Episode Transcript
Julia: Hello, my name is Julia Hoggett. I'm the CEO of the London Stock Exchange and welcome to our Be Inspired series. In this series we chat to CEOs, to founders and senior leaders of London's listed and private companies and we try to understand their journeys, where they want to take their institutions next and the challenges that they've overcome along the way. Now I am really delighted to be joined by Victoria Sugg today, the CEO of Emperor. Vic, I think I have to say welcome back to the Exchange because this is not quite a second home for you but it's coming close to it, I think. Welcome also to an Exchange on a very wet and windy day in London. It would be great to start by just talking about Emperor. What do you do? And tell us about the company and its origins.
Victoria: So the founders of the business always tell the tale of two men and an Apple Mac starting way back when, nearly three decades ago. And that was one location very much specialising in corporate reporting. But today we're about 300 people across five locations, one of which is in Dubai, and we've broadened out from corporate reporting to digital, employee, brand, sustainability, comms. So a much broader range of services to service the clients that we do, many of whom are listed on this stock exchange.
Julia: And the company has evolved quite a lot since you joined.
Victoria: Yes.
Julia: What's your sense of the company as it was on the day you started and the company that it is today?
Victoria: Yes, so I started nearly nine years ago, and I've been CEO for nearly three and I could tell immediately that it was a very restless place, a place that was used to change and was very hungry for that and very excited by that. And the business has kind of grown organically and through acquisition but it's interesting to look at our mission to kind of really see some of those changes. So we're kind of out there to be the most relevant, creative and impactful agency of our type for the good of our partners, our clients and society at large. And you start to unpick some of the changes and how the business has developed. So for the good of society, we're a B Corp. We've been a B Corp for three years now. I use the term partners there because we're employee owned. We've been employee owned for four years now, which is incredibly special. And when I talk about relevance, it's that thirst to always get ahead of what our clients need next. So that's seen us acquire a brand agency in Manchester, which became our Manchester office. We've grown a moving image team, a presentations department and we're always looking for those great new strategic partnerships, like recently Tata Consulting Services on sustainability comms or Workiva on technical reporting. So there's been a lot of change.
Julia: So let's take a step back actually and just describe for the audience what reporting means. Because it could mean anything to anybody in many regards. And I think it's the fact that it's evolved so much over the last several years that has in a sense been a sort of, I don't know which is the cause of the effects in the restlessness of your institution, but in a sense solving challenges for clients is also mapped to the evolution of that reporting environment. So how would you describe that reporting role and what it encompasses? And then let's talk a little bit about how it's evolving for clients.
Victoria: Yes, so it's extraordinary, isn't it? The pace of change in terms of regulation. I remember early 2000s, this thing called the Operating and Financial Review came in and people lost their minds because they were going to have to present non-financial data alongside financial data. And I think if people had seen what was coming, they would have felt quite safe with what they had to do. But it's very much that obligation of any listed company to communicate their performance, financial, non-financial and their story really behind it to those that have an interest in that, be it investors or employees or customers. And in that way, it's incredibly exciting because everyone is so, so different.
Julia: And that opportunity to really get under the skin of individual businesses, which is one of the things I think is wonderful about my job actually, you're doing the same in the weeds of not only what is that individual business, but then how do you explain it to the world? That's a fascinating role to play.
Victoria: And quite often people don't remember or understand the origins of a business or the strengths of the business or how a business has changed. So if you look at SSE for example, how it's pivoted into renewables, or if you look at Gregg's, how it's just constantly a bit like Kylie Minogue, continued to adapt and evolve to be something different and always be successful. I feel very lucky that we get to know the origins of Card Factory and be able to tell those stories. It's really interesting.
Julia: And how do you encourage companies to tell their story? Now, actually, we've had Gregg's come in and celebrate the 40th anniversary of their listing. And they have this wonderful video where they talk through the origins of the company and the story and its evolution and how it is still relevant today. But sometimes companies are quite reticent to tell that story and they feel that we have to keep it very factual, we have to keep it on the numbers, it's about the financial performance. But actually, all of us follow companies because we have this sense of what they do and the core purpose to them. Do you find it challenging sometimes to encourage companies to be more almost emotive and purpose led in how they describe themselves?
Victoria: Yeah, and it's interesting, isn't it? Because the people reading these reports or the comms, they're all human, we're now obviously looking at AI and how that's going to start to read the data. But nevertheless, I was sat in a room the other day with 30 fund managers and the conversation wasn't necessarily about the data, it was about the people leading the businesses, the kind of the braveness, the courage of some of what they've done and the quick thinking. And that's not just CEOs, that's the divisional leads. So telling the stories of those businesses is really important. Obviously, stories backed by data because you need to be able to prove it, believe it, but still if you can distil your business's story, your strategy, whatever to one powerful narrative, it's incredibly hard. But if you can do that and you can ladder everything behind it, then you're on to a winner. So, you know, SSE, for example, 'We Power Change', you get it straight away. And then they, in whatever comms they do, they deliberately put the messaging and the narrative behind that.
Julia: I always talk about it as this through line of purpose. If you can have that, then you're credible to everybody. It's also how you navigate when things go badly as well as when things go well, actually, because you can pull people back to that purpose.
Victoria: And people will forgive a lot if they see what the plan was and understand how a course has changed and what you do to deal with that.
Julia: Now, you talked about AI and the evolution of things, but the world in which people are reporting is transforming a lot. AI, the sense of is it your message? Could it be kind of faked? There's a host of different challenges you must now be facing. How are you helping clients navigate that evolving landscape?
Victoria: Yeah, and it's interesting, isn't it, because there's the hard technical data side of it, and then there's the human side of it in the face of things like AI. I think it's incredibly difficult for issuers at the moment. There's all sorts of competing elements. There's the regulation that we've discussed and all the acronyms that are coming at them fast and you know, fast and loose. There's the kind of polarising views on ESG. Everyone's been encouraged to really invest in the data and people, but now in different parts of the world, the view is changing.
Julia: Evolving.
Victoria: We've talked before about the competition for capital and how people can get noticed in a world where there isn't as much as we would like necessarily around. All that, I think, links into the trust element. The new 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer is out. One of the things that I really picked out of there is that people are feeling more sceptical than ever about leadership telling the truth. That is obviously incredibly difficult when you're looking at those leaders that are leading the businesses. Finally on that, I think the new era of EDI and accessibility. Now it's not just about what you say, it's making sure that whether that's in the accessibility of the language or whether that's screen readers and making sure that everybody can get the same message at the same time, whatever their situation, there is a lot for businesses and communicators to be dealing with.
Julia: And it's a new set of skills that is evolving at probably the fastest pace that I've seen it in my career. I guess that's how you're needing to evolve your proposition, maybe more swiftly as a company at the moment than you might have been when you first started?
Victoria: Yes, and there's one element of it that's really navigating the complexity of things like very sophisticated regulation, ever moving tech. But then there's also finding those new and innovative ways to tell stories. So the rise of the CEO podcast, for example, or the proliferation of audiences because you've got an investor who's a customer, who's an employee. So thinking about all that at the same time, it's very difficult. What I would say is I don't think the fundamentals have changed that much. I was talking to someone the other day about one of my favourite ever strategies and corporate reports, which was Justin King's 'Make Sainsbury's Great Again'. And that was two decades ago. It was a typographic cover. It was a CEO in his letter doing a Q&A in really accessible language, telling the stories of the business. And I think actually that would be as good a report today as it was back then just because of the fundamentals that were there.
Julia: You mentioned ESG and one of the things we're working hard to try and do is make sure that we can have as reliable and consistent a set of asks that investors make of companies in terms of the data. It's hard enough to corral this data as it is without being asked what I describe as 72 versions of what are essentially the same question. Is there a way that you find of giving companies the confidence to say 'this is our story, this is how we're going to tell it. We're not going to make the perfect the enemy of the good here, but we're going to give you 95% of what you need. But please have greater reliance on this as the core part of what we do and cope with the fact that that last 5% is marginally just too expensive for us to deliver as an institution'. Do you think the balance is shifting a bit in terms of how that balance between what's asked and what can be provided is evolving?
Victoria: Yes, I would. And I love that, 'don't let perfection get in the way of good'. I think I heard Mike Barry say it in this very building last year. There is I think a movement now towards confidently owning that ESG story and are businesses being able to tell what is material and what isn't? And really just honing in on those rather than feeling that yes, they may have to declare the 1000 data points, but they don't have to go to the nth degree about them all. And they will use things like materiality exercises to really get to the nub of what matters to employees, to investors and just hone in and own their story on that, laddering it back to that purpose that we talked about before.
Julia: Now you mentioned being a B Corp. And this is very much the organisation, not just talking the talk for its clients, but walking the walk as an institution. What's your reflection on both the motivation for going into that and being employee-owned, but also kind of what you think it's given you as an organisation as well?
Victoria: So the employee ownership and the B Corp, I guess, go hand in hand. And that was very much the founders wanting to protect that kind of culture of care and consideration and support and also make sure that we were always able to attract really entrepreneurial and kind of proactive talent, which I think that's what that very much brings. But it's not easy. And you have to take your own medicine. I'm writing our annual report at the moment. So although I don't have as many data points to contend with, I really do have empathy and sympathy with our clients. But also we have big, wonderful PLC clients who need to audit us for their Scope 3, for example. So it's a business imperative. And if we want to keep having people who bring themselves to work and want to work with us and they want to work with businesses where they can make a massive difference on the inside or also work on pro bono clients like we do the Elton John AIDS Foundation report and things. So it's important from the point of view of doing the right thing, but it's also incredibly important from a commercial aspect now as well.
Julia: This is a thing I always try and remind people, even my own teams, which is there's never any debate about doing the right thing.
Victoria: No.
Julia: Actually, the right thing is always just the right thing to do. And I think actually having that embedded in the way the company is structured, where it kind of rewards its staff as well and how you think about your stakeholders. Because in essence, that sense of being accountable to your own employees who are probably your toughest judges actually, sometimes harder than external investors in terms of have you disclosed the right stuff. And they know the honesty of that. I think that's something very powerful about that and being able to show that when you're talking to clients, you're also going through exactly the same thing.
Victoria: Yes, I agree. And it won't work without that. There are those three things. There's pick the things that really matter and kind of are material to your business. Don't try and go it alone. I love that phrase about radical cooperation. Even if you're in the same sector, pick each other's brains and find brilliant things to collaborate around. So we're looking at the UN Race to Zero at the moment. Find like-minded individuals, don't feel like you have to do it all on your own. And then it will only work if you engage your people in it and get them to activate it. So we have these pledge teams and things like 'we are social', 'we care about the environment'. There's just different ones that get people to come around at an issue that they really care about and do things together, which is really exciting.
Julia: So you've gone through radical growth, transformation, change in a backdrop that's changing radically as well. What's next?
Victoria: Oh, that's exciting. Well, I think we've seen our vision come to life in terms of the breadth of what we do. So as I've said, some of the newer services that we're doing, but we do have this kind of relentless thirst to always know what's next. So I talk about partnerships like Tata Consulting Services or UN Race to Zero when it comes to responsible business. We're going to open an office in Saudi this year, which is incredibly exciting and embedding AI within our business for the benefit of clients. There's always lots, lots to do. It's more picking the things not to do because there's such a wealth of choice out there.
Julia: So it's a prioritisation process for you as well? So I'm going to ask you a slightly left field question, but how do you enjoy being a CEO?
Victoria: Well, I often feel guilty because a lot of the things I do like this don't feel like work. So I love that aspect of it. But then also, I always say it's incredibly frustrating because when you are the CEO, you can no longer do things on your own. You have to do things with and through people. And that is much more rewarding when it happens, but a lot harder. So yes, I'm constantly conflicted, but always enjoying it.
Julia: Well, it sounds like you've already been navigating the company on a remarkable journey so far and that there's even more to come and no end of challenges I think that are going to get thrown at the sector of the market that you're in to continue to iterate and evolve. But the lesson I've taken from this is that that plumb line of purpose. If you have that embedded in the organisation, it'll be right for clients, it'll be right for your people, it'll be right for the leadership of the organisation, it'll be producing the right outcomes. So it's a great story and it's lovely to be working with you. I know we have a lot of collaboration with you at The Exchange and it's a real pleasure. So thank you for joining us today. Thank you for sharing your story. It's been fascinating.
Victoria: Thank you.
