Simon Leslie, a CEO who turned his company around, explains how his thought leadership—three books, interviews, and public visibility—attracts talent and shapes how customers see the business. He focuses on concrete returns rather than abstract brand building.
I want to go down this path with you for a little bit. So your primary focus, time, et cetera, you're a CEO of a company. You're a CEO of a company that was in crisis that is now stable and back on track and doing digital things. And we can talk about that in a bit. But you spend a fair amount of your time on thought leadership, right? From the 3 different books, talking to people, interviewing people. One is I know personally you're a lifelong learner. You love to consume stuff and get your head wrapped around stuff, et cetera. What is the benefit to the business of having a CEO that's become a bit of a personality? Not that you didn't have a personality before this. Is it about talent attraction? Is it a different story to tell customers? How does the business benefit from all this energy and effort that you put into various projects on the thought leadership front?
That's a great question. I certainly don't see myself as a—
And Michael's listening, so you got to have a good answer.
not me. I'll tell you one of the reasons I wrote the first book was I realized it was getting very hard for anybody to take us seriously or give us enough— give us some PR and some exposure. We were doing these amazing things, you know, we were dominating in a space, and, and, you know, I wanted it. I won a Queen's Award, I wanted an MBE, I wanted a knighthood. And nobody was taking us seriously as a business. And I thought, well, if you write a book, then people have got to talk to you. And so that was one of the main drivers for writing that first book. And then I realized it was quite cathartic. And then I started getting more invited on more shows, on more interviews in newspapers. And I realized how much that gave me an opportunity to sell the story of the business, to PR the business. And that's why it's important, not because it's about me, it's about you get to be on a stage where you can talk about your business from a position of strength, right?
