Conversations with Leaders: Paul Rellis, CEO, Viatel Technology Group

[Music] so paul relles it's wonderful to have you with us here today thanks a million um we were just saying before we started this that it's been quite a few years since we met i think you were ceo of microsoft ireland the last time we sat down together to do an interview were you 17 years at microsoft between the various roles if if i understand correctly so and now of course you're the vitel technology group and i want to hear all about that but could you start maybe by telling us a little bit about your journey how you started with microsoft and kind of that journey through in the 17 years and i think you were in various countries yeah so great to be here and great great to talk to you and fantastic to see you after after all this time look it feels like last week i was 25 you know and and suddenly i'm i'm 55 and you know i spent 17 years at microsoft and i'm four years now at viatel and you know microsoft was an absolutely fantastic experience brilliant company great people i learned and developed so much and i think we really underestimate what companies like that have done in ireland for so many people who you know they've invested in people employed so many people grown so many people and you know it's been for me personally a fantastic journey i joined microsoft in 2000 january 2000 actually so we were living in germany before that and our first two kids were born in germany we lived there for almost five years and i wanted to come back to ireland more than my wife did actually and if i go back a little bit before that before we moved to germany lisa said to me there's two countries in the world that don't want to go to one is germany and one is japan and we ended up going to germany she ended up loving germany more much more than i did actually and you know we lovely life there and and we moved back in in january 2000 and the reason i did was i wanted to join a leader in the technology industry and microsoft at the time if you remember if you go back to that time microsoft was very much a leader but was still in the crosshairs of the department of justice and at the time there was even rumors of microsoft being split into a platform company and an applications company and i remember joining and then signing up and leaving my previous job which was the coca-cola company also fantastic company and we went on holidays to mexico actually in between moving back to ireland i remember walking down the street in mexico and seeing a financial times newspaper pre-internet pre-mobile phone in a shop window saying you know big decision will microsoft be split to between a windows company and an office company or a platform company an applications company needless to say i didn't didn't buy that paper and bring it back to the hotel and show lisa but it was a very a very tumultuous time in microsoft's history and i suppose it it really made me aware of how quickly things can change in a technology world and a technology company and fortunately microsoft got on the right track over time and got through that very difficult period and evolved to be a phenomenally successful company in the last years it was quite a brave decision to go to them when at a time like that yeah it was but you know it was it was a leader in the tech in the technology world um i loved and still loved the productivity aspect of technology i'm not an engineer i'm an accountant so i you know i i'm more on the use side than than the creation side and you know yeah at some point in your life you've got to take some risks to to really expand and and run ahead and you know switching i suppose it's the advice i've often give people is you know you can switch between industries you can switch between companies you can switch between jobs you can switch between countries but don't try to do all of those at once i should probably have followed my own advice a little bit better and it was at the time we would have sat down it was at such an interesting time like the born of the internet companies didn't really exist you know it was it was like microsoft ibm intel we're kind of the almost the core here in dublin and we're kind of the core of the industry it's um it's amazing how much dublin has changed well what do you think about ireland's situation now yeah i think i think you're right if you go back 20 years it was very much wintel ibm you know dell there was there's a couple of big big big global companies and of course now that's exploded into lots of companies providing lots of services and many of them are are housed here in dublin um it's it's fantastic from a from an opportunity perspective for people the opportunities people have today to choose company x company y is is absolutely amazing and and it means you can focus on trying to find the right fit for yourself and and forces companies to be uh to be better organized too and to be much more open to all kinds of people all kinds of talents because if they don't they just won't get the people yeah i love that change that's one of the changes that i really love it's dublin has become that bit more cosmopolitan and we'll continue to i'd like to think you know the different cultures coming in and people having to be more accepting of it i hope will continue oh yeah of course and at the same time retaining our our unique identity of being irish and we never want to lose that and the really positive aspects of that so on the whole i think ireland is is dublin is you know really well positioned um you know i think the the thing i'd love to see more and more is more people moving out of the bigger organizations over time and into irish companies and you know taking all the learnings they have done there and and kind of bringing it to life in other companies and that's happening more and more which is because it is i think we all hope to see more of that but i do think that's starting maybe to to grow a bit now and and it's as as i don't have to tell you it's not just dublin and uh vitel technology group which you're going to tell me a bit more about now and where you're at um i have offices in limerick and dublin and elsewhere and dundalk is the other one there you go um so the regional development is becoming quite interesting as well i think um so last four years with viatel interesting time to join any organization because the last two and a half years have been so strange that said of course there's been such a digital transformation to use the buzzword but a kind of a digital revolution where people it's it's been so accelerated the growth in how people use digital you know for for work for business for everything i presume it must be pretty fascinating time for viatel and challenging in its own way as well yes look i i joined there four four and a bit years ago and uh we've fantastic a team of people great customer base our business is predominantly focused in ireland although we're starting to look abroad now as well and look at the next five years and see how we can be much more much more impactful and it was a a very strange period actually over the last two and a half years where just like this things were switched off we invited were designated as a key industry because we've telecoms infrastructure and data centers and so on and of course a lot of our guys a lot of our people our team are out there keeping the lights on over the last two and two years in the toughest of times for our businesses for you know for consumers for themselves and so we really feel like we've played a big role in doing that and um you know you look at the you look at the the positive aspects of the last couple of years more remote working meaning people have more time at home you know people can be more productive uh you know people travel less a better impact on the environment and so on that's balanced by you know the loss of social capital and people being together which is a worry i have for the longer term is it's just not good to be on your own all the time yeah it is it's a and i've spoken to so many people about this and i don't think anybody knows exactly how it's going to go but there's there's going to have to be something in the middle isn't there i i do think some people cope better i suppose without the social capital than others but we're losing connection aren't we yes and that's i i think that's a real challenge actually and you you can feel it yourself you know when when the lights came back on whenever that was you know months back it was a little bit strange to be around people again at least i felt that oh i think we all did yeah and so we're a bit more used to it now and people are traveling again and going on holidays and so you know i think there was a thought that we would just snap back into the way it was before and it's not quite like that actually no no no it's so true and i mean tell us a little bit more about the business and vital and how it's going so vital started life as a telecoms company in you know 20 odd years ago and was brought together through acquisition and growth of businesses and has a very successful consumer brand called digi web we have a very successful business brand called viatel and we acquired action point a very successful managed services partner and cloud computing partner in in limerick last year so you know we're bringing those businesses together we're growing extremely well which is which is great we have just shy of 300 people now we have we had 100 people when i joined or slightly more than 100 people uh we've we've traveled our size uh in the last four years and it sounds like it was all plain sailing and all all very easy and of course it wasn't you know the first two years of of my time there we really had to focus on getting ourselves right getting the team right the products right customer service all those all those things and and then we've you know we've grown pretty well and we have the right products and solutions for the time we're in and so there's there are very few times in business where you have that really good feeling of momentum behind you and that's a that's the feeling we have right now actually that's marvelous um and i suppose then going back to kind of the whole area of of leadership i suppose in your various leadership roles including this one um are there sort of big lessons or learnings that stand out or big challenges that that you you remember yeah i think the the first for me you know is about um about every leader being on top of themselves being really comfortable with their own strengths and weaknesses and understanding their limitations so you know i'd be strongly encouraging every leader in our business and we have terrific leaders in our business to understand their own strengths and weaknesses and you know really take those to heart and try and improve on those themselves over time so that they're they're walking the talk because when people see you know more senior people or leaders focusing on themselves trying to improve themselves taking all their holidays you know being energized you know doing all the right things it really makes a difference actually do you think that something really positive that could come out of the pandemic is that maybe people a lot of the leaders i've been meeting in any case they seem to have focused back on themselves a little bit more about what makes them tick is it something you've seen yeah i think it's probably what i've noticed is people are more focused on what makes them satisfied what makes them happy and have in at various stages made decisions of i'm going to go and move and live somewhere that i really want to live or i'm going to change the job i'm in or i'm going to improve myself and do things that i really enjoy doing in my life in my work and you see that quite a lot actually and i think it's a very good thing yeah i think i think it really could be and i think ironically it could be really good for business in a funny way maybe we had kind of reached peak sort of productivity and and sort of leaders being so focused and kind of forgetting about themselves so it's going to be interesting to see you know that that greater empathy and everything in the in the coming years but i'm sure there's many but if you if you had to pick out a sort of a career highlight or a fantastic memory from your i won't count the number of years but in in business career highlights um probably the biggest highlights for me have been i've been about people in the organizations i've worked with stepping up as leaders and i've tons of examples from when i worked in coca-cola from when i worked in microsoft and from vitel today where people that we've identified as leaders and that i've tried to help have really stepped up and you can see the progression and that is so satisfying when you see people doing that it is one of the more rewarding things it's it's so true actually um yeah and we've touched on this a little bit but you know the the pandemic obviously accelerated huge change in the way we work and working remotely and everything i know that affects you from a business point of view but from a team point of view how have you guys all coped through the pandemic and you know what have you seen look it's it's um it was a real challenge to move from being together every day or you know a few times a week to not being physically together and trying to have calls and teams and zooms and we actually went out and got a coach for our leadership team someone to help us with this actually and she has been fantastic and so that has made a in my mind one of the biggest differences uh positive differences so helping us all understand you know not what kind of behavior behaviors you should use on the zoom call or teams call but how to build trust for first of all as a team and and really identifying the parts of our team culture that we valued together and so what were the things that we really valued together and what were the differences between people our differences that things that we didn't agree on and understanding both of those and so we've met with her three four times a year over the last couple of years always in person actually except during the the toughest of the cover times and and really built on that that's very clever so many again of the people i'm talking to are saying the biggest challenge is actually for the managers and the leaders sure for them to accept the change and and how how to make it work right you know so that's that's interesting that you actually went out and got that outside help i like it everybody needs help no one had the answer and i'm not i don't even think we're sure we have the right answer but we have an answer that works pretty well for us actually and so in a year's time two years time we may have to change that and you know take a different approach yeah i think that goes for all of us you know i don't think anybody would pretend to know exactly how it's going to work but as you say the trick is to find the answer for now but um and again you would have touched on some of this but you know the nature of leadership and leading people i suppose as well um like what would you admire in a good leader or the good leaders you've seen over the years and what kind of a leader do you aspire to be yourself yeah you know it's if if i look back on on the leaders i've worked with over the years i'm always drawn to two people that i that were that were my my boss over the years who were terrible leaders and actually forced me away from them to really good leaders and and that happened twice in my career and and i learned a lot from that you're not going to name them no of course but look you know people you know it's good and bad yeah in every organization yeah and you know the the good leaders gave me the confidence that i could deliver more and do more than i thought i could and they showed empathy they showed understanding they listened had to give me some tough medicine of course along the way and helped me a lot now by inference you can assume that the bad leaders are the opposite of all of those things so you know i hope that i can help and the rest of our leaders in our business can help people in our business to to to grow themselves and we have a few i suppose values you'd call them or cultural attributes that we really want to live by and have others live by and that is to try to be one percent better every day just small incremental improvements over time make a massive difference and that starts with each of us trying to be one percent better in what we do every day and then secondly we we value growth over comfort so you know sometimes people say slow down why don't we slow down do this properly and then go on to the next thing sometimes we just don't have time for that we have to go grow we don't grow fast somebody else is going to and that's going to eat us in a year's time two years time three years time and the third one is really to take um to value long-term growth over a quick buck over short-term gain because we've all learned over the years if you do something short-term if you go for a quick short-term gain it's once and it's gone and you'll get much more value and many more people behind you know a long-term sustainable growth plan so those are the things that we're really trying to get in place very good um yeah i always like to ask people this because you know we often talk about sort of getting to know sort of the whole person during the pandemic you know we saw people's dogs and parents and all the restaurants you tell us something about yourself that people might not know or the people might be surprised by we have a dog and a cat maybe that's not not so surprising um yeah look the thing thing that that i love doing is traveling so i have been to more than 45 countries i think it's 46 in my in my in my life and hopefully i'm only halfway through that and like i get to the next 46 so like to travel a lot take all of our holidays you know enjoy things plan holidays really well and so that might not be surprising for people but generally it is i like it i like it and i suppose finally and again you've given some great advice already but you know for we say young aspiring leaders or current leaders starting out if you were to give maybe one key piece of advice to them today take all your holidays and and but you can gather there's a holiday theme and travel theme by that i mean look after yourself take your time focus on yourself take time out for yourself identify the things that you're really good at and the things that you need help on get a coach to help you identify that get a mentor get a friend and once you've got those things things figured out your self-confidence will be much higher and people will will understand that and see that a lot more and you will have more impact that way and if you try to do that regularly so be one percent better at that all the time you'll do really well i think that's a wonderful note to end on it's a wonderful piece of advice i love it i need to take it myself pause so where are you going your home is in i'm not going anywhere this year but i i'm going to the barn i will i'll find time to go to the burn without without fail it's where i always go paul it was fantastic to have you here and and to chat with you about leadership and a little bit more about viatel so thanks a million thank you very much [Music]

2022-10-23 14:09

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