Episode 26, Richard McIntosh, Performance Director, Ausgrid

Richard McIntosh is an experienced Commercial Director and recently promoted performance director for Ausgrid, Australia's largest distributor of electricity provided products and services.

Richard is skilled in guiding senior executives through complex decision making, driving transformation and delivering operational outcomes.

He has deep experience in corporate finance, valuation and due diligence across energy and telecommunications industries.

To contact Richard Holmes please call 0403 513 720 or reach out on richardh@hprconsulting.com. https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardholmesfinancerecruiter/

Transcript

Please note that this has been transcribed by AI/Bots so there may be typos and the occasional strange things happening.

Richard Holmes

0:01

Welcome to the numbers people Podcast, where each week we're going to be speaking with some highly regarded senior finance professionals and create experts looking into the ins and outs of what makes finance people and their teams great. The podcast is proudly sponsored by HPR consulting a leading executive finance recruitment firm. I'm your host Richard Holmes.

Richard Holmes

0:24

On today's show, we welcome Richard Macintosh. Richard is an experienced commercial director and recently promoted performance director for Ausgrid, Australia's largest distributor of electricity provided products and services. Richard is skilled in guiding senior executives through complex decision making, driving transformation and delivering operational outcomes. He has deep experience in corporate finance, valuation and due diligence across energy and telecommunications industries.

Richard McIntosh

0:53

Richard, how are you? I'm very well, very well, very well. Great to have you on the show. How have you been? Good. It's always taken us so long to get to this point. You have a couple of times. But

Richard McIntosh

1:04

I've known Richard for a while now. And I think he's creating is really interesting for the listeners to have a chat about and where you've got to in your journey. Do you want to tell us more? Sure. I'll give you the potted history. So we're here in Sydney, Australia, I obviously not from here, I love the north of England did all my university there. I'm actually an engineer, that I understand the world to see myself as an engineer, as my engineering colleagues that they were totally different. I did aerospace engineering, master's degree, decided, once going to London to do something different, I decided that I could do the hardness of engineering, I could do the easy math of accounting. So I became an accountant and went through that process. And it wasn't for me, so But the purpose, you know, good grounding, I am but once I've qualified, that was enough about thanks very much. stepped out and move distills the end point, transaction services. So more of the deals environment. And that was really interesting for me, that's that will be more forward. What is the future look like? What are we going to do with this business and did that for a while, did that in London, and then moved up to Edinburgh, we had a GFC. So I kept my head down and kept on doing that for a while got to a point where my wife and then wife would like to live overseas for a while. Why should we go to my sins, I can only speak English. So it was like Canada, America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, we're here. We've been to Australia a few times, there's an opportunity with door to money. So we moved over to do the transactions that for about 18 months. Really interesting, different environment, but like very similar, right? The interesting thing I thought about Sydney was the market here is more akin to the Edinburgh market is to London market. London's a big, international dynamic place. And so Sydney on the surface, but actually, there's a lot of network here, that is very, very close. But I came over here with a view that we also comment within about three minutes of staying at my friend's house in Miami Beach.

Richard McIntosh

2:48

Which is quite nice. There's a beach outside the front door. So we decided that we would make it a permanent residency and citizenship. We made Australians, Australian, which is still weird. Yeah, my children in Australia, and yet, we've been different ones. So once we can make those decisions, like I say, it was like what career wise what I want to do, I don't want to continue to be a big forward, I want to be a part of that before so what next, and start looking for opportunities. And somebody came up to us, I moved on into the Strategy Team. I see it as going from being external advisor and consultant to what was kind of an internal consultancy role effectively. And that team very quickly changed over time, because I was there to do m&a type stuff. But Optus as a business at that point, was doing a huge amount of m&a. We did some big deals, myself, the HFC network, all these customers on HFC network to the NBN. You've bought a lot of spectrum, when you use your phone, your phone uses radio waves use the spectrum, you pay for licenses to own certain frequencies. And you made millions of dollars. And it's a really complicated process, you go through diviner in doing that I was very plugged into the network of the optics business, working very closely with all their their engineers, but really got involved in in that type of business. firms are going, what next? 1x have been ops for a couple of years, we've done a few interesting things opportunity opened up for the commercial director of the network, and they froggen approached, I said it's interesting, differently that ties back into sort of the day to day of vitamins, right? That's that's, that's looking after my beds and looking at budgets forecasting, an opportunity only came up because I've been working with those guys. So traditional finance, management accounting since the auditor on a different path into that, but then spent the next couple of years working with those guys, understanding the business and being the finance director for the network, not a business that I was in love with. And it got to a point where I was senior enough to go hang on what am I actually gonna be doing? I made a very conscious decision that I wanted to be in management part of a transition to net zero. That's a driver for me, where's the opportunity, an opportunity our password and password at that point, they've just been private. So they were rebuilding finance team but they were looking to do something a bit different taking it from an ex government organization to something a bit more commercial and forward looking. And it was Pretty much a sideways move for me in a very consciously a sideways move. Yeah moved across still running the finance team of a big distributed network business, different stuff, obviously mobile phones and electricity, I think is really different for me was moving into a regulated environment, take the rules of accounting that you understand that you put those in the bin, and you figure out what actually happens. So that was really interesting learning, getting up to speed with a completely different approach and different drivers for business. Why do we do stuff here? That for the last three years, counterpoint again, I think I've gone through the learning process here looking for the next challenge. next opportunity is to want to be in the industry broadly. And this business specifically, recently, I moved into a role within our transformation team. What does that mean? Kind of two things, right? It means I'm helping us deliver what we say we're going to do. And I'm trying to help set the strategy to figure out what it is that we're going to do. That's great,

Richard McIntosh

5:53

great listening to your story as well. And when you were at the low end for long, we thought right, I'd say I've got to leave? Good question. I think had there not been a GFC I think I want to definitely, in all seriousness, I made it to sort of in my mid late 20s, that I'd seen associate lifestyle, not for me, I'm more interested in being near the business. And the other thing that happened was having worked in lots of businesses, and delivered them what I thought was lots of good ideas, you know, buy this, sell that and then gone. See you later, never actually seen that through never seen the results of that. I want to see what happens next year. That was the missing element for me. So I knew I was keen to get out and get operational in some way before the GFC happened, it was very much a case of getting a job did a bit more of the restructuring side of things at that point. You have to adapt, those things evolve. If I'd been headstrong is not I'm going to go get a different job and move careers move industries, at that point in time, maybe not. And the opportunity obviously sounded pretty fortuitous, and corruptions. It was the right thing there was that transition was relatively seamless from that perspective. But you're still delivering a project based it was still very much delivering stuff to the executive, ultimately to the board, which is what we were doing previously. So I had those skills

Richard Holmes

7:04

and listening to you. You come across like this self aware through your career. When we moved to London, we moved to Edinburgh, is that a natural thing for you? like did you realize when the time is up at the light? And when the time is? office? Or was it more of a question?

Richard McIntosh

7:16

There's a few different drivers. For me, it's not just career decision we made to leave London was we're not from here, done five years in London, I'd like to change the scene. And I love the city. But the city is killing me of non career driven decision, but use the life as a vehicle actually working ironically, in London, probably more than I did when I was working. But that was a lifestyle. And then other decisions really come about when the learning curve flattens, I'm really interested in doing new stuff. I'm very excited about it. And when you find yourself good at what we're doing today, not really interested, probably time to do something totally unexpected. Great. I don't have the you know, the 12 Steps to Success. I don't have that plan in mind. It's very much a case of Am I doing something that I think is worthwhile? am I learning something? Do I feel like whatever it is that I'm producing is often in fact against those messages? Yes, then carry on? If the answer to those questions becomes more no than Yes, then time to reflect on your career. What advice would you give to people wanting to have a career like yours, the thing that I've always been conscious of, because I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always tried to avoid closing doors. So not being an engineer. Because when I left University, the engineer was the guy that came to fix the coke machine coming to the counter. But I saw it as very generous thing to do, can be in every business needs when I've moved between roles. And I've gradually gradually realized, what I wanted to do over time, is probably gradually narrowed my focus in terms of industry and specific skills. And I'll try to keep my broader skill set as wide as possible. I've never been the world's best account of being the world's best financial modeler, really hard skills, I can do all those things to a degree where competent, and I can go bullshit, and know when to ask for help from the people that do know what they're doing, when you've got that broad skill set, right? So you can you can move between things, and you can tie the pieces together. To come back to your question. What advice would you give to someone, thing that you're trying to achieve for me, is you're gonna have a foundation of this hard skills. That's good. But actually the real value comes in the spaces in between the numbers say this, the markets doing that the strategies are going over this direction. Is that right? How do I align these things? And then importantly, convinced the people that make decisions. what I'm telling you is, is values correct. It's learning how to tie stuff together and deliver messages and influence. That's really what we're trying to do. Getting a broad range of skills not closing doors in the first instance, seeing lots of different people operating lots of different businesses operate. Being the sponge that sucks the water gradually builds a skill set don't actually know what I do. biggest mystery to me is when you ask questions, I mean, what is it? I actually do? What do I bring to the table? It's the ability to pull all this stuff together, but when we add value I feel rich in the spotlight channel. Coming to work and being being challenged, and adding value, it's the question of value is a really important one? And the question of how do you add that value. And, you know, one of the things that you do to contribute to the company being better tomorrow than it was yesterday, it's really a tangible thing. But you've got to believe that what you're doing in contributing to the ongoing success throughout this podcast, a lot of the guests have talked about where you touch on Richard about not specializing too early in career being broad in your approach. I mean, you have friends who did specialize, and it's still kind of stuck in that space. Yes, I've got friends that have specialized, I mean, very successful, there's nothing wrong. Because if you're really, if you're really passionate about something, and you're really good at it pretty well, then you'll be successful. If you're not quite sure, and more important, if you're not passionate, and you specialize early, it can be quite hard to get out of that specialization. And you have to start making decisions about when he does have to take backward step, or certainly a few sideways steps, becomes difficult. So it's, if you know what you want. Great. I think it's really hard in your early 20s. When you're 40, or 50, some people get lucky and they figure it out. I think it's better to have more strings to your bow, and to be able to then go, Okay, try these different things. I like doing that I like that less, and gradually find a way through Korea that gives you all the things you like and few other things you don't have done a lot. There's no career out there. That is just the things you like, there's always some crappy stuff, that's fine, as long as it bounces around, as long as you did some of the good stuff. Yeah. That's the thing like position which recruitment is people's ultimate goal? Where do you see yourself in 510 years, and a lot of people may say, I don't know, they're not really thought about it, which on reflection, it's not, it's not a bad thing.

Richard McIntosh

11:38

As long as you project your approach, very simple approach of, if I do my job today, to the best of my ability, I keep my eyes open, good stuff will happen. And as long as you're adding value, you're building a network. And by that, I don't mean doing unnecessary hard work networking, for the sake of it, you want to deliver stuff for people to build a network. So as long as you're doing those things, you're constantly delivering value, you're enthusiastic about it, because that comes across as well, the customers, and you're building those relationships, and one thing I'd add to that is picking the right things to do, there's more work to do in most people's wrongs, there's more work to do, and there is time to do it. So you got to pick what you're gonna do. And so you got to go that thing over there, I'm going to communicate, tell people, I'm not going to do it. And this is something I've got better over time figured out for you offer the business, your team, what the low value stuff is, and make sure you get good at de prioritizing. If you just do everything, you have to treat everything equally that comes on your desk. Yeah, you might get lucky and do good stuff. But you might get drowned in the crap, that's hard to distinguish yourself. And then it becomes hard to go, Oh, I spent two or three or four years in that role. And I would like to do something else. But you just been operating in a way that no one's really noticed. He will probably be doing good stuff. And it's been hard work. There's a real risk of if you didn't do that stand out thing for the person, that's going to be your next role. So it's important to focus on those things as well. Like we really have to think about how am I being perceived when you think about your network in the business? And who's seeing what I'm doing. You have to be a little bit selfish. In that perspective. That's great advice. I think the exception comes for everything, doesn't it? I'm sure we've all worked in teams where someone's being promoted. Is that one better than that person? Why did they get that promotion? Probably because of a great piece of work that is recycled, we get recognized for it. And it can be relatively flat stuff, right? It doesn't have to be huge, three, six month projects. It's about attitude, how you approach things, and therefore how you are perceived by others, then you've got to manage up well, like a lot of people managed out and manage their teams and their teams. Well, I think that consideration for managing Oh, I'm just actually it's his criticism. Yes, managing your team is critically important to deliver stuff. Absolutely. The person that's going to give you your next job is more likely to be above you than below you. Right. So it's equally important now to manage those peers and those above you ultimately when you go looking for a new role, you want to be conditioned to have the conversation to say, I'd like to go do x y Zed, and to have backwards Richards good young, we should give them a shot. It's that self awareness is now working in unanimous this new role he working in an industry a lot of what are you most curious about was curious. I guess he's wants to go out. And there's a huge amount. The engineer in me is curious about how we solve the problem. that's at the heart of why I'm here. And what I'm interested in is a massive challenge to go carbon neutral as a society, the engineering challenge in doing that, returnable cogeneration, put solar panels in 25%. And we've all got to start driving electric cars, we've all got to, we've got to charge those electric cars from the solar panels and wind farms, we've got to change the way we do agriculture. I mean, that's not an engineering interest. But then there's a big commercial around that. How do we actually achieve that got to make some decisions that in the short term, are going to be politically unpopular are going to be financially questionable, because we don't know what future looks like. And so the funding decisions are really hard. That's what the finance and the accounting side of things, how do we as a society, as a country, as a globe, solve some of those things where we're going to invest in stuff that we have to be something that bring that back to my adult world and now osgrid Hospital is trying to reshape itself and go from being the new direction or power generated at one end of the grid and goes to your house and the other end of it simple stuff to a much more complex, much more meshed and integrated solar panels, they want to send the solar from their house back to the grid to batteries, people are plugging in 1000 places those big complicated measure of connection points with to energy flows, we've got to figure out what where do we operate, and how does automate continue to be viable, will continue to support us customers continue to keep prices where they make sense for people, because if people increasingly have sort of hands on the roof batteries in their geringe electric cars, and they've got this wire hanging up from the house, it's costing me a lot of money, I'm not sure I needed. So people cut that wire cost for us, but doesn't really change. People who can't afford to have that solar panels and batteries and cars pay more, there's a really bad sign up front. So again, to bring it back to what we tried to do, we try to make sure that scientists out. And actually everyone gets value from this huge network that we have all these taxpayers invested in it makes it work for everyone and makes it least cost to achieve the right hand is an interesting problem to solve their problems. The engineering challenge that engineering challenge comes with a lot of commercial and financing challenges, everything you do and everything you touch has an influence on how we solve that problem.

Richard Holmes

16:20

And can match as well, when you compare countries like Australia to say countries in Europe are doing but nearly renewable and reflects them in Ukraine, what's the one thing you would have wished to have not missed it correct, which would have helped you?

Richard McIntosh

16:33

The point I touched on earlier around hard skills and soft skills. If someone could have explained to me made me believe more importantly, that that's actually when value is the soft skill. And the ability to work in between the notes and stuff is my spreadsheet. It's got numbers in it, it's very definitive. Look, I have an answer. Good mother. That is the answer. We all know that right? And that's an input into the decision making process, which provides you the answer. The actual real skill lies in the interpretation of the various data points, both known and less quantifiable, and be able to read the people and where is the CEOs head out, whereas the boards are actually our shareholders, also pension funds. So they've got a set agenda. So you've got to know all of those things. And you have to put those things together, having someone explain that to me earlier, would have avoided me falling on my feet. But then again, I'm not sure if someone is telling you that allows you to actually know that you have to follow up to an extent, that's a key thing. Just even in Sydney, just last few years, we are passing these funnels business partnering courses, just in the last few years, it should change. But I think a lot of funnels people coming through, they've got to have some soft skills, it's about the storytelling. And if you don't have that struggle, it absolutely is. And because of the storytelling, the economy, the business part, you're gonna run out of jobs, while agree with us. Yeah, all of the usual Ted advice, the all the easy stuff is going to get more and more automated, we're getting better at storing data, we've been getting better at structuring data. Yep. Once you can do those two things, all of your accounting, transactional type stuff gets automated. Basically, there's a whole raft of jobs that go away, and you're left with a finance team. My perspective, that's what I think about the stuff around the edges, about the real value, and how do I take that data, which is now all neatly arranged for me to derive the So what, what do I do now as a result of doing this? How do I join all these dots, And that, to me, is what finance should be, that's what I've always strived to make my career and my teams just get the data organized. And then do the interesting stuff, value add stuff. Because finance, it's, I think, a really unique part of any organization where done properly, you're really close to the business. And you understand the business like no apart from the individuals within that business unit. That's great. They also understand where the exact heads up when the board heads up, because you're reporting. So you're seeing the detail on the operational stuff. And you're seeing this is what we're telling the board this is how they're reacting to that. Therefore, what you want to do differently, what do we tell them all differently to guide them to the answers that we want them to get to? And how do we bring business on that journey? How do we get the data out of business, there aren't many other teams that set them up uniquely, which I think makes finance a really interesting space to work in. It's no longer a world of bean counters and debits and credits. increasingly less original point that stuff is going away. In the next decade, that stuff goes away. If you're not adding value, and figuring out all this kind of join the dots is not really good in many places left in finance to hide the

Richard Holmes

19:25

evolution of finance just in the last 15 years. It's been huge from a kind of archaic, stereotypical finals.

Richard McIntosh

19:31

I remember doing all it's when I first started, some of them for smaller clients where literally is a pile of paper, invoices, receipts, everything else. Go create some accounts. They're just gonna be a fun afternoon. I can imagine you work with some good people trying to create is any anyone employed today? I can't think of an individual but I've got lots of individuals in my mind in question and positive and negative, right. So I see. I go back to my Deloitte days in the UK, always the cleverest person, regardless which room she was in, at the cost of her family life. And as you saw, she was so focused on workers, brilliant at the job, things outside of work are great. So that had an influence on me, and made me think there's a balance there. So I had a mentor somebody in Australia, really, really good, very interesting guy, but really organized and disciplined in terms of taking notes in terms of structuring, what are my priorities today, this week, this month, the next 100 days, and just doing that religiously, it's really easy to get lost in my inbox is full of stuff, a million things to do, he was really good about, write down the three things you have to do today, things you'll do this week, relax yourself and your team. If something comes into decision, you've got to go to your list and go, right, why am I taking now, what am I not doing today and pushing to tomorrow or next week, otherwise, nothing gets done. So the whole, do less better actually start and finish. Whatever lessons you get out of that process into the next thing you do, and so on, and so on. Don't just start 100 things and finish three. And again, the CFO, you're also very interesting guy, really good guy, the discipline, but notes, every meeting is finished in a hat. And you'll know the names of their kids. They'll know, you know, the last last thing they spoke about just those small things that build that network and just be really good at what he does. And it sounds so simple. It is but it's this is breaking down the sort of mosquito, isn't it? Because it's so easy to get distracted. The inbox full of 2030 emails, yeah, I've heard that quite a lot. I'm trying to practice it yourself. Keep coming back to it. It's the way to get the handles done. And no more you know, now, what would you say to younger self? Don't worry so much. Partly because of the environment as in being a big fall, I probably worked harder than was necessary. In the first 1015 years of my career. The geodesy believe that. When you reflect Do you think genuinely, I still don't know. And it's important to work hard. And you shouldn't think there's a lot of value in hard work and just being an office till 10 o'clock. Yeah, because that's what you do, it's not really helpful. That's not the best version of you have to work every day that's not driving value. So doing that early in your career, because you think that's important, because you think it will be seen working hard. And also trying to cover the fact that you don't know what you're doing. If I work hard, that I'll make up for the gaps. And that's been true. So sometimes you have to give up. Not every day, not every week, I'm faking that culture is changing. It's a generational change as well, the nature of my job, I hear a lot where they only leave water or sleep. When you think about it, it's just crazy, isn't it, like motel eight, nine o'clock, when you're not really commercially COVID document the atmosphere, just just really solidifying that in everyone's life to actually do not the kids off, pick them up at three in the afternoon, or soccer practice or whatever it is doing. If you don't need to come next to me when I was at nine o'clock at night, let's focus on what we try to achieve our team and make sure we deliver that and then work becomes a much more fluid thing, which some people like some people don't so much, because they think that would never goes away. But I think it's worked

22:56

really well. It's about productivity, as opposed to being less busy. But it's gonna be challenging how companies manage it is very

Richard McIntosh

23:01

much an individual is an individual thing. And it's going to be interesting how you build and maintain culture, the junior guys got into the CFO department, I might lay going, that interaction disappears completely when you're not in the office. And you're it's not right for you over the course of 10 years, it is because lots of little interactions turn into real relationships turn into getting asked to do things that become the piece of work that stands out that gets you the type of there's definitely a balance of people having the flexibility to lead the lives of the kids and hobbies wherever else. There is a need, I think to be together. Based on its collaboration is

Richard Holmes

23:39

those core conversations like said, I've known for a while Richard, do you come across as a pretty chilled outcome kind of guy. I mean, when you do get overwhelmed, or the pressures on what do you do,

Richard McIntosh

23:50

go outside, go for a walk. Like, recognize that you are small and sell your products with minimal seriousness, getting outside and breathe fresh air and getting away from the desk or the computer or the other day I was I was working from home and I've been setting the backside online and I thought well, I'll go for a walk, made a phone call. And I went for a two hour walk. I was walking, I was so productive. And it's that simple. Gee, that's me going for a walk that kind of thing. But it's gonna be interesting how companies adapt. It's exciting, though isn't I think COVID kicked us out the decade ahead in terms of working, you've got to be exactly days to walk in. And just the process of actually being moving gets gets you thinking and also you're happy to make these calls and you're focused on the activity of walking, talk at the same time. It just, I think it's really important. whatever situation you're in, if you get stuck into something different five minutes for an hour, and sit there and bang your head off the desk. It just gets worse. It's a completely agreed scan out and about makes such a difference in mindset. Clothes are rigid. If you have one message to tell the world what would it be? Relax, relax, it's going to be alright, come back to it tomorrow. Or you're not in all seriousness in the conversation. We're just having to step away from it. Things are hard things away from it and then come back to this afternoon tomorrow next week. It's fine not worrying and relaxing. It's not life or death. Correct. We're not we're not saying babies. Yes, very tricky aspect.

Richard Holmes

25:12

That's great advice. I think. I think you've been a great guest Richard. I mean very insightful. Lots of wisdom and some great advice and I think you've been broadcasting hopefully will help you on the show in the near future.