APAC Executive Search: Talent & AI

Want a front-row seat to how real leadership gets built across Asia Pacific? We sit down with Olly Riches, Managing Partner at Page Executive APAC, to unpack the moves, mindsets, and mistakes that shape careers and companies in the world’s most diverse region. From his early days in London’s high-pressure sales culture to choosing the harder path in Shanghai, Olly shares how listening beat bravado, why localising leadership makes growth stick, and how to empower teams when everyone expects you to have all the answers.

We dive deep into what boards really want now: proven transformation experience, authentic AI fluency at the top table, and leaders who can design compelling employee value propositions that retain restless high performers. Olly breaks down how talent dynamics have evolved; why fast promotions can create brittle leaders, why succession planning can’t be an annual exercise, and how the best companies turn mid-managers into resilient executives. Country by country, we explore APAC’s contrasts: Australia’s balance conundrum, China’s in-office momentum, Singapore’s tightening permits, Hong Kong’s renewed energy, Indonesia’s localisation success, and India’s vast potential that still struggles to attract expats.

Along the way, we talk resilience during crisis, hiring ahead of the curve, and the role of values as a compass when context shifts. We also get practical about AI: not a replacement for good leaders, but a force multiplier that frees time for real relationships and sharper follow-through. If you’re aiming for senior leadership, Olly’s advice is crisp and actionable: be unmissable, take the stretch roles others dodge, and keep learning the why behind your people because it changes.

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Tune in for an inspiring conversation that will leave you equipped with the tools to lead with confidence, overcome obstacles and unlock The Power Within

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: APAC Leadership

Keith 0:00

Welcome to the Power Within, the podcast that uncovers the real stories and strategies behind leadership and personal growth. I keep power, and in each episode, I sit down with inspiring individuals who face challenges, built resilience, and discovered what it takes to lead with impact. Through their journeys, we'll explore the mindsets and tools that drive meaningful success. If you're ready to grow, lead, and unlock your true potential, you're in the right place. Ollie Richard is the managing partner for Page Executive in Asia Pacific with a career spanning more than two decades in recruitment and executive search. He's built and led businesses in multiple markets, helping companies find the leaders who not only fit the role but shape the future. What does it take to lead one of the world's top executive search firms across the most dynamic, diverse, and complex regions on the planet? Asia Pacific is home to booming economies, disruptive industries, and fast-changing leadership needs. At the heart of it, guiding CEOs, boards, and organizations through transformation is today's guest. Today we'll uncover what he's learned about leadership in this rapidly changing region, the qualities of standout executives, and how his own journey has shaped the way he leads at the top of his field. Ollie, so what first drew you into executive search and how did those early years shape your view of leadership and of talent?

Olly 1:56

You'll speak to a lot of people in executive search. Very few of us went to university thinking we'll end up in executive search. It's one of those industries you you sort of sometimes fall into. So I started my career with Nike on their sort of management programme. Two years on a on a shop floor was what was panned out for me to learn the products and learn the customers and the traditional management route. I had a friend of mine who was working for a boutique search firm in London who said to me, Look, come and have a chat with this guy. He's quite interesting. So I said, Why not? I had to spend about two days putting um trainers on ladies, realizing that maybe it wasn't my forte.

Keith 2:32

Um that sounds interesting.

Olly 2:35

That's how the job was sold. Um and despite the gift of the gab, I realised that was two years of doing that was probably going to test me. So I met this guy and I arrived at his office. Uh, and outside of his office was an AC Cobra. And I was like, okay, that's cool. It's a bit different. Um he was the ex-global head of HR for a big tech uh systems company, and he'd pivoted into executive search. I had a conversation with him, I was 22 at the time, he was looking for for a researcher, and he was interesting because he brought in two gentlemen from the military who'd never worked in the corporate world at all. And I was quite taken by by these individuals as someone who's not from the military. There's quite a compelling side to that in terms of what they what they bring. And so, long story short, that was my first. I I moved from the Nike thing into it was all about the AC Cobra. It was basically the AC Cobra and a little bit of the military side. But um that was my first step into it, and that was interesting because I got to see the trappings of success in the corporate world 15, 20 years down the line, because what these guys specialized in was partner-level search for the big four. Um so you're talking £800,000 plus sort of salaries. My job was to research the market and and um be a support person, but the the military side of things was all around preparation, all around executive presence and building trust, which got me into that industry and thinking, well, it's all around people and relationships with some commercial savvy as well. In hindsight, it was a bit of a boot camp, it was it was tough, and I learned an awful lot in those first sort of 12 months. That then I was always keen to go internationally, and obviously working for a small firm was not going to enable that. Even at that young age, you had that thought. I did, because I I'd grown up between Paris and London. So my my dad had had an international career, and so we always had this sort of I always had this view that I I saw my career going into sort of the the international sphere. So the guy who owned this company knew the CEO of Page Group. I think the CEO of Page Group was I think buying his house. It's all very tenuous. Wow. So that's how I got introduced to the CEO of of Michael Page at the time in London, who were well known for their meritocracy-based approach that it didn't matter how old you were, there was going to be given opportunities. And obviously the time were looking to grow globally, so it was it was a good fit. And I I was in London for four years with that. It was I think if you've seen the film Boiler Room, it's not too far off to the restaurant. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, the other sort of always be closing, the uh work hard, play hard. Yeah, yeah. At the time it was eight in the morning to eight at uh in the evening. And if you've if you stood up at 7:30 to to start going home, you were told you were having a half day, and it was all but it was good fun and um a lot of carrots as as well. So that was a fast and steep learning curve.

Keith 5:18

So you're older than you look then?

Boiler Room To Global Moves

Olly 5:20

No, no, no. I am slightly older than I look. I hope I put my hand up for international moves, as I said, and Singapore came up uh as an option. I was 27 at the time.

Keith 5:32

In practical terms, how did that work? We say too blithely, not oh, put my hand up, but in the corporate world, how does that actually manifan out? How does it manifest itself?

Shanghai Over Singapore: The Leap

Olly 5:43

It's a good question. And that's to this day, it's a challenge. So we used to put it in a you have an annual review and you'd put, you know, what are your aspirations, international move. Your boss would look at that and go, Well, I'll ignore that because if you're if you're billing a lot of money, then you're gonna he's clearly not to give a go. Oh, great news to HR, Ollie would like to leave my team. It was really through conversations with my my managing director at the time who was keen to sort of support the the growth of that, and he was obviously involved in the strategy of globalization of the business too. So I was asked to have a look at Singapore, and I was I I came over here to have a look. Whilst I was here, the head of Asia Pacific said, Would you mind just going back via Shanghai? So back to London via Shanghai. We had a license to operate in China, but we hadn't done at that time much with it as a foreign company. And I said, Sure, I'm I'm on a trip. Uh it was my first business trip, so it was all paid for, and I was like, I was enjoying it. So it sounds very cheesy, but as soon as I sort of got into the city, I was like, wow, this is this is different. The buzz and the energy, and also it was a blank sheet of paper.

Keith 6:43

What year was that, Ollie?

Olly 6:45

2006. Right. So I had the option of either coming to Singapore and adding 10, 15% to somebody else's previous work, or I had the option to go to Shanghai as a 27, 28-year-old at the time to be part of a new leadership team going into China for the first time, and that was quite compelling for me.

Keith 7:01

Compelling, exciting, no fear?

Olly 7:04

Not really fear at the time. I bear in mind, I come out of London, I was in London, I was quite confident in myself. I'd been telling everybody, listen, I wanted an international career, so I'd kind of positioned myself to go, well, yeah, yeah, I can't really back down now. Very supportive parents who, as I said, had had business overseas as well. So that that helped. There was part of me thinking, what's the worst can happen if you go home? And at that age, that that that was not so much to lose at that age, right? I didn't think so. I was up for the adventure. I I knew that couldn't see myself getting the tube to work every day for the next 15-20 years in in London. That was not gonna to win it for me. So the other part was the the couple of people who'd moved to China, so that the head of China and and one of the the leadership team who I was joining were really enthused. They'd been there three, four months and had had sort of seen it. So everything was in front of you. And in the business we're in, it's it's all about access. And you could see very quickly that multinationals were beginning to look at China, and then I mean the world's come a long way since, but at that time China was kind of the um the wild east, and and nobody really knew peak opening.

Keith 8:11

I went there in 2008, so I recognised that time and had exactly the same feeling on land, and it's like, oh wow, right? You know, you feel it immediately in Shanghai then.

Olly 8:21

Many would ask me why are you not going to Singapore or Hong Kong, which at the time was the traditional route for an expat. And that's what made me want to go to Shanghai was well, I don't want to follow the masses, otherwise I'd stay in London. So that was my first sort of big move in my career, I would say. And that was the sliding doors moment that people allude to. If if I hadn't done that, what would my career look like? I don't know. And look I clearly you give up things in in the UK, you you miss the sort of the family, the friends, the the live sport, and all the other things which you get very used to. But when you went when I went back to London sort of six months after for a wedding and realized that I was talking things that people were genuinely interested to hear about because it was all new and and different, and that that appealed to me as well and my personality.

Keith 9:03

Oh, it sounds fascinating, and I wish I I've had this conversation with you before. I wish that I'd entered into executive search myself 15, 20 years ago. It's just an area that always fascinated me because it feels like you need to have such a comprehensive skill set in there. It's like a mini business environment completely, right? But at the core of that is people relationships, yeah. Managing across Asia Pacific, though, now as you do, that means navigating different cultures, economies, and expectations. How have you adapted and adopted your leadership style to succeed across such diversity?

Olly 9:46

It's probably the favourite part of the job is the diversity. I learned very quickly when I moved to Shanghai, actually, the uh piece of advice I was given was leave London behind. But people are not interested as you think as interested as you think about your war stories from London and lean into what's ahead. Don't don't keep leaning into what's behind you. It's an easy thing to do because your comfort zone, particularly if you're in a very different environment, is to look at what do I know and how do I impart that knowledge.

Learning To Lead Across Cultures

Keith 10:12

And I stop you there, because I think that's one of the strongest pieces of advice I've heard of anyone sitting in that chair to lean into and forward and not on resting on your laurels, talking about your past successes and war stories, they're meaningless, right? So the audience you're talking to, yeah, that's what I mean.

Olly 10:30

100%. You've you've already got a point of difference, obviously, because you're in a in a different country. And that was really useful because it made me listen. Okay. And that's as we know, in in any business context, the biggest skill, one of the hardest skills is to listen, especially if you've been brought into a country to drive growth. So the expectation is on you to just make things happen. The reality is it's not you. It's it's you're you're creating an a framework to enable people. The environment 100%. And so when you look at across Asia Pacific, that's the one piece of advice I give to my leadership now. Is and yeah, there's a mixture of expats and and people from from the region, and it's an easy thing to say, it's not an easy thing to do necessarily consistently, but that has enabled me to to really enjoy the uh the diversity of the region because you're then learning you know, every time you go to a different country, you're learning a different perspective often. And we've we've uh driven a localization um uh policy across most of our businesses for the last 10, 15, 20 years now, which is the sustainable way of of doing it. And the world has moved on, the days of of expats coming in for two years, rotating uh have gone. Uh the days of the the large expat benefits packages have gone. They are long gone. Long gone, um which wish I'd known that at the time. But um so and I'm in the industry, so I should have known that at the time. I think this, you know, you you always feel like a guest in a country. So and I travel extensively, and and that's always something which if you step off the plane, you realise you you don't know everything and you're there to learn as much from good attitude to have. I'm a guest and I'm here to learn, right?

Keith 12:03

And you learn more with this and these than you ever do with this.

Olly 12:06

You do, and obviously you're a chameleon. So when I'm talking to stakeholders, I know everything, and I am the knowledge, but that knowledge has been gained from a multitude of people, and that empowerment doesn't necessarily always come in a multinational company. Whether it's China, India, parts of Southeast Asia, you know, people join multinational companies for for the training, for the fact they have a multinational company on their CV, they don't necessarily expect empowerment. Uh they expect to be told what to do and and a little bit of a point and shoot mentality.

Keith 12:35

Especially in in China, and I recall seeing the reaction when I said, Oh, I don't know what do you think. They're shocked at first because they expect you to come in with all the answers. Once you get past that point, it's brilliant. But initially, they're expecting you to point and shoot, as you put it.

Olly 12:55

They are, and and this is where learning about a new culture and country is important first, because yes, it's clearly much more hierarchical than than maybe where we've come from. And so, as a result, that's the default. It's not it's not a lack of confidence, it's just that's how you've been brought into the corporate world. Um sense of humour, patience all come into this as well, because you you don't get the results quickly. And we'd say to to companies a lot, this is not a quick win, whichever part of Asia you're you're opening up, and it's it's not going to be a quick win. And it's mainly because the business culture in Asia, as as we know, is really relationship-driven. Absolutely, it's as much about who you know as anything else. Absolutely.

Keith 13:29

Having said that, though, uh they are far more open to new relationships than I think you would be in London, for example. Your network is your network. Here, your network is the beginning of it, and it branches out. We had this discussion just before how you get to meet people, they're open to that. But you've got to know some to start, and then it grows and grows.

Olly 13:52

And and this is the interest when you meet other expats, it's often about you're talking about who you've met, who you who you know. If you're in a a more mature market, it's a different conversation. Uh and this is I think what keeps people in the region is that access to to people is is good because fundamentally you're in the same boat. You're all in it together. In a way, and it that's that's quite a compelling piece as well. So the varieties, but yeah, APAC as as we all know is is incredibly diverse. Um, I was in Australia two weeks ago, mature market. I think fair to say work-life balance is a very prominent part of culture. I think it's gone too far the wrong way in Australia. I think many would agree with you, um, uh, particularly those running businesses in Australia. Exactly. Um and that's also interesting when you're in in Asia running Australia or overseeing Australia. In Asia, it's yeah, I was in China and 90% of our workforce uh in China are back in the office five days a week and wanted it. Yeah. That is very different in in some other parts of the region where getting to work is a lot easier. It's a very interesting region. It's a hard region to leave. And I know you've sort of come back. I've tried and I'm back. And I'm staying long term now. The nature of what I do, clearly, I talk to a lot of people who are at that either pivot point or planning ahead. It's very rarely someone says to me, Oli, can you can you help me find a role in the US or back in Europe or the UK? Maybe another country, another exciting adventure. With an APAC, absolutely. And I think it's the diversity, particularly if you've got to a regional level. It's and I was talking to someone the other day who said, I've been offered a role back in the UK. I'll be you know traveling to Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester. Currently, I'm traveling to Sydney, Mumbai, Tokyo. And I was like, Well, I think you've answered your question.

Localisation, Expats, And Empowerment

Keith 15:32

There you go. End the conversation. Interestingly, when I was coming here, I was called on holiday by my boss's boss, as it was, but my boss had told me, You're gonna get a call. He's interested in sending you to Asia Pacific, but I was supposed to not know this. So then he said, When you come back from holiday, I'd like to have a chat with you about your future. And you don't want your boss's boss saying that, but I knew, so I was comfortable. But he was famous, infamous, for having his little pocket notes for his meetings. And as he's going through there, one of them he said, APAC experience. Oh, yes, you've lived and worked in Australia. No more questions. I knew absolutely nothing about the rest of Asia, but from his perspective, he's American. You've lived in Australia, you're an APAC expert, so I came in under false pretences. This is why you should use a headhunter case. No, I'm glad I didn't then got in. Probably that's a fair point. No, no, no, absolutely right. So, what shifts are you seeing, though, in what boards and CEOs now look for in senior leaders compared to a decade or two decades ago? It's shifted, but how are you seeing that?

Olly 16:40

It has well, it's clearly shifted, uh, and there's been some major events which have probably accelerated that shift. I you don't have a meeting these days without talking about AI, and we are seeing a shift at board level where there's a leaning into AI rather than a fear of or a wait and see that that's moved now to we need to embrace it that's happened in the last two years, though, right? It has, and it's it's accelerating further, and you'll see you'll see the Nvidia piece and everything else. But as a result, we are talking to clients a lot around how do we embrace this. And it's not necessarily somebody learning a new skill, it's not always as easy as a CEO or a chief operating officer to suddenly sort of pivot and go, right, I'm an AI expert. So we're seeing a lot of this in the succession planning side, so that the future leadership, they're the ones being positioned. And probably the role or skill set in highest demand at the moment across the region is transformation experience. So people who've been through that have proven that they can take a company through that transition from what through that digital transformation piece, those roles are very prominent. Um, but the other side, which is more on the soil, I suppose the HR softer side is the agility of the workforce. The days of people like myself working in companies for 20 25 years are a rarer and rarer. I remember being in in Indonesia and someone asked me, Well, why do I not have ambition? Because I'd I'd stayed in the same company for so long. I was well, the mindset has has shifted that variety is everything as as we know with that demographic. So the leadership of now and moving forward is that that ability to be agile, which then correlates to the how do you have an EVP? And we're seeing a lot of questions at sort of uh assessment level around designing and implementing an EVP for a business, coupled then with succession planning. So a lot more of a people focus. So people in a high growth market, maybe 10 years ago, in in where you know everything was moving forward, particularly in Asia, which was emerging, you could get away with it, it papered over the cracks. You cannot do that now. And there's a so many sort of unknowns that companies are having to pivot pretty quickly, and that is not easy as a leader. So surrounding yourself with the right people has become even more prominent, and that diversity piece is also shifted. It does go in stages. I mean, two years ago, post-COVID, DNI, sustainability, ESG were hot topics, and there were there were thousands of podcasts on those topics. Suddenly it's anti-D D and I extremely. And your culture's changed again. And you've got people who are putting in place five-year programs to position your company. And what do you do with those now? Because you can't necessarily take it away because then you're you're pin quite far.

Keith 19:17

The other thing, it's it's not just at that board level. We'll go back to China, we always revert to China, but there, if you haven't promoted a high potential in two years, they're gone. They're literally, they they make themselves agile. You're not providing the pathway for me. I'm not going to sit here and have my resume look old and dated that I stuck with this company. And you lose talent, right?

APAC Market Contrasts And Mobility

Olly 19:40

It's a really interesting point because we we look at this a lot in terms of the leadership of the future. If you're in a rush in your career to move up, and we understand and we're the same, yeah, people get promoted three times in four years, yeah. And then they get to a leadership level, which as we know challenges them. It does, because you need experience, you need war stories, you you need to know what good looks like, but also to go through. Through some challenges. If you've been promoted that many times, you haven't been through many challenges. You don't have resilience. Correct. You've ridden a market. And particularly prominent in multinational companies where business comes to you very often. That is the challenge for companies right now. Is how do we, if we continue to localize, because of what we said earlier about no longer necessarily bringing expats in, and there's reasons for that as well to do with employment permits and other facts.

Keith 20:21

I don't think it's as black and white as that. I think it's less so, but post-COVID, I've seen that there is a call again for some expats, but for very specific activities, actions, and experiences, not broad any longer. You you bring something very specific that's missing in this region, this country, this team, or whatever.

Olly 20:44

Yes, and and that that's true. And particularly in areas like um technology and sort of more niche markets, as you say. And this is, I think it's a very interesting dynamic to see where it goes. Because what we are seeing is a lot of training development companies who are now using that vacuum in terms of a leadership who's got to sort of mid-management and then that step up to senior leadership. If you've all if you've got to mid-management in the space of five, six years, it's a tough thing to then suddenly go up. And a lot of that's around communication, stakeholder management, you know, different perspective, different skill sets. So uh you're right, there are there are expats clearly in in the workforce who have their roles. It's interesting. Company countries like Indonesia have really moved quite far further than people realise around that localization.

Keith 21:30

I've lost sight of Indonesia and been reading up recently, has really come along in leaps and bounds in the last few years.

Olly 21:37

It was force because you it was very hard to get uh You were based there for a while, I was in Jakarta for eight years, and 80% of the the hiring we did roughly was Indonesian talent. That we did a lot of work to bring Indonesians back from overseas. Oh, okay. Mainly because it was very hard to get visas for for expats or get visas which gave you more than two years, which was hard to bring people from other countries with families to say you could be moving again in two years' time. Um so it kind of prompted a real push on localisation, which is not a bad thing. Indonesia has its other dynamics, but in terms of the workforce, there are it's a you know the the leadership which has come through is now becoming more and more prominent. Don't get me wrong, Thailand, Malaysia, others have also got localisation. Singapore is the one which was interesting because Singapore, as we know, is famous for being very expat, very much a centre of excellence for the region and a hub. I think it's well known. Employment permits have got harder to acquire now. And some of that is clearly to protect the Singaporean workforce to try and bring Singaporean talent through to those more senior levels, which is then creating challenges for companies as well in terms of being very used to bringing in experienced um talent and now having to go, well, we now need to invest in the grassroots.

Keith 22:48

I came here 17 years ago, and six months in, this is unheard of now, I had a letter inviting me to apply for permanent residency. I don't know anyone who gets anything like that anymore. I was on a very good salary, commanding a big workforce, etc. And I remember throwing it in the bin and telling my secretary, I'm not staying here for long. And look, here I am. So I am a PR now, but I was a dependent on my wife as a PR, and my wife and my two children have become Singaporeans, so we're kind of staying here. But those who want to stay here now, who've been here for a while and are applying for PR, is really not easy any longer.

Olly 23:28

It's not, and there's been an interesting trend because previously it was very hard to get somebody from Singapore to move to a Bangkok or a Jakarta. Really hard. They go to Shanghai, but nowhere else. 100%. And and it's maybe Hong Kong, but it's now you've got Dubai and Riyadh are a genuine option for people. Not necessarily their first option, but it is an option. And we are seeing people now moving to the emerging markets or or the the Southeast Asian markets, not in big droves, but it is beginning to become something which isn't seen as why have they done that? It's actually seen as well. Well, that's interesting. Can a can a business build its regional hub from Bangkok, for example, is a question now being asked. Kuala Lumpur is is really positioned as a global shared service center hub, and that then attracts a lot of interest from a talent perspective as well. So why would you have your your senior leadership team in Singapore but your group support heads in in KL is a question we get asked quite a lot. So I think it's an interesting time for Singapore. Singapore is still very much where the default decisions tend to be made, but it's it's uh there's lots of options for it as well, right?

What Boards Want Now: AI And Transformation

Keith 24:32

You know, it's interconnectivity, language, uh an easy place to live, etc. etc. School initiative, tax benefit. He didn't want to say that, but it's right up there, right? It is right up there from a personal perspective and from a company or corporate perspective. It's pretty hard to fight against. And we had a short conversation before coming in here. Singapore had been draining everything away from Hong Kong, but that tide seems to be turning a little bit.

Olly 24:58

I was in Hong Kong earlier this week, and it's it seems to have got its mojo back, maybe not to the same extent as previous days, but certainly a lot more than the last 12-18 months. Um, a real energy, there's a lot of IPO activity, which is obviously where Hong Kong is is positioned well. A lot of Chinese investment, you know, Hong Kong used to be the gateway into China. Of course. It's now the you know, a lot of investment coming out through Hong Kong from China. The de facto China investment platform, right? It's being proactive in terms of attracting its talent back. I mean, Hong Kong lost quite a lot of its its talent in the last couple of years, but it's being it's keen to get it back, and there's some good reasons to you know to to look at Hong Kong again in a in a positive light. There's a real demand for talent in this part of the world, particularly leadership talent, and there's very hard to know what where those positions exist. So if you are in America right now, how do you know what opportunities lie in Asia? It's really difficult. No, I agree. And that's so that's where you come in, though. Well, that that wasn't my pitch, but it is it is part of it. Well, it is to bridge that that gap. Um and we we continually been communicating with with colleagues in the US. What has slowed down is people from this side of the world wanting to move to the US, which was also the other dynamic, was do two, three years in China and then move over to another part of the world. That's certainly slowed down. We're seeing now people wanting to move within Asia rather than further further afield. There are obviously some factors which are at play right now around getting visas in the US and other parts of it as well. But I think if you spoke to most parents, this is a bit stereotyping, Ivy League or elsewhere, they'd still go Ivy League for education.

Keith 26:34

So 100% still has the pool. And it's costly to do that, and the best families think quite literally, I'm gonna buy the best for my children, but they still have to be up to the mark to be accepted in the Ivy League, right?

Olly 26:46

It's not entirely different if you're working for a you know a Korean firm, a Japanese firm. Yeah, it's hard to get right to the top of those companies unless you're from the country. Yeah. So there is that rigidity as well. It's I think the American side of things is they'll come in and do the what they want to do with the way they want to do it. It's not entirely dissimilar with other other countries as well, to be fair. But again, this is back to our point that this is why Asia Pack is is a real interesting and it's a great microcosm of the world.

Keith 27:12

It's the most diverse part of the world that I know, and you can't get bored here. It's impossible to get bored in Asia.

Olly 27:19

Right, and that that's exactly what I say to people is like you you try trying to replicating this anywhere else. And if you're running Southeast Asia, for example, you've got six countries there, all with their own dynamics, all with their own business cultures, everything, all fiercely independent of each other. Multinationals, us included, tend to lump Southeast Asia as one region and we report the results as Southeast Asia. Reality is that's six very different countries with huge potential growth. That's very hard to find. I mean, Latin America potentially, but it's becoming you go around the region and and you see more and more people who are really enthused by what they're saying. It is not easy. And that's what people soon realize that you have to learn the country, you have to learn.

Keith 28:00

It is much harder now. The time you spoke about 2006, 2008. I'm gonna be honest, I think you could come in with a modicum of decent talent and some leadership skills and do extremely well in China. But now it's a tough environment in China. They are living in the real world, competing everywhere. The growth, the double-digit growth, is long gone. It will never return no matter what the government does. It's a different environment. I think I've seen people being found out as well who didn't have that full skill set, and now in this tough environment, are finding it difficult. So the exodus out of China, driven by COVID, of course, some of that also is a lack of commitment, a lack of resilience, a lack of skill. They can't hack it.

Olly 28:50

No, no, I'll I'll throw India into the mix because India is an interesting one because different, exactly, so different, hugely different. And this is the region, you know, you've got Japan, which is has its own ecosystem, and then you've got India, and then somewhere in between, you've got China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia, so and Southeast Asia. So, but India is proven very difficult to attract expat talent. It's the country who actually would welcome expat talent. And I always think when you know, I went to China, what was it 15, 20 years ago? If I was 10 years younger, I would go to Mumbai and build my career. It's exactly the same thing that happened in China. People who went to China at that stage, you know, China grew, they their careers grew with it. Because they, yes, you'd had the adventurous spirit, entrepreneurial spirit to do it. India's has its own eco, it's not China, it's it's a very different thing, but it's it's growing at a rate of knots, and there's career opportunities there. It is very hard to attract senior talent to to India compared to pretty much everywhere else in in this region. I mean, we we will find it easier to attract talent to Tokyo, for example, which is not an easy business culture to learn quickly, as you know, and yet there's a pull factor to go to Japan. I know. Which we're saying, well, look, Mumbai's growing at this rate, or India's growing at this rate, it needs all the leadership in terms of how you build layers, sustainable business growth, uh, access to the senior end, communication out of India in terms of what expectation looks like. Um, India's been one of our top growing businesses in the last five seconds.

Keith 30:12

They've also, on the flip side, lost a lot of the most senior talent from India to especially to America. You have a look at a lot of the top leaders in America that they are Indian.

Olly 30:23

And this is the the the interesting thing. I mean, when you're there, you go a lot of people you talk to, Ollie, can you help me get a job in elsewhere? Yeah. Um, but you've got the opportunities here.

Keith 30:32

Yeah.

Olly 30:33

So that's a that's a really interesting way where the the market's fantastic.

Talent Velocity, Succession, And EVPs

Keith 30:36

Interesting, you said Mumbai. Out of choice for me, it would be Bangalore or Delhi for different reasons, but it depends what industry you're in, right?

Olly 30:44

In the business I run is is a new team we've set up in or setting up in Bangalore. That that's got a lot, a lot happening there as well. Nice city as well.

Keith 30:52

That's yeah, very livable. Yeah, and the the weather is really a nice, nice pattern there. Not the same as uh Delhi, that's for sure. Let's talk about resilience. We've mentioned it a few times. In in your experience, what separates those who thrive through these uncertain times and those who struggle?

Olly 31:08

It's a simple answer to a complex piece, but um having a plan uh is is important. And I'll give an example during during COVID, we made a decision as a business to grow, where a lot of companies were either in limbo or inertia or just waiting to see how it panned, and understandably, because it was uh you know something no one had ever been through before. We made the decision to to to grow. So we we grew by around a thousand uh feeling globally, with the view that when we came out of the pandemic, which at some point you were going to, we'd be well positioned to hit that growth curve. Others would be underinvested. 100%. And that that enabled us to have the right conversations with the right people, to stay resilient, to stay patient. Um, it was a very simple message. We're growing. So it's a mindset thing. It's a mindset thing. And it's it's also having perspective, is the other piece. And I was doing a workshop with the Singapore Cancer Society a few weeks ago, individuals who've obviously gone through a pretty horrendous experience and are now coming back into the workforce and how to position themselves in the workforce. And the word we used, which I said, what what separates you more than anything else from a soft skill perspective? And it's it's clearly resilience. That if you're a if you're hiring somebody and you're comparing between three people, I know where I would go into. It's a no-brainer, right? Well, the proof is there. It is the perspective as well. So resilience comes in many forms, but it's that bold approach, but also keeping things in perspective, it's easier said than done, clearly.

Keith 32:28

How's your own leadership style evolved over your career? And what lessons stand out as turning points or sliding door moments or whatever you want to call them? See, I'm usually the other side of this conversation. So I'm enjoying this. And I don't mean I should be.

Olly 32:43

Yeah, it's it is phases. I I think I came out of London thinking I knew everything as a 26, 27 year old. You should. Yeah, you are part of your environment, but uh it is a little bit survival of the fittest, and your your willpower, work ethic, force of personality sort of got got things moving. As we've touched on, you know, the China experience really, really was a big moment in my career to realise I didn't know everything, and and I had a pretty binary approach to leap approach to leadership, which I then evolved, and empowerment and trust became quite a big part of that. I joined a business in London which already had a culture, so I didn't need to work on that. I joined a business in China which had four people, you had to create and I created a culture and I loved it. And that that was the main part. It is, and it's fun, and people forget fun's a big part of being in the in the you know, you live once, so you want to try and enjoy it in the business world. So that culture, and then building cultures in different environments, different businesses, and in different stages of evolution has been a lot of the time I've spent. I moved from China to Malaysia and then Indonesia, and the business cultures were very different again, but the same thing maintained that if you can build a culture which enables people to feel part of the business, however big a multinational you are.

Keith 33:53

But when you first moved, could I be so bold as to suggest it was a little bit of a humbling experience in China then?

Olly 34:00

I was surrounded by people who are much more experienced than me, both in outside of my business, the interactions I was having. So that that that makes you grow up quick. You're also away from the safety net. Yes. So you're having to make decisions for yourself, which are is all part of growing up, is the truth. But I I think from a sliding doors moment, it's actually uh I was asked to become the chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce right at the beginning of COVID. So I'd had a you know successful time in China, riding the China growth, and then set up a business in Indonesia, which I had got noticed, and and I was asked to join the the British Chamber, and then two years later asked to become the chairman, which was 16 president directors or or CEOs of multinational businesses from the the Rolls-Royces of this world to Unilevers and far, far bigger organisations than what I was working for, all going through COVID, all trying to work out how to navigate their workforce during that time, how to position their business during that time, following blueprints from overseas. But the reality was Indonesia was was not particularly well equipped to deal with COVID. So that was a a baptism of fire for me in terms of leadership, because all eyes looked at me to have the answers, which I clearly wasn't going to have.

Country Spotlights: Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong

Keith 35:07

So ironically, outside your mainstream work is where you found some leadership experience to grow.

Olly 35:13

It was. And it's about to the spot I I've always had this view that I I never say no to opportunities because that's how I learn, and that that's for me the same thing.

Keith 35:20

You know the difference I look in on there. That one is very much leadership by consent, which is what you try to experience within your job, but oftentimes the stripes you wear in your sleeve go before you. But if you were working with a chamber of commerce or any other non-profit, you have to have the consent of the members and the people following you. So it's a different style of leadership required.

Olly 35:45

It was very different. Also, I'd spend most of my time managing down because I was coming into countries to set them up, and suddenly I was surrounded by people 100% who were much more experienced than me. And it gave me a lot of confidence because um my methods that I'd had and had worked, and then I evolved and you know I was brought in two or three people around me who who were my sort of the inner circle, I suppose, of that, which uh and they were hugely useful. And you realise that actually, you know, if if you are honest, people will reciprocate that if you for sure.

Keith 36:13

It doesn't matter what culture that that is. We've we've talked and talked around Asia Pacific and all the countries, etc. But at the heart of everything is human people. At the heart of recruitment is people's lives and careers. How do you balance business objectives with the human impact of executive placements?

Olly 36:37

It's a good question. A question I get asked a lot, um, both internally and and externally. And there is um there is a reputation with the recruitment industry around are humans just a number. Customer service is the biggest differentiator for a recruitment firm. Fundamentally, we we all offer a pretty similar service. It's the customer service which comes from the human aspect. It's also the piece which is easiest to forget when you're in a results-driven environment and results are needed every two weeks in terms of reports and and everything else like that. I fully understand the question and it's it's it's not unfounded. I think you find the more senior end of the market, it becomes a little bit different. Why? Because you're dealing with less people, is the truth. And relationships by then you you're usually 15-20 years into your career, so you actually become more qualitative by that point. It does, but it only takes one or two examples where if you've worked with a finance manager earlier in their career and you know you haven't come back to them on something, you haven't given them feedback from an interview, or you've you haven't phoned them when you said you were going to phone them. People remember these things a lot more sometimes than they remember who actually found them, who helped them find the job.

Keith 37:42

But they'll hold a grudge.

Olly 37:44

Oh, they don't. I've had conversations with people who say, Well, why won't you use us? Well, you know, 10 years ago, yeah, you gave me poor service as a company, and it's not not me, it's the company, and they're now a CFO, and and they've you know their careers grow up. And this is what we continue to remind people that people start here, but they they will move up a ladder and they will have decision-making responsibility. Yeah, the one piece which is really disrupting this is AI. So AI is giving our fee earners or our consultants time because a lot of the admins now taken care of by AI, which enables them to have more time in market, which enables you to have better quality conversations, but also follow-up. AI is has really sort of enabled that to push us forward in terms of customer service, not just ourselves, but that's where AI has been really useful. And I get asked a lot, is AI going to take over the recruitment industry? It wasn't long ago. We were asked, is LinkedIn gonna take over the recruitment industry?

Keith 38:34

Of course. It became your best tool.

Olly 38:36

It became our best tool. And I think this is where AI will fit as well. It's humans, is is the people, but always in Asia as Asia Pacific, Asia particularly, as we know, relationships are king. And you mentioned Guanxi, and there's there's a terminology in every country you go to for the relationship part. And we keep reminding people that who work for us we're we're paying you to network, which is the biggest thing that you can do in Asia. But make sure you don't take that for granted because it's easy to get into bad habits. But um, that's yeah, the the biggest disruptor to our business is poor customer service. Uh AI is the biggest enabler to bring that customer service a little bit more front and center.

Keith 39:13

We had a conversation a few months ago around executive coaching, which I do. Um, will AI take over coaching? No, but if you're if you're not using uh AI as a coach, uh then you will be overtaken by a coach who is using AI. It's this human AI interaction point that's going to be critical to everything.

Olly 39:34

A hundred percent. And we we talked to obviously a lot of our conversations are with VPs of HR or chief people officers, and AI has it's two sides to it because suddenly you're seeing CVs looking fantastic. Yes. Um, how do you filter through that? Or you're getting people with very well-prepared answers in in interviews, and as you say, it's bringing the human side to it as well.

Keith 39:55

When you look back on your uh career, great career, what's uh The power within, which is what we're called, you've discovered that has enabled your success.

India’s Pull, China’s Plateau, Career Bets

Olly 40:05

I got this actually pretty early in my life from my dad, which was about remember your surname. And this was mainly in the sports piece when I was going to play competitive sports. It was always remember your surname, which was always something I always ran onto the field thinking. Over time that's evolved in my head in terms of what that means. And he left school early and built his career and became, you know, ultimately became a global CEO of a of a major organisation. So he had credibility in terms of you listened to advice. And it was all very much grounded around family, which I know is a very common answer in these things. But I always sort of keep that in my mind. It's around being yourself. It's very hard to imitate and have a successful career. Yeah. That was the piece which I continue to talk to. And this is not something I say to other people because clearly it doesn't mean anything. But for me, it's it's that sort of desire to keep make the family proud. Professional pride's part of that, clearly. But that's something which has taken from the sports field to the business context and has enabled for me, has grounded me whenever I've gone off to new adventures and new challenges. I've lived in five or six different countries and and built, you know, I've always been building businesses rather than inheriting businesses. And you know, that that can have its moments where you think I could do this a little bit easier at some point. You know, that family pride, the fact that I'm doing something which, yes, there's part probably part of me wants to make my my dad proud that that's that's true. It is something which I know I've got two brothers who are equally in in the corporate world, mainly in the sports industry, and doing very well. And the three of us will say the same thing that they would have if you had them on your podcast, so they'd say the same thing. So it is a bit of a family mantra.

Keith 41:43

Right, to other people looking out, if you could give one piece of advice to someone aspiring to reach senior leadership in today's world, assume at the moment they're at the bottom or the middle, what would it be?

Olly 41:56

I can give a lot of advice. This is what I do for a living. The one piece I would say is be unmissable. So take on those different challenges, stand out from the crowd, be be memorable. That's what people look for. Volunteer as well. Go beyond. Uh I mean, there's lots of cliched things I could say, but it's that being unmissable for me is is the self-drive that I would say is is is important because that it is clearly competitive, but not everyone's willing to take on that extra challenge. So basically, take a risk. Don't say no. Yeah, yeah. I followed the route when I was asked to move from Beijing to Jakarta, beyond so I didn't know much about Jakarta. Yeah, I didn't say no. When I was asked to move to Shanghai, I didn't say no. And it's the same year.

Keith 42:33

Always reminded of the great South African golfer Gary Player, who said, you know, the harder I practice, the luckier I get. And if you keep practicing, keep putting yourself in the position, you seem lucky, but in reality, all you've done is taken the risk, take the opportunity, gone for it, right? And sometimes you have to learn on the fly.

Olly 42:51

Yeah, I think to be fair to Gary Player doesn't lack self-esteem, which helps too, but the um neither does he lack skill. No, but this is true. And I think he just claims he was the top third best golfer in the world behind Jack and Tiger. So I would say, you know, be unmissable. The other piece I would say, which is again very easy to say and hard to do, is always know the why in your people. Um it's it's not my term, obviously, it's a very well-known um expression, but it's an easy thing to forget, as I say. But when I'm sitting down with people, you know, their motivations change. So if you're aspiring to be a leader, knowing what motivates your people on a regular basis.

Keith 43:25

And it might not be the same thing over a long period of time.

Olly 43:29

The why changes. And don't rely on an appraisal once every six, twelve months to find out the why is the piece which I I have to remind myself as well when I'm moving you know walking into an office and sitting down with people, is it's not about the business, it's about the individual. So find out first.

Keith 43:43

Ollie, fascinating. We could go on for hours here. I'm sure we will be on here. Thank you very much for your time today. Really appreciate this overview of this region, your industry, and I don't think there's anyone listening to this podcast who won't be interested in career advice. So thank you very much for your time. Thanks, Keith. Enjoyed it.