Racing to the Top: Zak Brown and Jette Nygaard-Andersen's leadership fireside chat

[Music] thank you hello and a very warm welcome to all of you watching now I am an exceptional company today I'm delighted to be joined by the CEO of McLaren racing Zac Brown and the CEO of entain Yeta Nygard Anderson it's a pleasure to meet you both to talk to you both we're going to get a great Insight from both of these about their Journeys and their careers to date and how you got to where you are so let's start Zach with a little bit of an introduction from you to those people watching that might not know too much about you talk to us about what you do in the business that you run uh absolutely great to be here and great to see you again um yeah I'm the CEO of McLaren racing and ultimately responsible for all of our racing activities which includes our Formula One team our IndyCar team formerly team extreme e-team and our Esports team so we have quite a quite a few racing teams we're in the business of Motorsports we have hundreds of millions of fans around the world we have the best Partners uh in in the world and ultimately my role is to get the right people in the right roles and give them the resources the guidance the clarity of a vision of what we're trying to achieve at McLaren racing for us our fans and and our partners that's so interesting and can I ask how did it start for you because you started as a racing driver yourself didn't you I started racing a long time ago in 1991 and I raced uh professionally from 91 to 2000 but halfway through my racing career I um became good at uh sponsorship and not only for myself but for other racing teams so as I started the second part of my career I started a business which was looking after the end times of the world so to speak in all different forms of motor racing stopped racing in 2000 that company called jmi at the time then took off sold sold a little a lot of it I should say in 2008 a little bit more than 11 the whole thing in 13 and then sold it to a company called chime Communications which was a London PLC became group CEO there and ultimately missed being 100 motor racing because that's what I've done my whole life and got the opportunity to come join McLaren and I didn't take me long to say which office can I sit in brilliant and here we are today that's that's such a remarkable story what about for you yet to talk to us about how you got into the industry and how you have now come to become the CEO of entain so in teen is a sports betting gaming and entertainment company we have 30 000 people across the world we have a presence in 40 countries and and it includes some of the leading entertainment Brands like that Brooks or B win or betamgem in the US but my background is really from from media and entertainment so Sports have been part of my life the last 25 years so when I first got acquainted within teen was when I got a call and asked if I would join the board and I said who's in team and then I looked up and I saw these brilliant Brands across the world I knew about New Year I knew about entertainment I knew about sports and I saw where the industry was going so I thought I thought that was an amazing opportunity so I joined the board and and fast forward one years later I was asked if if I wanted to become CEO and yeah like sec I said where should I sit so so I joined and it's now two and a half years ago so it's been you know it's been a really really interesting journey and I think we've accomplished so much the industry is changing so fast so that's really interesting but I really take with me everything that I've you know experienced and learned through my career from media and entertainment and tried to apply that when I think about you know the fans and how do we want to build the brands and how can we think about this industry maybe not only tomorrow but also five years out now what I find interesting about the both of you is that in general I'd say time is probably the most precious commodity that we have in life right and you guys are stretched from Pillar To Post you're so busy so talk to a sec how do you manage your time and how do you find the time to be the CEO of McLaren racing as well as everything else that you have to look after uh well McLaren uh CEO is my number one uh priority so anything I do that isn't in that capacity I do in my spare spare time uh you're right we all have uh 24 hours a day seven days a week and so I spent a lot of time trying to be as efficient as possible in my communications leaning into the team delegating I think technology plays a big role if I look back at how I started kind of uh building a Rolodex you literally hand wrote them in that's a pretty a long and tenuous and then trying to communicate so now um with our our phones and our devices and CRM technology and Salesforce and things of that nature uh able to create a lot of volume of work but I couldn't have done it without technology so I think technology plays a a big role in maximizing how much how much effort you can get out of a 24-hour work day and also I mean I was looking at the schedule the race day calendar now has expanded and I think it's an unprecedented number of race days now and six Sprints as well so with all of that it must be extremely busy for you and that's just Formula One 24 races so we'll be 24 races next year and then of course Indy cars about 17 races formerly similar extremities uh less so yeah pretty much live on the road once the season starts I think you need to surround yourself with great people and know how to work out of hotel rooms and at racetracks and then again lean into lean into technology I think with today's technical worlds you can kind of work from anywhere including planes these these days so um in in many ways it's a it's a mobile office so yet for you I was having a look at the stats and the numbers what 30 000 colleagues you have nearly I mean that's unbelievable how is it from your perspective in terms of managing everything that you have to do especially on a day-to-day basis well it's my job right I would say the same as a sec it's my number one priority and my job is really to lead the the 30 000 people across the world um I mean in a business like ours but probably in any business um you know the strategy and what we do is is really only going to be successful through the people so so it's my number one priority it's all about the people I think the the challenge is that for us we're in 40 countries so there's always one office that is open so in that sense you know sometimes become a little bit of a 24 7 but but I would say the same thing you know manage through technology I work on planes I make sure I make the most of the day and then I think it's really down to prioritization um and therefore from my sides you know I need to prioritize the people think about how can I provide you know an environment where they can perform at their best how can I create the conditions or you know discipline or a culture that makes sure that that we win so I guess in that sense is not that different from being you know managing a high performance Formula One team absolutely there's a lot of parallels actually a lot of similarities between what you both do in terms of just having time to switch off do you get that at all do you is it important to kind of schedule that in the diary as well I I don't share through it but but I watch a lot of sports and um you know then I switch off um when when I do that and you know when you work out in the morning but that's that's more or less about it okay and I guess nobody that's successful in any industry will not have faced challenges and barriers so Zach can you talk us about a particular challenge that you've faced in your career today and how you've overcome it oh there's been a there's been a lot some some within uh our control and some some out uh you know certainly kovid was unprecedented uh I think for for all of us and uh that was a problem the challenge that we all inherited and you kind of needed to react now so it wasn't also something that you could really draw on past experience because you know furloughing is a term I'd never heard of before I don't think anyone had had they and you know sending a thousand people or 1100 people home and reduced pay and things of that I mean it was just uh crazy um really happy how we handled it we were the first team to to lean into it my view was if we were the first team to lean into it would be the first team to get out of it and that's a kind of exactly uh what happened uh communication was was critical uh and all the team members were were awesome they under stood it wasn't this wasn't a a challenge that was just on McLaren's doorstep but was on all of our doorsteps and at the end of the day we were trying to protect the company and therefore protect our our people so we made tough decisions we had a tremendous amount of support so that one leaps the top of the top of the list of of just the size and magnitude of it and then of course working with your partners all of our partners stood by us because we weren't racing then when we came back to racing we were racing without fans and every one of our partners they had the same Challenge and so also very proud that through that Journey we didn't lose any Partners we worked with all of our partners they all worked with us and I think at the end of the day while it's absolutely tragic obviously what happened from a business standpoint I actually think we are a healthier business today going through that specific challenge because it forced us to make some tough decisions what sort of decision is that um the size and shape of an organization and and how can you get maximum efficiency out of the the team that you you have um decision making process I mean it really sharpened up the organization and then the industry the sport did a great job of of jumping on the situation and I think if I look at where McLaren is now and where the sport is it's extremely healthy and I think some of the decisions that we had to make during that period were some good long-term decisions there was some difficult short-term decisions but I think some long-term benefit yeah I think it's probably the same for so many people that experienced it because we didn't know what to expect did we during that time during the pandemic what about for you you're doing your business because maintain has just gone from strength to strength so how have you coped with any challenges that you've been faced with over the years so I think the biggest challenge that something that I grapple with probably every single day is that our industry and our business is just undergoing you know change so fast uh especially through the last five years it's almost been exponential so some of our Brands you can date them back to the late 1800s right that was the bedding shops where they they started that time so obviously a lot have happened since then and then when you think about today where median entertainment and Sport and betting and gaming come together and all of that is powered by technology and and data so for my site I need to think about how can we be successful now but also how can we be successful in the future understanding that when technology evolves it will ultimately change consumer behaviors so that could impact your business model um you know there are new expectations from society in terms of how we do business so for me it's all about thinking about how can I make sure that we are successful now but also how are we successful in the future and doing that at the same time where you know you are you have a business to run right um so that can be quite challenging and I think part of that is is um of course trying to understand how technology impacts your industry um but also think about smart decisions and the timing and when to execute it so challenging for sure but but I think listen maintaining status quo is not a strategy at least it's not the right strategy and it's risky just to maintain status quo so I think uh you know you you need to think about how you move the business forward um and you know that's fun especially when when you like I do believe in change and also have a vision about leading that change for our industry but but it is a challenge and it's something that's on the agenda every single day I bet it is and in similar fashion to what Zach said about with the pandemic changes that happened actually now they've still sort of kept implementing now has that been the same for you are there any changes that came about that you've stuck with it has because when you are stuck at home um literally there were there were two things that that you could do you part of the covert you couldn't watch sport on TV all right so um so a lot of people started playing new games uh new games became became popular so that makes us think about you know how do we take that forward new audiences suddenly that we had access to so women were at home how can we develop games that appeal to women and so forth so so we saw consumer behaviors change um and and we're trying to make sure that that we address that in our business going forward now you've both mentioned technology a number of times so let's talk a bit more about technology and how have you kept up with how technology has been evolving and kept in touch with it in terms of your business uh with technology touches really every part of our business right so there's the technology on the race cars and in Formula ones Cutting Edge technology so what we're developing there around sustainability uh Technologies around safety crash structures obviously performance um so there's there's that side of Technology then there's fan engagement this is where we work closely with with intain and our partners that that talk to millions of consumers you know we used to broadcast the sport to people and it was kind of a one-way communication and you kind of find out at a later date via TV ratings or merchandise sales or you know studies how you did six months ago now the fans can tell you lap by lap and they do uh how are you doing what they like what they don't like and show Technologies enabled us to have a kind of a two-way you know really live instantaneous conversation and we do do that directly ourselves and then we do that through our our consumer brand partners then of course there's technology on just ways of working and working efficiently and database and you know email Communications and texting and what's happening those sorts of Technologies um so I think technology cuts across everything we do whether it's how we engage with the fan develop our race cars work with our employees work with with and for our partners and same for you I mean Technology's at the heart of of what you do at entain but how have you managed to keep adapting as the technology keeps growing and growing and advancing I guess yeah so technology Powers everything we do we have 7 000 people that works in technology and Ops across the world uh so it is I should say you know it's the breathing heart of everything that we do so so for us I think it's it's part of thinking about um technology and how it can enable us to create better products for our customers more excitement but we also use technology to protect our players so it's not only about you could say how do we excite the fans but also how do we think forward in terms of how can we protect them using new technology AI powered ways of being a real-time shielding them from from any harm that they could get into so for me when I think about technology um it's about how we evolve the business how we constantly innovate how we do that in a way that both excites our customers but also strengthens our business going forward because it's such a fundamental part of everything we do in all business we have technology hops across the world we're constantly thinking about new places that we set up technology hubs because you need to develop your your capabilities so it's critical for our business we invest in it all the time and I think as a CEO for business like mine and probably also for SEC you know you you need to embrace technology and you need to be pretty tech savvy in order to lead companies have you both always been tech savvy I was just going to say I'm not Tech Saturday but I got I got a lot of tech savvy people around me yeah I'm I'm okay when it comes to the communication side of Technology but you don't want me designing anything that goes on the race car what about have you always had that interest I'm I'm pretty tech savvy yes absolutely and I think it it helps when you try to think like a CTO and CIO listen I'm no expert um you know I also surround myself with the best people but you need to be able to ask the right questions and I think the key thing for me is um understanding technology to the extent that you understand how it might change your fans or your consumers behaviors going forward because ultimately that can lead to changes to your business model and as a CEO you really need to stay on top of that so that's really how I view technology what does it mean for our business how can we move the business forward how can we use AI in a way that not only creates better products for our customers but also better protection for our people maybe it also helps us with efficiencies around the businesses so so think about technology in the way that it can be adapted for your business and for your customers such a good point there and now you both know each other very well and there is a relationship and partnership between entain and McLaren racing talk to music about how that came about uh and Yeti and I have known each other for some time I've built a fantastic relationship she's a great supporter um we got started a few few years ago and you know if you look at our partner base it's kind of 75 percent B2B and 25 consumer Brands and that's kind of how the sport has historically been and I think one of the reasons is prior to the new uh ownership now Liberty Media or five six years into owning the sport it was a broadcast and while we have and always have had hundreds of millions billions of viewers over the course of a season I don't think the sport has been a great historically and engaging with the fans we've been fortunate that our Sport's so exciting that we kind of retain the fans without really being as good to them is I think other sports you know an NFL or baseball or football pick up pick a sport where it's a real fan Centric Sport and when I came in Liberty came in came in at the the same time I'm a huge fan of Motorsports and I know the impression everything uh that's been made on me over the years whether I met a driver or got access to a team and so I tried to take an approach of opening up McLaren and letting people on the the inside and where that ties back to to Yeti and entain is our B2B partners are are awesome and they help us make our car go faster but I also wanted to dial up the consumer brands that we were associated with because they're the ones that can help us drive real engagement with our fans bring in new fans more diverse fans from around the world and so the partnership's been very exciting for us because it's a similar type of demographic and psychographic as far far as an intent consumer and a McLaren fan and so that's been a real effort for us is to bring more consumer brands in and I think now that the sport is more inclusive with things like Netflix I think it's attracted consumer brands that haven't been around uh before so that's why we're trying to lead the charge and ultimately at the end of the day if we can keep our fans happy engaged and bringing new fans in then the rest of the ecosystem starts to take care of itself and so we lean into our partners like in Dane to to help us increase our fan base yeah and I guess fans are at the heart of what you both do so they're the most important so what is it that makes the partnership work so well yet so it started um well you know a couple of years into all partnership and and and you know I think about how media and entertainment and Sport and betting come together and at entertain a lot of our customers our McLaren Formula One fans so first and foremost it enables us really to you know bring extremely exciting new experience to them that they would have never be able to experience in their lifetime so that I would say was probably the first step of the Partnerships really leaning into the whole fan experience but I would say secondly I think we've we found out maybe along the way that our approach to business is actually quite similar right we're both technology companies we are led by Innovation we are focused on responsibility safety the broader picture of of sustainability and fundamentally we are entertainment companies right and we we want to excite fans and I think those common denominators then enables us to think a little bit broader than than exciting fans but also think about initiatives that we've launched the insane McLaren returnship program which is you know sits outside of what second I do day to day but it's trying to address you know an issue that way both facing in our businesses and I think we can only do that because there are so many common denominators across our business actually mentioned the internship initiative I've been reading about it I think it's unbelievable it's brilliant I think all organizations should have something like it tell us for those people that don't know what it is what it actually is about yeah so we wanted to address the you could say the challenge that that we and many organizations face that we lack women in stem so science technology engineering and and math uh and and we see a big drop off from you know education and into women actually uh pursuing a career in in stem and and as I said we have 7 000 people working in technology uh and Ops uh and and therefore I can't miss out of 50 of the talent pool and what we saw was that there was a lot of barriers not only entering into or staying in stem careers but also getting back so if you've been out on maternity leave just getting back in to some of these jobs so this is so you could say our attempt to try to address that issue so we bring in women we give them an intern program either at McLaren Formula One or at insane we give them coaching and training and so forth and hopefully that inspire ask them to come back into some great jobs in stem maybe even at McLaren or insane wow it's such a great initiative because so many women in any industry I feel they'll I mean I've just had a baby four months ago and I think that for many women it's quite daunting going back into work so to help stagger that process or to help them get back into it is such a great thing to do how has it been working for you from McLaren racing perspective it's been awesome it's it's a big priority for us I mean he when you talk about these Partnerships and we talk about the fans as number one priority but actually having a great Workforce is going to give your fans a better experience so they're all tied into making the world a better place providing opportunities making both of our companies better we're our Workforce is about 20 percent underrepresented and that's that's climbing we'd like to double that by the end of the the decade personally we I like having diversity of thought so whether that's religion or what country you're from or what gender you are what age you are I think that diversity of thinking makes uh better input and therefore better output and so I'm very proud of what we're doing together and providing opportunities we have a few people in here now that are working working for us I believe you have the same over at uh at entain and you know Finding good people is hard and I think part of what we need to do is provide opportunities and give people the confidence to go for it and they'll benefit from it and we'll benefit from it and ultimately the fan will benefit from it because we'll put together better opportunities the better the workforce that we have yeah that's such a good point and I guess with with the fact that you mentioned with those in those stem careers you said that after studying there's sometimes a drop-off rate between studying the subject and then going into that particular career why do you think that that happens well I I think it's multifaceted so you know you have the general biases in society um you know education Role Models or rather lack of Role Models lack of access to the networks that exist around that exists in the workplace so I think what we're trying to do is is help overcome those barriers because fundamentally I think that that we need to provide platforms where women want to be in stem careers where they can fry where they feel comfortable and make sure that that it's not a rule rule book that is written formed by men so I think that's part of it helping women come back in make them excited and hopefully you know we can also Inspire young girls and young women to get more into education so what we see is that that in the UK 35 percent of all step students in higher education are women but that drops to 24 when you look at women that actually stays in stem careers and if you look across the globe you will see that number maybe even lower in some countries that's just such a loss of talent right so I think where it makes total business sense to have a diverse and inclusive workplace I I just can't see that we can afford losing out of of half the talent pool I think conversations like this and hearing from two powerful leaders within industry is so helpful as well for anyone that's watching this talking about equality and diversity which is I think something we talk about so much more than ever which is again a really good thing why is it important in your industries that I think for the reasons I just mentioned outline before you know diversity of of thought perspective experience because I think if you look through a single lens you're a bit naive as to how the world um uh kind of takes in what you're providing is as an experience of what people want out of a out of a workplace um you know people are all different in what gets them excited and what motivates them and so I think you got to have diversity of of thought and contribution to be able to make sure because all of our fans all of our employees different things get them excited and so you want to be able to kind of customize as much as you possibly can and that's where you use technology customize the experience for for your fan or for your employee and it's not a one size fits all so if you're only looking at something through one lens you're going to get kind of one output and I think you're going to alienate a lot of people uh people out there I think what gets discussed quite a lot in my industry in the media is that you have a lot of diversity happening at sort of the lower levels but as you climb up the tree and you get to those that are in decision-making positions there's not enough diversity have you come across that in your industry and how we're in team changing that as well obviously you're a great example in itself but yeah but I'm there are not that many of us right so and and I think it is it is a real problem so I fully agree you know the the more you can make the workplace diverse and inclusive uh the better and it is that diversity of thought and and making sure that you you see things from different angles that are that are so important um so for me it's a real priority I know I have a platform I'm happy to use it so I encourage better representation in the workplace it's not only about women it's about gender and religion and sexual orientation and so forth and we try to address all of this all of these areas one of the things that that we've done is to establish networks within our business not led by me but but led by you know people that that have common uh common interests so whether that women networks or whether that's Pride networks or whether that's black professional networks and they get together and and can discuss and have you know open conversations about what are the barriers that they're seeing um and then we make sure that we listen uh and follow up on that um but but we have the same challenge as you see in most companies we actually I think we're doing really well in terms of diversity on a global level so almost 50 percent of our employees are women in technology it's uh 33 I think industry average is 16 17 percent but when you get closer to to the top then the numbers don't look like that so it's it's clear that we have work to do um and and I think that the best thing we can do is to come together there's so much we can do of course as companies but but when companies like ours come together hopefully you can start to to change things okay and on a final note how does all of this tie into your shared organizational values and how does that also tie into your personal approach get it I can start yeah I think so shared values um I think we have a common approach to to technology and Innovation so none of our organizations could exist without technology and the um the understanding of massive amount of data whether you need to to have the best performing car or develop the best Digital entertainment when it comes to values we certainly share values around safety responsibility and and sustainability and then it's all about the fans and that is for us as well being an entertainment company and and understanding that you know you create excitement for fans and customers out there now for me personally throughout my career and in everything I do I I believe in doing the right thing whether it's for the customer or for colleagues or or for communities and and therefore I also believe in having partners where you have shared values because I think we can do so much more and I think the returnship program is an example of that that when you have shared values as partners then you can get together on on other things as well anything you want to add to that well I'll just build on that um because everything yet he said is absolutely spot on I think one of your other questions was kind of how to you know us personally as CEOs and I think you have to clearly lead by example and you can't lead a company that has one set of values if you have a different set of values that wouldn't make for a good uh good leadership so I think uh you know everything that the company wants to achieve McLaren wants to achieve I I believe in individually and therefore it's kind of easy to lead by example because I live and breathe everything that we're trying to uh accomplish and I know that's the same with Yeti brilliant stuff it's been so fascinating here from you both we're now going to have a bit of fun quick fire around questions you up for it you ready for it absolutely good good okay so Zach first of all what's your most entertaining moment or memory from Formula One uh winning Monza in 2021. well you might say that and what about for you oh well I have to say the same thing yeah it was um it was electric so a few guys out there don't know Monster 2021 McLaren took the one and two positions uh at the podium Sun was shining it's just a brilliant track uh despite it being a Ferrari land we had the pleasure of bringing um some customers there as well and they were just over the moon so yeah that was really special that was awesome yeah amazing okay besides the obvious what is your favorite sport and why baseball I grew up playing it and I wanted to be a baseball player oh did you hey I love baseball and how far did you get along in that uh through High School and then I kind of still watch it now yeah yeah absolutely and what about for you yet well I I'm pretty much interested in in move Sports uh maybe except baseball but but um but yeah I would have to say football right um but also American football so NFL um I love basketball uh the NBA I played basketball until I was 13. I was brilliant Point Scott uh and then everyone started growing and I didn't so that ended that career um but listen I you know Wimbledon has just started we have a 20 year old Danish guy called hogarunu who is a six ranking so I'm gonna watch him everybody on grass I'm rooting for him as a business we have the Women's World Cup coming up so lots to do you play any other sports other than basketball yeah I played something called badminton yeah you know the little fill the ball I played tennis played handball I played it all but I loved basketball so unfortunately I didn't grew any taller so yeah didn't happen for me so if you had to pick one icon from the World of Sport who would it be Zack and why uh for me it would be Roger Penske uh he started off racing career built an unbelievable business out of his racing business so he really understood how to leverage from a kind of a sponsorship standpoint a racing team to build a business he's one of the largest car dealers now in the world publicly traded company uh surrounded himself with great people he's 84 85 years old and he doesn't miss a race he's a total racer um and also knows how to use his business to build his racing team so driver team owner races everything 85 years old still going strong and has built the business and a racing team off of each other's platform so I'd have to say the captain is what we call him would be my inspiration it's all the boxes there hey brilliant stuff what about for you Yeta am I going to get into trouble if I don't mention Zach and he's a racing career I'm going to take this in another Direction then and I'm going to see Serena Williams 23 Grand Slam single titles 14 double titles with Venus 319 weeks at the top of the world ranking I mean she's just such an icon and an athlete you know a role model and you think about what she had to go through and being helped to um to different standards so next to SEC of course I would say uh Sereno brilliant yeah that's a great one actually and what about in terms of your competitiveness who is the most competitive out of the two of you gone Yeti you can answer that one first I'm pretty sure that during race days um sex pulse will will get to a level that that is way higher than where my pulse sit when I go into the office on a normal Monday morning but having said that I have you know an enormous competitive Gene I hate to lose I am I I don't accept mediocracy um I'm probably a little bit of a perfectionist um and um you know I'm really passionate about what I do and therefore I want to win and I want to see my teams win and it really shows so what do you think I would not want to get into it no no no ever played a game of tennis against each other no definitely not do you know I could carry on talking to you both for hours it's been so fascinating thank you very much I'm being told I have to wrap things up now so thank you for your company good luck with the rest of the season good luck with entain and uh thank you very much once again for your time thank you [Music]

2023-08-06 08:53

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