Ben Page, CEO @ Ipsos

Hello everyone, welcome back to The Graduate Guide. I'm your host today, Charlie, and I'm joined by Ben Page. Ben is the CEO of Ipsos. Welcome to the show, Ben.

Hello.

Thanks for coming on. I guess the perfect place to start, which I know a lot of our listeners will be wondering, is what does a typical day-to-day look like for the CEO of Ipsos? I imagine it varies quite a lot, so maybe you go a typical week, for example.

Well, I mean, yeah, okay, so Ipsos is one of the largest research companies in the world, and many people listening to this will know us from elections, where obviously we do opinion polls and we try and predict the outcome of elections. That's about 1% or less of our work, but 90% of the publicity. So a typical week for me involves seeing clients. So I'm just— if I look back at the last week, I was in Switzerland seeing one of our larger clients with a team, trying to inspire them with ideas from other industries. On Friday last week, I was in our head office in Paris for a few days. That would involve meetings with the chairman, some board members, budget meetings. And one of the things to remember is that, and this is a public limited company, so we're on the French stock exchange, and that means that I also spend a fair amount of time talking to investors and potential investors, and then looking at things like acquisitions, so companies we want to buy. We've bought 9 businesses in the last year, so meeting some of those people, and then just regular management meetings, So yeah, no week is exactly the same, and then you might be doing media interviews as well, because my background is in social research, politics, etc., and so I'm still very interested in what's going on in the world, as well as what's going on inside our business.

That's amazing, Tiya. I think I can definitely resonate to that, being at a startup. It's very much the same in terms of every day is different.

Absolutely.

Do you love that about your job?

Well, I like the variety, yes, and it's always been like that. That's the great thing about working in an agency, whether it's a market research agency or an advertising agency or a consultancy of some kind, that you aren't stuck just working out, how do I sell more of this? And doing that day in, day out, interesting though it may be, you get a much broader range of exposure. And because we work for virtually every part of the economy, you see both politicians, CEOs of big companies, you travel around. I've been all over the world. I never thought I would ever go to the Falkland Islands, for example, or Tasmania, but I have for work.

Yeah, that's amazing. In terms of, in terms of that, one question that really springs to mind that I think is really useful for, for students to, to learn more about is when you're dealing with people from so many different cultures across so many different areas of responsibility and industries, how do you manage all of these different people? How do you kind of still build rapport with them considering they're probably completely different people, completely different individuals?

And you do have to learn to listen.

Yeah.

Uh, which is, um, you know, a skill that some of us have more than others. Um, I had to learn to listen. I think the other thing is just trying to get some cultural understanding, and obviously people are more connected than ever, in some ways on quite a superficial level. I mean, clicking on someone's Instagram or, you know, Facebook post doesn't mean you've got to— you fully understand them, shall we say. So we're more internationally connected than ever, but actually really understanding the difference of communication styles that are acceptable or work in different cultures is hugely important. The Japanese are different to the Chinese, Everyone else is different to the Americans, you know, and so understanding that and building those muscles to understand different cultures is— I mean, you can only really do it by going to see them physically, to be quite honest, is really, really important. But there's a very good book called Culture Map that I would recommend for anybody who's interested in this, and it talks about different communication and feedback styles for different nationalities. It's, you know, it's very interesting.

Amazing. There's a book for the listeners.

Yeah, there's one. Quite good one.

I like those. But yeah, in terms of your journey then, when you look back at your journey so far, What would you say are the crucial pivotal moments that you think allowed you to reach this point of being CEO?

Well, luck and persistence, to be quite honest. I mean, I think, you know, there is a lot of luck in careers. So we write books about people who've had great careers and become CEO and all this sort of stuff of global businesses. We don't write books about the people who did pretty much the same things and didn't end up there. So there is an element of luck, but you can also be ready to take advantage of the luck that comes your way. And in my case, and I think actually quite— in quite a few people's case, a bit of persistence. It's important in your 20s to consider different things, and most people in their 20s do. And actually, on average, you will earn more if you change jobs in your 20s. Now, I didn't. I've stayed in the same business for 38 years. And now, that might sound insane, but when I joined, it was 40 people, and now I'm in charge of 20,000 people. So, it's not quite the same business, but there is an element of persistence. But also, yeah, knowing yourself, so, which we can talk about.

Definitely. I mean, we can elaborate on that now in terms of knowing yourself. What would you—

Well, I think it's being aware of your strengths and weaknesses, and it's a bit like relationships. I think one of the challenges is finding, you know, your 20s are a really difficult time because you've got to find the perfect person you're going to spend the rest of your life with, maybe. People still aspire to marriage, whether they're gay or straight. You've got to find this perfect, amazing job. All, you know, given that most people who look after themselves should have a good chance of making it to 100, we should probably take it easy. But at the same time, the faster you can be clear about what you're good at, the faster you can be clear about what you enjoy and really, really like doing, the faster your career will progress. Because I've wasted years, probably at least 5 years, by not being focused on what I was really good at and not being totally committed.

Okay, that makes sense. In terms of figuring out what you're really good at, is there any advice you give to students or young people listening about how they can do that? Is it just through applying yourself in different areas?

I think it's partly about trying different things, but also I think, you know, there's a word, flow. Where do you find yourself doing something that— where time— where you don't even notice the time passing because you're so immersed in it? You know, artists often have this. I come from a family of artists, you know, so when you're painting or— but maybe when you're writing, when you're doing research, whatever, dealing with people, whatever it is, what are those types of things where you find yourself in that state? Because then, of course, in a way, you've fallen in love with your work and you're enjoying it so much, you know, time is just passing. So if you can find something that you find so immersive, that's the secret. And it won't always be obvious, I think. I mean, I never expected— I thought I'd stay in my first job in this company for 2 or 3 years, and I hated it. And so one of the reasons I've stayed actually was to make it better for people who are joining now and to make it different than how it was when I joined in the 1980s.

That's amazing. That's an amazing story. In terms of, again, looking back at your journey, what would you say is the biggest mistake that you've made so far?

Oh God, well, I think not deciding to be totally committed, to be honest. So I spent a lot of my— and I see this with colleagues actually, I spent a lot of my 20s doing the work, learning, but not— but sort of being a bit resentful about— I mean, we were working incredibly hard, and the culture has changed. I mean, we talk about hard work now, but in the '80s, I would regularly stay 24 hours in the office and not go to sleep. That did happen fairly often. Technology didn't work. You know, we were just— we were working, I don't know, crazy hours, and it was expected. If you went home before 8 o'clock at night, you were regarded as sort of a bit of a lightweight. So it was ridiculous. But I was working hard, but I wasn't mentally fully engaged in it. So I was doing the work and I was doing well, but I hadn't decided that this is what I was going to do. And it was only when I was about 30 and I'd got married and had a son, and I realised— I looked at changing jobs at this point, and I realised that to earn more money in something I enjoyed doing was going to mean actually earning less money to start with if I moved into publishing or something I thought was more, I don't know, exotic and interesting. And so I then thought, right, okay, I'm going to have to do this, but I'm going to not just be good at my job, I'm going to be brilliant at my job. And it was only after I did that that my career really took off and I was given shares in the company and the rest is history.

Now that makes a lot of sense. In terms of that then, you mentioned there about working hard initially, but there's something maybe underlying there. Is it— would you say for young people it's just about working hard, putting in a amount of hours, or is it about the quality of that time?

Well, I think absolutely. I mean, there's no point, you know, one of the worst things people like, I mean, I've seen various people say, oh, we'll just fix the problem by working hard. It's just like, you know, this way madness lies. And I have actually seen people go mad from overwork. So don't do that. No, I think it's, and I think actually one of the things you learn as you grow older is making time for exercise, eating properly, sleeping, having some fun. These are pretty important things. I mean, it may occasionally be, particularly if you're in a startup, that, you know, needs must, but nevertheless, Overall, you've got to pace yourself. This is a— a career is a marathon, it's not a sprint. It's not about, you know, building your company and selling it and being a millionaire in your 20s. You can have that fantasy, but for most people that's going to be a fantasy. But I think, no, it's about— so it's not just about working hard and working long hours, it's about applying yourself so that when you are working, you're completely focused on it. That's the point. So, you know, 4 hours of complete focus is much better than 12 hours of mucking around.

I guess that comes back to the point you mentioned about flow, right? If you're able to spend those 4 hours and get into a state of flow, you're able to produce a quality or a level of output that you'd be able to in 12 hours without that, right?

Exactly. So that's fine. What is the thing that lets you— what does— what, you know, is the work that you're doing able to really immerse yourself? And, you know, sometimes when you're learning the basics, which is also something people still need to do, Of course, you know, you're learning a lot of new things, so you may not find that to start with.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. In terms of your journey so far, we've gone on a bit of a negative route there in terms of the biggest mistake.

Well, I think there's a lot of, a lot of people, a lot of careers are actually built around that. Political careers, for example. Most people get into politics to stop something happening that they didn't like. They don't, they aren't good. I mean, that, you know, that's literally, and I've done studies on this, that's why they do it. They do it to prevent something. So negative emotion isn't necessarily entirely useless in succeeding.

It's a good point, I actually guess looking back on your career as well, those are the most pivotal moments, right? Those periods of negative emotion. But in terms of what are you most proud of so far in your journey?

I think it's building a culture, trying to build a culture that's successful. And I've— you see it when you're traveling the world and you hear people repeating things you've said, and then you know that what you're doing is resonating with people. Because I can't make 20,000 people do anything. Yeah, I can just about get them to do time sheets if I'm lucky. I have to I have to try and inspire them, I have to give them a framework, decent environment to work in, but then they have to feel that they're part of something that's bigger than themselves.

Yeah, no, I completely agree with that about culture. I guess that's a pretty nice way to segue onto speaking a bit more about Ipsos. I know there's a lot of students that would listen in who will be aware of Ipsos, but maybe some won't be aware of the opportunities that you offer for graduates. In terms of the culture, as you mentioned there, what is the culture that you try to instill at Ipsos?

Well, we want to be a place where people can be their best selves. Now, everybody says that, but I think it's about finding an area. And because we work both in public services, so you could be helping a hospital become more responsive to patients. We work for the biggest companies, the biggest tech companies in California, in the world. So making your— when you use a website for one of the biggest tech companies, more interactive, more engaging, more interesting, thinking about how we protect privacy. I mean, literally how you manage your money, any aspect of life, we are doing research about it. But at the same time, you need to come in and learn the basics. You need to understand, you know, how to understand whether data is reliable or not, you know, how to design surveys or qualitative research or to use digital data, which is increasingly important. So there's a lot of different things that we cover. A lot of work for large brands, so does this advertising work? Will this exciting new vitamin-flavoured water sell well and how should I market it? What sort of advertising should I use to to sell this water. You know, we literally cover every aspect of what human beings think, do, believe, say. Obviously working for a lot of large companies who want to sell more products, develop new products, but also for governments, public services. We work for the Bank of England, you name it, the Royal Foundation, you know, Kate Middleton, you know, all sorts of people all over the world.

Yeah, sounds like there's a lot of different opportunities there. There are. Do you have different streams, like different kind of graduate schemes?

Yes, so our businesses are, well, our business is organised into about what are called 16, I suppose you would probably call them divisions, covering different things. And in the United Kingdom, where I'm sitting today, all of those things are present. In the other 220 cities that we're in, we have sometimes slightly fewer of them. I think there's a central graduate scheme that people can enter. I think, and I only did an undergraduate degree, I didn't do a postgraduate degree, which is interesting because a lot of people now are doing postgraduate stuff, and sometimes I wonder why. We have people— I remember talking to somebody a few years ago, and I said, why did you do that MA in medieval archaeology? And he said, oh, I wanted to stand out. And I was just like, oh God. Because actually, getting some hands-on practical experience is really, really helpful. And I worked after graduating, actually, because I didn't know what to do. I had no intention of going into market research. I worked, I ended up, I was in London. I'd run a nightclub at Oxford, and I thought I'd move to London and be cool and run my nightclub and have a great time in London. It turned out running nightclubs in London was a bit more competitive than in Oxford at the time. And so I had to get a job, and I took the first job I could find in the back pages of Time Out magazine, which was a few blocks away on Oxford Street interviewing people on the telephone, which was again very tedious, but actually understanding where the data that you're using comes from and having that practical experience probably helped me, you know, land my role as a graduate trainee. And so I'd say to everybody, use— get work experience, use your networks, and people are often shy They don't make those connections. I didn't, I wasted a lot of my time at university, partly because I spent a lot of time at Oxford pretending not to be at Oxford. So I didn't hang out with all the student societies and all of that sort of thing. I was there with Boris Johnson and David Miliband and all these people. I didn't even, I thought all these people were idiots at the time. Shows how stupid I am, right? But I think use, you know, use your, what people don't remember is networking still matters, having connections still matters. Ask questions, get some— use your summers while you're an undergraduate to get some practical experience, paid or unpaid, I would say, in some industries that you might want to work in. It will save you— if I had done that, it would have saved me a lot of time later.

In terms of those earlier experiences then, do Ipsos also offer internships?

We do, we do, absolutely, yes. And, you know, again, they're sort of slightly more informal, but you just Email in, I mean, you can email me if you want and I'll connect you with somebody, but, you know, I think there's various people in the UK team who will offer, you know, they are very popular, so they're competitive, but we also are keen to encourage people whose parents haven't been to university and to try and make sure that the people we hire represent the UK rather than a certain section of the UK.

I suppose in your business that's even more important, right?

Well, I think if you want to understand society, it's quite important that you have people from all parts of society, because otherwise you might have a slightly strange idea. And as Britain, like many societies, has become more and more diverse, both in terms of income, ethnicity, culture, you know, if you just hire nice middle-class people like me who went to Oxford, you will get a slightly strange idea about what Britain is like. And it might be hard for somebody to understand what it's like to grow up on a council estate with 6 you know, 6 brothers and sisters sharing a small flat, because you just can't even begin to imagine it. So with, you know, the more practical experience you get, and yeah, we want to get people from a wide range of backgrounds.

I absolutely love that. That's something we really try to push at Huswell and the Graduate Guide, so really, really resonate with that. In terms of that practical experience that you mentioned, I think there's a lot of students considering the state of the graduate market at the moment that will maybe be over the summer, have failed to get a graduate role that they really want to go into, and will actually be contemplating between— because I had a lot of friends that did this, contemplating between whether to go and do a master's or whether to just get some practical experience anywhere they can. Your recommendation then would be—

Well, I don't know. I think if you can do the master's and you've got the money and you can afford it, then maybe do the master's because it's still— I mean, I did history and it was the best thing I ever did. And in some ways, would I have liked to do a master's? I just didn't, I didn't have any— I was actually, I must admit, after working hard with my undergraduate degree, and we did work hard actually, I was just, I was sort of fed up with academia. My father was an academic and I could just see I don't want to be my dad. So I wanted to go into the exciting world of London and work and, you know, not necessarily into— certainly not into market research graduate job, but I wanted to live in London and have an exciting life. I think doing an MA, if you absolutely adore your subject and the money's all right and you're not paying ridiculous interest rates on your loan, although we can talk about those. My son, I've got a son who's got a huge loan, then do it. But actually getting that practical experience in a range of industries or something. I wouldn't take any job, like working in a café for 3 years may or may not, you may meet interesting people, you'll learn customer service skills, but may not be, you know, that may not be the answer. But trying to get a role, and you know, use professional associations, use your network, go to events, listen, meet people, find, pursue the things you're interested in. I've ended up as, although I'm a market researcher by profession, I spent 8 years as a Commissioner of Architecture and the Built Environment for the UK government, actually a paid side gig. And the reason I was able to do that partly was because part of my history degree had been about British architecture. And so I knew I was interested in it.

I was—

it was one of the best bits of my history degree. And so I was interested in architecture and I was able to use my network to be invited to go and get involved in that actually as a non-executive. So there's always opportunities, but you've got to, you know, you've got to make those opportunities. And I think if you're someone like me who— I grew up in Devon, I didn't know lots of— I didn't have a big network when I arrived in London. You've got to build that network, and I can't stress enough the importance of building networks. It really does matter whether it's digital or in real life, but they do really make a difference.

Yeah, I completely agree with that.

I think I've recognised that as well after graduating from uni, how important network is, because I think people think that, oh, it's about having lots of ologies and good qualifications and a good degree, there's lots of people with good degrees and good ologies, unfortunately. So you've got, you know, it's something else as well.

And often having someone that can vouch for you and put a good word in for you can make a big difference, right?

Absolutely, absolutely.

In terms of beyond just networking then, you mentioned there about kind of developing skills. Are there any skills in particular that you think are especially beneficial for students to develop at this stage of their career?

Well, I think it depends which thing you're going into, but being able to communicate clearly, Being able to present well. So go along to the English Speaking Union, learn to do some presentations. It's been a bedrock of my career. Learn to write well. Again, academics seem to like, you know, incredibly long essays full of too many words. Learn to write like The Economist.

Okay, that's very resounding. That's tough though.

It's discipline, but you know, being able to communicate clearly whichever field you're in is incredibly important. And it will, again, it will help you because you will be able to express yourself and your ideas succinctly and in powerful ways rather than sending me, you know, I mean, sometimes we have graduates writing reports and I literally read it and they're straight, you know, just like, and I have to write in it, what are you trying to say? You know, because I don't have time to read 50 pages about something.

I think often the issue is, I definitely experienced this myself, is that at uni you have this word count that you have to write towards and so you often fill a lot of the space. Less is more. Yeah, exactly. I completely agree with that. Going back to something that we actually discussed slightly earlier in terms of the time and the work-life balance and being able to kind of find that flow state. Yeah, a lot of younger people now are starting to choose careers that maybe give them more flexibility with their time and actually choosing that over higher-paying roles. What is your view on that?

And what is good for them? I mean, and I think, you know, what are they going to put on my gravestone? He worked a lot at Ipsos and then he died. Well, great, you know, so good for them. But I think if you want, if you want to earn more money, if you want to be the CEO of a large public company, and there's lots of reasons why you wouldn't, and it's certainly not for everybody, then you are going to have to put in the hours. If you want to have a freelance sort of career, do a bit of this, you know, a bit of this, have a side, you know, have a side hustle. What is it, a lazy girl job I've seen on social media, you know. I mean, I think fine, and your 20s are about discovering yourself. So there's no point unless you're, you know, working yourself into the ground in your 20s, maybe not. But if the The issue is that in today's society, if you want to buy a house to live in, then you're gonna have to earn some money. And it may be more difficult to do that if you're planning to juggle, or you may have given up on ever owning a house, which of course, we know that I think 2 in 3 renters now say, which is pretty terrible. So we hope that a new government builds some houses, which is what they used to do. But I just say yes, but be, you know, just be aware of the implications of your choices. Be mindful. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. In terms of, in terms of the application process then itself, how would you recommend that students can stand out? You mentioned earlier that like when people come in—

we've got, I mean, we've got a lot of processes to try and stop people standing out. So we do, again, I used to run the UK business, but I became the global CEO 3 years ago, 4 years ago, so I'm not completely au fait with exactly what we're doing now. But what we're trying to do is not look at people's names or gender, which turns out that women do even better in that circumstance, but there you are. And so we're looking at trying to literally assess it on the facts on the CV rather than any of the associations that one might get from a name, or, you know, we don't want people's pictures on there and stuff like that. I think, so generally, you're going to have to go into, in our case, we've got a, we have an external partner who looks at CVs to start with and then interviews people first. There's some online stuff that they do with you, Then you get a graduate assessment day where you meet people, so there, you know, your communication skills are going to matter. But if you've shown that you're interested in the industry, if you have been interning in the industry, if you've gone and worked as an interviewer— hell, it's a tough job being an interviewer— but again, it would show that you were interested and that you had some practical experience, rather than just, this is one of a number of graduate schemes that I'm trying to get onto because I'm so brilliant.

So it's about showing that actual interest in the field.

Yeah, I mean, working as— I mean, one of our most successful people started as a when she was 15, I think when she was still at school, and she spent every summer working for us. But the benefit of that, I found, is that when people have worked as an intern, they know that it's not all about immediately, you know, arriving and 2 days later you're off to advise Rishi Sunak in Downing Street. You will get to go to Downing Street and meet Rishi Sunak or his equivalent in due course. But to start with, you do actually need to know what you're doing. And that does mean there is a lot of practical stuff that you need. You know, you hear about I think it's 10,000 hours, isn't it, to master something? Well, even in my industry, it's probably still 10,000 hours. People again don't always want to hear that. I was on the— doing a call with an American colleague who told me he'd mastered everything and was ready to be a CEO. I said, "How long have you been with us?" "For 2 years." I said, "Okay, so what have you learned in this?" And he's like, you know, telling me all this stuff and I'm like, "You don't really know what you're doing yet, do you?" Yeah. Now you are, but I am a guy who's flogged away for a long time, so maybe I've got it wrong. But I think, yeah, that, you know, showing that interest, thinking, reading, read the website, read the articles, look at what we've been doing, look at the— try and find out about who you're meeting, look at their LinkedIn pages, what are they interested in? You know, the greatest human need is to be appreciated. So of course what I should have done, Charlie, is find out all about you before this, so you were even more interested in my fascinating story.

Trust me, I'm very much interested. I feel like I've taken a lot of value from this, and I think that There's a lot of nuggets there for students to take away if they are applying to Ipsos to hopefully allow their application to stand out. Two very short questions to wrap things up. The first, you mentioned that you're a very avid reader. What is your favourite book of all time? I know that's a tough question, but what book would you recommend to students?

Oh dear, actually, because it's just, it's not the best book ever, but it's a book written in the 1950s called Parkinson's Law. And he, this, you may have heard, it was very popular at the time, but it means work expands to fit the time available. It's illustrated by a man called Osbert Lancaster. And it's a lovely book about the nonsense of work and silly things that happen at work. And even though it's massively old, it's still got some things that resonate in business today. It's not my favourite ever, but I'm trying to— you know, that's— it's a book—

I've put you on the spot.

I mean, I like a lot of books. So I've got, you know, for a man or a woman to be happy, all you need is a library and a garden. I have both. So I'm trying to— but yeah, that's a fun— that's a good book. Another one that I would recommend and is a fun read is Adapt by my friend Tim Harford, who writes for the FT. And that's about why— which is the sub-theme is why success always comes from failure.

Nice. I'm definitely going to check both of them out. And then the final question for you is, what is your final very short piece of advice for students listening to kind of launch amazing careers?

I don't— I think first of all, it's a marathon, not a sprint. I have been over my career, there have been many moments where I thought nothing— it was good, I was a disaster, I was a failure. So it's perfectly normal. I've cried, cried from failing to get promotions inside this company that I'm now the global CEO of at various points, you know. So, you know, never give up. Persistence, but also knowing yourself.

Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on, Ben. Pleasure.