Episode 3 Trailer

Help people create the best work of their careers. Don't lock people into a single way of doing things. Enable them. This is an uncommon job description for a manager, let alone a CEO. Yet, when we strip away title and role perception, at the heart of this episode's conversation is one man's noble hope and a responsibility he takes very seriously. 

Emmet O'Neill, the CEO of StoryToys, - A multi-award winning developer and publisher of apps and games for children (now part of Team17 PLC). Emmet shares his journey into and beyond the role of CEO. He pauses to reflect on the people and themes that have made a difference to him and his own career. 

INTRO

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Belinda (host): Minds, young or seasoned, are always developing. Everything we do and encounter is a chance for our brain to learn about this world and our place in it. Play is learning. Story is learning. Love is learning. Everything is learning. And all learning happens in relationship. Whether we are in relationship with a parent, a colleague, a sibling, a teacher, an idea, an emotion. And as we engage with these relationships, they engage with us and they change us, and we change that thing we are in relationship with. What then, of the responsibility we have in each of these relationships? Our, uh, guest in this episode explores how this responsibility and his relationship with learning and growth has shown up in his work life.

Emmet (Guest): I'm Emmet O'Neill. I'm, um, CEO of Storytoys. We're a Dublin based company, and we make apps to help kids grow, play, and learn. So, I worked as a freelancer for many years in the field of illustration and graphic design. My first full time job post college was with a company called electric paper, and my title was head of media and design. But my job just before this was working with, uh, Houghton Milford and Harcourt as their head of digital media.

Belinda (host): Managers are people, too, but it's convenient to make them the baddie in our own work life, and so we don't tend to be open to hearing from them about their unique spot in the world. This closes us off from learning and growing from their perspective. In this podcast, we pause to give managers and their peers the opportunity to reflect on a moment they encountered and the legacy they hope to leave over time. This is the manager's moment, and I am your host, Belinda Brummer.

Emmet (Guest): Well, Belinda, like many of my really close friends, I met you working in electric paper. And in fact, that's even where I met my wife.

Belinda (host): I started out by asking Emmett what management means to him.

Emmet (Guest): I have to admit, um, I've always been more of a fan of leadership than management. For me, leadership is inspiring a group of people to work in the same direction, to make something that is much bigger than the sum of the parts that are working on it. It's about inspiring people. It's about helping build people's confidence. And my goal is ultimately to enable people to make the best work of their careers. And I hope with most people that I've worked with, they could comfortably say that my management team, they're the glue that holds everything together. Whether that is about making the trains run on time, whether it's about making sure everybody on the train is happy, it's literally, it is the magic that needs to be sprinkled around the place, uh, for a business to efficiently operate. While obviously a lot of the job is functional management on a day-to-day basis, every single one of them is, uh, an extension of the vision of what Storytoys is. They're all leaders in their Runway too.

Belinda (host): When it comes to you in the m workplace, you as a creative person, as a leader, as a colleague or a peer, have you noticed any threads or themes that keep coming up for you?

Emmet (Guest): Yeah, I guess if you look at, it's actually a shockingly, I'm not going to use the word depressingly long career, but, um, a surprisingly long career when you're talking not far off the 30-year mark. And when I look at it, almost every job that I did, and certainly every job that I was very, very successful at, involved teaching, involved creating materials to enable the transference of skills, knowledge, or teaching. So definitely, even though I wouldn't have been conscious that I was pursuing that, most of the really good work I've done has been tangentially related to the field of education, if not obviously. So in some instances. So that's been a big theme for me. And even now, the work I'm doing in Storytoys and my better days, I like to think I'm helping to shape the next generation. We have millions and millions of kids using our apps on a monthly basis. We have over 180,000,000 downloads of our apps. I looked at last year's stats. We had over 4600 years of man hours spent looking at our apps. That's a hell of a lot of human attention. And basically knowing that actually, when you're commanding that much attention, that you are doing so responsibly, and ideally helping to make smarter, kinder, more creative people in the next generation. I mean, that's ultimately my goal, but that's the goal as I would articulate it now. But if I actually look back at my work and um, career threads, that's kind of what I've been trying to do all of the time.

Belinda (host): As you go about being you and holding the roles and the positions that you hold, how are you enabling those people to grow?

Emmet (Guest): Whether you're commanding the attention of the children who are playing your apps, or actually you're commanding the attention of the people that you're leading, you have a responsibility to try and help move everybody forward. My goal is that somebody produces the best work of their careers, but on top of that, that they're left in a position where they are able to work in many different environments afterwards. I think the biggest disservice you can do somebody is train them very specifically to do specific things in your company. I think you really have to make sure that anyone is able to leave a company, uh, with a wider range of skills that they could be deployed anywhere. So that's kind of one of my key things.

Belinda (host): Where does that come from?

Emmet (Guest): Amit, I suppose so I started my career as an illustrator, right. Literally drew pictures for money. And you're in danger of putting me on a soapbox here. But, um, I get very angry about the mistreatment of artists, um, and, ah, illustrators in particular. If you want to, I don't know, become an accountant. Uh, not to abuse accountants, some of my best friends, but if you want to become an accountant, you basically get a leaving cert of a certain level, get a state exam of a certain level, go to college for x number of years and then become one, start junior and work your way up. Right. You want to be a professional illustrator, you've got to put in your 10,000 hours of practice during your teenage years. You've got to be brilliant. You've then got to somehow get into college and, um, look at the application rates for your average commercial illustration course. You've got to get into that kind of position in college. You've got to produce an amazing portfolio. Then, after your four years of training, you are in a position to go and work for somebody at a much lower rate than your accountant is going to start out, despite the fact that you've already put in 10,000 hours of practice and you have an inherent skill to begin with. Right. I've literally done job interviews where illustrators have turned around and said, okay, what's your proposed salary? And they've said things like, um, how does fiver an hour sound? And I've had to kind of just take them aside and say, look, you're doing a disservice to our entire industry by looking for so little and that actually, this is the salary band, don't allow yourself to be exploited, do you know?

Belinda (host): And how does that link to this notion of don't train people or grow people into something too specific?

Emmet (Guest): I think, for instance, in that context, if you take somebody like an artist, unfortunately, their salary range is set at an abysmally low level, as I've already expressed. If, say, for example, you got somebody working very specifically on a single type of illustration, um, and they worked with you for many years through performance reviews, through annual appraisals that are occasionally tied to renumeration. You can work somebody up to a position where they've got a very specialized skill set and they're paid at a level that they would not be able to enter another company. Their skills are worth that much to you, but they are not worth that much at, uh, market rates for something that's, say, more generalist and less specific. So that's where you do a disservice to somebody where you've literally moulded them into the niche you need them to be in a single company, because ultimately it means what are their chance of moving somewhere else. So I always try and make sure that people engage in training as well as on the job learning and all of that kind of thing. And ideally that people remain generalist enough, or at least even if they're doing something very specific, that it's something very specific that exists outside of your organization too. So nobody winds up in a position where they become, I guess, quite golden handcuffs. Just handcuffs. Um, to any one company, it's about fairness, recognizing that it is the right thing to do. So in the same way as producing wholesome, non-addictive content for children is the right thing to do, I also believe your responsibility as an employer and manager and leader to grow the people working for you and not lock them into just a single view of thinking, a, uh, single way of doing things.

BREAK

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RETURN

Belinda (host): I'm speaking with Emmett O'Neill, the CEO of Storytoys. Before the break, Emmett talked about the responsibility one has as an employer, manager, and leader to grow the people working for you and not to lock them into a single way of doing things.

Belinda (host): On the topic of growth, I was curious about the people that had enabled Emmett and his own career growth.

Emmet (Guest): None of us get to where we are in a vacuum. And actually what I had was incredible mentorship, and I wouldn't have been aware of that at the time, but I reflect back and I absolutely had phenomenal mentorship in leadership and in management. And I've been lucky throughout my career to have a number of really strong mentors.

Belinda (host): Anyone you care to reflect on?

Emmet (Guest): Throughout my career, I've probably had three really good mentors, the first being Johnny Parks, who was the managing director of electric paper. Um, I learned a phenomenal amount working with Johnny over the years. Then my second really strong mentor was actually my brother Barry. So Barry was the original CEO of Storytoys, and I started working under him about ten and a half years ago. And I took over as CEO about four years ago. But yeah, I learned incredible amounts from him. And then in more recent times, Debbie Bestwick, who was the founder of Team 17, who are the company that ultimately acquired story toys. Debbie is a legend in the games industry. I have found her mentorship invaluable over the last number of years.

Belinda (host): So three people, Jonny, Barry and Debbie. Interestingly enough, my own brother, Andrew, I learn a phenomenal amount from him. And while not in a, ah, formal capacity … he's not involved in my career in any way… I think there is this really interesting thing that when we take the time to acknowledge certain types of relationships within relationships, I think family can be a phenomenal force in what shapes us. And so it's really interesting just to hear you make that link with Barry, that is, that kind of relationship.

Emmet (Guest): It is interesting because I think, particularly if you're a younger sibling, you spend most of your youth observing them and either mimicking their behaviours or going in the complete opposite direction to their behaviours. And I recognize I would have done that as a child, as I think most younger siblings do. But in working with him directly, I guess maybe there is a different type of learning relationship. There's a directness of communication that you have with a sibling that you're not going to have with in your normal managerial relationship. So, uh, certainly, yeah, I think, um, that was very impactful. And really, it led to intense learning in a relatively short period of time. And, yeah, it was invaluable. I really value it.

Belinda (host): Might we say as well, Emmett, not in a family business context, because when we think about working with family, we tend to go to family business. This was an organization with a board, with shareholders, with a completely different corporate setup. So this wasn't just family getting on.

Emmet (Guest): A little bit of history, I suppose. So as I'd mentioned earlier, I had been working as, um, uh, I don't know, director of interactive design or something like that in Houghton Mifflin. And I was making these apps for a character that they had called Curious George. And the apps that, uh, myself and my team were making were doing really, really well. We had one that was entered into the Apple App Store Hall of Fame, and, uh, they won loads of awards, got a lot of downloads, and critically, made a lot of money. Meanwhile, my brother Barry was on the other side of town, and he was working in a startup called Storytoys, who were making apps and games for kids based on, uh, fairy tales and public domain IP, basically. But he was building a proper business around the app side of things. So basically, I was making apps, but I was working for a large American company, um, that didn't really know what to do with apps, didn't, um, really know what to do with me. He was making content, but the content was not of an especially high quality, but he had a solid business there. So actually, I think he got a heavy, heavy grilling over the suggestion to hire his brother. And I had to ask myself a lot of questions about, uh, um, going to work for my brother.

Belinda (host): How did you build relationships in an atmosphere where people knew that the CEO was your brother, and just because of that, may have been more wary from the start?

Emmet (Guest): Well, I think initially, actually, uh, there was an exercise of even getting in the door because of that family relationship, um, ah, quite the opposite of nepotism. I think there was a strong case of making a case for me working there, despite being Barry's brother. And similarly, I was looking at the company going, right, I will consider working here despite the fact that my brother, um, is the CEO. And honestly, that came down to the fact that we had tremendous mutual respect for each other professionally. So regardless of any of the kind of the family side of things, we were able to sort of set that aside and objectively look at the work that the other was doing. So, yeah, ultimately, you still land in a company, um, as you say, with at least a perceived bias of, oh, yeah, that's just, um, somebody hiring in their brother. But I had a solid portfolio of work, wasn't lacking in confidence, and also had a really receptive team who basically were prepared to listen to ideas and to take on board direction and feedback. And the team were kind of crying out for creative direction, um, and so receptive to it. People were okay with it. Despite the family connection, there wasn't so much of wariness there. We're also very different people, um, my brother and I … I think that people kind of figured that out very quickly, too. But it was interesting in that, literally, I was in the company for, I think, 18 months plus, and, uh, we were drinking at the office party, and one of the people who was, like, long term on the team, their time predated my time in the company, suddenly was told that we were brothers, and actually hadn't realized for the preceding 18 months that there was any family relationship at all. So I don't think it had been the primary focus for the team, to be honest.

Belinda (host): Day one, story toys. What was that like? And where did you start with building relationships? Where does Emmett O'Neill start when he's getting to know people and moving into that position where you're really important to people?

Emmet (Guest): The week I joined, they were still in. It was an office space, but it was a small upstairs, very, very hot place, which was absolutely not really fit for purpose. Uh, I think week two, we'd moved to our proper offices, but uh, about a dozen people, cramped, attic quarters, four, fifth floor in a Georgian place. So you're going in, trying to figure things out. But everybody's taken a gamble and joined a startup. Everybody's buying into Barry's vision of what that could be. Everybody has already got a shared common purpose and recognizes that, hey, you're not working for Google, you're not working for Facebook, this is a startup. So I'd come from a relatively large Us company. I'd done startups previously. It was a bit of, uh, a strong reminder, but what I did was I leaned in. As I mentioned before I started my career as an illustrator. I've led design teams and creative teams pretty much continuously throughout my career. So, uh, from a creative standpoint, I spent time with each of the artists reviewing their work. There was already a solid pipeline of products being produced, but I would say I quite heavily art directed the products that were already in train and tried to move them away from the story, toys, house style at the time. Um, and trying to make sort of bolder statements suddenly for a group of artists, I think where I'm saying, right, I want to see more of your personality in this drawing. I want to see, show me your portfolio outside of your Storytoys work, bringing through what people were brilliant at, because there was brilliant artists there, many of whom still work there, uh, just bringing out the best of their work and letting them, I guess, express themselves more. And ah, when you're enabling somebody to do that in their job, straight away, their work standard shoots up, they're enjoying themselves more.

Belinda (host): It goes back to that comment that you made about the responsibility of leaders to enable others. Is this what you mean, allowing people's personalities to show up? Is this part of it?

Emmet (Guest): I think it is. Where you have that space now, I'm cautious about saying it's certainly, that was my goal at the time. Um, I'm cautious about saying it in know, these days we primarily work with licensed properties. When I have somebody working on a Barbie product, I can't say to them, I want to see your voice come through in this Barbie drawing. It has to be drawn to uh, a house style. But certainly, yes, I think within whatever constraints you have, enabling somebody's creative skills to come through, it's critically important.

Belinda (host): And so that's within the creative team. But there is an organization that you're plugging into. Is it just you and Barry at this stage, at the leadership level?

Emmet (Guest): Neither Barry nor myself founded the company. The company was originally founded by two other brothers, um, who were twins, and they were both software engineers. And basically they developed the original pop up book engine that Storytoys original line of products was based around. I guess because of their influence, Storytoys had been a very engineering focused company. Barry came in and he brought this brilliant commercial focus to it and a strong sense of the marketing side of things. But in terms of product, it was very, very engineering heavy. So, yes, my soft target, I guess, was the artists in, uh, that. Those were my people. I had free rein. Uh, Barry was great at actually just giving me the opportunity to really do what I wanted with product. And I would also say the founders, uh, were phenomenally open and really did allow me kind of free rein on it. That was effectively the management team with a commercial director in there as well. It was a solid team, but we were very, I would say we were reasonably siloed. I didn't interfere on commercial. Barry didn't particularly interfere on product. We respected each other's swim lanes, so to speak. And that's an interesting one, because I think ultimately that may not have been the correct choice at the time.

Belinda (host): What makes you say that?

Emmet (Guest): I think ultimately, Barry had a lot of brilliant product insights, and I think there was a lot he could have brought to the table. And by us kind of respecting each other's swim lanes, we ultimately maybe didn't get the full benefit of, had we worked completely collaboratively, had we each contributed to the other's domain expertise area, why.

Belinda (host): Choose that more siloed swim lane approach? What was going on?

Emmet (Guest): I think that was respect. I think it was just respect for domain expertise. And also I would say that it was probably for me, um, a family or brother hang up. So if you think about it, in a family, you might have one person who's really good at, let's, ah, say, drawing without stretching too far, um, or somebody else who's really good at computers. It sort of puts the other person off the other's area of domain. So I think we probably brought a little bit of our sibling history to bear in those early stages. There's a lot that you learn to learn about through observation of an older sibling and I think that sometimes makes it very tough being the oldest, where you're kind of forging your own path. But I think I probably brought some of that dynamic, uh, subconsciously to my working relationship. And so I think ultimately, I went into little brother mode to some extent, where I was constantly observing, and that could be as simple as we'd go on a trip to Tokyo and I'd stop paying attention to where we were, because I was like, yeah, Barry knows where we are. It's fine. I would literally, in a way that I would not, in any other situation in life, drift into kind of a, uh, passivity, but I was doing that because of trust and the immense amount of trust that I had for him. So I would say I was learning from him all of the time, in all contexts, in the same way as a child is learning all the time. When you go back into that childhood learning space and mode, you're like a sponge. So, yeah, I learned a whole industry from along the way. We made a lot of products together, and some of them more successful, are less successful than others. But we learned together, too, I think.

Belinda (host): And at some point, um, conversations start happening where you land up at the end of those conversations, the CEO, and Barry is no longer the CEO.

Emmet (Guest): Storytoys expanded, um, and we took on investment. Barry did a remarkable job of raising funds, and I would say investment was just one of his key strengths. And, um, interestingly, he's effectively wound up working in that area, post story toys. But basically, Barry was pretty much continuously raising funds, managing funds, all of that kind of thing. So he was figuring out ways to raise money, I was figuring out ways to spend the money. And, uh, we made a lot of different products, all of which we made with sort of, yes, this will be the thing that breaks through. The mobile space has changed so much over the last ten years. I don't know how many times we had to pivot our business model, change our audience, change the way we sold things. It was constant flux, constant change, but really exciting and really dynamic. So the company had grown quite substantially during that period. I think we grew to about 45 people thereabouts, but we hit a point where we'd probably gone in too many directions, uh, simultaneously. And we spent a hell of a lot of investor money and ultimately weren't seeing the returns from it. So we went through what was, I think, for both of us, probably one of the most difficult periods of our lives, where, uh, look, it's great fun growing a business. It's not a lot of fun contracting it so we did. We had to let people go, and the business got smaller and smaller and smaller. So Barry decided to step into the role of chairman of the business, and basically gave me the CEO role. A lot of it was about costs, management, and just the business supporting multiple people at a management level. At that point in time, it was just becoming less and less feasible. So, yeah, um, we slimmed the business down. And there's a euphemism that doesn't really express the pain of every person that you sit across and have a difficult conversation with.

Belinda (host): That can be heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking.

Emmet (Guest): Absolutely. And particularly, I have people who I've worked with for many years across many businesses. I'm not good at having kind of a firewall between friendships and business relationships. Anybody that I was sitting across from and having a difficult conversation with, I was fully aware of their family situation, fully aware of the mortgage payments that, um, would not be made, and painfully aware of just the difficulty this presented on a personal level as much as on a business. So we went through that very difficult process. Um, and, uh, yeah, I then found myself, I suppose, again with support from Barry as the chair of the board, found myself trying to pick up the pieces and take the small group of people, um. Um, and find a way forward that.

Belinda (host): Moment that is so heartbreaking. It's the story of a lot of startups being so close to the people that have gotten you to where you've gotten to. How do you mind yourself in that moment?

Emmet (Guest): I think for me, the north Star was that I, uh, still believed in the company, I still believed in the products we were making, and I still believed in the team that remained. So it was a determination to see that through, to not have spent eight years, I, uh, think eight years, no, maybe actually only six years at that point. But I think it was a determination to not have seen all of that wasted, all of that just disappear. And we felt like we were within a hair's breadth, um, of insane success. And I had that feeling, and as it transpired, we were. That was critically important. But the other thing I would say is, in terms of my own coping, uh, as I've mentioned, I was an illustrator, and I actually started to draw a lot again, and started to do things for the first time in 20 years that were not just about pursuing career, uh, and pursuing work, but actually were about relaxing. So got a hobby, I think would be the quick way of saying it.

Belinda (host): But going back to basics is what it sounds like. Going back to the thing that gives you comfort, the thing that you are innately good at and talented at, and that almost probably felt like going home in many ways.

Emmet (Guest): Yeah, I think that's fair. I would also say that when activities like drawing, they are completely, in fact, many creative computer tasks, whether it's editing, drawing, or even coding, for many, you enter flow state. It's a meditative like experience where ultimately, it's the one time your mind might actually switch off because you're just doing something that you're 100% in the moment while. While you're doing. And I desperately needed to be, uh, in a creative place and in a flow state. So, yes, as you say, it's going back, um, to a comfort zone, but I think ultimately it's a meditation alternative, too. Yeah.

Belinda (host): And healing. And so you come out of that…

Emmet (Guest): We came out of that, and, um, with a big product launch on the horizon, we figured that that could be something that could help turn things around. But we started operating the business on a really basic level, got our costs down, that the revenues coming in could sustain them, and slowly grew out from there. And again, I, uh, still had the support of Barry at that point in time, who had obviously all of the historic knowledge of all of the relationships, everything that had gone on before. I had to do a lot of debt negotiation, had, uh, to really kind of just manage payments with various parties. And these were not small payments. I mean, you're talking hundreds of thousands and even millions. So it was a case of just wrangling all of that. And then with story toys, we went back to a really basics approach. So I think over the years, we'd expanded out. We were doing products, not just for kids, we were doing middle school products. Um, we were doing coffee table book equivalents for adults. It could be university reference materials. So we were covering everything. So I looked at it and thought, well, what has been best for us? What have we done best at? And the areas we'd done best at were licensed apps. So bringing characters to life, making them real for children, and making great experiences based on that, that's what we had done before. So I just doubled down on that. I'm not going to pretend, uh, of course, that timing and good luck didn't also have a lot to do with it. We were fortunate in that we released a new product that really started to sort of pick up, and it picked up just before the Christmas period, which is a really good time for selling apps. We managed to get the timing on something like really spot on. And then, of course, that was fairly shortly followed by the global pandemic where suddenly people were really looking for ways to keep their kids. Ways to keep their kids entertained, whilst also making sure that they weren't falling way, way behind educationally. And it just so happened we had a portfolio of products that was pretty much designed to do exactly that.

Belinda (host): And at this point, you're well seated in your CEO position, your leadership position, and you are driving to success through the pandemic, through all of that. So where does that leave you now?

Emmet (Guest): The success started pre pandemic, just to be very clear. The pandemic added an accelerant at one point for a period of time to the growth. But finally, we'd sort of hit on some pretty good timing on things. So, yeah, I was slowly gaining some level of confidence as a CEO, and it was not necessarily a role I would have pursued. Very happy operating in a product and creative realm. So, um, it wasn't necessarily where I wanted to be. So I suppose it took a while for me to kind of lose that reluctance and to accept, Yep, this is my job. Um, now this is what I do again, Barry was a great support through those times, and, um, helped me to figure out what it was to be a CEO and critically, over time, what it was to be Emmett as a CEO, rather than Barry as a just, again, old fashioned business model. But we just continued to make more money and then invest more money back in new products and in new people and in growing the business. We actually. We went on quite a period of growth and hugely increased our staff numbers alongside our revenues in a very non risky way. So, of course, when that sort of thing starts happening, then people take interest. The app space in general is kind of interesting in that if you pay a subscription to certain tool set, you can go in and see exactly what your competitors are making. So it's a very transparent industry. Anybody's able to go in and see how people are doing. So when we started doing well, the industry started. They knew about it pretty quickly. So we went from being, I think, the 20. I think we were like, the 27th biggest kids app company within a very short space of time. We got to, like, top 20, then we were top 15. Uh, eventually we got into top ten with a goal still for top five.

Belinda (host): Um, that's very satisfying, Emmett, as a journey, given what you guys had been through, all of you had been through.

Emmet (Guest): It was. And I guess the key thing is it also showed that, yes, we were growing, but we were growing in a way that was massively outpacing, uh, our peers in the industry, that it was actually, genuinely, after so many noble attempts along the way, we'd finally kind of hit our stride with a business model that actually was working. And so, yeah, we grew the team back out. We rehired a lot of the people that we had been forced to let go along the way. So ultimately, when people start seeing you doing well, uh, others take interest. So we wound up with a couple of parties approaching us about potential acquisition, uh, with Barry's support on the support of my board of directors at the time, uh, we thought, OK, let's see where this goes. And interestingly, we've been considering lots of ways of refinancing the know do we invest more in it? Do we grow it, do we go for private equity? So in the context of looking at potentially getting a private equity firm on board, Barry introduced me to, uh, Debbie Bestwick.

Belinda (host): So who is Debbie Bestwick?

Emmet (Guest): Debbie Bestwick at the time was the CEO of a games company called Team17. And Team17, they're one of the biggest independent games companies in the world. Debbie, she left school at a really early age and started working in a game shop. She basically managed to acquire the games business off the owner. I think I could be wrong on this, but I think while she was still a teenager, she then sold that company on, um, to a games retail outfit. She set up her own games studio and games publishing label. So she did all that at such a young age and effectively with very little support. It's one of these inspiring stories within the games industry because the company went on to grow over the years, released number of very successful franchises and ultimately floated. At one point in time the company had like a market cap in excess of a billion. And so when you think back to the origins of effectively this kind of punk teenager manifesting this billion, uh, dollar company into place, I don't think the term legend, uh, is going too far.

Belinda (host): And some similarity because just shortly before I met you, I think you got rid of your mohawk. So there was that funk element there as well.

Emmet (Guest): Yeah, you know me too well. I think. Belinda, just for the record, it wasn't a mohawk. It was, um, spiked, bleached blonde hair. Um, I'd do anything for it now. And so I originally got in touch with her to talk to her about what going down the private equity route is like, what her experiences were because she went private equity and then ultimately uh, floated her company very successfully. So I wanted to just sort of hear a little bit more from somebody who walked a mile in those shoes. I was put in touch with Debbie via Barry we got on really well. We got on really well. I was explaining where we were at business wise, what we were looking to do, what we'd done so far, all of these kind of things. And Debbie, she had a follow up afterwards that was, look, we'd be very interested in being at the table if you guys are having potential acquisition conversations. And you know what? When I heard that, it wasn't necessarily the route that I was originally thinking of jump down, but having had such a good experience, um, uh, in my conversations with her, it seemed like, yeah, let's take a look at this as a potential option. I couldn't help but be impressed by Debbie in particular. I couldn't help but be impressed by her intuition, insight, and her humanity amongst it all. It's extremely down to earth, but so bloody shrewd. I didn't necessarily experience this, obviously, on the very first call, but subsequently seeing her just walk into a room, ah, assess the situation, um, figure out what everybody in the room is looking for, and know exactly what she wants, and figuring out how she's going to get it out of them and how they're not going to get what they want is just like, miraculous to watch. Like, absolutely insane. So, yes, we pursued those conversations, and it ultimately led to the successful acquisition of the company.

Belinda (host): When did the acquisition take place, and how new does this feel?

Emmet (Guest): So the acquisition is actually almost three years ago at this point in time. So not very new, I guess. I've been the CEO of Storytoys, uh, as part of the team 17 group for longer than I was as CEO of Storytoy, independently. And that initial growth has continued on a consistent and ongoing basis. It's both in terms of people numbers and in terms of revenue and in terms of profitability. It's just been, uh, continuous growth since.

Belinda (host): Then, which I think leads me to that final question, Emmett. Beyond Storytoys, in however many years’ time, when you look back, what do you want to be known?

Emmet (Guest): That, um, I'd ultimately like to be remembered as somebody who enabled people, um, whether that is in a work context or in a personal context, I want to have helped people move forward in their lives and to, I think I mentioned earlier, helping people to make the best work of their careers. Well, hopefully helping people to have better lives.

OUTRO

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