trying to find someone who's kind of not necessarily the most experienced.

16:59

We've got a two few, you know, few years, you know, chemistry graduate, biochemistry graduate, whatever that might be.

17:05

That's becoming harder and harder.

17:06

I think the pool is becoming saturated with people kind of my age and around my sort of age.

17:12

So that you've got a lot of experienced people, but my worry is, you know, in 5-10 years when people like me, we start to age out and retire or go part time or whatever.

17:22

Is there, are there enough, you know, is there enough of those new graduates coming through to kind of fill, fill, fill those positions at the moment?

17:29

I don't know because it's, it's quite difficult sometimes to find, you know, if you're not looking for someone who's got 20 years experience.

17:36

It's I would say it's harder to find someone with five years experience in some respects than it is with someone who's got 10/15/20 because there's, there's a lot of those.

17:44

Yeah.

17:45

OK.

17:45

And, and with that in mind, is there a particular position or particular role that you're having difficulty filling?

17:51

So it's not a position that we are actively recruiting for at the moment, but we have some scientific advisors within the company who are very experienced people, been in the history a very long time, you know, finding someone with that really strong industrial background is still active and still wants to kind of develop and learn those kind of positions.

18:11

Those are like, you know, gold dust, those those characters, because a lot of people tend to move into the commercial side, like me, they might move into operations.

18:20

We're running plants, things like this, but you know, finding those people that they still love the science, still want to get involved in the chemistry.

18:26

But also it's not just great chemists, but have a really strong industrial background.

18:31

So they understand what it takes to scale things up and what the problems are, the challenges and how to do it properly.

18:38

That is, that's a really, you know, tough and I think it's a lot of why people like Claude is still in our business.

18:44

You know, he's he's well past retirement age.

18:46

I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying that, but he he's still in the business and he's still desperately want to retain him because it's very hard to kind of replace those kind of roles.

18:55

So you've obviously had a long and successful and varied career.

18:59

What keeps you motivated now?

19:02

Not quite over yet, I hope, but I think I've, it's funny you should ask this because someone we were, I was talking with a friend of mine quite recently and they, they asked me something else.

19:11

Because in the last few years in particular, I've taken on some quite big challenges that maybe people of my age wouldn't necessarily take such a risk, as it were.

19:21

And they might want to go for a slightly safer option as they sort of wind down towards old age.

19:26

I think for me, I've always kind of bet on myself.

19:29

I come from a fairly, I mean, very working class, sort of fairly poor background.

19:33

So I think that's always been a, a driver for me that I have never been given anything.

19:39

I've always had to work to achieve where I've been.

19:41

And I've always kind of bet on myself.

19:43

And it goes right back to what I was saying at the start of this interview.

19:46

You know, I had no real experience of business development or sales or whatever it was called in those days.

19:51

I felt, I think I can do this.

19:53

I think I can do it quite well, but I need someone to believe in me.

19:56

I need someone to give me that chance.

19:57

And I just, you know, if I'd have been rubbish, I would have been fired.

20:02

You know, and I would have lost my job, but I felt like it was worth taking that kind of risk.

20:05

And it was the same as some of the sort of steps I've taken elsewhere in my career.

20:09

I've kind of bet on myself that, you know, this is a big step.

20:12

When I went from Naveen to Async came the first time Async was a huge kind of company, you know, huge technology platform, much more invested in API and GMP.

20:20

So I had limited experience of that at the time, but I just thought if I want to learn, if I want to develop, you've got to take these risks and you've got to do the homework, of course, and, you know, put the hard hours into to be successful.

20:32

But I think that's, that's always been what's driven me that I, I just, you know, I feel like I've still got a lot, I want to learn a lot I want to achieve.

20:39

I just, I don't feel like I'm finished yet, as it were.

20:42

I'm not ready to go for my nice easy coasting down to retirement job.

20:47

I'm still kind of quite keen to get out there and push myself.

20:50

Great.

20:51

And you so you still, I'm just mental.

20:53

I'm not entirely sure which of those two things is somewhere in between.

20:56

Yeah, you could, that's it.

20:57

So, and it's interesting.

20:59

Do you still feel as though you have something to prove and is that sort of an external thing or is that an internal thing and you've proven it to yourself or I think internal, I mean, I, you know, I, one of the things that I, I was very pleased with Naveen.

21:13

As I say, it didn't quite work out as I'd hoped for a variety of reasons.

21:17

But one of the things that really pleased me is that the feedback I got from my team, the people working for me directly was very positive.

21:22

They enjoyed working with me.

21:24

They're respecting me.

21:25

So I don't feel a lot of the time, I think I'm old enough now and sort of wise enough that I don't perhaps need that external validation in the same way as I might have done 20-30 years ago.

21:36

So it's more of an internal, I want to prove myself that can be successful.

21:39

And I think one of the things I've always the metric and even with Naveen, I wasn't there that long.

21:44

I like to be able to say when I leave a company, I left it in a much better position than it was when I joined.

21:50

And I think that's kind of how I've always done.

21:52

And so and that's really an internal thing because you know from from it's not someone telling me I need to do that.

21:58

It's just I want to show I can do this and I can do it.

22:02

Well, great.

22:03

OK, perfect.

22:04

And as you know, this podcast is, is based around leaders in the CDMO industry and, and their stories and, and I guess any potential insight that they can offer to the next generation of, of leaders in the industry.

22:17

So with that in mind, is there anyone that you would recommend that we speak to next?

22:21

Yeah.

22:21

I mean, I'm not sure he's cancers the next generation because because he's older than me, but I should.

22:27

But my first sort of proper boss on the commercial side, Adrian Hanron at Robinson Brothers.

22:32

He's been managing director there for many years.

22:34

That business is, you know, it's been through some tough times.

22:37

I don't think it's, it's unfair to say and his leadership has been exemplary.

22:42

And when I first started working for him, I thought he was, you know, very, very tough individual.

22:49

But when you look back, he was always fair and I learned a tremendous amount from him.

22:54

I really, I don't think it's an an understatement to say I don't think I'd be where I am today if it wasn't, you know, for someone like him.

23:01

I mean, he gave me my first opportunity.

23:03

So, so in some respects, it would be possible, maybe impossible that I'm where I am today.

23:09

But I did learn a lot from him and he, he really taught me a lot about, you know, how this business works and how you build those kind of relationships and that trust with customers, as we were saying before, which is, you know, really the fundamentals of, of, of this kind of commercial side of my role.

23:23

Brilliant.

23:23

OK, perfect.

23:24

Yeah, We'll, we'll do our best to get him on.

23:26

So we, we like to end each episode with a, a rapid fire closer.

23:30

SO3 quick questions.

23:32

So the first of which career advice, What's the best advice you've ever received?

23:36

I I have two pieces, one that's kind of not particularly serious, but I sad to say that I stuck with it and one that's a bit more serious.

23:44

The first one was if you can't be good, at least be memorable.

23:47

And the second one was, which I still struggle with sometimes is listen more than you talk, you know, which is I think important in any kind of generally with business development, people be quite like the sound of our own voice.

23:59

So sometimes you got to be conscious that maybe not everyone appreciates that.

24:04

Would you would you say both of those are relevant today if you had to impart advice to future leaders?

24:09

Yeah.

24:10

I mean, I think the first one was said to me as kind of a joke.

24:13

And but there's an element about that that is true because if you kind of kind of, you know, if people do remember you and you remember enjoying the experience of meeting you or spending time with you, even if at that moment you're not able to kind of convince them to buy or anything that you're offering or they may not need anything that you're offering.

24:32

I think they still kind of have that positive memory in in there.

24:36

And the next time you meet them, it might be a different situation.

24:38

You might have something different that you're offering, or they may be looking for something different.

24:43

And I think certainly the, the second one is, you know, I think crucial because really what you are in business development is you're trying to understand what problems someone is having.

24:52

How can, what I have the tools that I've got in my business, how can we solve those problems?

24:57

And if you don't listen, then it's really hard to kind of really understand, you know, where that problem is, where that issue is, because that's, you know, most of the time what you were trying to find a way because anyone can go in and just say, I do this, I'm great, we're great.

25:10

But if you don't really listen to other people want, then you'll just go away and they'll be like, I don't need it any of that.

25:16

It's not I'm not interested in that.

25:18

So I think sure, that and that probably feeds into this next question.

25:22

25:27

I think anyone who's working in the pharma industry at the moment has to have, you know, resilience.

25:31

I think that kind of it's, it's, it's been very up and down over the last five years.

25:37

Obviously we had the huge bump with COVID drugs and all the activity around that at the moment, depending who you work for, if you're, you know, involved with Lily, for example, you know, making peptides for them, then GLP ones, creating this gigantic market distortion.

25:51

But for everywhere else, it's it's very much up and down.

25:54

So I think, I think resilience and, and really for me, you have to kind of, and I've always said this from the day I started in, in this, you have to believe in what you're selling.

26:04

And when I say selling, I don't mean knocking on doors.

26:06

This is, you know, the hard sell kind of thing.

26:08

But you have to believe if you're offering something that you will deliver.

26:12

I think those kind of two things.

26:14

If you have that resilience and that self belief, I think that can carry you a long, long way because you're always going to have tough points.

26:21

Because most of my job life in the commercial side has been spent failing because most of the most of the projects I didn't win.

26:29

You know, you don't win 100% of your bids and most of the projects die in clinical phases.

26:33

So you've got to always be ready to, OK, pick yourself back up, go again, you know, and believe in that.

26:39

You know, then the next time it can be different because it can.

26:41

That's the thing.

26:42

You know, whoever was, you know, doing GLP ones 20 years ago when these things are floating around, didn't realize that it's going to be $100 billion market or whatever it is these days.

26:50

So very true.

26:52

You never you really do never know when when you could be on to something absolutely massive.

26:57

Great.

26:58

No really good answer.

26:59

And then final question, is there anything, so any podcast, any book, any person that's implemented you're thinking recently?

27:07

Yes, so I do, I came to him quite late with Scott Galloway, this sort of Prof G podcast.

27:13

I I listened to quite a lot.

27:15

I initially started listening to it more as a kind of economics podcast, but he does touch on themes about leadership, you know, how to build successful teams.

27:22

He explains a lot about what's made him successful in the way he works.

27:26

And so it really is kind of quite applicable to a lot of parts of the kind of commercial side as well.

27:32

Plus he's a, you know, very sort of thoughtful and engaging speakers.

27:35

So I would, I would highly recommend that to anyone who's even got a vague interest in any of those subjects because he, he really is quite a good listen.

27:43

Great.

27:43

No, I guess great place to end and very topical in terms of leaders and, and I guess aspiring leaders in the, the CDMO industry.

27:51

So thanks very much for coming on, Jody, Appreciate your time.

27:54

It was really engaging.

27:55

My pleasure, honestly, genuinely thank you.

27:57

Thank you.