Niall Anderton FCA, CEO at Circle K, talks about life at the wheel of one of Ireland’s most visible brands. Always be open to change, because things will change around you anyway. That’s the key lesson Circle K Chief Executive, Niall Anderton, has learnt during his career to date. “Be open to changing your career because things will change whether it’s consumers, the industry or the ownership of your business,” he says. “There’s no point getting worried about what’s going to happen next because it will happen irrespective of what you do. Don’t be afraid of change, look for it.” And he has lived that philosophy since setting out on his career as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG in the mid-nineties. “I love fast-paced and dynamic business environments that are constantly changing.” The son of an IBM engineer, Anderton had no history of accountancy in his family but he knew from a relatively early age that it would be the career for him. “I’ve always liked working with numbers and I was very good at maths at school,” he recalls. “I really enjoyed the structure to accounting; what I liked most about it was the ability to balance things.” Having considered investment banking and becoming an actuary, he chose accountancy for its more defined career path. But that thirst for change led him to move on from auditing and into industry. “I learnt an awful lot in practice in KPMG when I was there, but I felt that I was going in a bit of a cycle. I was there for nearly five years and you were seeing the same customers, clients and challenges but you really weren’t making any helpful decisions in terms of turning the business around or driving it in a certain direction.” Niall worked with a number of retail-focused clients before deciding to make the move into that sector. “I was always aiming for the retail business because my preference would have always been to work in an industry that I could relate to,” he explains. His first role was Financial Controller with Brown Thomas subsidiary, A-Wear. “I did the Brown Thomas audit when I was in KPMG and they had a role as Financial Controller for A-Wear, and I went in there.” It was far from an easy option. “Retailing is tough,” he says. “Whether it’s in finance, operations or buying, what might look glamorous at the front in terms of the models and fashion is very hard work behind the scenes. That’s probably one of the things I learnt from going into the A-Wear business. A-Wear was at a size that meant I learnt a lot from working with the operations guys and the buying guys and I got a lot of exposure to a range of stuff. I was in there doing a negotiation on the leases, walking the streets with the operations guys, going out to China to see how the buying was done, so I got huge exposure to how the business was run and was able to influence decisions. You don’t always get the broad experience that I was very lucky to get.” He moved on from A-Wear to logistics firm, Target Express, before being asked to join telecoms company O2. “The Finance Director of Brown Thomas went into O2 and he asked me to come across because there was an opportunity to look after their retail business and bring it forward. I spent three years in a non-finance role, which was very interesting. You’re promoting a product which is a commodity at the end of the day, so you have to put a lot of marketing behind it. I got lots of really good experience and it was very enjoyable as well.” From there he moved to Primark as Finance Director just as the business was making the change to becoming the slick multinational operation it is today. “Primark is a brilliant business, I really enjoyed it. The cultural change from when I went in was huge in terms of moving from a very old-fashioned, typical retail business into a multinational fast-paced business was incredible. Huge credit to what they’ve done in there.” But then Topaz came calling with the missing piece of the jigsaw. The one thing he hadn’t done so far in his relatively short but highly varied career was mergers and acquisitions.  And what timing. Topaz was just about to acquire the Esso business in Ireland and within 10 months, had itself been acquired by Canadian firm Alimentation Couche-Tard. “I gained invaluable M&A experience within 10 months of joining.” Incredible and a little fraught. Topaz had to deal with the Irish Competition Authority in obtaining approval for the Esso deal on one side while at the same time, negotiating the sale of the enlarged company to Couche-Tard. “We eventually got clearances for the Esso business on 1 December and we agreed to sign everything on 2 December. It was incredible. You can imagine the late night we had on 1 December when we were still negotiating with the guys in Canada and were just closing the deal with the Esso guys in Europe.” Within months, he had become CEO of Topaz, which was about to rebrand its retail operations as Circle K. He is very modest when it comes to that appointment. “I had the experience and the finance background as well, I was probably seen as the safer pair of hands initially.”  The transition from CFO to CEO allowed Niall to develop a more wide- ranging role encompassing all areas of the business across retail, brand, strategy, strategic HR, understanding changing consumer demand and crucially, organisational change by preparing to lead the organisation through an impending and significant period of change. Two years of groundwork went into the Circle K rebrand. “The first two years were spent getting the systems lined up. We had to change our ERP systems, we had to change our structures, our reporting line, basically everything had to change. That was a lot of hard work in terms of alignment and understanding it from a people point of view, understanding how the business works and the cultural changes and so on. That all had to be done in the background. “We started on the rebrand last April and that’s been very quick – we’re doing eight a week – but that’s the last piece if that makes sense. That’s when the consumers see it, but there was an awful lot of work to get us to that position in the first place. I am very grateful for the support I received along the way from my colleagues on our exceptional and energetic young leadership team, and for the hard work and dedication of our wider team at head office and across our network of sites nationwide.” The filling stations are just part of the business. There is also the aviation fuel side, the terminal business in Dublin Port, and the commercial business supplying fuel oil distributors and so on. But Niall is keenly aware of the challenges facing a traditionally low-margin business in the fossil fuels sector. “The fuel business is traditionally a very low-margin, high-volume business,” he notes. We are very dependent on getting customers in as it is a very competitive industry. We have tried to diversify our offering over the past number of years to a more food-based offering whether that’s coffee, food or car wash.” That has seen a €50 million capital investment in the brand and the add-on consumer offers. “I see the business as being much wider than forecourts and it’s all about getting the person to buy the coffee from us rather than making it at home.” Brexit is a challenge in the short-term in terms of its potential impact on consumer spending, but Niall is looking further than that. He mentions a speech by Minister for Energy, Richard Bruton, where he stated that all energy must be from renewables by 2050. “It will be very interesting to see how we get there. The growth of electric vehicles is both an opportunity and a risk so we’re looking firstly at how we meet that demand – there are Tesla and other chargers on our sites, and we have the biggest network in the country. We’re also looking at how we work with other electricity providers to potentially ‘white label’ our products into people’s homes. “Obviously, the challenge for us is to really replace the main footfall driver because people today go to forecourts to buy their fuel and then buy products in the stores. We now need to turn it on its head so that they buy products, and then they get fuel, so we become much more of a retailer than a fuel provider. And as electrification becomes more prevalent, you’ll be charging your car at home or at the office and what does that mean for our business? We need to stay relevant, but the one good thing is that we’re thinking about it now and you won’t really see the impact of this for another five or six years in Ireland. We have time on our side, which is good.” And his own future? “We continue to make Ireland more relevant for the global Circle K business, which is really important,” he says. “I think for us to continue holding the market position we have, developing new offers and so on. In my capacity as CEO of Circle K, I’ve joined the National Council of IBEC which is important for me in the context of the wider business environment Circle K is operating in and as a business, we have much to contribute both from the point of view of our experience in recent years as well as our plans for the future and the opportunities we see.”

Despite much public debate, gender inequality persists. It is now time for leaders to make good on their words and act. As a classic armchair tennis fan who engages typically around the grand slam cycle, I couldn’t help but reflect on some of the coverage that followed Andy Murray’s recent emotional announcement of his probable imminent retirement. What was remarkable to me was the almost equal balance between Murray as the ‘tough as teak’ competitor who followed his dream from Dunblane in Scotland to become a multiple grand slam winner and that of Murray as a champion of gender equality. His role in championing female athletes, by forcefully arguing for parity of tennis purses, chiding the authorities at Wimbledon for not playing more women’s matches on centre court and, memorably, for hiring a female coach, Amelie Mauresmo, at the height of his career. Or maybe what is, in fact, remarkable is that such acts or statement of equality appear to be so rare in the sporting arena. The business case In language perhaps more familiar to us as accountants, the business case for gender balance has never been clearer. INSEAD research shows that diverse businesses benefit from higher levels of creativity and innovation, greater customer satisfaction, more informed investment decisions and increased performance. But despite all the talk around gender equality in the workplace, women remain under-represented at all levels of management across all industries. Everyday discrimination continues to be a reality. McKinsey data from 2018 is very stark in this respect. Women have to provide more evidence of their competence than men while having their judgement questioned in their area of expertise. Women are also twice as likely as men to have been mistaken for someone in a more junior position. Being the only woman in the room is still a common experience and, consequently, women are heavily scrutinised and held to higher performance standards. There is no silver bullet that will achieve greater gender diversity. Good intentions are great, but companies must show concrete actions. It is clear from INSEAD’s research that achieving true gender balance requires more than just adding women to your workforce. Companies must increase their total talent pool by actively embracing female return-to-work programmes. Organisations must also acknowledge that there will be varying levels of motivation internally to achieve gender balance. Seeking to engage not just the advocates, but those sitting in the middle is crucial to effective staff engagement. Personal experience All of this might have been something I was vaguely aware of until it became part of my professional life. I am proud of having been part of the diversity and inclusion journey across the Canada Life and Irish Life Groups in Ireland and the UK and, more recently, as part of this Institute’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee. While my initial motivation to step up was probably driven by a personal commitment to ensure a strong leadership voice for LGBTQ+ issues, my learning journey across the wider diversity and inclusion agenda has been profound. We know we are early on our diversity and inclusion journey, but that comes with the advantages of learning from those who are further along the path. Some of the work we are doing in my organisation at a group level include:   The formation of a ‘Women in Leadership Group’ early in 2018 to support and promote existing and aspiring female leaders within the business, running focused development workshops for some of our pipeline of female talent which aims to advance opportunities for women into leadership roles; The overhaul of recruitment policies and practices through a diversity lens; The expansion of maternity and paternity policies to encourage full take-up; and The introduction of unconscious bias training across all management tiers. At board level, diversity is now a key part of the debate related to culture. In my own experience, it drives a much deeper awareness of – and focus on – the people aspect of business strategy. It also drives accountability at executive level; setting targets and measuring progress can be challenging, but it does drive activity. And yet we know we have so much still to do. And sometimes you are pushed into action, as we have seen with legislation across the European Union (EU). In the United Kingdom (UK), the Gender Pay Gap Report was published in April 2018 and momentum has continued around this to address the challenges it highlighted, albeit the data shows the gap only gradually closing between 2012 to 2018 at a national level. Canada Life UK is a signatory to the UK Women in Finance Charter and has committed to having 30% of senior management positions occupied by women by the end of 2020 and 35% of senior management positions occupied by women by the end of 2023. Similar reporting will follow shortly in this country and companies need to prepare for it, but there is an opportunity for some to embrace and lead on the challenge. Turning intentions into reality So, what can leaders do within their own organisations to advance change? Consider some of the actions below: Be a vocal and visible sponsor and advocate for women; Undertake a ‘root and branch’ review of your systems and processes to identify biases; Challenge yourself and your recruitment partners to plan ahead and build a strong pipeline of diverse talent for your business; Invest in the development of your workforce equally with tailored programmes to meet different diverse needs; and Set an objective for senior leaders to keep gender diversity on everyone’s agenda. Good intentions are great, but they are no substitute for on-the-ground activity. As accountants, we are respected voices within our businesses and we have a perspective that can lead or push gender balance as a business priority. With all the momentum around gender diversity, now is the time get off the fence and show your support for this positive wave of change. John McNamara is Managing Director of Canada Life International (Assurance) Ireland and sits on the Institute’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee.