Introduction: This transcript has been generated for reference and accessibility, with subtitles included on the video for easy navigation. It will not be 100% accurate but should be very close to the conversation.

So, welcome to this edition of the founder playbook. Joining me today is Ian Stewart, formerly of NatWest group, where you spent 16 years with the business with that large financial institution, and 11 of those spent as their Chief Engineer, where he worked on data centre projects across the globe. Ian, welcome along. So, Ian after so long with the bank why the move and why until Livingston?

So, two things really erm life changes so recently become a grandad

Congratulations

Thank you. I want to spend more time at home with the family but Livingston was a contractor being used already within critical environments but there was a real gap in the market for a contractor who would be able to look at clients’ needs, clients’ wants and to be a guide for them. So, somebody who would come along deal with everything about understanding the current risks their operating models. The owners of Morris & Spottiswood, who are the parent company of Livingston’s, looked at this had an opportunity and presented to me an opportunity and I felt there was so much available gap in the market where people are not helping the clients apart from their own needs. Not saying every contractor is the same but what Livingston’s wanted to do was bring it to life so not just design and build but design, build and monitor. So it was the availability to work with clients to understand what do they need, how did they need to do it, how did they need to operate, being able to look at existing procedures and processes and policies where they can be adapted and then design, build and assist a client with operating –  data centres and critical office areas. Then assist them in making sure their staff had currency of competency and that’s something we spoke about previously and I’m a real advocate that just because you’re competent today doesn’t mean you’re going to be competent tomorrow you’ve got to continually evolve and a lot of clients don’t know how to get that out of their staff so what we want to be able to do is come along and say we can assist that.

I guess coming from that heavily regulated financial environment means that you’ve dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s when it comes to critical environments and managing, monitoring and maintaining them.

Yeah, you know we’ve been audited by external auditors erm, NatWest Group had an extremely good internal audit division and property services who I used to work for were heavily regulated and heavily audited. I think that’s put me in good standing to be able to go to our clients and say I understand what a client needs, what a client should have and I know where the pitfalls are and every day’s a school day erm, and we’re going to learn about clients but I feel that with what Livingston can do is actually develop with the clients a really good robust because what we’d want to try and do is de-risk for them remove that potential for failure or faults.

And where do you currently see when you’re working with clients at Livingston where are you currently seeing or is it a regular pattern of where you see faults and where their kind of critical business plans are failing?

I think from what I’m seeing at the moment is a lot of clients don’t quite understand the terms concurrently maintainable, fault tolerant. They believe they have resilience but it’s a very basic resilience, not every client actually understands what resilience means which is you need to keep up time, you need to keep going, you need to have continuous operations and what we want to be able to do is to say look, we can come in, we can audit you, we can assist you and really develop those for them. We’re not saying every client has got major issues, shut shop and walk away what we’re saying is there is definite gaps because people aren’t spending the time and money or they’re not afforded the time to be able to do training and understand the systems.

So why then do you think it was or now was the right time for you to take that leap away from NatWest Group into Livingston?

As I said it’s family reasons, was a prime one but I saw the vision that Livingston’s had, I know there’s a big gap in the marketplace both in data centres and critical office areas, pharmaceuticals, where people need that assistance and Livingston’s had the dream and it can be turned into reality so for me to leave a role that I had to come into Livingston’s should demonstrate to people that I’ve got firm belief that the morals and the values that Livingston have got are going to come to fruition

And I guess after spending such a long time with Natwest and obviously as our chief engineer this must be quite a passion for you?

You know, critical engineering for me is not just data centres, it’s wherever a business cannot afford to be offline. Data centres are very much at the forefront, everybody needs technology. And I think where my passion comes from is there is always that opportunity to help people, get them to understand because I think if we can get people to understand risks, understand what resiliency means, understand how they should be delivering a service it’s going to make life easier for everyone and it’s a big opportunity to try to get your thoughts, your soul out to different people. I always used to say to all of the guys who used to work on our maintenance teams the biggest thing you’ll remember is no one wants to eat prison food – because the thing with infrastructure is, if you don’t have the skills, knowledge and experience it can be a dangerous place. So you’ve got to come into work thinking that you have got a role, you’ve got a responsibility but also you’ve got the autonomy if something isn’t safe, you don’t do it, you stop or you switch to off and I think that’s a big piece, people need to have the confidence that they’re being given that autonomy to actually act.

And are you seeing a skills gap in the market right now when it comes to working in these critical environments?

There is a big skills gap, and I think the reason why there’s a skills gap is people believe that once you’re an electrician or electrical engineer that you can evolve into any role. You can as long as you have the right skills, knowledge and experience. It’s very much so that you can be a very, very competent person building houses, doing small office fit outs you start to get to very complex LV like low voltage or HV high voltage networks, data centres where everything is uber critical it’s a different skill, it’s a different requirement and you need to have a different mindset and I think this is where that skills gap is.

On your journey now with Livingston, what’s the key principle or value that you’re going to take forward what’s going to help shape how you run this side of the business?

I think it has to be collaboration and the one thing I will always say is that as a contractor you know what you can deliver. Some clients know what they want but don’t know quite how it is to be delivered. It has to be you are a trusted advisor and you are living the values of not only Livingston’s but the client. So, the one value is getting to understand, know the client and actually understand what they need. And I think that’s something that people don’t do and that Livingston’s critical engineering will be doing is actually understanding the client needs. It doesn’t necessarily mean every opportunity is going to become a project you could just say to them you don’t need to actually spend the money and that’s that trusted piece.

So, what advice would you give those starting out in this industry?

Never cut corners, spend the time learning, every day has to be a school day and as well as doing formal education there’s lots of free courses that you can do online there’s courses on LinkedIn, certain original equipment manufacturers have their own schools and colleges which are free courses part of continued professional development, never get to the point whereby you feel I’ve done my academic, I’m done. You’ve got to evolve with the way that the world is working the new AI technology is going to mean that systems are going to become more complex it’s just because you’ve got AI it doesn’t mean it’s going to be quicker, simpler and easier. Every day learn and if you’re not sure ask the questions be brave to say I don’t know the answer because the person that you want to trust most is someone who says I don’t know but I know who to go to or where to go to, that’s what people have to understand.

I think that’s a great piece of advice that one simple thing I’ve said if you don’t know ask because you don’t know what you don’t know and if you don’t know and you ask then you will know something that I say to people if they come into my team if you don’t know ask because then both of us are going to get on quicker

Yeah, exactly that, every day is a school day

And finally, is there anything you would do differently in your career

I think if I knew some of what I know now before I probably would have done some of my higher education a bit earlier. I’d done my master’s degree when I was 42. Probably left it a little bit too late because my children were doing their school exams and it was a nightmare at the house. And it’s very difficult doing it but I think what that demonstrates to people is that I live by that value which is you need to re-educate, you need to continually develop so to my younger self it would have been as well as doing the work carry on doing the formal education but I think that wouldn’t have made me the person I am now because I had to develop along the route so I think that’s the one thing I would probably change is could I have done more education at that time formally but on the other hand I think what I have demonstrated by when I’ve done my master’s is living by my own values which is you have to continually adapt.

You’ve walked the walk. Ian, thank you.

Thank you very much Emma