Business and the bid
Article Date: Mar 31 2006
He’s the brains behind Air Miles, the most famous worldwide loyalty scheme ever, and now he’s going one better with the global success of Nectar. And let’s not forget the small matter of staging the 2012 Olympic Games. GrowthBusiness meets Sir Keith Mills.
Within two minutes of talking to Sir Keith Mills, you can’t help but be in awe of him. Not only is he a consummate businessman, entrepreneur, inventor and marketeer, he’s also incredibly likeable. Stories of how he invented Air Miles and latterly Nectar points are inspiring, and speaking with a commanding assertiveness, he still manages to come across as an easy-going guy – no mean feat considering the pressure he’s currently under. The eyes of the press and public are looking to him to make a national dream come true.
As chief executive of London 2012, he led the team that orchestrated the winning bid, which was a tough enough challenge for one lifetime. But now, as deputy chairman of the 2012 London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (known as LOCOG), he and Lord Sebastian Coe have to make the Games a reality and fulfil all those promises. Surely the weight of that responsibility must give him sleepless nights?
‘Managing my diary is the biggest headache!’ he laughs. ‘There’s so much to do and not enough hours in the day to do it, but I’m confident we’ll make it work. I wouldn’t have taken the job on otherwise.’
So, how did he end up in the hot seat? ‘Well, American businesswoman Barbara Cassani was the chairman originally hired to run the 2012 bid. A mutual friend said to me she was tearing her hair out struggling to find a deputy and would I suggest some people she could consider for the role, which is a strange one to try and fill; incredibly high risk, very visible, with no certainty of outcome. There aren’t many people who would take that job on.
‘She and I spoke at length about the challenges and, to cut a long story short, the more I understood the project the more interested I became and eventually she said, “Look, why don’t you do it?”. It was a difficult decision, though. While I was flattered to be asked, I already had a lot of other things keeping me busy and I’d never been to an Olympics before. But it was a great opportunity and she’s a very persuasive lady!’
Team players
Sir Keith has just moved into impressive new Canary Wharf offices, which ironically look out over the Millennium Dome, a timely reminder of how not to run a national project. ‘I think governments need to learn not to micro-manage,’ he muses on that subject. ‘Provided you’ve put in place the right people to take ownership of a project and an infrastructure with joined-up thinking, then leave well alone!’
The new steel and glass ivory tower brings LOCOG and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) under the same skyscraper roof to ease collaboration. LOCOG has responsibility for staging the games with a £2 billion budget, of which 97 per cent is from the private sector, while the ODA is charged with using public money to deliver the permanent venues and infrastructure.
‘Operationally, we need to be as one for the task ahead – it’s a mammoth, multibillion-pound venture and the world is watching. It’s on my mind seven days a week, but luckily I love challenges.’
Let’s not forget that while all this is going on, Sir Keith is also running his own company. Loyalty Management Group (LMG) operates the Nectar programme, the UK’s largest customer reward system, with 50 per cent of all households participating in the scheme.
How he finds the time for all this seems a miracle. ‘When I took on the bid I kept in regular contact with the business and made sure I never missed a board meeting. But Seb and I have hired a new chief executive for LOCOG, Paul Deighton, and when he joins us full-time I’ll become non-executive deputy chairman. This should take some of the pressure off, though balancing my time equally between LOCOG and LMG is one of my biggest challenges for the coming years. Hopefully, I’ll also be able to free up more time to spend with my wife and two children and do some sailing.
‘One of the things I learnt in business a long time ago,’ he continues, ‘which has stood me in good stead, is if you can surround yourself with people that are much better and smarter than you, it makes your life a whole lot easier! We built a fantastic team for the bid and now we’re going to fill this new building with a thousand really good people. We spent a long time finding Paul Deighton, who’s a top guy and incredibly experienced. He’s going to build a great organisation here.’
