This industry has never failed to present the next the next challenge, the next opportunity. If you’re happy with a degree of uncertainty, highly motivated and tech savvy, our industry has always been brilliant. If you choose to move away from the technical forefront, I’ve found that people can quite easily progress into project management roles, and/or then line management and more senior leadership roles, with experience. By my late 20s I was a director within a cable company, because I found that even with a scientific, critical-thinking brain, I enjoyed the influence and impact of leading teams more. I could take my understanding and those problem-solving skill and put them to even greater use. Although I did miss the practical elements. What about consolidation? Bringing companies together is going to bring risk and complexity. Maintaining the confidence of the investor community in these early consolidations is key. Can more value be created, once you consider the access technology standardisation, branding and sales, IT stacks, departmental integration, operations etc? Companies with clear service geographies and modest overbuild with an established retail brand, like Ogi are probably in a better position and could remain independent for a long time. Ultimately, everyone should count on being overbuilt by Openreach at least, so penetration forecasts over 40% I think are just wishful thinking. FROM THE INDUSTRY Ogi’s brand is quite edgy, I think, unmistakably Welsh, fun and engaging.
What do you think we need to do as an industry to attract a younger, more diverse crowd? Our investor’s ‘green fund’ is very strong on ESG, like many of the pension fund investors in fibre, DEI was top of our agenda from day one and we got embedded in all of the major DEI activities in South Wales. We make sure that we write job descriptions that are accessible and un-technical and we try and attract in a wide range of candidates and to retain them. We run lots of courses in house, plus management courses for anybody who’s interested in heading in that direction. This investment has worked really well and appealed widely to our younger or less experienced employees, many of whom then go on to management roles at Ogi. There is a (somewhat justified) belief that this industry that it’s just a bunch of white middle-aged men. But personally, I think that’s changing quickly now. Although I perceive that build and engineering areas are still overwhelmingly male. What are you looking forward to this year? I‘m not under any illusions, it’s going to be a hard year, with many challenges and lots of industry change. Consolidations will bring more uncertainty and job losses, and the scarcity of capital is dramatically impacting the build supply chain. It’s our collective job as leaders to run good businesses and to reassure the investors and debt market, so we can move forward again. I’m looking forward to seeing the fruits of our labour in terms of continued growth and hitting our milestones, reaching the point where we can stand on our own two feet financially and lose dependencies on external funding. We’ve got 22,000 customers now and I’m confident that we will get to 30,000 by the end of the year, which will be shade under 30% penetration across all communities. I’m proud of that, thousands of Welsh people and businesses are benefiting, and I think it highlights that we’ve created something rather special.
How to be a Business
Leader By Ben Allwright
Make sure you are: n Passionate n 100% committed n Committed to excellence n Demonstrating strong, consistent principles n Surrounding yourself with the right people n An influencer n A good communicator n A good networker n A good problem solver n Accountable n Agile n Authentic n Self-aware n Humble
www.ogi.wales
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Volume 47 No.1 MARCH 2025
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