Think Like a Member of the Board

Tiffany Pham

Hi, Andy. How are you? It's such an honor to have you here today with us on Chief Officer.

Andy Doyle

Thank you, Tiffany. And how are you?

Tiffany Pham

I'm doing very well. I'm really delighted to have you and to be able to share with our listeners today more about your incredible inspiring journey and your amazing leadership here at Kantar. And excited for you to be able to share with us your very beautiful journey, but especially your role now today as Chief Officer and how you got there.

Andy Doyle

Thank you. Looking forward to it.

Tiffany Pham

Wonderful. Well, will you tell me where you grew up first and your journey leading up to today? And then we'll dive into the Chief Officer role.

Andy Doyle

Sure. I live in London today and I was born in London. So I've been a Londoner for much of my life in the UK.

Tiffany Pham

Wonderful. And what about school and workplaces thereafter? Where did you go?

Andy Doyle

Yeah, I mean, I went to school, I went to university in Loughborough, which is a major sports university. I have to say I was probably the least sporty person at the university at the time, but it's also a great university of technology. And I suppose that's where I discovered some of my early excitement, and not just in economics, which I did my studies in, but in technology there as well, because it was Loughborough University of Technology at the time.

Tiffany Pham

Amazing.

Andy Doyle

So that was in the Midlands in the UK, and I've been fortunate enough to work mainly in the UK. I lived in America, I spent a lot of time working in America, and being in different cultures gives you a different perspective. The couple of years I spent in Texas certainly did that.

Tiffany Pham

Yes, yes. Where in Texas? I'm from Plano, Texas.

Andy Doyle

Yes, yes, Plano is next to Addison or nearby.

Tiffany Pham

That's wonderful. And so then you moved back to London.

Andy Doyle

That's right. And I've been in London ever since doing a series of international jobs. Mainly working for companies that are based in the headquarters in the UK, but have got a big presence in the US and other markets around the world.

Tiffany Pham

And then when was your first chief officer role? What I recall, it was quite a while back you had your first chief officer role.

Andy Doyle

Yeah, I had a baby one to start with.

Tiffany Pham

Yeah, let's talk about that one.

Andy Doyle

In the dot com boom, 2001, when I became chief people officer, or the European HR director as it was, and the senior HR person in an online business. The HR team was about 10 strong, so it was quite small, small business, but I suppose that did give me a taste of what it was like to have the top job and dealing with the board more, and dealing with investors and regulatory coverage and so on. But it was in a very small business and unfortunately that business failed. I moved back into a more corporate role and then I became--

Tiffany Pham

Although can I ask you on that experience particularly, how did you get that chief officer role even with 10 strong, for listeners out there that perhaps are just in that position just below the chief officer role and would still want to get there. So I always think it's really interesting to ask even about that baby role that you got. Did you come in as a chief officer and get recruited to be that, or did you rise up within it?

Andy Doyle

No, I got recruited for that one. I think actually in smaller businesses often you'll find there's a pretty big gap between the caliber of the team, the experience of the team, and quite often it's difficult for someone to step up in those teams because the gap between the person who's leading it and the person who might be in that team is quite big. So you do tend to find more, I think, in the smaller businesses, it's not uncommon for people to get recruited externally because you might be needing the experience. It's a bit different. I was lucky, I was in the right place at the right time. I took a risk. I left kind of a big corporate role to join a much more start-up, embryonic, newly listed business. It's a bit similar to joining an AI startup today. Back in 2000, late 2000, 2001 was the dot-com boom in the UK and Europe and the US, and really online retail was just at its beginning stages. Believe it or not, dial-up speeds were 56k. We tried to do e-commerce in that environment. So it was very different. I did that for a couple of years, learnt a lot. One of the things I say to people is do take some risks. You know, I took a risk. It didn't work out in many respects. The company failed ultimately. But from a personal point of view, the learnings I had in that job of dealing with the board, being a director of a company that was in trouble, really focusing on cash generation because you run out of cash first, those were lessons which I hadn't really experienced before. And it was very stressful at one level. But looking back, very rewarding.

Tiffany Pham

Absolutely, and probably invaluable. And for then you to secure your next chief officer role. And which one was that one?

Andy Doyle

So I then went back into kind of the number two role, kind of a big divisional HR role after that, running a much bigger HR team. And then a few years later, I moved to ITV, which is a big public broadcaster, producer of content, TV content in the UK. And I went in as the number two there to someone who had just gone part time, my boss. She wanted someone to take a bit of the load of running the function. And about 18 months after, she left as part of a planned succession, and I took over the top job.

Tiffany Pham

Had you known each other?

Andy Doyle

No, we met through the recruitment process. And initially, it was kind of an interim arrangement. She was leaving. She was going to work in a different environment. She was going plural at that point. And she wanted to step away from being a day-to-day executive. And they asked me to do it for six months to manage that transition and see what happened, and it worked out okay.

Tiffany Pham

Amazing. And so when you got that call to be the interim officer, how did it feel? Did you feel like this was going to be a stressful time period ahead or an exciting time period ahead? How did you feel initially?

Andy Doyle

Well, I think there's two bits. One is, you know, I'd been working in the company for 18 months as the HR Operations Director.

Tiffany Pham

You took over the number one job.

Andy Doyle

I was taking over the number one job from someone that had worked there for 25 years. She knew all the management team, she was a real force and a really credible leader. So first of all, you kind of go, well, I've got some very big shoes to fill here. And as I thought about that role, I kind of decided that one thing that was very obvious to me was I couldn't be her. I had to be me, and I couldn't try and pretend to be her, because she knew everybody, she'd grown up, she'd been on the same graduate intake as some of the other members on the exec team. She was a force of nature, she was an inspiring woman to work for. And so I learnt a lot from her, but the difference was I was not her. And for many of the executive team, they'd only ever known her as the chief people officer of the organisation. So one decision I made was not to try and be her, and to do things my way. But the second thing I did was, even though it was kind of for six months, is I said, I can't pretend I don't want this job. I have to act like I'm going to have this job and I'm going to succeed, and not wait until the end and see what happens. I'm going to go into it, because the reality is, if at the end of that six months I hadn't got the job, you probably would have ended up leaving, because it's quite difficult to be ambitious at that point and want to do a big public company job, and then get there and then kind of six months afterwards it's not you. So I think you have to go into that situation as though, well, what am I going to do if I am the leader, and behave that way and not really worry about the interim piece of it, but focus more on what you can do.

Tiffany Pham

Oh, wow. I wish I'd had your advice this morning. Literally, I was on the phone with a woman, a friend who's the interim chief officer right now, chief people officer for a major Fortune 50 company. And she's at month five of her interim role as interim chief officer. And I think that's brilliant advice that I'll take right back to her from you, to just act like you have the role, and better to feel like you're going to get the role and not worry that you won't, and then you're in a better place when you do.

Andy Doyle

Well, and even then if you don't get the role, your mindset is a different mindset when you go back into the job market or you go back to what you're going to do next. The difference between being a big divisional HR leader or a big divisional leader and then the top job is, everyone I've ever talked to that's done that transition goes, it's a very different job than the job you think it's going to be. You often wonder when you're the divisional leader looking up at your boss, well, what do they spend their time doing? And then when you are in that role, you go, well, I can't tell you what I spend my time doing, because most of what I spend my time doing is highly confidential. I can't talk about it. So it's a very interesting transition for people. So if you've done it for a period of time, away from it, you've always got that. And I think that gives you something that's more credible when you then start looking for your next role.

Tiffany Pham

Absolutely, I love that advice. And so what was it like when you got that phone call that six months in they selected you?

Andy Doyle

Yeah, you know, it's often anti-climax, because the phone call isn't a big moment when you get recruited. When you get recruited, someone phones you, they get on the phone and they say they want to offer you the job, you're feeling the love, because they still want you to join. When you're in an organisation and you get the next job or promotion, it doesn't always feel quite the same level of love that you get when you're being recruited. It's like, well, we've decided it's you. And I seem to recall that moment, I think I went home that night and I talked to my partner and I said, the good news is I've got the job. It was one of those strangely anti-climactic moments. The work really begins after that because, you know, very often you set yourself, and I had done during that six months, I'd set out an agenda for change about what we needed to do. It was in the midst of the economic financial crisis just past, you know, going back to the mid 2000s. And we're dealing with the fallout of the failure in the banking system and so on. And it was a tough economic environment to become a chief people officer. And one of the things we had to do was downsize the HR function by 40% in that time. So it's a tough message, that at one level you're very excited about this for you personally, but you're all facing into a very big organizational restructure based on that kind of crisis moment, and indeed in your own function as a leader of a function, with the people that you lead having to deal with some really difficult stuff straight away.

Tiffany Pham

Yeah, wow. Absolutely. So that was what it was like for your first month, the first week, it sounds like it was challenging. And now you're facing kind of an interesting time again, because you just got elevated yet again, in this very interesting time that we're in, in the age of AI. So now chief people and AI officer.

Andy Doyle

Yeah, chief people and agent officer. So I look after--

Tiffany Pham

Agent, yeah.

Andy Doyle

Exactly. So I think, you know, AI has many uses across our organization and has got lots of different owners in different parts of it. But we fundamentally believe the workforce of the future will be a mixture of people and agents and how they come together. And it's not a tech challenge. It's a people challenge about how do you create organizations that have got people with leadership and accountability in a new way of working. And that's the stuff we're trying to work out.

Tiffany Pham

I love that. And so what is now in this current role the proudest accomplishment you've experienced? Looking back on your journey actually as well, all throughout your life, your journey, your career, what has been your proudest accomplishment?

Andy Doyle

I think if you look back, the thing you're always proud of is giving people a chance and seeing people blossom. And I can talk all about the big strategic things, but I look at the micro things: the people I've worked with are in bigger jobs, the people that I've supported to take a chance, and people from non-traditional careers, bringing them into HR. Seeing people promoted in HR, having a network of people that you've worked with over years. One advantage towards being at the end of your career is you've got so many miles on the clock, so you've had more years to meet people. You know, I now have people in my team that my children are older than, which is a scary moment. And I think that's just a really interesting part of the working environment that says, if I look back, it's the people. People always surprise me how capable they really are. And you should create the right conditions for people to thrive. And if you're given the right conditions, people generally thrive. And I'm really proud of that.

Tiffany Pham

Yeah, amazing. And what are your insights on now, the new world, this new age of AI and the future of work?

Andy Doyle

Yeah, look, I think it's moving fast. And I don't think any of us know the right answers, but listen, we're all trying to learn and grow and experiment about this. And actually that curiosity and that mindset is probably the most helpful thing you can do at the moment. What I do know is many of the things that we look back on as statements of truth may not be the models and the ways of working that you'll need to use over the next five to 10 years, even the next one to two years. Things are changing. The way we think about change, the way we think about work, the way we think about processes are all changing and evolving. And that change is going to be uneven, it's going to be bumpy, and it's not going to be distributed in a way that's always comfortable. And as humans, no matter even how much change and transformation you like, we always like to have control. And sometimes this can feel like you're losing agency and control. And therefore, what agency can you bring to this and what control can you exert to enable you to make the best choices and the best decisions for yourself, for your company, for your family, whatever that might be, and for society. I think those are some really interesting choices. And I think that's the bit that we're all navigating. I don't think there has ever been a better time to work in HR than we face right now, because all the things we have said as a profession about we want to try and change the way we work, we want to try and move the administrative work away and become more strategic, these are all enabled by AI in a fundamentally different way than anything else we've had before.

Tiffany Pham

Yeah, absolutely. And what I find exciting is that the heads of HR across these organizations that we're looking to service at Mogul and support are all being tasked with overseeing AI deployment or training and whatever it may mean for them inside their organization and the structure and their culture. But it's the head of HR that's quite often overseeing it. Sometimes more often than not informally, but for you formally, which I really appreciate, of your CEO and you pairing up to have you formally oversee that aspect. And I think that's wonderful. Is there an aspect that your team is working on that you're most excited about right now?

Andy Doyle

Yeah, I mean, look, we come to this, you can make the technology work. The technology is not the issue here. It's the adoption and giving people the curiosity and the willingness to fail. And the one thing I'd say that I'm really proud of is the experimentation we've created inside the organization that lets people fail. And I know, like, no one wants to fail. We don't, particularly in professional service firms. We've grown up to be trying to get things right, to practice. But what you're seeing with the rise of agents and how you use agents is you've got to experiment and you've got to try and you've got to practice. And you can theorize as much as you like, but put your hands on the keyboard, start building one, get it to do the process that you want, and it probably won't work, but it might do some of it, and then try again and try again and try again. And those kinds of constant iterations, and you can iterate an agent 50, 100 times in a day, will help you build something that's more useful. And getting that done at scale, that'd be something I'm super proud of. We've now got about 12,000 people at Kantar. We've got about 17,000 agents. Most of those agents are pretty simple, but they're all built by our colleagues. We've got over 90% of our colleagues use AI every day. Most people have built one and a half agents. Some people built loads, some people have built none. But the thing I'm proud of is creating that environment where we've got lots and lots of agents that are trying to help people take some of the work, take some of the pressure out of their job, take some of the drudgery away from them, make life a little bit easier for them, let them do higher value work, those things. One of the things I'm most proud about is that excitement that we've created to enable that to happen.

Tiffany Pham

Exactly. That's how I feel too. From our conversations, I always take that away, that you're one of the leaders that really has enabled experimentation and excitement, enthusiasm, and transparency on this effort internally. So I feel like it creates such a kind and generous culture with regards to this effort. And I really appreciate that and commend you on that. And so now what's some piece of advice that you'd give to a leader who wished to be more like you, to become the chief officer many times over now as you have been, and who's perhaps just one seat below?

Andy Doyle

I think the advice I'd give people is think like a member of the board. Because if you think about, if you're on the board, whether you're an executive or a non-executive on the board, you are thinking about the value creation narrative of your organization. And you kind of come at things through that lens about value and risk. And actually, as HR people, we don't often spend a lot of time talking about value and risk as overtly as people in the finance community or other operational disciplines. And I think that's one of the things that you've got to think about: is the proposal, is the idea, the thing you want to do aligned with the strategy, linked to value creation, and what are the risks associated with that. And if you think about that, and one great and simple way of doing that is just ask your ChatGPT, your Claude, your Copilot, whatever system you prefer to use, ask it to help you. Ask it to help you think like a board director. Think about what your presentation should include. Think about how board directors operate from a value creation point of view, from a risk mitigation point of view. Ask those questions and use that information to help you think about, as you are interacting with the board, as you're interacting with executive team members, that might give you some different ideas about how you come over, how you sell your ideas, how you create excitement about the concepts that you want to bring to the job.

Tiffany Pham

Love that. So, up-leveling your strategic thinking, your way of communicating to stakeholders, especially board members. Well, thank you so much, Andy. Such an honor to have you again and to be able to learn from you and to share your learnings and advice and inspiring story and leadership with our listeners today.

Andy Doyle

It's been a pleasure and true honor as always to talk to you. Thanks, Tiffany.

Tiffany Pham

Thank you, Andy.