 You're all very welcome today to our talk with Amelia Taroad, our guest Q&A, the series of which we've been doing for a little while now with 42 courses. So first of all, I would like to turn to our guest Amelia. You're very welcome, Amelia, joining us on our 42 courses guest speaker series. And maybe you'd like to tell everybody joining us today just a little bit about yourself. Well, thank you, Louise. Thank you for the two courses. Hello, everybody. It's such a pleasure to do these kinds of things. So thank you very much for inviting me along to do this. My name is Amelia. I am a strategist, a brand strategist. I guess sometimes an innovation consultant. I kind of wear a number of different hats. I've been working in the industry for sadly a very long time. So I started in 1997 working for WPP. I was one of their early WPP fellowships and I have had a career that I'm so I've loved, really genuinely loved it. That's taken me to the US, to the UK around the world, to countries as far as as China and Finland and Serbia and all over the place. And I've worked for big companies like WPP. Oh, sorry, I've got a little bit of feedback from WPP to agencies such as TVWA, Naked Back in the Day, Ogil the Interactive, VCCP. And about six years ago, I left the world of agencies and I set up a brand and innovation consultancy called Break. So I've been running my own business for the last six years. And I think for me, the thing that I love. So I'm absolutely a strategist at heart. I've worked across advertising, PR, CSR, digital. For me, the bit that really gets all my synapses buzzing is about that connecting point between people and brands and thinking about spaces and places where they exist and how you can connect them using creativity. And I am constantly amazed that, well, not amazed, but I'm just I'm delighted that I get paid for doing something that I really love doing. And I count myself very lucky to do it. Well, it's just great. Amelia, that lovely introduction from yourself. Somebody so happy in the role at work. I mean, you know, I have bad days, bad days. But, you know, my goodness, if I think about the kinds of client problems that I work on, you know, you and I, Louise were talking about books that we were reading that, you know, things like whether it's, you know, the Elon Musk biography or Shoe Dog. You know, we get paid to read about culture and to think and about, you know, how you decode and navigate culture and think about brands and businesses and organisations like, you know, what a privilege that is, what a privilege. And of course, many of you joining us today on this talk are in either ad agencies, marketing industry, creativity industries. But just let's go back to scratch, Amelia. And let's talk about what is the role of a strategist? Oh, okay. I mean, I think the role of a strategist is really one about kind of decoding. I think really good strategists have fantastic cultural antennae. I think that, you know, the best strategists I've ever worked with and almost in brackets, actually, some of the best strategists don't necessarily have the word strategy in their title, but really good strategic thinkers have great cultural antennae. They are really kind of eyes up and really interested. They notice things and I think it's about sort of decoding and connecting signals in order to provide advice and counsel, really. So I think it's kind of decoding and helping to navigate is what I always think a great strategist is. And in a smaller agency, why should the CEO, why should the founder decide, yeah, I need a strategist in my team? Because I think without somebody whose clear focus is on the strategy, I think you can get, it's very easy to get drawn off course, whether it's they're kind of administrative or business. I just think having somebody whose absolute centre of gravity is thinking about the strategic direction of client business. Without that, my worry is that you lose a kind of fundamental anchor and that coming out of it, the work suffers. And as you said, I mean, your wealth of experience and such a large number of agencies, and then you decide, you know, the big decision to branch out and set up on your own. What was the thing that was going, what was going on at the time that made the difference for you to decide, yes, I want to go in my own direction? So, I mean, I think there were a number of things going on and, you know, some personal and some professional. So, I mean, I had a real moment of kind of personal crisis, actually. So, my lovely mum got a very late stage terminal cancer diagnosis. So, if people know anything about cancer, they stage it. And there are four stages and stage four is when there's nothing you can do about it. And my lovely mum who was a kind of non-smoking, non-drinking, you know, super healthy had lung cancer and it was stage four and there was nothing they could do about it. And I think I had a real moment of thinking about, you do, you have a real moment about what do I want to do? I mean, it's a real kind of esoteric moment. There's an amazing quote, Martin Luther King back in the 1960s was giving a sermon in the Riverside Cathedral in New York and King was talking about the Vietnam War and he uses this wonderful phrase where he talked about the fierce urgency of now. And I think when somebody close to you has such a horrible diagnosis, there's a kind of fierce urgency of now you really think about now. And I guess I'd always been tempted to think about trying to set something up in the way that I wanted with a structure that I wanted. But there was never a right time. And then suddenly when that happened to my mum, it just made me think about there is never a right time. But the fierce urgency of now kind of compels you to do something. And I did. And actually, I mean, again, it's been up and down. There's been COVID in the middle. There's been two young children needing homeschooling when their schools shut down. But it has been such an adventure. And I'm so glad, so glad. Well, obviously not glad, but I'm glad that actually out of a kind of tragedy with my mum, there was something I could take positive out of it. And that was about kind of there is never a perfect time. So, you know, give things a go. I'm sorry to hear that that story, but at the same time, as you say, something good came out of it in that you set up your company and fantastic referencing that Luther King quote, as I think there's a lot of us, regardless of our sort of life stages, certainly through COVID, as you say, a lot of people stepped back and asked that question of themselves. So I think that's very pertinent really to the times we find ourselves in now. I mean, sort of drawing in. We hate to talk about COVID, become the second C word, but drawing that in and drawing that in with strategy. To what degree do you think even just general strategy in business is sort of more important than ever now as people are still now, I think adapting to the fallout of this and the impact it's had on a lot of, certainly on a lot of small businesses. Yeah, I mean, it's had impact on every kind of business actually, and you know, everyone from school teachers to doctors to, you know, FMCG companies, I mean, the effects are just, you know, wide reaching and so deep as well. I mean, I think from a strategy perspective and for strategists, it's a really good time to be doing what we're doing, because I don't, you know, I think it's never been as needed. I, you know, it definitely makes me think about kind of flexibles, you know, getting that balance between having a really clear and defined strategic objective, ambition, but also having the flexibility because, you know, so much whether it's cost of living, whether suddenly there's a war in Europe, whether suddenly there's a war in the middle of this, you know, it feels like we've got, you know, rolling one after the other after the other, you know, it's kind of punch after punch after punch that we're all having to adapt to. But I think without that kind of clear sense of strategy, what you just get is drift. So I think, you know, it's a very, it's a, you know, it's a great time to be a strategist because, you know, everybody's, everybody's in need of clear sighted counsel. And you talked about how the strategist is somebody who sort of needs to have their finger on the sort of cultural zeitgeist, as it were. It is something that you think somebody is a certain type of person, sort of naturally curious and interesting, or can you actually train somebody to be a strategist? If you're not inherently sort of curious and wanting to learn about new things, can you sort of engender this in yourself? I mean, so it's the kind of nature, nurture question, isn't it? I mean, all the best strategists I've worked with just have this kind of this, this fizz and this energy and this interest. I think that probably anyone can kind of learn strategy. I mean, there are courses, there are books that, but, but I think, and that, and you can, and I think that's fine. You know, there's kind of basic strategic principles. Actually, anybody can learn, but, but I think those people that really excel and who clients adore and who people love working with just do have that curiosity and, you know, an old mentor of mine, Jeremy Bulmore from WPP always used to say, well, he said a great adman, but he meant, you know, we were talking about sort of planners, but he said that, you know, they're people who find something interesting in every section of the Sunday papers. And, you know, and what he meant by that, you know, was, I don't really have any interesting cars. I'm not a petrolhead, but, but, but actually when somebody with a kind of strategic kind of mindset on, you know, we'll look at that and go, isn't that interesting the design of that? Or, you know, you and I were talking earlier, Louise, about Tesla and electric vehicles. You know, there's always something interesting around if you've got the kind of the mindset, the inquisitive mindset and that attitude of kind of asking why there's always something there. So I guess the short answer is, I think anyone can learn the fundamentals of strategy, but I think really extraordinary strategists have an insatiable appetite for understanding and really look harder than other people and take the time to look and take the time to think. That's a really good explanation. I'm just laughing to myself because my husband's always complaining about the amount of time it takes me to get through the Sunday paper because I've always got my tablet alongside me and I have to keep stopping and starting and looking something up and, as you say, finding interest in things that you wouldn't on the face of it think you would, you would be interested in. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm constantly, somebody said, I weaponise my telephone and I guess what they meant by, so I'm constantly taking pictures of things. So it might be a shock front. It might be sometimes I'll just take a picture of a quote that I've read in a newspaper or it might be an ad I see on a bus or but I'm just constantly snapping things because at some point I've kind of got a roller deck, I suppose, on my phone, which is at some point I will use them like at some point there's a quote or there's a great collaboration that I haven't heard of or there's a shock that I haven't seen for at some point I'll use it and it may be in a couple of years time but just having it there is so is so is so useful because there's always we're surrounded by interesting stuff but sometimes you walk past it and sometimes you don't remember it. So you've been giving me some great examples from the areas you've been talking about for anybody who is with us who wasn't quite sort of o-fay with what a strategist does but maybe we can really sort of pin it down how would you mind maybe talking about a recent strategy campaign that you have worked on at Form Break so that people can really put it into sort of concrete context. So one project that we worked on recently so in the centre of London there is an organisation called Somerset House and it's amazing it's a beautiful old building on the banks of the River Thames it used to be a palace it then became I think it was part of the foreign office it's got a huge courtyard in the middle and it's this kind of incredible organisation because it's got the Courtauld Art Gallery they have the largest collection of working artists who are there who kind of pay a peppercorn rent they have small businesses they put on kind of like events they're a kind of dance night they have amazing it's this brilliant thing and the brief that we were given by the director of Somerset House was what can John, the volunteer so John is a real person and he's from Belfast and he's quite dour he's quite he's quite it took a time for me to warm up to John but John needed to have an answer to the question when an American tourist walks in on the strand and says to John, gee what is this place John can't say well it's a cacophony of like John wanted John needs an answer to what exactly this place is and it was a kind of fascinating project because there were so many stakeholders in it from artists to small business owners to art galleries King's College is also connected and we one of the things that the director at Somerset House had said is I want everybody to feel part of this thing but it doesn't it feels like we're very siloed and we're a collection of kind of silos as opposed to one big house together and we want a kind of organizational strategy for this company for Somerset House but also for the brand of it to build people to kind of pull people together and actually the strategy that we ended up coming up so we gave them a positioning and the positioning was around being a working art centre because actually there's something very different about Somerset House versus any other kind of art gallery where there's always work in progress so there are people at work there are businesses at work charities at work there are artists, there are soundscapers like there's just a buzz and when you look up at Somerset House and you look at the windows you'll see post-it notes are up and people are like it's alive with people working on ideas and it's very different to an art gallery so we gave them a positioning which was London's working art centre which they loved because it kind of it pulled in everybody but I think the things that I was really proud of was that what we realised was that one of the reasons strategically or I guess emotionally why people within Somerset House didn't feel like they were all part of one experience was to do with lanyards which is really funny so the things that you wear around your neck and what we realised was that artists had a different colour small business owners had a different colour students had a different colour and the colours denoted what discount you got in the canteen and what discount you got in the shop so actually what was happening was that all the people who kind of lived and worked at Somerset House were looking at each other going oh well she gets 10% he gets 20% and actually those coloured lanyards were kind of building in kind of suspicion so that was kind of interesting and then the other thing that we found was that with Somerset House it's quite a confusing space the physical space it's called North Wing and South Wing and unless you have a compass it's quite difficult to know where you are and to navigate and what we realised it sounds really odd but when you were getting in the lifts the lift signage would say ground floor you know minus one minus two but when you got into the lifts it would say lower ground the signage was all wrong so that actually people were coming into Somerset House and the lifts people were getting lost so we gave them a sort of a strategic positioning but then we also gave them a number of really practical solutions to help with their with the challenge they were facing so actually I'm kind of just as proud as the fact that we changed their lanyards and we changed their lift signage because actually those were kind of practical examples of how strategy can translate into real world experience and then coming out of that then we could develop comms around advertising and around content but you had to have that kind of strategic framework and you also for me I'm quite a practical strategist and I like seeing things come to life over and above, here's a six sheet or this is what an Instagram post would look like for me it's really important that strategy plays out in the everyday so it was a really interesting example and not one that translated into a television ad but it was a really interesting strategic challenge that allowed us to really think creatively and at different touch points as well I think that's a super example and a very interesting one as much as when people think generally about advertising agencies your first thought is always the advert the television, the radio out on the street and yet this is a very good example of a company that was struggling with an identity and brought in a strategist and I think there's lots of people who might not even realise that you can hire somebody to think through those issues that you're having within your company so I think that's a really super example one of the messages you sent through to me when we were sort of messing back and forth about the event you called yourself a strategic generalist maybe, is that the term you used and I'd love to know then what does that mean then that if someone calls them a generalist and then can you be a strategic specialist or working in just a particular area so I always feel so I always feel a little bit anxious that I'm too much of a generalist so I think everybody has their kind of imposter anxiety and and maybe it's because I started my career as a marketing generalist so the way that the WPP Fellowship used to work it was a three year long grad program and you did three years three different disciplines and if you wanted to three different countries so it was just amazing so right at the beginning I'd spent a year in advertising then I did a year in media and then I did a year in digital here in the US so right from the beginning I've always thought quite broadly and I've never really thought about myself as an ad person or as a digital person I've always thought about myself as a strategist who really likes brands and who really likes people and loves technology and kind of how do you connect them and you know there is all the thing about kind of T shaped planners and you've got to have a really good overview but you've got to have a center of gravity somewhere and sometimes I worry that my center of gravity isn't deep enough but my center of gravity and actually I think my center of gravity is probably is strategy but there are plenty of people who can write a better social strategy than I can or who can write a better CRM strategy than I can but I think I'm pretty good at putting the pieces together but I think you can have a question of can you have strategic specialists absolutely and my goodness you know when you find them and you really gel with them I mean that's where the kind of magic happens because I think it was funny so I was mentoring and I was having coffee with a young woman who is a strategist in the world of Out of Home and she was just brilliant yes I had a coffee with her yesterday morning and she knew so much about Out of Home that I would ever do but actually she didn't really understand about brands and her her kind of aperture was quite limited so you know what she needed was the ability to kind of partner in with somebody who could help open her aperture but what she loved was Out of Home but I'm constantly anxious that my T-bits isn't deep enough and you mentioned Jeremy Bulmore earlier who you obviously had the privilege to work with who have been your influences I think Jeremy is just extraordinary and I miss him every day he passed away earlier this year he was in his 90s but still working at WPP and you know everybody should read everything that he's ever written because he's just the most extraordinary clear thinker and Jeremy's work is just fantastic I was also very lucky to work with another planner in the US called John Steele who has written a number of books Perfect Pitch Truth Lies and Advertising and John Steele is another person who is just an extraordinary thinker and again is worth reading everything he's written he really helped me think about storytelling in pitches well it's just storytelling generally and how you persuade I mean he's brilliant he could have been a lawyer he would have won every case he ever thought and then a long time ago again another planner Russell Davies who was at Weidman Kennedy for a long time Nike Government Digital Service Russell who's another extraordinary brain was hugely influential on me I said back at the beginning of this century so kind of early noughties when he was very generous with planners actually when there was a kind of wonderful kind of planosphere and he would put together meetups on a Friday I think at the Breakfast Club in Soho and strategists would come together and he was really generous with his time and got people blogging and writing and thinking and sharing and he had this wonderful conference called Interesting where people would come and bring stuff that they found that was interesting and he goes back to what we were talking about which is really great strategists do find interesting things and they find interesting things where other people don't think they're interesting but planners do so all of those have had a real impact but I think the strategy community is a nice community on the whole I mean I've found it to be an intelligent and supportive community that kind of helps bring people up as opposed to knock people down that's lovely we're all very nice aren't we we all need organizers and you mentioned there about reading Jeremy Bulma's work obviously you're a big reader I'm an avid reader myself I often hesitate to actually start these questions because you could go prattling on all day about it but what are you reading at the moment Amelia or are there other books you would recommend to anyone who's joined you I mean I just think we've all you know I mean I say this to my children and they don't never bloody read anything but you know we've got to you know that's how you learn so I've just finished the Walter Isaacson on Elon Musk which I just found absolutely fascinating literally I couldn't put it down and the I mean so that I just think is amazing I've always got kind of multiple books on the go I'm really a really interesting book at the moment called Teenage which is by by an ex-journalist called John Savage and it's about the creation of teenage and adolescence as a point in time and he has a very interesting premise because most of the time people think that sort of teenagers started with the Beatles and actually what John does in his book is he looks much further back into kind of the 1870s sorry yes the 1870s 1890s and looks much earlier at because it used to be you were a child and then you were an adult and the beginnings of adolescence as a kind of as a mindset and as a kind of demographic I've just found absolutely fascinating Sounds really interesting I haven't heard of that I know that Chris our founder will be nodding there when you mention the Walter Isaacson Elon Musk which is he's a man love him or hate him that obviously he's part of all our lives and very much part of current culture What's so astonishing is Musk runs six companies jobs at his peak ran Pixar and Apple Tesla Neurolink it's the boring company it's unbelievable it is unbelievable Twitter whatever whether it's on fire or not but the impact he's what a force of nature and just trying to understand anyway I just I I audibled it actually with a lot of those bigger books I tend to lots of them I have to listen to because it's just easier for me and if I'm travelling around but I couldn't I couldn't stop couldn't stop listening to it that's a marvellous advertisement for it and we chatted earlier that I'd also read the book Power Play which is about the birth of Tesla and again I said to Amelia absolutely fascinating reading would never believe the company could have ever built one car if you understood what was going on in the factory I've got that I'll download that the other one I've just downloaded actually this morning is one called Blood and Oil which is all about the sort of Middle East and Saudi politics and I think for me I don't know enough about that area so I think that was something that I keep meeting people who young people in the industry who are all moving to the Middle East because that's where they say the money is that's where they say the opportunities is and that's where the excitement is and then they all talk about ethics and they're making some ethical decisions and choices but certainly the sense I get from a lot of people that I'm talking to is they're not people aren't rushing to go and work in the States like I did 20 years ago the only place I wanted to work was the States there is an anxiety about Europe but people are really thinking about those Middle Eastern countries and so for me again I need to make sure that I understand more about that context because I don't enough that's very interesting very interesting observations not something I can say I really thought about but I had heard of the book mentioned and there were several others I think recommended this weekend last weekend was the big FT when they have the book yes I love that yeah absolutely and what's great about those books is ones that really from the description you would just think oh I'd never be interested in that but I suppose that's the power of a good writer or a good journalist is that they can make something the face of it sounds quite boring absolutely I mean a great documentary maker makes anything interesting I think I remember years ago watching a brilliant documentary and I think it was about something like the plumbing system in ancient Rome but that's what a great they find something fascinating and you go god I'd never thought that would be interesting but you're absolutely right yeah I'm not ashamed to say I watched one last week on pigeon racing pigeon races in America so there we go it was actually really interesting I would like to watch something is it pigeon fanciest or something sorry let's not get diverted by pigeons talking about pigeons so obviously I do want to bring in everybody who's joined us today it's great to see so many people joining us Amelia's been telling us about so interesting and I can see a question from quite towards the start of the chat from Veil are you still with us Veil you had a very interesting question hello Veil I'm going to ask you to unmute yourself if you don't mind and I'd love you to put your question to Amelia you're very welcome Veil thank you so much I'm actually working in a small agency where they don't have real strategy and it kind of feels that they don't value it enough or they don't see the importance of it so much I'm thinking about changing to strategy and like really feeling that void maybe in this agency but if not I'm maybe moving elsewhere but I do want to make change to strategy I've been a creative for the past 20 years like how do I do this ooh or what's a good start well no I mean so listen some of the most strategic people I've ever worked have had that you know I said right at the beginning some most strategic people have never had the word strategy in their title Jeremy Bulmore my mentor was a creative all his life but the most strategic person I've ever had the pleasure of working with so I'm sure that already really good creatives think highly strategically because they think about their audience they think about the strategy I mean you're probably doing it already I mean I'm a big fan of the APG I don't know if you know that organisation the APG I mean originally it stood for the account planning group it's set up in the UK but their courses are often online and are brilliant and that you meet a kind of you create a cohort you meet a kind of gang of people and you're kind of trained together I think the APG are great 42 courses again would have some brilliant resources but the APG do specific courses for people transitioning out of specific disciplines into strategy and that's all they do it's planning strategy so I'd probably be tempted to start with the APG that's definitely a good suggestion I've also already done some of the behavioural science courses 42 courses which I really like but like if someone has suggestions for books or resources I'm really willing to hear I'm also thinking of maybe I don't know like I've already got 20 years of experience as a creative like to go somewhere where I can maybe do like partly strategy and parts creative Well listen, ping me afterwards I'd be very happy to help you in the right direction Thanks very much that's a great question and thank you so much for joining us and so I can see a question from sorry don't just apologise just a messed up feel I think I might have thrown her out of the meeting I can see a message in there from sorry a little chat Well I've just lost my question oh no it was Luke there we go back on board and back on board Luke was actually referring to the example you were giving Amelia of your strategy example in Somerset House and just had a particular question about it would you like to join us Luke and put your question to Amelia or will I just read that out I can see you're still with us no response as the storm replies so what Luke was asking there Amelia as he was very oh hi there Luke do you have any bandwidth to put on your camera Luke I have bandwidth I don't know if I understand how to use not to worry at all we'll leave you there in the dark and put your question to Amelia no I'm involved in changing settings which is beyond me yeah so I thought the Somerset house example was great and I got the brief there from the client which was really nice that they put that into the hands of a specific person I guess and I got the output that you designed and you created I was interested in what went on between the two you know how do you approach that problem what are the processes is if research and then development and then iteration you know I'd love a little bit of detail very practical question that's a super help great question so one of the things that we always do when we are on strategy projects so we go and kind of live with the client so oh hello I can see hello I like your wallpaper as well hello Luke you're very welcome so when I started the company it was back in 2017 and one of the things that we kind of deliberately did was we didn't have a headquarters because what we always said with every client project was we put into the contract that they would give us space for the duration of the project so we would go and live in the organization and work out of it because we always found that that gave you much better insights into the challenge that you were trying to face so we went and lived and worked out of Somerset House I guess it was between for about four or six weeks but we did a number of these things of which we call hax which are kind of strategy hackathons whereby they're kind of sort of building workshops whereby you are creating a strategic prototype together so you're pulling in all the different sort of stakeholders all the different well I guess stakeholders from the sort of different from across Somerset House and what we would do was a series of these strat hacks where we were building a proposition and really trying to get under the skin of what made Somerset House different as a place to visit as a place to work as a place to to eat as a place to socialize in so we went through quite a structured approach which was exactly that loop where we created prototypes we put it back into teams we tweet we iterated but it was totally collaborative with the client so one of the things that I've always hated is the kind of the client gives you the brief and you go away for six weeks and then you kind of you know the velvet curtains opens and they're like well that's what I expected or you know sometimes it works but lots of times it doesn't and then you've just spent weeks and you've all killed yourself and it hasn't worked so I always think that strategy is a kind of team sport and if it's a team sport we've got to become much better at allowing clients into the process with us so it was always a very flat iterative process because then when you have the final presentation there really isn't much surprise because you've kind of built it together great thank you thanks so much it was a great question a very practical question so I think we're time for one more question Sarah you've just put a question in our comment box I'd love it if you would join us to talk to Amelia thank you so much hi Amelia great to meet you and thank you so much for everything that you've shared with us this morning I've just been making notes in the background all loads of really real amazing gems and pearls of wisdom thank you I would love to ask you do you always start with so any strategic project that you're working on do you always start with vision mission values and purpose the reason that I ask that is that I just find it almost impossible to work with a client whatever their challenge might be it might just be some really kind of random non-purpose connected challenge whatever their challenge is I find it really really hard to sort of get started or get any direction and if we don't actually start with establishing those things first also I just I love establishing those things doesn't have knowledge of those things so do I I guess one of the things though that I work like that sometimes those kind of even those words like kind of vision and mission and this and that like I think sometimes as an industry we can trip up over our own feet and sometimes you can have kind of hair splitting semantics of is it a vision or is it a mission and then suddenly you get into these kind of useless conversations of so what I tend to do is I look at three things when I start a project and I think about beliefs, ambition and truths so I I often I often start with kind of beliefs so what are the beliefs of the organization so often I start with kind of I tend to sort of have on a poster somewhere like kind of build from beliefs so I start with kind of what are the beliefs and actually that beliefs are always much easier for clients to articulate rather than a vision or a mission which sometimes can be quite high for Luton and it doesn't really meet where it's actually what do you believe as an organization what do you believe what do you believe about your products what do you believe about your culture so try kind of mapping some beliefs which are a really good way to start I also really like thinking about truths so what are some of the truths about your again about the product about your audience about I don't know your budget you know we don't have any like that would be a truth like you know we've only got you know a hundred thousand but I think I get people talking about beliefs I get people thinking about the truths and then I think I get people to think about ambition so for me and this is entirely personal sometimes vision and mission can feel a bit too out there whereas an ambition a five year ambition and ambition to me feels a bit more practical so so I always talk about really strong strategies kind of sitting at the intersection of beliefs truth and ambition and if you can think about belief truth and ambition into a solution again for me that becomes eminently practical as opposed to here's a vision you know because the vision is always we have a vision of ending like it's often too far away and yeah it's often not not really touchable if it feels you can't get your hands on it whereas belief truth and ambitions to me people I can understand it and if I can understand it then I can help clones understand it love that thank you thank you so much Sarah that was a great question so I think we're coming very much to the end of today's session and it's really been quite a masterclass Amelia and as Sarah was saying I'm sure there's plenty of people here today who've been scribbling away furiously there's been lots of very good suggestions in the chat box and Chris our CEO has shared lots of very practical information in the chat box with links I hope you've all taken notes from that as well it's really been an honour to speak to you Amelia we could go on all day I'm sure but we've come to the end of this session so thank you so much for joining us today really been sharing some super information and you've been very welcome and thank you to everybody who has joined us today taking your time out of your busy day to hear the wealth of wealth of wisdom Amelia you're very kind very kind and I was just going to say in the olden days when I was on Twitter I would have said connect with me on Twitter and I'm sadly not on Twitter anymore because it's kind of burning but connect on LinkedIn I'm always happy to chat always happy to have virtual cup of tea and a conversation so LinkedIn or Instagram as long as you can put up with some pictures of my children playing football generous as ever thank you so much thanks everyone for joining us do join us again just a little insight into next month's event in about three weeks time we will be speaking with Rory Sutherland who I know most people here are a great fan of so I do hope you'll look out for our share of the link to the next event but until that next time thanks everyone for joining us and hope to see you again soon bye