NZ Business Podcast - Paul Spain
00:33:24 · Jamie Beaton
[00:33:24] S0: I am up at wacky hours, that's for sure. And I think part of that is because of all the different time zones of Crimson. I tend to have pretty scheduled structured days, and I think that really helps to get through all the different types of, you know, key meetings that I need to have with the various folks, get through all the various, like, you know, new projects that we're working on. So I I think, generally, you know, a a lot of structure in my working days, but I try to have a lot of fun adventures when I'm, for example, visiting a country like Japan for work, try to squeeze in a, you know, fun adventure as well. So I I think from a time management standpoint, I think if you don't really plan for things intensively... I'll give you an example. We have these work off sites every three months. It's very easy for a hectic, busy team to slip out of that cadence and, you know, maybe just do something online or whatever. But we find that when we have that consistency, the whole team's more motivated, more charged up, and it flows through the whole company. And so I think having that operating rhythm and cadence just by default is really, really effective. And if you've gotta practically go and schedule something or make yourself do it randomly, it's a lot tougher than just this auto running process. So I'm always thinking about, you know, does this exec meeting need to be running every week or whatever, or what cadence do we need to run things? And I think adjusting the kinda operating rhythm of the business for each new phase is very important.
00:34:34 · Paul Spain
[00:34:34] S1: Now, often the best learnings come come through the challenges and the hard parts of the journey. Yep. What stands out to you over these these last five years of the things that have been, you know, tough and more challenging to, you know, to deal with and and and any lessons that have fallen out from there?
00:34:51 · Jamie Beaton
[00:34:51] S0: So some of the most entertaining struggles, I say entertaining now after some reflection, but, you know, if you think about last May, Trump came out and said he was gonna ban all all Chinese kids from Harvard. He was gonna ban all foreign kids from Harvard. He was gonna freeze visa interviews to The US. Now, you know, at Crimson, about a third of our... Or two thirds of our college admissions revenue is foreign kids coming to The US. So theoretically, that would be quite spicy. Now, I guess, the interesting thing about the last couple of years is there's actually been more geopolitical instability than ever before. We, for example, have a big team in The Middle East based in Dubai. What we've seen in the last three, four years is probably unprecedented amounts of instability. You know? And I think as a leader, you're, of course, responding to not only, of course, looking after your team, but also this kind of evolving world. And and I think, probably for us, at least, the core demand to go to The US and, like, go to these top universities is not driven by a love of Boston or something. It's driven by the fact that there's a lot of economic opportunity for, you know, folks in these places, at least in early phase of their career. So despite a lot of these geopolitical shocks, the main themes of Crimson have remained very resilient. But, you know, for example, I never could have imagined when I began in Crimson that you'd have a US president trying to, like, nuke his own universities or, you know, to kinda throw out this instability. And so I think I haven't I haven't had to adapt to geopolitical shocks before then. There's also things, for example, China, they randomly woke up one day, and they banned all domestic tutoring. And so companies like New Oriental that were worth 30,000,000,000 dropped by 95% within a matter of days. Now that didn't really affect us, fortunately, because we do international students, you know, hitting abroad. But just being more aware that actually in business, no matter what you think is happening, almost anything you build, you know, can have some, you know, tail risk, basically. And then adapting for that, whether it be diversification, more geographies, just a more, I guess, strong intestinal fortitude within your team and culture, these things are very important.
00:36:42 · Jamie Beaton, Paul Spain
Because in this environment, like, you you truly can't know all the unknowns. [00:36:46] S1: And it seems like politics is is something that you're really interested in. You know, tell tell us about your your interest in in politics and learning about politics. [00:36:56] S0: Yeah. So I guess, firstly, on an academic note, I guess my interest probably began fairly early on in debating in high school in New Zealand, because a lot of the time you're debating different policy areas. And I guess when I was doing my DPhil at Oxford, was at the Blavatnik School of Government, which is all about how you take research and apply it in government to drive impact. I think government's interesting because you can have massive impact through policy changes, but it's so painful sometimes to get anything done in it's such an entrenched bureaucracy that is... And ultimately, politics is super consequential to the whole country's life or the world. I mean, you know, one man sitting in, you know, Washington, D. C. Can, you know, globally spike oil prices with, you know, the push of a button. And so I think for me, you know, it's very consequential to humanity. If done well, it can create massive change, and it relates to everything in business, of course, too. But ultimately, you know, it's the governing body that the Western countries have chosen to, you know, push their countries forwards, and that inherently makes it really interesting.
00:36:56 · Jamie Beaton, Paul Spain
[00:36:56] S0: Yeah. So I guess, firstly, on an academic note, I guess my interest probably began fairly early on in debating in high school in New Zealand, because a lot of the time you're debating different policy areas. And I guess when I was doing my DPhil at Oxford, was at the Blavatnik School of Government, which is all about how you take research and apply it in government to drive impact. I think government's interesting because you can have massive impact through policy changes, but it's so painful sometimes to get anything done in it's such an entrenched bureaucracy that is... And ultimately, politics is super consequential to the whole country's life or the world. I mean, you know, one man sitting in, you know, Washington, D. C. Can, you know, globally spike oil prices with, you know, the push of a button. And so I think for me, you know, it's very consequential to humanity. If done well, it can create massive change, and it relates to everything in business, of course, too. But ultimately, you know, it's the governing body that the Western countries have chosen to, you know, push their countries forwards, and that inherently makes it really interesting. [00:37:49] S1: So looking at New Zealand politics, what would you imagine a kind of a utopia or a sort of perfect version of New Zealand politics might look like?
00:37:49 · Paul Spain, Jamie Beaton
[00:37:49] S1: So looking at New Zealand politics, what would you imagine a kind of a utopia or a sort of perfect version of New Zealand politics might look like? [00:38:01] S0: That's a good... Well, that's a great question. I think at the core of New Zealand, there's a bit of a struggle between two alternative visions for the country. One, it's this hermit kingdom where foreigners can't, you know, move here, where we're locking ourselves off from, you know, trade, where, you know, we're happy to sort of just compete locally. We don't want Kiwis to move abroad, and we just look very inward. And the second is really a globally open competitive New Zealand that, you know, encourages people from around the world to be here, is proud of Kiwis to go abroad and shine abroad and come back. So I think as a country in New Zealand, we kinda have to decide. Do we wanna be a country for, you know, local born Kiwis that is pretty inward facing and we're kinda content with the economic consequence of that? Or do we wanna have a bigger vision for our country on the world stage? And so I think we're kind of wrestling with that right now. I think if New Zealand can decide, and I I personally think it should be the more open version of New Zealand that's ambitious on the world stage and lock into that vision, it provides at least an overarching framework everyone can get behind, and then you don't have as much, you know, fundamental policy disagreement.