Podcast transcript: How a husband-and-wife team put CSR at the heart of their business
32 min approx | 28th June 2021
Lynn Rattigan
Hello, and welcome to EY's Entrepreneur Community Insights podcast series. I'm Lynn Rattigan, and it's my pleasure to be the partner sponsor for EY's Entrepreneur Of The Year programme here in the UK. As partner sponsor, I get to meet so many brilliant entrepreneurs who have such amazing stories to tell, and we want to share these stories with you in this insights podcast series. This series is a real celebration of entrepreneurship. So, let's lean in and hear from some of the UK's most successful entrepreneurs.
I'm joined today by a very dynamic husband-and-wife team, Simon Morrish, who is the CEO and Kim Morrish, who is the Director of Ground Control. Ground Control is a leading provider of commercial landscaping in the UK. It's also a carbon neutral company and is a leader in driving ESG initiatives. A very warm welcome to you both, Simon and Kim.
So, let's get started then. I mentioned that you're a husband-and-wife team. So, I think our listeners would love to know how you met because I think there's a story there. I think you originally met whilst working in the Jamaican banking crisis, back in 1998. Can you tell us about how you met and what impact that's then had on your respective careers?
Simon Morrish
Well, Kim and I have slightly different stories on this one. So, if I go first, then at least I get mine in and then she can correct the story for how she wants to remember it! But no, we were both in the Jamaican banking crisis. If you recall back in '98, I think the whole of East Asia had a major financial crisis back then and Jamaica went through a similar thing. I was in Jamaica with a large McKinsey team trying to help rehabilitate the banking crisis out there.
I met Kim in a small, dingy, government office in Kingston and I suppose it was love at first sight from that moment. We had a shared interest in business and doing the right thing. So, we met in Jamaica, trying to help the country get back on its feet through a really very tough financial crisis. Fairly soon after that, we ended up moving back to the UK and starting a business together, and also having our first daughter.
Rattigan
So, Kim, maybe you could pick the story up from that. That was a great story and a nice platform, I think, to build on the Ground Control story there. So, Kim, pick up the thread then. You've met, you’ve fallen in love, you've come back to the UK and then you start a business together. How did starting up a business together come to be, then?
Kim Morrish
Well, I think I talk a lot about shared values and how with recruiting for Ground Control, we really focus on culture. A lot of things attracted Simon and I to each other, but that shared foundation of values definitely was a big one, and Jamaica represented business as a force for harm. Incredibly corrupt, mismanaged, and so many people lost their life savings, and so many businesses failed as a result of how banking was being run.
So that background is kind of important, because that's how we met, watching something that was so tragic and then thinking, "How can, and how should businesses be operated?"
So, we started a tech business we didn't know anything about, sold it to a competitor, and it gave us confidence that we worked well together, that we liked working well together, and that we could blag our way through stuff.
We didn't necessarily need to know tech, or the property market, or this, or that. Somehow if you just roll your sleeves up and work really hard, you can make pretty amazing things happen. Then from there, Simon went back to doing an MBA and this idea of buying a company was proposed, and that was on the back of a start-up we had been in together.
It made a lot of sense because we were expanding our family. We were trying to have a second baby and we decided we would find a business, any business that met some very basic criteria, and we would buy it, and then we would make it our own and scale it and transition it to what we really wanted it to be. That was Ground Control that we acquired in 2004.
Rattigan
I think that's a really important part actually of this discussion, which is because I think when many people think about entrepreneurs, they automatically assume that actually a founder equals an entrepreneur. I think one of the things I loved about Ground Control and how you've built it, is actually exactly what you've just said.
You bought something that was really small, you’ve learnt all those previous business lessons, and then you've incorporated that in this small thing that you found that you loved, and you've developed that together. I think it's quite important when we're encouraging lots of different entrepreneurial activities to realise that you don't always have to be the founder to then go on and build such a business together, particularly like you’ve proven there.
S. Morrish
Just on that point, looking back now, yes, it looks small then, but I remember to Kim and I at the time it was enormous.
Rattigan
I’m sure.
S. Morrish
Just trying to make the pay, the weekly sub-contractor pay run was running at £50,000 a week. Those were jaw-dropping numbers for me, and, “How are we going to do this?”
So, it's quite interesting in terms of your frame of reference just starts to change as you continue to grow. But I know, for me, it was the first time I'd really ever line managed something like this, and it felt like an enormous leap. Quite frankly, I'm not sure I did a very good job during the first two or three years.
Rattigan
What would you have done differently, then?
S. Morrish
At the time, I gave myself really quite low scores on that. I think in hindsight, I think I focussed on building a system that allowed us to scale. And the other thing I think worked really well is everybody advised, "get rid of the old owner" early on, because difference of opinion, and that's always going to be a problem.
We didn't follow that advice. We kept Steve on, he was a shareholder. He'd given us a big vendor loan note to allow us to help buy the business and I worked really collaboratively – both Kim and I did – with Steve. He almost became a father figure to us. Very, very supportive. That was one of the things I think worked very, very well in the first few years.
So, we quite quickly started transitioning the business to how we thought it should get run and Steve – and I think many founders who sell a business I think would struggle with that happening – but I think Steve overall looked at what we were doing and thought, "Okay, actually, you know what? This is working." And he was supportive.
Rattigan
Yeah, that's really, really nice to hear that. I was going to go back before we go forward. So, with the picture that you've painted about the financial services backdrop to how you met and came together with these shared values, and then you started up the tech company, sold it on and then thought, "What should we do now?" Simplistic, I know.
I'm sure it was more complicated at the time, but why Ground Control? What attracted you to that business then?
K. Morrish
While Simon was working full-time at McKinsey, I was running the search, and we looked at a bunch of businesses and they didn't have barriers to entry. You could have outsourced virtually everything to India. There were big technological risks. They were complex and not easy to understand.
So, Ground Control was one of the first businesses we saw, but we dismissed it because they had one big customer and the owner was still pretty young in his early fifties. We just felt there was nothing to hold on to. He could just sell it to us and walk away. He came back about a year and a half later, and it was a business with really outstanding service delivery. We were buying something that was solid, with really good relationships with their customers, and you can definitely scale it.
It was a regional business and he had not aggressively grown it. He really grew it around the one customer. For us too, it's super easy understand. It's so straightforward. You can't outsource it. There was no technology in the business. They weren't even using Excel; they were putting everything in Word documents, so there was no system in place. We could really see opportunities for that, and it just came together.
We didn't have anywhere near the amount of money that you should need to buy what ended up being a £10.5 million enterprise value business. We had nothing near that, but Simon's clever financing, and then Steve coming in and remaining the shareholder, and the vendor's note, allowed us to do it. So with just a plan, this all came together.
I will add the power of relationships is huge when you're buying a business and where values are aligned – and not all values were aligned – but really important values were aligned about how you treat your customers. What are you really delivering here? That outstanding service. So, there's so much comfort and trust from the very beginning.
Rattigan
That's really nice to hear. Even a few minutes in, this core of values and shared values comes through really strongly, and I'm sure it'll have a part in how we then turn our attention as to how you both scaled this business then. So, Simon, as you say, £8 million to start with, and now heading up towards £150 million in terms of how many revenues you’ve got. How did you scale that business? How did you take it that far?
S. Morrish
Probably the biggest one was sheer hard work and a lot of determination. So, both Kim and I really focussed very hard on getting the basics right. That number one was recruiting and hiring really great people. I think Kim does a very, very good job on that recruitment. Certainly, if there's a division of labour, she's very talented in that respect and bringing that on. Also, the ability to build a system and a process that allowed us to deliver this across a wide spectrum of clients and sites first time is incredibly important. So, I think I've always argued that our operations, certainly up until fairly recently, have been a stronger element of our business than our sales. So, we rarely lose clients and the odd occasion when we do lose clients, they actually come back.
So, actually just today, we've just heard of a major client that we lost 18 months ago that has come to us in a panic today saying, "You know what? Our new grounds maintenance provider is letting us down. Please can you come back and help?" Obviously, we're super happy just to help on that one. So, I think for me, it was hard work, it's getting the right people – and we didn't always get that right – and building a system to be able to scale and do things right first time. Because at the end of the day, actually cutting the grass is not rocket science, but doing it so that it's done at scale is hard.
Rattigan
Yes, I can imagine that. Just listening to the both of you, actually, and how you’re each taking the question set – how do you carve up the responsibilities between you both, or don't you?
K. Morrish
Yeah, I think we've always stayed in our own lanes. So, Simon is incredibly gifted with things like financial engineering and structuring with operational efficiencies and excellence, and then the systems, and those are all things that I'm really rubbish at, completely.
So, I gravitate to where I feel really confident and happy, which is I love business development and I love recruiting. I'm hunting in both cases, they're very similar skills. It's about finding the right match and then finding the commonality, and building the relationships, and making something happen where everybody wins. So that's all I did all day long, and that type of work is a joy for me.
If I ever got involved with operations and somebody was grouching at me, I would say, "Well, if you were doing your job, I wouldn't have to get involved in operations." Simon's also gotten really involved with business development over the years, where that was not a natural background for him.
Rattigan
How have you had to supplement what are obviously very core and very successful skills for you as a business partnership? What team have you had to build around you as your business has grown so large?
K. Morrish
The original team knew how to run the business. They were divisional leaders, and they were pretty good. We replaced the Operations Director very quickly, but everybody else was super solid and so motivated. Some of them nailed it. It was a lot of hard work, but everybody rolled up their sleeves. We were really lucky in a lot of cases. Sometimes I'm unlucky, but this was just shoulder-to-shoulder without micromanaging, second guessing. Everyone was a shareholder; they invested alongside us, so very much aligned.
And then we've added in where we've scaled. I think part of us felt you can only sprint so long. I don't know that the businesses outgrown anybody as much as people have been like, "I don't want to keep sprinting and I'm ready to pass the baton." But we've been able to punch above our weight attracting talent from the very beginning because of the very entrepreneurial nature of the business, where everyone's a shareholder. And I think the two big focuses on sustainability and values attract better talent than we would ever attract if we just talked about what we actually do.
Rattigan
Yeah. Actually, that's a really nice segue because I was going to move us on to the whole sustainability agenda because I know that's very important to you and has been quite a key part of your success. I see that your website, in the second line, it says that you are a carbon neutral company and that's obviously a very important part of who you are. Can you tell us a little bit about why that is so important to you and how it drives your success?
S. Morrish
Yes. I mean, for me, it's something I've been passionate about for a long, long time. I think the planet is a very precious resource that we should look after, and we should do our bit. I recognise that we can't stop and hold progress. So, how can we do this in a sympathetic and understanding way to make our impact on the planet as limited or as positive as possible, rather than enormous negatives? It has been something that's very important.
However, what I would say is within Ground Control, it was relatively limited up until more recently. So right at the very start, we made it clear that we were caring for our environment, and we added that as a key strap line. We did a number of initiatives like buying Toyota Priuses for our contract managers and doing what we could to help the environment. But a lot of the stuff that Kim and I have done, was actually individually, outside Ground Control, until more recently, when we felt that we could push that within Ground Control much harder.
K. Morrish
Thing is, around our investment, because we own the majority of the business… there are other shareholders, and they’re our partners. So, we just can't force feed things that are on our agenda. So, we did a lot of impact investing. Simon's built solar and wind farms all over the UK. He did all of that work outside of Ground Control. And social stuff I was doing around social, environmental sustainability, was also outside Ground Control. A couple of years ago, we said, "Wouldn't it be awesome if this was part of our business where we were putting 5% of profits into sustainable ventures and tree planting?” It's made such a difference. The business has loved it; our employees are so behind this.
S Morrish
But interestingly, the first time we took it to the board, we actually got voted down.
Rattigan
Did you? Why was that?
S. Morrish
It was one of the very few times, actually as a board, there was a disagreement. We took that probably four or five years ago, and it was decided not to contribute some of our profits to these ventures. Anyway, we took it back again about two years ago and we got a unanimous approval, and that's where we started up the Evergreen Fund.
Rattigan
Why do you think you had success the second time you took the proposition and not the first? Just not the right time?
K. Morrish
Not the right board. It was not the right board, the board’s changed too. You know where you have these…I call them ‘Come to Jesus’ moments?
Rattigan
Lightbulb moments?
K. Morrish
I’m very emotional, but both of us were outraged and shocked that it even went to a vote. The vote was split, and the chairman casts the deciding vote, but it just showed we are not aligned. If we are not aligned on this, which is really about values, then we're not aligned, and it's hard to proceed from there. It was a small thing. It wasn't a huge strategic-
S. Morrish
In fairness, they were just doing what any such stewards of capital would do and said, "we've got to be careful here." Both Kim and I feel that’s not the right thing to do, doing the right thing is far more important.
K. Morrish
You asked that thing about entrepreneurial - for me, it's not, “Did you found the business” or “Did you buy a business”, it was like, “What is your vision?” and then the risk you're willing to take to do what you think is the right thing or the best thing, or your aspiration or whatever it is. We had more corporate, seasoned voices that were just saying, "not the right time." So, that was a very exciting bedroom talk that night because we were just so agitated over it. What's interesting – especially too because those folks, we're all still really good friends – is that they're a hundred percent behind it now. They didn't see it at the time.
S. Morrish
And what was actually interesting is when we did announce it – it was about 18 months ago at our Christmas conference – the overwhelming response from the business was just... I mean, I thought it would be positive, but I wasn't prepared for the level of support it was in terms of how much the business got behind it.
K. Morrish
Because we talk about a lot of things and we stand at our annual conferences, often one of us is asked to come in and speak about something. Almost always it's around values, but one of the things we talked about was releasing, I think at the time it was £10 or £12 million back to employee shareholders. No one ever even mentioned it to me, like it just wasn't a big deal. The Evergreen Fund, it was the only thing that was talked about at the conference, at least with us. Then that night we have a big party, big knees up. It's just crazy and fun, and that was all that people were talking about. We had another pivotal moment. We were looking down the barrel of a 20% drop in revenues like that. Furloughing hundreds of employees in response, and I'm still invested... we're still invested.
S. Morrish
We didn't know what this last year was going to bring and whether we are going to be loss-making or anything-
K. Morrish
There was one voice-
S. Morrish
We still continued.
K. Morrish
There was one voice on the board that said, "Given the optics, should we carry on?" I said, "It's never the wrong time to do the right thing. Of course, we carry on." Absolutely, more than ever. We do what's the right thing. If we say we care for our people, we care for our environment, more than ever, we need to be true to that. Because it's scary for people. We didn't know how it was going to all pan out. It was so the right thing to do, because that's a gamble. People are furloughed and they're at home at 80% of their wages and we're announcing planting 15,000 trees in York or investing in electric vehicle charging or smart thermostats? That's a weird message.
Rattigan
I do love that. I love that phrase though, "It's never the wrong time to do the right thing." It really resonates for me personally actually, because at EY, we've got "Building a better working world” as our purpose.
As a senior leader in the organisation, I’ve spent years espousing this and telling people about it and my head was doing all of that. It was only in the pandemic because in my other role, as a chief operating officer, when suddenly you're in the pandemic, and I suddenly realised I felt such a responsibility for the 17,000 people that we employ at EY. I came up with this phrase, which then all of us used to great effect, which was, "Keep our business as whole as possible, for as long as possible."
Actually, we really managed to achieve that, but I felt a sense of responsibility for every one of those 17,000 people, and to the UK economy. And suddenly, my heart got what "Building a better working world" actually meant. That's why your comment there Kim, about “It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing” – really resonates, and I think it will for a lot of our listeners.
So, you've mentioned now the Evergreen Fund. So, let's tell our listeners a little bit more then about what it is, and what it does for you then in a business sense.
S. Morrish
On a very basic level, we contribute 5% of our profits, or last year's profits, to tree planting and making sure that’s in reserves sites around the country, and also into startup or tech businesses which will have a material impact on helping address climate change. That's it in a nutshell.
So, we've done a really good job, I think, on doing the tree planting side of things although we have struggled to find sites that are going to be... that we can feel comfortable are going to be secure indefinitely on that. So, on the back of that, just last month, we ended up buying a 300-acre farm in Essex to be able to plant the trees directly on that and re-wild the whole scheme. So, that's something we've been doing there.
K. Morrish
So, we’ve made six investments to date, starting from pre-seed through to Series…I'm trying to guess now. It's probably Series E or F for a couple of them – one we've just done an IPO. But carbon significant, carbon reducing technology, so, that is the big focus.
There’s wonderful ideas on a shared economy and recycling and upcycling, but we're really looking for big, significant hits. I just finished my course at Cambridge University on sustainability leadership, because it's hard to know what and how you measure all this. We're working closely with The Carbon Trust to achieve carbon neutrality for the business, but there is science behind it. It's not art. You really need to look for what is evidence-based and measurable and it's going to be able to scale.
We also try to focus on something we know a bit about. So, almost all of our investments have been in technologies that our customers use, or we use, or we install, in the case of the EV charging. We're an installation company for ChargePoint. We do a lot of work with social housing. There's a crazy smart thermometer that does everything from damp and potential gas leaks to energy efficiency that drops down energy bills and social housing, but also gives social housing managers the ability to better manage their housing stock. These are the same customers that we have. So, there's shared synergies and interests, and so it's not just the capital, it's where we can also help scale and expand the businesses.
Rattigan
That just sounds amazing. Again, the shared values. Again, we see the values running through those seed investments that you've made. The other thing that I love as well about that is again, you're helping drive the next generation of entrepreneurs as well with those investments. So, there's lots of threads to that, isn't there?
K. Morrish
For sure. Yes, for sure. There's some great... we definitely back teams. So, all of the investing that I've done outside of Ground Control – and I think for sure the same with Simon – you’re backing a team we really believe in. And that's the criteria for the Evergreen Fund, because we don't have a staff that can go out and do months of due diligence. It's looking somebody in the eye and having a long conversation, building a relationship, and believing that they're going to be able to deliver.
Rattigan
Very exciting. I shall watch with interest how they go and I'm sure there'll be lots more to come as well.
K. Morrish
Hopefully, they'll be considered for Entrepreneur Of The Year in the future!
Rattigan
Absolutely. Well, I like that. I like that link; I like that link. Simon, you mentioned a little while ago your other company called Solar Ventus – again, another entrepreneurial venture. So just share a bit of that with us.
S. Morrish
So, I've obviously been doing a few other things outside Ground Control as well. Really, the Evergreen Fund was an extension of some of the things I've been doing individually. But Solar Ventus I set up in 2010, and we've got over 100 wind turbines and solar installations around the UK in terms of what that does, and then it also invests in a whole bunch of other carbon or climate change businesses on that.
The other business that I actually set up quite recently is a company called Xlinks. I set that up two and a half years ago, really with the idea and understanding of – what we have, is we've got 1,500 square kilometres of desert in Morocco, which we're putting solar and wind turbines on and running a HVDC cable back to the UK for 7% of the UK's energy requirement. So, what that hopefully does is it allows us to help fast-track the UK's race towards net zero and do it in a sustainable way.
I'm an enormous fan of all the wind industry in the UK. One of the problems it has is intermittency, and so actually being able to provide this effectively from base load power at just over half the cost of nuclear is very, very valuable to the grid and very valuable to further penetration for offshore wind and other renewables.
Rattigan
Well, another amazing story. I don't know how you two find the time for all this. I think I run a busy life, but I can't compete with how you must put all of this into your life together and also all of these different businesses. It's just amazing, I feel very energized just listening to the two of you and frankly, I could talk to you all day about these things, but I was going to start to bring us to a close.
So, to allow you to go off and continue all this great work, but I know one thing we haven't spoken about actually is I know you have four children. So, they must look at the two of you and look at all of these entrepreneurial ventures that you have. Would you encourage them to be entrepreneurs?
K. Morrish
Our four kids, two boys and two girls, all of them cracking kids. They are so different from each other and completely different from both of us. So it's hard to know. Two are just starting university and where they’re going to end up…? But there's a lot of sass and risk-taking, maybe way too much risk-taking with at least one of them. So, watch this space.
Rattigan
I will do.
S. Morrish
I think I've probably come a long way on the parenting journey as well and ultimately finding something that they're happy in, it's the most important for me. I derive enormous amount of pleasure from the entrepreneurial things that I do. So, I don't look at it like work. I think Microsoft sends me a monthly thing about number of quiet days I have, and the entire 18 months I've received it, it's had zero quiet days. So, I'll work Christmas Day, I will work a good five, six hours a day on holiday. I just enjoy it. It's incredibly stimulating, and I really feel I'm making a difference. So not everybody is the same as that. So that's something I understand and certainly my kids, I think in many respects, there's a rebellious element where they see what their parents are doing and absolutely want to do the opposite.
Rattigan
For now, for now. I can't help feeling that entrepreneurial spirit and as you say, the risk-taking will have already rubbed off I'm sure. But in terms of the next generation then of entrepreneurs, so to close out – and I’ll come to each of you to ask this one as we close out what’s been an amazing interview, I think – what would the piece of advice be then Simon, that you would give to the next generation of entrepreneurs?
S. Morrish
My favourite piece in a book is from The Alchemist and it's the line, "If you follow your dreams, the world conspires to help you." Just last week, a couple of things happened where the dots were joined, and I shared that with one of my managers, I bought him the book. I firmly believe that if you absolutely follow your dreams, somehow the world just helps you fulfill them.
Rattigan
I love that. I do love that. It resonates with my own childhood as well, actually. "Believe in yourself and you will never look back." Because my dad used to say that to me all the time. So, Kim, your parting words of wisdom to the next generation of entrepreneurs, then building on that from The Alchemist?
K. Morrish
Along with that, because that is incredibly powerful and ever so true, but don’t just think about what you want to do, but who you want to be, and incorporate those things into all aspects of your life because it goes by pretty quick, and make it count.
Rattigan
Very, very, very sound advice and inspirational advice from both of you. With some sadness, actually, I'm going to bring this podcast to a close because as I say, I could have spoken to you both for hours. It's been a delight to have you as guests and thank you so much for spending time with us this afternoon and being guests on our Entrepreneur Insights podcast series. I wish you many more years of success together and in all of those ventures that you've mentioned.
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Until the next time, goodbye and thank you.
