Monday7 October 2019 ★ 13

COMPANIES & MARKETS

neurial environment”, they carved out a

role for him as “head of opportunities”.

In2013,hebecameCEO.

Innocent is worried about Brexit’s

impact on sterling — having already suf-

feredpain. “We buy over $100m worth

offruitindollars.That’sroughlya£20m

hittothebottomlinebecauseofthecur-

rencymovement,”saysMrLamont.The

other rexitconcernB isthemovementof

goods. “We’re as prepared as we can be.”

They had a dry run in March and are

preparingforanotherrehearsal.

The companyhas recently put itself

under scrutiny by becoming a certified

B Corporation, which audits companies

for their impact on employees, custom-

ers, community and environment. Mr

Lamontisanevangelist.

The B Corp movement shows that

“sustainable capitalism can work”, he

says. On this,he is at one with the zeit-

geist. Over the summer, 181 chief execu-

tives and chairmen belonging to the

Business Roundtable in the US signed

a pledge dropping shareholder primacy.

Instead,thebusinessleaderscommitted

to benefiting all company stakeholders:

customers, employees, suppliers, com-

munitiesaswellasshareholders.

Sustainability, charitable donations

andemployeeengagementcreate“long-

term value”. Customers like it too, he

insists. “If a leadership team really

believes, and puts the case together, and

goes to their shareholders and says,

‘This is what we want to do’, it’s bloom-

ing hard for the shareholder to say, ‘No,

we don’t want to do it’... The ones that

say, ‘I’d love to, but my shareholder

won’twearit’—Idon’tbuythat.”

Mr Lamont will not commit to per-

suadingCoca-ColatofollowingtheInno-

cent example, except to say that

“they’ve potentially learnt from

us... that if you’re ahead of the issues,

when they land you’re a little more pro-

tected from the consumer backlash

because people know that you’ve been

trying.”

How to Lead. ouglas Lamont, chief executive of Innocent DrinksD

Transparency with customers is key

to retaining Innocent’s distinct culture,

Mr Lamont says. A “wall of love” dis-

plays photos ofkids clutching smooth-

iesandhand-drawnthank-youcards.

“We learnt how to talk to people

before social media came along. It’s

about trust. What we’ve done over the

last 20 years is just lay really thin, small

layers of trust... over the long-term

[thishas]abigimpact.”

Today, social media is central to the

company’s marketing. Too overt a sales

message, he says, is off-putting. “If you

look at our social feeds, you’ll see

smoothies and juices very rarely get a

mention. We’re making general com-

mentary on the world... That’s about

buildingtrust.”

The 46-year-old father of four has

been at the company since 2006, after

stints at KPMG and Freeserve, later part

of Orange. After he approached Inno-

cent’s founders, seeking an “entrepre-

between2010andtheendof2012,when

the founders were still leading the com-

pany, 66 per cent of employees consid-

ered themselves to be very happy with

theirworkplace,andwouldrecommend

ajobtheretoafriend.Thisroseto70per

cent fter the Coke takeover. In the pasta

threeyearsitaveraged79percent.

The image of the 487-strong work-

force (average age 31) which he

describesasa“bunchofhippiesonbean

bags” belies a culture of clear objectives

andmeasured performance, Mr Lam-

ont says. The companyavoids “silos”:

aside from the creative team, no one sits

with their department, forcing staffto

talktoothersfromacrossthebusiness.

up 7.5 per cent from the year before.

However, after stripping out move-

ments in the value of derivatives, it

made a pre-tax operating loss of £4.4m,

against a pre-tax profit of £4m the pre-

vious year, in part due to sterling’s

decline. But the company also made a

substantialinvestmentinnewproducts,

as well as launching operations in

Europe,ChinaandJapan.

Mr Lamont enthuses about Coke’s

long-term, hands-off stance but under-

stands the scepticism. Employees were

wary, too, and to stemanxiety about the

new owners the management team

pledged to hold a no-holds barred open

meeting to air any evidence of detri-

mental change after a year. “We didn’t

even need to have that meeting because

thebusinesscontinuedasitwas.”

Being“truetoourpurpose,visionand

value”, he says, has increased employee

engagement. This is backed up by inter-

nal staff surveys, which show that

D

ouglas Lamont is an enthu-

siastictour guide.The chief

executive of Innocent, the

smoothie maker, points out

evidence of a quirky work-

place culture and socially responsible

capitalismwhereverhecan.

Inside the company’s headquartersin

north-west London, we go past the

freefood in the breakfast bar toa crate

of tiny multicoloured bobble hats made

by customers, which will be addedto

smoothie bottles to raise money for

charity. (The company gives away 10

per cent of its profits to charity.) Last

year 4m hats were knitted. “Just stick

yourhandin,”heimplores.

Then there are galleries showing

Innocent alumni’s entrepreneurial ven-

tures and a roof terracewith employee-

tendedplants.

The CEO wants to demonstrate that

Innocent is no timid Coca-Cola subsidi-

ary. Blink and you could miss the multi-

national entirely. It is there, however —

representedinthecompany’shistoryon

itswallsfromitsformationbythreeuni-

versity friends in 1999. An irreverent

picture of a Coke can marks 2009,

denoting the US group’s 18 per cent

investment, though there is no mention

of the US company taking control in

2013. Mr Lamont brushes it off. “They’d
      invested in the business in 2009 and
      they’d increased their shareholding
      over that period. [2009] felt like the
      moment for the business inter-
      nally... Ultimately, we operate as a
      standalonecompany.”
      Freedom is the key to maintaining a
      distinct culture, he insists. “I don’t have
      a scenario where I’m being told what to
      doorhowtorunthecompany.”
      A venture capitalist, he says, would
      expect the company to be packed up
      “nicely for someone else to come in and
      buy”, whereas Coke has given the
      smoothie maker “a long-term ability to
      grow”. Revenues rose to £398m in 2018,

Blending a standalone culture with a global owner

The boss of the smoothie

maker on maintaining

independence under

Coca-Cola’s ownership.

ByEmma Jacobs

Lamont has

been at Innocent

since 2006,

when he was

made “head of

opportunities”

by the founders

Charlie Bibby/FT

‘We learnt how to talk

to people before social

media came along.

It’s about trust’

Education

1992-1996 A degree in politics andM

geography, University of Edinburgh

2006 General manager programme,

Harvard Business School

Career

1996-1999 PMG corporate financeK

1999-2006Joins Freeserve Internet

(later merged into Orange) as director

of corporate development

2006 oins Innocent as head of newJ

opportunities

2013 ecomes chief executiveB

Leadership

More interviews illuminating

the personalities of high-profile

leaders by focusing on the

issues they faced

ft.com/howtolead

CV

How an HPE warehouse saves hundreds of

thousands of hardware items from the scrapheap

When Nasa recently hunted for a

16-year-old computer — state of the

art in its day — to help the space

agency maintain mission-critical

applications running on its ageing

legacy systems, it found it in an

unlikely place.

Sitting on a shelf in an IT

refurbishment warehouse in Scotland

since the early 2000s was the

good-as-new HP AlphaServer GS1280.

For Jackie Rafferty, operations

manager at Hewlett Packard

Enterprise’s Technology Renewal

Centre just outside Glasgow, there was

satisfaction in finally finding a home

for some vintage tech that can still

fetch top dollar.

“We had it in stock for over 15 years

and it was actually brand new, with the

packaging still on it,” he says. “Certain

assets here are like classic cars, they

can become very valuable in the

future.”

Current used equipment can also

fetch high prices.

On a tour of the facility, Rafferty

points to its first 3D printer, which

staff have refurbished and are

reproducing key rings on.

It should sell for around £250,

second hand.

The centre’s aim is not to tear down

tech and recycle it, but to test and

refurbish it for reuse, as part of the

“circular economy” efforts of Hewlett

Packard Enterprise, which is the

business-focused part of HPafter its

separation rom the printers and PCs off

HP Inc in 2014.

Hard drives are wiped, keyboards

are cleaned,servers are reconfigured

and the vast majority of the equipment

goes off to the highest-bidding

wholesaler wanting to resell it as

“certified pre-owned” or turn it into

short-term rentals. Customers not

needing the latest and greatest tech for

their businesses can saveas much as

40 per centbuying second hand rather

than new.

The 53-year-old Rafferty’s career

with HP has also been refitted over

32 years, just like the old equipment

that surrounds him.

Back in 1987, the warehouse was a

manufacturing facility for Compaq,

producing 8,000 to 10,000 PCs every

12-hour shift. PC production ended

when it was outsourced 15 years ago,

after Hewlett-Packard merged with

Compaq. Making data centre

equipment went the same way a few

years later, and the Erskine,

Renfrewshire plant and Mr Rafferty

were staring at the scrapheap.

But in 2011, they were offered new

lives through the plant’s repurposing as

a technology renewal outfit for HP’s

financial services division, where its

customers would send legacy

equipment they had leased or bought

and no longer wanted.

Today, HP Inc’s laptops, monitors

and PCs, along with equipment from

other manufacturers, are spread

across conveyor belts, stacked pallets,

testing stations and towering shelving

covering the 150,000 square feet of the

facility.

Its 200 workers process around

100,000 workplace and data centre

assets each month.Only 11 per cent

of what passes through here is

consigned to recycling, where a

partner in Germany will granulate

plastics and smelt gold and copper to

leave just 0.4 per cent of unrecyclable

residue.

What is good for the environment

also turns out to be good for HPE’s

business. It shares the spoils of

reselling customers’ redundant

equipment, providing them with the

cash to buy new kit from it and

strengthening the understanding of its

sales teams on when and where a

customer who leases or buys will

upgrade.

Last year, HPE Financial Services

returned $330m to clients’ budgets,

ranging in amounts from $25,000 to

$94m. It also handled uninstalling

equipment, storing and safely

transporting it to the Erskine renewal

centre and to its twin in Andover,

Massachusetts, which is the largest

such facility in the world.

“The circular economy is about

keeping equipment in the economy for

as long as possible by giving it another

life,” said Gerri Gold, HPEFS’s chief

operating officer. “Fifty million tonnes

of e-waste is produced on an annual

basis and that could grow to 120m by

2050 if left unchecked.”

Certain assets here

are like classic cars,

they can become very

valuable in the future

‘

Chris Nuttall

Techteardown

’

OCTOBER 7 2019 Section:Features Time: 6/10/2019- 17:18 User:nicola.davison Page Name:MONINTERVIEW, Part,Page,Edition:EUR, 13, 1