#26 with Mohamed Dadabhoy: From Banking to Baking

[Applause] [Music] hey guys today I sat down with Muhammad d boy who worked for credit Swiss for 21 years before embarking upon the second chapter of his career becoming a pastry chef now as an entrepreneur he shared with us his journey growing up in walam Stow London Singapore and back to the UK it was a real pleasure and I hope you enjoyed the chat as much as I did Cheers Mr D boy hi Paul how are you all good thank you very much it's great to see you thanks for coming to the house I really appreciate the opportunity and the time that you're giving me thank you no man it's been brilliant now before we get started um can you just give the audience a quick introduction as to who you are quick overview and then we'll jump obviously into your life story after that sure um I come from a very humble background with not many qualifications like 40 levels um I managed to enter banking back in 1985 I did about 35 36 years in banking and then since then I've sort of been looking at what I wanted to do from my own personal perspective and my own passions I I changed from banking to baking and I went and did some qualifications and I've been on that run since then good man uh it's been such a great journey and I can't wait to get stuck into it but before that you've just come back from from New Zealand which is one of my favorite destinations on the planet absolutely banging country um it's beautiful um I think that we personally preferred the south over the north but you know what you got to see both sides of it you have to was it your first time first time so what was going to take me through you flew to ockland First no we flew into Christ jurge first and then from there we went down all the way to Queenstown saw amazing things we did some amazing um excursions including going on a helicopter going up to see the glass years and then we went to Oakland and the the the north side which is much more cultural from uh an indigenous perspective and that was great to see as well did you um go to Rotorua absolutely I am it took a while to get used to the smell right the Su yeah the smelling is on but you know what it's it's an amazing thing to see that considering how deep down below the Earth that this water gets boiled and comes up yeah I the thing about the south island is you you did Milford Sound right yes we did it's it's stunning it's stunning um and we we we love Lake teao yeah and I think for us probably the the the Highlight really was seeing the Glass ear from the helicopter yeah it's great you didn't land on it or did you no we we landed on the mountain okay um but we got an amazing tour um really about an hour and 15 minutes in total yeah it's it's well you know the year I went I um I took it years ago but I took my two older kids to Alaska wow right that yeah and that was during the summer and then well as in June and then New Zealand in December which is the kind of time frame you when we're summer there is beautiful and that they're they're similar but they're very different because Alaska's just very rugged right and it um New Zealand's almost pristine it always feel feels manicured almost yes it does it does feel manicured and I think that it's some somehow amazing how it's maintained um especially like the mountain side yeah it's amazing that it's so uniform it's so clean there's no and the other thing is that you never saw any rubbish yeah anywhere yeah and I think that's I I guess that's a testament to the country and the people and the visitors to keep it as it is well I don't know if you know this but um other than kiwis only Australians and singaporeans can buy property there so through my Ms I've been looking at that because obviously she's Singaporean and it's uh I've actually got a one week trip plan it's a solo Tri I was thinking of doing it with my son I don't know if he can make it cuz he's going to go into National service but but it's it starts very near Milford Sound and it's a whole wheat trip in a pack raft so you inflate the boat oh wow you go down um the rivers in the lakes and then when you can't you have to pack it all back up um but I just thought you know like I don't know if you've ever done a solo I know you've you've been away on business and stuff but when you're in I've never been away for a week completely on your own in the wilderness so Wilderness and me don't really work don't work I mean we well it's pretty rough where you grw up in you know in East End of London yeah yeah that's Wilderness in itself exactly but that's Urban Wilderness that's true rather in you know um bears and um other things coming at you well the thing is in New Zealand you don't have any Predators it's just it's just it's just the weather right so there there's no there's there's no snakes no there's no snakes which was quite surprising when I got there to find that there was no snakes well it's so weird cuz it's near Australia but yeah so all the uh apex predators are in Australia CR Stakes you spiders there there's nothing yeah so when I'm there I'll be the apex predator yeah so let's dial back where where were you born where Were You Raised give us an outline yeah I was born in wam Stow in London which is um not a well it's not the most beautiful part of London but it's it was home my I where I was born um I grew up there um I went to school there I left school at 16 and and then I started my career which I was looking at a role in accountancy as I was one of those that got one of my 40 levels in accounts what were the other three um one was um sociology history and um English literature which is quite surprising because I don't really read many books now but um yeah and that ology and the accounts was what led me to go into the city okay at that time it was a growing um area for people coming in to work in that the banking industry was going to be growing as the bank as the government had deregulated the financial system and where it was going to allow foreign Banks to own stock Brokers yeah and they were just phenomenally growing um I managed to get a role at a very small company at the time in 1985 um company called barow clouds which was an investment house um and it dealt only in guilts wow where was it based in the square mile uh it was based right opposite the stock exchange oh nice um so it was like you know surreal for a guy or kid who had just left school at 16 with 40 levels to come in and working in in in that sort of environment fast paced everybody buzzing around um this is the High Street of the Wall Street days where people are wearing you know what's it called suspenders and yeah yeah I did have Braes did you did you Don some I did Don some at some yeah um I'm sure when some people listen to this podcast who have memories of me wearing them at Salomon Brothers you know but I didn't get the elasticated ones I got the proper velvety ones okay you you went old school yeah old school but it was you know like you had to look pucker right yeah love it yeah so I did I did da braces and in fact actually um one little story is that when my when I was going to be getting married and my um my uncle-in-law came to meet me he went back and reported to the family that I was wearing brace I bet that went down like a ton of bricks everyone's taking the Meck out of you well I don't think they they did but yeah I think it was like H okay uh it was an okay moment yeah and then uh from there at um I I L I managed to move roles well hold on hold on we we talked about this off camera what was your starting salary because I love the fact you remembered and it puts a lot of things into perspective things have changed yeah I mean I started on 4783 annually and I love the fact you remember right that's that's amazing yeah that was my first starting salary which isn't a lot of money in today's terms or in the past terms but but um it was a starting point and I think that this is some things that a lot of people Miss is that sometimes it's about the opportunity you know you see it in sports a bit more where some people take the opportunity to join certain football clubs at a very young age with a view that they may make it um but I think it's all about how hard you work and it's in it goes in sport as well how hard you work will eventually get you an opportunity I think there's always some element of good CH timing and Fortune always um and I was in that sort of sweet spot where the banks were really growing they needed more people they didn't have experience um and yeah I was able to change jobs within a year which substantially changed my salary to £10,000 um but I still felt it wasn't enough and there were still people offering more um it sort of goes against so am my you know well by the way I I know you're not a mercing because you had a job with One bank for over two decades right so yes yes and I think that with maturity yeah you you sort of value that sometimes changing jobs um that early or that quick isn't what it is yeah you need to build your foundations and build them strong but at that point in time I was young to it was an industry that was Ching that allowed you to get to the top spot um which meant that actually I managed to go and get was able to get a role at Salomon Brothers which which Salomon for those that don't know the few that don't know was the creme de La Creme right absolutely at the time it was you know in the category of Goldman Sachs as a bond house I was only 18 years old fantastic to get a job an 18-year-old at Salamon Brothers was like you know getting in at Manchester United or Liverpool yeah well think about it two years earlier when you were doing your own was you probably never even heard of them never heard of them yeah I never heard of them and you know the companies that I was now going to be you know working within that industry I'd never heard of half the names then yeah um but a lot of those names have gone but I I certainly remember a lot of them some of the things like you know even if you CH or who I last worked for was credit Swiss and who they've now become UBS yeah but I could probably chart a number of names that UBS and credit Swiss are actually a conglomerate of well well actually years ago I think it was back in' 04 when City acquired saloman Smith Barney here I remember because I sold I want a project to do the whole benefits alignment between them and I was just like over the moon I thought this was huge so working for them directly must have been massive it was it was I mean uh the thing was that when I joined uh we were about to move into the biggest trading floor in London and if you ever walked on that floor and there's some you know videos and pictures out there which is a Victoria Station yeah they built this whole brand new trading floor it was absolutely amazing I mean the energy must have been on another LEL I mean you walk on it and you felt like on you know Cloud something especially as an 18yar old where was it in so you come out of Victoria was it near where MI5 MI6 is is it there no no no as soon as you come out of Victoria Station it was just above it okay oh wow it was just it yeah yeah it was amazing fantastic and then tell us a bit more as that as that unfolded um I was there um joining them in their operations team to help set up the UK government settlements process and a number of my colleagues had all just joined as well um they'd come from the bank of England or they come from another sort of brokerage house and all of us became a team right there was no level at the time um we had a lot of fun uh and fun that you can't have today you know the time has changed considerably um Can what are you alluding to I can't say I can't say anymore um and we we worked silly hours but it was fun yeah we got paid for it with overtime which again you know meant that as an 18-year-old I I had more money than I could dis disposa use yeah um and I was guided towards buying a house which was quite unheard of that an 18-year-old buy a house yeah uh and I managed to buy a three-bedroom house um at the age of 18 but it was on mortgage yeah of course of course but that was my first property have you still got it no we sold it in um 2000 okay but you kept on to it for a while yeah we lived in it I got married in it w my both my children were born there fantastic um so there's some history there for it but yeah we moved from there after thereafter um I managed to get onto the trading floor working with the Traders um in the Government Bond Arbitrage desk but unfortunately you may remember some people may remember if they're old enough um October was it 15th or 16th 1987 the night of the high winds and Salan brothers made their first layoffs and it was a case of last in first out unfortunately I was impacted um but having been impacted I think it's about resiliency um I know I remembered I was 3 months away from getting married oh wow that's right I had a mortgage um I was still young I was still a kid to some people I did cry on the way home on the train I still remember it I bet um but that resiliency Factor kicked in which was having lived in a counselor state for a number of years which was meant you have to get out you have to better yourself you have to try harder that resiliency kicked in and within getting home I started ringing um recruitment agencies bang I don't think I called you then no um but um started calling recruitment agencies and I managed to get a role within a day and a half Contracting and within a month my ex my ex boss is on the desk they sorry to tell tell guys back then what happened because the interview process wasn't 9 or 10 interviews no no it wasn't um so my interview at Salomon Brothers to start with when I got hired was quite unique um I still remember my boss who hired me then Peter Murray you know um I I don't know where he is now but he was you know he was quite mature at that age I hope he's still alive uh but he was certainly instrumental in getting me in because he interviewed me I really didn't think I'd got the job because he wasn't as focused on me like we are on each other right now yeah um I got home and Dad tells me the agency's called I called them up and they told me I got the job now that's significantly different to how things operate today yeah where even the hiring manager doesn't necessarily become the first person that somebody sees yeah they start seeing some other colleagues of the hiring manager the hiring manager then comes in then you have you know people outside of the area doing interviews and then finally if everybody comes together it goes to HR yeah which I think adds a lot to layers I think it adds a lot to pressures I think it could be reduced certainly in my opinion to maybe a couple I I think those old days what they're so much more visceral because then you may not even report directly into that man but he's he's he's took it upon himself look this is the guy that I want part of the team I I think those old days there's something to be said for him yes there is um and that's how my career started and that's how many of the other guys that I worked people that I worked with got hired as well okay and one person that you know wasn't in that team but was in another department was my manager at credit Swiss in the future but last 20 years what was his name or is his name his name was Neil Martin okay um and he and I worked at salomons but in different teams and then from year 2000 he he was my manager and we know we still keep in touch every four to six weeks so that's amazing so shout out to Neil yeah absolutely and you know what I think we learned to work with each other we understood each other and that and that's an important factor well before we dive in actually we we've got to give a shout out to Mr Kush akmed yes because that's how we know each other yes yes so how so Kush was um he's one of my dearest friends I met him in 2001 and actually I was working in a firm before Kush started working and uh our manager shatti said oh there's a guy that's flown in he's lives in Leicester have a look at his CV tell me what you think and so he comes up and I stood up and said how you doing then he started talking I said are you from Leicester are you and he said you can tell from my accent I said yeah and then I was I I was I was winding him up a little bit but um and then we became the best of buds straight away and then as you know became my business partner I joined him he was already set up and uh you know we're still the best of buds today how did you meet him I met him through another friend um and then it it was um at the mosque was it um no I met my my through another friend where was at a party uh one of our sort of festive parties that we used to have and then after that I met him at the local mosque in Singapore where I used to go um and then from there onward you know know we've as a group of us we became best of friends we would meet at lunch on Fridays post uh Friday prayers down in um CBD in Singapore yeah and then since people have moved back to the UK you know we're still all very very good friends well you you did a trip last year to we did a trip to maresh um together and actually for my 50th and the his the introducer that that there was as in our co-friendly well we all went to Dubai in you know uh some years before that um so yeah we've done some ladge trips as you would like you you rented a few fast cars if I remember on that trip oh yeah yeah we we did ride some fast cars and you know Kush loved his Lamborghini and some of us had Porsches and things like that yeah listen I will never let Kush drive any of my cars back in the day I had a Porsche and um it was a it was a manual and he was cranking the gears and I I said mate no no but he's actually not a bad dri um all right so going back then so new job what were you doing um the F the first thing was um we were settling um UK Government Bond trades uh and I think there was a uniqueness to it in the way that we were one of the large um houses that did a lot of auction Buys so we had a lot of funding requirements etc etc and learn I mean one thing that I shared many of times with my staff in my career was my first big mistake and it's okay that you share your mistake and you learn from it and I remember there was me and there's another guy um I I'll name him um Ray um we started together we had a lot of fun together at salomons and we made our biggest mistake we got our funding requirement wrong and we lost I think with something in the region of like 35 37,000 for the weekend gez and it and it always happens whenever you make a mistake it generally happens over bank holiday Therefore your cost becomes an extra day yeah and our boss Peter you know he came walking down on the M on the Tuesday or the Monday I can't remember exactly which day but I think it was I think it was the Tuesday came walking down and he said guys hold up your hands and we did and then he told us we messed up in more polite words um and he just then walked away and I learned my lesson from that and and I share that with people is that it's important to escalate uh and if you escalate you know you can fix things yeah if you don't escalate when you don't understand something then you're going to make more of a mess up of it and don't try and hide it because you got to get in front of it and if you're going to try and hide it you're going to make more of a mess up of it yeah and as a consequence of sharing that throughout my career in a number of cases especially in the last 20 years where we've Unearthed things you know we always always make sure that we put it up to the management to me and then we don't just go yeah okay let's just see if we can wing wing our way through it yeah no we do the right thing yeah and it's important to do the right thing big time and I've carried that on into my pastry world you know where I was working last um sometimes it's easier sometimes it's easier in the colony world you know if your boss isn't or you know your chefs aren't around Senor Chef AR around and you know you might burnt something or whatever you know just check it in the B and start again yeah right but I I don't think that's the right answer I think you know you let them know because you let them know or they may be able to fix something yeah right that's the thing right and and listen anyone that's been there and wed the the line before you they've we've all made mistakes you and and and I think when someone owns up to it and just says oh look this is what's happened and they acknowledge it look I'm sorry yeah actually I think it de escalates everything all right no worries and then and then you learn them quickly yes yes yeah so so I think that that's important that people learned from an early from an early part in their career that if you made a mistake talk talk talk up rather than put it under the carpet for sure I'm going to come into your pet CU I want to talk a lot about that part of your life um when did you get a knock on the the door to say look CS Singapore talk us through that um yeah that was quite interesting because we were actually I I sort of moved roles Within credit Swiss from joining in operations to Leading a a team that was running um settlements of a number of Asian markets in particular where where was the office in London at the time down in um in Canary wolf um and then after that I was running a number of projects internally around business process re-engineering um then I moved into the management office which was much more about managing costs as well as um providing data and production of items for management for their presentations and things and I learned new skills as a consequence of it I didn't initially want to go into that particular role um but I actually learned a lot from it and and especially about how to present from one person in particular and how to keep people you know focused on the presentation that you're giving yeah and it's not necessarily just about talking it's about talking at a pace making sure where they are in the presentation and bringing them back and then moving forward I love that a lot more engagement yeah more engagement and through that process you know we we started talk and then 9/11 happened and you got governments that want to move certain roles into places that were tertiary to ensure that you had B good business continuity um especially in the States you know they they wanted that much more faster quicker um than in other countries and we started to explore that in the UK as well and I started exploring that we know we looked at sites like Manchester Ireland etc etc um Singapore wasn't on the radar initially but I think we were looking at more like Manchester and Birmingham places like that um and we even looked at the states where the US were moving but as you start moving out of country you're going to move out of time zone yeah and when it's not going to necessarily work with a Workforce in a certain country or you're going to be second because the local market are the US needed to be completed first for regulatory reasons we had to go okay we have to chart our own journey and we had moved certain roles a few years back to Singapore and in 19 in in 2004 um we came to Singapore as a management team to explore the possibility of moving more jobs to Singapore we recognize that we would be working European hours and but we felt that the work work force was more likely to be able to adapt here than maybe out in Raleigh Durham for that and we did you go to Raleigh as well just to check out I I personally didn't uh there were a number of other people that had um I did go to the I did go to some meetings in New York for it okay um but it clearly was that you know we were going to be second after the US did and did you know then at this point Singapore was potentially going to become your home or it wasn't no I I I I'd loved for it to to be at that point in time I mean you know as soon as you come out of Changi driving down on the East Coast Park you see all all the the all the flower beds that are in the middle which you know I later Learned was a temporary Runway potentially if ever there wasn't a need to a lot of people don't know that no so they can just move them and bang you got another Runway you got another Runway um but and then you see the East Coast you know and it was just like you were in a little bit of paradise yeah right um at that point no I didn't know I would I loved for it to be yes um now I'm project managing the potential for some leaders to come out along with some staff to Singapore to build out um there were a few other people that were ahead of the pecking order that came out um they came checked um it didn't fit with their personal lifestyle and came back and reported that they couldn't do it and then Neil uh did ask me you know would would I care to to have a look at it Mo how old were you at the time um this is now um 2005 so I'll be about 37 and so how old are the kids roughly yeah I mean you know from a lot of perspective a lot of people with the age that my children were wouldn't necessarily take such a role you know my oldest was going to be 16 and the youngest was about 10 but it's more about the eldest because you know a lot of people start to think about their children University and potentially going back to the UK yeah um probably a few years earlier than that so it was a risk that we were going to take but it sort of my my children were quite up for the challenge in the sense of um we said to them look in your case it's a couple of years but think about it that you get the opportunity to travel from the region yeah and yeah we wanted to travel the region and the premise to come out with here initially when I did get the role was I wasn't going to be having having the most senior of the role um purely because I think it was about making sure that from a local perspective the local talent was going to have that opportunity and you didn't know at the time that um I'm guessing that because I know with Kush well for him because he initially looked at KL but um been Muslim that you know there are so many more food options here mosques here you know it's a lot easier to navigate right yeah I mean you know when I when when I when we came for the the first trip in 2004 you know it gave me a little bit of an Insight especially the fast food the most of the fast food was Halal here in Singapore because of the connectivity to Malaysia which certainly was an Enticer you know never had a McDonald's it was hello before um but um yeah so it was certainly an Enticer but I think the as as time when we came on the lookie you know once I knew what one of my favorite restaurants was ever going to be after that yeah it was like yeah that was an no-brainer um so yeah Singapore certainly had that as an added value so you arrived in Singapore and then were how many you were here for many years yeah we were here for 17 years um there was a two two prong um split in terms of how long we were here my first three years I was here initially bringing the roles to um from London to Singapore and you know one of the things I always believe in leadership is about walk the talk you don't just talk the talk and I've seen many of times and I think that was partly going to be the reason why I ended up with the bigger role within like 6 months of being here and that's not because the person couldn't walk the talk it was more that it was just too far a stretch yeah um in the sense of having to have responsibilities for roles that are Asian hours and have responsibility for roles at are European hours it's just too much to do in terms of your personal leadership time that you can give it was just going to kill someone so for me I knew what I was coming in for which was European hours and that meant work from 3:00 to 4: in the afternoon till 4:5 in the morning every day and how how many years did you do that for I did that for all the three years that I was here first uh and that wasn't the reason why I went back um the reason we went back was I think the from a family perspective is my eldest had gone back for University and um I think my wife more in particular was you know wanting to for us to still be a family um hav gone back it didn't work out for me in the sense of a personal um um uh emotional level from uh I was quite depressed about it you know having experienced the wonderful life here in Singapore and the London weather and the London weather was certainly something that wasn't attractive um and the exercising capacity the the food scene yeah the overall lifestyle I I wasn't yet ready to possibly give it up and I went back and even when I was going to be going back you know I I had a couple of chances where I agreed with my bosses that I was going to go back and then I was sended it and then I went back right so I I did do a bit of a yo-yo uh I was very grateful that I had some great managers that facilitated the actual transfer there and back yeah so in 11 months we did come back and I was grateful to have come back did the kids come back with you or they were now at Uni no no the oldest one was at Uni but the younger one came back the only smart thing I did do was I didn't take my deposit from tangling um um which would have meant that it would have been harder to get my daughter back into tangling Ah that's an interesting point I didn't realize that so the idea was that I'd sold to my wife when we did go back initially was if we keep the deposit then maybe we can come back when she's a bit more older to do her a levels little did we know that she'd actually come and do her gcc's NOA levels yeah but yeah so that certainly helped yeah um and and then it was back into the mold to to to start working but this time I we had already started to move some of the roles from here to India so in that year that I went away I sometimes the I also sometimes not sometime I believe the almighty does have a plan for you you don't know that plan but the plan for you I know how much Blood Sweat and Tears I put in to actually make the deployment of 150 roles from London to Singapore work mhm that ripping that out and sending it to India would have been ripping my own heart out and I probably could have um become quite a destabilizer at work in my own life and I could have possibly even lost my job because I I probably would have had a very negative attitude to it yeah but the fact that somebody else took on that task and did the majority of the moving yeah um like it was almost a stab in the heart for my baby that it was you know it wasn't me having to do it somebody else did it yeah um that it made it the transition easier and now I was looking after roles in the Asian time zone with Asian products and Asian markets okay so yeah that was my next set of roles now what do you cu the one thing that I really admire I mean people always laugh you know from the head hunting side of me they always think oh it's good when when people leave and I say well the majority of the placements that we've always made have been a result of a company growing right and I think I told you like over 90% of the people we've ever placed in the last 18 years are still working where I placed them I just want to understand from your perspective what was the key to your longevity at credit Swiss was it 21 years yes it was yeah you know what what was the key behind that I mean you've mentioned your boss I'm sure that was a big part of it I I think longevity comes um I think there sometimes people confuse longevity to loyalty yeah um longevity is about you navigating your career and and the fact that you know in my my initial years I'd made a few hops um that brought about some maturity some in some were not necessarily my choices a few were my choices but after those choices you know um I was at Northern Trust for about five and a half years and it brings about stability in your life in your family life in your own mindset and then at some point you got to go okay am I going to really advanc in this company uh you may have built up some baggage or whatever as well um I then went to Banker trust as a settlement supervisor and I I must say that was probably my real career opener those next five six years where it became Deutsche Bank after the merger yeah more I would say an acquisition um and where I went from being a supervisor um all the way up to being a VP um and it was quite interesting as well because I change roles from doing supervising to managing and leading to actually doing change learning access and um Excel macros and coding which then opened my Horizon um and continue to help develop me as a person whereby the Continuum into business leadership is that there's constant change and a lot of that change in business process re-engineering is actually in technology and a lot of people who don't go through that low level of Technology understanding um tend to rely on the technologists yeah being honest at times as well yeah and I'm not saying they're dishonest but you know you can actually challenge them better 100% if you if you got that foundational knowledge I mean even like I told you I was renovating the house if you have a contractor coming in and you know nothing about it he can take the Mickey yeah right so what what were you doing in the M the prime of your career CS just share with you what your overview was and what you were responsible for um uh at the prime of my career at credit I was responsible for all Global entities for security settlements of Asian markets I was also responsible for the asset servicing teams which did for the Asian markets um for FX derivatives and for control so a big chunk of work man that's a big chunk of work and that was split across Japan Hong Kong um India uh and a few of the smaller local markets as well but there was a bigger sort of process India became a large chunk of resourcing that that were placed out from Singapore that had moved from you know Americas or had moved from um London you know one of the things I've adir about you for a long time is when when you decided that you were going to effectively retire from corporate life it wasn't the end of your career it was actually the beginning of a new one absolutely I call I call it pH two you know um it's it's important that you know when you when when you do have a long career I I think that this is my personal perspective I think that people can be quite dishonest to themselves right coming to towards the end of their careers yeah in a sense that there is a level of burnout right you know corporate life does have a level of burnout yeah there's only so many fires you can fight and continue to fight and it you have to have a burning passion and I wouldn't say my burning passion was lost but I could certainly feel it flickering and and with that flicker I was very fortunate that I'd built a team around me um that was at least you know minimum of seven 10 and even one of those guys came with me from London to this day he's still at now UBS W right it was part of the um the acquisition was he part of the acquisition right and therefore I had a good team of people that were with me that meant that you know I could start to um think about taking the foot off the pedal a little bit yeah seeing how it goes um and yeah and then at that point it was like okay I now can really focus that I know that if I was to be leaving the the legacy of the team the people would be secure with the people that are here so yeah it was that but for me personally I could start to feel a Flicker and it was then about identifying what are your passions yeah um and for some people their passion can be that they want to still um educate people or or or help people in leadership great go do that for some it'ss I've totally retired I just want to read a book and you know have a sandwich and play golf yeah uh for me I wasn't done yet so did you did you sit down and say right I'm going to work out what I want to do or did you know that it was cooking straight away not initially okay talk me through that thought process yeah sure I I think it more fell in its place in in in the sense that um I I was I was looking I was trying to work out what it was going to be it wasn't coming to my mind you know I I built up this passion of cycling since about 2012 you know you start thinking maybe you could do something in that world but it's a very tough world and it's a very Niche world and then my wife decides to give me a um a lesson for going to to a culinary school in Singapore um which is down in the west pallet sensation and I looked at the course and it was like one lesson now I end do one lesson I'm going to do the whole course which was actually eight eight lessons in themselves and then I went and done it uh and the chef that gave the the actual coaching and lessons there uh French um Chef Mond I think he has a restaurant here called bar time okay which is still going uh excellent guy and you know taught us from chopping from onions to carrots to garlic to making desserts and I think that was the first part of the bug and I felt comfortable that I was fitting into a passion that I really liked were you already cooking regularly at home I wasn't cooking regularly at home but I was regularly watching cooking programs every day and every night and every time I could watch TV so was it was it was still so it was quite raw for you then yeah yeah it was very raw I mean I used to cook on and off yeah right but never to that level of precision or never to that level of you know wanting to I I loved eating to that level but now it was to say okay you can take it to the next level yourself but don't you find like if if if like guys of Our Generation Um I don't like we've got friends on Facebook Instagram and I rarely see guys cooking and showing it maybe some of them are secretly doing it and that's why I started following your stuff because I thought wow I like cooking as well yeah look there's people out there who love to eat yeah and but tell them to to get in the kitchen it's like well no I love eating and that's it yeah um there are a few people who do love to cook but generally that cookies when the barbue is turned on and then man man and Hunter and and you know meat comes alive yeah um but beyond that they don't really want to get in the kitchen full time or uh and you know it's a different thing when you start getting to pastry from cooking to pastry is two different things because I find that in cooking you know there's a lot more tasting as you go along and you can make adjustments to The Taste to fit with what you want it to taste unless you burn something completely um but with pastry it's a it's a bit more scientific and therefore you know it's very intricate yeah much more intricate um intricate in terms of measurements in terms of ingredients and certain things if you combine them won't work by by the way I've just got to put this in when I'm next back in the UK please do one of your beef wellingtons and have me over I definitely will all right good man um all right so then so then you did the course and then eight lessons later what were you thinking eight lessons later I I'm now I'm now thinking well I I I need to find something more and uh my wife went on a on a trip to um see her sisters and I had an opportunity of a couple of weeks bu myself and I like well let's see if I can find something and I'm still looking in Singapore to be very how old how old were you uh this is uh 201718 only so you know I'm in my I'm just turn 50 yeah so that's my point is that even at 50 you can start thinking about what's next what else is out there yeah yeah yeah and from from there I I was just searching on the net and I guess I wanted to be getting doing something at the at a higher level than what I was doing at pallet sensation and there is another culinary school in in Singapore but it it really wasn't working for me um and I was explored and I found loron Blau in Bangkok and there was this master class in the clar making I subscribed to it they booked me in I went there how long were you there for a week or something no it's just a day it's only a day yeah it's a day so I flew in the day before really and I went and done a a um thae cooking lesson class in another sort of culinary space but more like a tourist you know you sometime people come to Singapore or go to Thailand and they have these tourist cooking classes I went and did a tie cooking class spent the night next morning I was I was at look on blur I got there and I got what the sheet was of the ingredients and I was like a little bit mythed because one of the things was they were going to use in gelatine okay so I'm there I'm you know a Westerner Foreigner comes in to Lon blur Bangkok and the first thing is he's got a complaint of or a request more those more so um that can we use fish gelatine because that fits with my dietry requirements and I have to say that you know the chef that put they gave the demo Fred L grass absolutely excellent I mean big tall T towering guy coming across to me I thought oh no what's going to happen here and you know he he had experience of working in the Middle East so he he was very you know in tune with what my requirement was yeah and actually was in tune with a lot of requirements for a lot of Thai people who you know being Buddhist as well um they don't eat beef yeah so you know we actually changed the menu for that day that any gelatine was going to be the fish gelatine yeah and that was great and you know that in itself sold me any future proposition the class was excellent the chef was excellent their their ability to have some flexibility was excellent and the bug Was Bitten and that was it bang so after that what happened after that I I needed to really work out how my bus was going to let me have three months off and and although i' known Neil for you know I've known Neil now for more than 35 years or whatever and by that time it was already 30 plus years yeah um you know I think that generally corporately the the trend tends to be is that even if you're going for a sabatical you know it's got to be for a good reason and that tends to be you know you're taking care of someone you've got a real need for it or or somebody in your family but going 3 months to a cooking school isn't isn't the prime reason for needing 3 months off so how did you wangle it um I I i' spoken to Neil before about you know when I needed three months when my daughters were going to be graduating at the same time so the initial marker had been left there but hadn't been executed um and therefore now was now trying to leverage that to become something more real in a different way yeah um and I think we were both real you he knew that I really wanted to do this uh and both of us were probably in the future Trend going to be looking to end their careers at some point over the next five years three years who knew um that I said to him look I understand that there's probably going to be some level of a marker against me at some point you know the fact that I've going to done this if you're away for 3 months you may not be needed now it just so happened that it happened at the end of 2019 last quter that I went and there is a risk and you know you have to make certain decisions in your life and it was a life-changing decision because I knew that I was taking a potentially a a Financial Risk and you can't take those type of financial risks unless you have some level of sound financial foundation in your own life yeah and for me you know my girls had come off my financial conveyor belt with having done their degrees they're off the payroll now the payroll one had got married they were off they were in their own lives now um and from my own self is like okay I need to focus on myself yeah what do I want to do next I can't be sitting at home and I can't be going through another 10 years just grimacing going through the financial industry just for the sake of it yeah that would have just probably killed me you know earlier than I than it will yeah um so I managed to agree with Neil the three months I knew I was going to be financially impacted I go away had an absolutely excellent time and it wasn't just about time you know I never experienced Student Life yeah you never went to UNI right so never went to UNI so it was real student life I got myself an Airbnb apartment um and I was cleaning cooking where were you based I was in Bangkok itself okay um I was about like five stops away from um Central world and and it's pricey right sorry it's pricey to to to do the course absolutely yeah yeah I mean it's not it's not cheap um I mean if I combine that and my then desire to actually complete the whole diploma which I ended up doing in London after going back um it's the cost of doing one year's University as a foreign student in the UK yeah um is is the London component more expensive versus the Bangkok one um with exchange well I I I think the the London component became a little less expensive only because I was living at home okay um but overall it's like nearly 0,000 a year to do it but you see that that's a gift to yourself you you'll be surprised by I spend about I think about 10 to 15,000 us on self-development every year myself and and and it's and sometimes you have to really think about it if if you're not in that sort of financial ability to do so no but but you know there's one of my favorite films is Goodwill Hunting and uh Matt Damon's character he's having a disagreement with someone in a bar and he said look you'll come to the realization that you've just spent 150,000 or your parents just spent $150,000 what you could have learned in a for a $150 in late charges at the library but with with cooking it's different because you're in there you're in the mix yeah you're in I mean and and and I loved every minute of it I mean I was the mature student in both Bangkok and in London yeah and some of the skills that you know you you pick up in your career as as a mature person you know whether it's networking whether it's drawing people together rather than you know people squabbling or people trying to um just trying to figure out for themselves is it is it a general course or was you were you specializing on the past I specialized in pastry um and the reason I specialized in pastry was because I whilst I was you know had good skills in culinary um I I didn't want to um deviate from my faith which meant that I would have had to touch um other you know protein products as well as other liquid products that wer I couldn't consume by the way when I got married in 2006 we got married in barley which is a Hindu State as you know and we really struggled at the time because I wanted I was going to have two dishes for the main course one was going to be fish and one was going to be lamb and I wanted it to be Halal because I wanted Kush to have that option and it was very difficult and I found a guy he was a German guy he was married to a Muslim woman he was a big guy bodybuilder you know very intimidating lovely Guy and um I actually thought wow he's he's on to something here because Indonesia you know outside of Bley is is Muslim but but yeah so so Kush if you're listening that you know I I went to a great deal of trouble to make sure you had nice lamb chops that night Kush is always looking for ni nice lamb chops um I think he's I think he's also had my lamb chops which actually called um who who chopped the lamb okay um I'm sure he hoovered him up no doubt yeah he did um yeah I was there doing pastry in particular because of the flexibility to it and by for some reason after that Master Class I sort of fell in love with Pastry as well I didn't mean that I lost any of my um my desire or my passion for culinary because once I had done the the course I started doing some uh private supper clubs which was in which was all about the meal because one of the things that I have learned from my pastry chefs right is that a dessert is a nice ending to a meal it is not the meal yeah the so therefore you can give people you know a very big nice smile at the end of a meal yeah but it is not the sustenance in your life the sustenance is really the culinary element by the way sorry I'm just thinking cuz I don't like mushrooms so when you're doing that beef wellington you got to find a replacement I don't we find a replacement I remember there you go we'll try that I love that you know actually it's funny I don't know if you remember this cuz I I did a Jordanian L mansaf during covid and you commented on it I was thinking you know because i' never I've never actually eaten it so when you're cooking something you've never eaten before you don't really have a marker right but but I just wanted to do something completely different and I thought when I did cuz it was actually many hours of cooking and I remember you commented cuz you probably wouldn't have an appreciation for what's involved absolutely you know what I mean I mean there's a lot I mean especially when you've never done something and to get it right yeah um I mean for example you know you mentioned my beef wellington which uh you know is very well appreciated especially over Christmas when I make it it's it's a treat item there's a lot of work goes into it and is's a very you know expensive cut of meat that goes in it as well yeah um so before I used to make it here with um as a chicken Wellington but using you know chicken breast but I think that that gave me the confidence yeah to go for the first time to make the beef wellington but you've got the pastry element you got the combination but when you do it are you you rolling out your own dough or you buying the dough I'm buying the dough and you'll be surprised at how much restaurants buy the dough roll and there's a good reason for that is in a lot of restaurants you don't have the capacity on S site to actually have you know shoting machines which take up quite a bit of space yeah um and on top of that temperature control yeah so when you're in a hot kitchen that pastry is just going to melt yeah um and and if you're doing you're doing seating for you know 50 people 100 people you know for the yeah I mean I mean you know my time at phow I mean you know tell tell us about that so phow is Michin Star Restaurant back it's a fantastic restaurant I mean I was very fortunate that I got a roll there very very quickly and very easily to some degree um I mean after finishing my my diploma at um at Lon blow in London you know I sat home for a couple of weeks I got Bor I I looked up through the Indeed app and there was a couple of roles that I really fancied I applied for them and I went to do trial shifts and that's how it works you know in the in the the FNB space in a good FNB space back in the UK generally people get to do a trial shift and the trial shift is you go in for 3 4 hours um you get to do a few things that they want you to do it's not free labor it shouldn't be free labor yeah and what it is really is about you getting to like the place and they get to like you they get to to show a few of your skills they go okay well this is somebody we can work with um and you don't get paid for it but you get to meet new people blah blah blah blah blah no but that's but listen that shows that you're interested yeah absolutely you know what you turning up in itself it shows interest I I I have known many trial shift expect that you know once I join fellow would get oh yeah this person is going to come in a trial shift and they never turn up yeah I um well that's the other thing cuz you also invest all that time and money later on in your crit it it reflects that you are committed yes do you know what I mean soow they they specialize in what sort of food soow phow specialize in sort of know the tail into sustainability so deer dear absolutely deer there is deer on the menu it's not all about deer but it is about sustainability and uh the woman that hired me um Anna um I'll say this now Anna sorry but she's actually the same age as my oldest daughter but but Anna's a lovely lady and she's moved on from there I mean she and it was interesting herself and the the co-owners Jack and will um and in my last boss G they were all they all worked for hon boel right and when they worked for hon you know they weren't probably at the level that when they became Patrol and where they are now having done a few other jobs in between um but they all Jael together they all work together they all worked in an environment which you know probably is similar to that that was portrayed as an image in a lot of um TV shows you know which is a bit harsh um where chefs top chefs end up being a bit brutal yeah etc etc and when I came to phow I think that was a big culture shock for me tell us about that cuz you told me off camera not I'm fascinated about that uh it was it was a culture shock in the I think they took away the negative element of how they had been treated yeah um and decided to make that a very different environment it was inclusive right it was fun um it was collaborative it was Co coaching um fellow I think you owe me some money but no um give him an example one of those one of those examples the biggest example that I can give you that was totally against the grain was I never saw someone get lambasted like you would expect to apart from on one occasion in one year and even that was done very privately it was like Hey you it wasn't me hey you get in the fridge and there those big Walkin fridges you know that's bigger than somebody's bedroom and they went in there and they had it out in there but other than that I never saw that in in any case and you know what that was an amazing thing to see yeah and I commend them for that for creating that and I think this probably lends to maybe one of the questions you asked me before about you know um multinational corporations and and smmes yeah see multinational corporations and some rmes that become multinational corporations but some of these multinational operations the leaders at the top are never never been part of growing the company yeah you know they they sort of been brought in um from other corporations they are generally probably with some sort of accounting background they know how the balance sheet works and they're trying to smooch you know uh people and um uh analysts about their balance sheet but they really have no understanding of the lowlevel business and how it operates at a granular level yeah at a granular level or how the culture should be and they talk about culture but they can never change a culture in my opinion and I've seen that but that's why I think it's important to have top down bottom up management yes right so well you know as an example at fellow or you know in the future for me you know it's about where you are as the lowlevel beginner that you you create that culture you H you know where the the nuts and the bolts are you know how things work you know where things fail yeah right I mean like for example Jack and will the owners right you know there there were times when certain things failed right and believe you me you know I I've seen it where on occasion I've seen one of them actually wear a glove all the way up to here to clean the drain out 100% mate all the way all the way this is a person who appears on TV yeah right and then I take some of the multinational corporations which have built certain ethoses you take apple you take Microsoft you take you know Amazon you got those guys who started out in a garage yeah yeah right and although they are where they are they have built those companies right from the ground up they built the culture in those organizations yeah and that's why that culture survives yeah I like Nigel Ben one of my old favorite boxers from Milford he I always think of him when I when I say this all the way mate all the way from from the bottom to the top um one of the things I'm really curious about about is did you feel any pressure you know because around you when you were telling people this is what I'm about to Embark upon were there any naysayers were there little Whispers in the background or did you just not give a crap I think they you know when when you've got Financial stability and you got a significant sizable salary that comes and pops into your bank account every month right um and you have that Financial Freedom with it um and once the girls had come off the the you know the bank of dad and you and the conveyor belt which you're still going through um and you'll go through for that for a while um you you you sort of have that thing niggling in the back of your mind you know that you know you've taken a a path and that path is now either going to go one way or the other way and that one way was you're either going to make a U-turn and sort of uh resend your your your your passion or you're going to curtail your passion just because For Your Love of your money right or you're going to go with it because you know what it's that time for you to to take that next passion on and really believe in yourself and do something with it yeah and I think I it it's and I think the worst moment was the fact that when Co struck because I'd come back having done ter one which is three months I really wanted to do the next two months but next next six months to do the two the two terms and I guess the pathway was that somebody was going to make me redundant at some point but hopefully it was going to be on my terms um and then Co came along in February and at that point it's was like oh I still have a financial obligation in terms of my mortgage here which was sizable the property was on sale and with covid coming along I think the niggling fact was who's going to buy something now yeah you know people are strapped people are cautious people are you know thinking about how life is going to be blah blah blah blah blah yeah but Co changed things in different ways you know one of the things that Co changed was about people needing more space yeah um and before the model in Singapore was that if you had a one two better or maximum three better they were generally much more easier to sell yeah um four four betters onwards um they become harder to sell because of the the size of the footprint and therefore the layout in terms of money m um but now people wanted four beds yeah so kind of worked so it sort of kind of worked that by September we'd sold our place and internally I know that there was Neil was getting pressure to to put me on the list uh Neil was holding back as much as he could and I think Co also prevented Banks from um wanting to execute on retrenchment because it was bad for their PR but by August September it was becoming that we have to do something in October November yeah so I I remember my words and I hope Neil you do as well um I called him up and my exact words were Neil you can pull the trigger bang um and he was so relieved he was he was relieved he said you know you made me the happiest man you know yeah I I can do it without a conscience now yeah because he weighs heavily on managers really does yeah it does I mean look I think that it does when there's no cause yeah right yeah um but when there is cause I think you know it that's different that becomes different right yeah and I think that you know one of your questions I think to me at some point was about loyalty yeah um the problem with loyalty now is that with the the Gen Z and gen y's generation in particular you know loyalty is very limited you know they're still trying to work out and navigate their journey in life and they don't have as much loyalty to the corporate life that we have come through in the past yeah and the corporate themselves have less loyalty because you know what um they're trying to maneuver in a fast moving pace of the world you know who knew that would be having this type of conversation 20 years ago that could be live broadcasted from a house you know or a studio in your house yes an amazing studio in your house actually thank you man um uh uh we could have this broadcast on our phones if we wanted you know and the fast changing nature of that means that corporates are having to be more Nimble and more Str you know adapt much more faster and where you do have loyalty and people like me or others that do 20 years you're a bigger cost than somebody who can come in yeah at a level lower and then give them the opportunity to rise up and they still be maybe you know one whole six figure less yeah well look think about it you had an amazing journey um and one one of the key reasons why I wanted you on the shows cuz what I really admire is you know version 2.0 now version 3 Point know in some ways is how you've moved into the entrepreneurial world and Landscape just share with us a little bit because it's in your family DNA in many ways because your brother is also an entrepreneur talk talk a little bit about that sure um so I I guess that after can you build in also a little bit sorry um not just the business but on the property side because I think this is something that uh a lot of people aspire to to be you know when you get close to retirement or retirement you have a little bit of money in Bank you have hopefully a portfolio of property and then the business side of thing sure yeah I mean you know I I guess coming back to probably um retiring or wanting to retire um the first things I think people want to get to is a little level of Financial Security you know uh living off of what um may be a government funded scheme isn't going to give you what the life that you're used to um and I'm not at that age yet either yeah so you you need to have some assets behind you that are going to be uh providing you some level of income um we were fortunate that we know we had one property our house a flat that would provide us with income once we moved into our main property um and you know in the UK it became quite fashionable you know the whole B tect scheme enabled and facilitated probably in the last 20 years you know some people that you would never expect to have a portfolio properties um having a portfolio properties you know in maybe double digits or more yeah including I mean no disrespect but people who may be bus drivers or people in ordinary life yeah um having a property portfolio of anything more than two three years not unheard of yeah so I don't have an extensive property portfolio in anyway I only have a main house and I have one flat um yeah I I do invest with um in some joint ventures um through one of our good friends that was here in Singapore before um his company goes through the name of sherier properties and the investment model is pure cash so there is no financing um it's a co- uh scheme in terms of you put in you invest and you then share the profits and like a Syndicate of friends of investors it's not necessarily A Syndicate of friends it's a Syndicate okay um it's a joint venture and in terms of the joint venture you know you have full property rights because your name is in the JV itself it's not in his name if he wants to join in the JV then he joins where is this uh business set up out of it's set up out of London and the majority of properties have been in central London oh really um there have been some in um some of the more I guess regeneration areas like you know in Hackney it's quite a right yeah gentrified areas um but predominantly in and around central London so yeah I've done a couple of co-investments with him and you know we've done well um I'm currently in one um at the moment and not not a not a huge percentage not even a double digit percentage um but we're we we're currently waiting to sell that and exit it's in Notting Hill Notting Hill nice um so yeah I mean we do we do some of that let me pick that up with you offline later because I'd like to know more about that yeah um and the the other is uh in the past I've done some Ventures with my brother um who's in younger older brother midd Middle Brother okay um and actually all three of us Brothers have done in in in the same investment um so my middle brother he used to be a franchise Ling manager um at um Nat Weston and H boss and that gave him Network and that Network allowed him to engage with Costa Coffee um and we were initially going to get a number of Li licenses and with some other partners that came in we managed to get 15 licenses I say we him he hard work um and cost cost of coffee for those in Asia that may not know about it it's a very significant franchise in the UK yeah I mean they got about 750 or th000 shops across the UK it's across all of Europe now it's moved into um North Africa as well I mean like we went to maresh it's there as well really yeah actually the the person that's got the franchises out in maresh is um is is a friend of ours um who's uh here his brother his brother and his partner one of the biggest franchisees in the southeast of Costa Coffee so yeah so they they've branched out there but coming back to my brother um he built that up into about 13 shops and then we exited the business sending selling it on to whole portfolio pel Works um with a number of conglomerate Partners out from Lester and this fantastic building which has this going Mercedes in their in their um uh boardroom my goodness yeah it's fantastic to see just that car alone in the boardroom I mean it brings conversation but how did they have to uh assemble it and then reassemble it oh or do they drive it in they got a door that you can drive in in an house from yeah mate you got to send me a picture that sounds amazing I'll send it to you next time when I'm there yeah yeah yeah um and they they do a number of Investments across a number of um business entities and products uh he currently along with one of the business partners is the major Runner take caretaker and one of the shareholders of a number of e franchise shops um and they were going to be coming down in July last year but the bit before that is that I once I finished with phow I had some work to do at home on my house then it was my daughter's wedding and then you know another eight months went along where I now was thinking what I wanted to do yeah um I did consider coming back into the world of Finance um as a contractor but that didn't sort of really work out um I did that for a number of reasons and I'm glad it hasn't um because it would have taken me away from my passion yeah um so last July these guys came and it was they were going to be exploring some opportunities out in London um exploring in the sense of what other businesses are out there is there something that we could you know tap into can we um make some differences to it blah blah blah blah blah next thing is you know we're doing lots of tasting putting on some calories and me having to use my ins insulin a lot more um and from there we sort of ended up with an idea um around probably late August and what we're going to be coming out next later this year probably around um Q2 maybe Q2 early or maybe late Q2 is we're going to be coming out with a pudding offering um we actually have worked out what we're going to do I won't um divulge the actual um amenu at this stage yeah we can announce it closer to the time once you're running yeah yeah um but look out for what's for PUD it's all about puddings and um I'm really looking forward to starting that Venture as the executive pastry and devel chef and um par Patron I love it mate I love it I mean I'm excited for you and when we when we had a coffee earlier this week your eyes lit up when you started talking about it yeah um quick rapid fire a couple of questions what's your favorite pastry to eat and to make if they're two different things um to to make I I like to make plated desserts okay which have a lot of complexity to them okay and by having that complexity it it shows um your skills more than anything else and actually all the flavors and things that come out what do I like to eat easiest I like to eat Paris breast okay and the reason I like to eat Paris breast because that was my first ever examiner called on blur and I always like to measure against it okay it's funny how we've always got favorites and and why and how they come up with actually it's funny like you you could give me the world's most expensive chocolate but I'm always going to want Dairy Milk Dair milk whatever something that we grew up with you know what I mean like comfort food um who's been the most influential person in your career I don't know if you want to mention the name if not the name you know but why I I I think I've got to say a couple of names in particular right I guess pet maray for giving me the job at salomons as a as a you know a NY 18y old yeah um that was probably the Pinnacle of starting my career in the world of banking I have to say Neil Martin you know he's been there through thick and thin with me um and I think the the other most influential person in my life would be my late uncle in terms of my dad's eldest brother who's passed away many many years ago um he was again a man of no qualification but he became Chief um group Financial accountant for gkm back in the 70s and he used to take me to his office in my summer days working for a company called um Arab International finance and you know he would have been so proud of me today good I'm glad that you mentioned him that's beautiful um what's the one piece of advice you give to your younger self um I think that in terms of my younger self I should have probably pursued more when I was when the second company that I was at at um um fundamental Brokers when they shut down what you pursued more more what I should have probably pursued myself to go more to um in the um the trading scene okay but that's just me thinking I could have earned a lot more money but that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that I would do anything differently really to be very honest with you no no it's not about regrets I find it interesting though because I mean people that are listening to this and also uh now because my children are on the verge of you know finishing school and stuff gradually it makes me think about what if I for example you and I had the privilege of moving abroad um and I always say to people if you get that opportunity don't not go don't not let go of it but but a lot of people won't or they'll be afraid and and um and and I just think no this because you can always go home yeah right and there's so much to be learned and and you know the wonderful thing is when you work abroad and you meet other people that you know from all corners of of of of the planet the one thing that we all have in common is that we are Nomads we we going you know do something different and you have an appreciation in a different way I mean it's funny because like I have worked not just in Singapore um I I worked for six months in Paris when I was at Banker trust but it was every week I was going backwards and forwards yeah and I didn't know that nice and when I worked at when I worked with cs in 2016 I was going to Hong Kong every week for six months for another issue and with those two things you know I can quite categorically say say there were two things I learned to eat which you know I can always relate to right I I'd never really eaten Lebanese food yeah living in London yeah but I went to Paris and you know the best most you know halal food that there is in Paris is actually Lebanese food cuz there's a French Connection behind it right right and I learned to and and I learned to eat Lebanese food yeah I love it Hong Kong you know I went to Hong Kong and the there there's one restaurant unfortunately it's closed down now through Co um but it was called miles kitchen and I learned to eatat weager food right and you know what those are things I can always relate to as part of my travel so you always got to be open to learn and um travel and work and you you you learn about different appreciate different cultures and different people yeah you know and and having lived and worked in places like Singapore and you you also learn about people how certain things about people's behavior that they will not open up on that they won't say things and how can you you know build those bridges for them to be open yeah it's so funny because you know we both come from very humble backgrounds and um it's difficult to explain to friends that have not uh either visited Asia or certainly not lived here how different it is do you know what I mean so so like the concept in the UK of having a living helper you know like where we're from if You' got a dishwasher boy you've done good mate you you know yeah you know what I mean my dishwasher is called Zusi yeah yours is called Ellie or somebody yeah so it's different um what's the best cookbook you've ever read can you name one or two uh I have to be honest and I'm not a reader okay um and I might have a few cookbooks at home but what about then TV shows you know that you that you've yeah I mean to me the Great British menu is absolutely banging you love it I love it you know it it really pushes um professional chefs to the limits and some of those things that they have to do and come out with for the banquet are amazing and actually I've recreated a few of those things as well it's fun right yeah it's absolutely bang I mean last Christmas instead of um doing the um the beef wellington right yeah you know what did you I I did um Big Dan's um uh beef beef cow P oh really yeah how did it come out absolutely brilliant right very soft I mean it was it was the whole thing coming out together I just didn't put the horns on the top um but the previous year it was the winner of the the Great British menu okay beautiful top Three Chefs that uh that you follow or have followed um the top three chefs um one is Kirk Hayworth and he's a very recent Chef that's come out um yeah I'm not familiar with him he was on the Great British menu and he has some um dietary challenges and through that he is totally plant-based okay wow and he did a fish dish which even the judges couldn't tell it was a fish dish but it was totally plant-based amazing they couldn't tell they couldn't tell right and that's when you tell you've reached the Pinnacle yeah yeah that when you've attained the you you do a different protein and you you get to that level of taste and feel and texture that um he got to that and he has a restaurant very he does bookings which are like three to three months out and you can only get in when there's a cancellation wow um so yeah K Hayworth is definitely one of those um I think one that I want to call out is actually my last pastry chef oh nice um J um now J's you know where's J from is an unusual name so J's actually from Portugal and he's quite unassuming in many ways you know he doesn't appear on TV shows or anything like that yeah um but his understanding um of using some products and some ingredients um are quite amazing I'll give you one example so and he inspired me in a different way um so when when I was working there right you know one day he's he's coming with a box of neswick bana neswick right but he never used it I have to say he's never used it right I did use it but it came in boxing banana nqu and and we've been trying to to make this banana dessert for ages and and ages and in this year that particular dessert one the one an award is one of the the best dessert for the national um um awards that they have for different sort of categories yeah and one of those elements that they use is actually the banana peel okay so the banana peel itself is actually crystallized and US W I've never heard of it even been used before yeah yeah yeah so I actually have made a banana dessert and I do use an element of the nesquick in it okay to to enhance the banana flavor okay right um yeah so I do I have made a dessert using banana as well but he did inspire me I love it um the third Chef um it it's quite hard what about like before you even started cooking like like you know I always grew Jamie I mean Jamie oliv I think Jamie Oliver because these guys I think the personality and how they explain things like I've gone back and I've watched a lot of Marco Pier white stuff recently or like Gordon Ramsey as just as a character always cracks me up yeah so so I mean Gordon Ramsey is much more for the character but jamy is a very you know down to earth down to earth chef and you know what it's home cooking as well it's something that you know you and I can knock up for the family it doesn't have to be fine dining I love certain things when people are cooking you know like um when G Ramsey's cooking will'll go onions in you know they everyone's got their own little phrases um I I used to supply wine weight to Silver Service way to sufs to The Institute of electrical engineers and um I've heard in the kitchen some right rickin going on and it was I would always crack up because it was like I wasn't getting it but it was you know you've you that's why when you talked about fow's culture you know that that's one that's one extreme but the other extreme someone's getting a b yeah yeah yeah the Other Extreme is is the other end right and it's hard to find the middle and I think most people probably who go into this industry you know wouldn't mind being in that middle yeah right but it was actually so refreshing to be at the other end of it yeah absolutely um top three current restaurants in the UK top three for me yeah but the top three I think that'll ever be for me is always going to be straight Kitchen in Singapore okay that's to the Grand High okay um in my three in my 10 days here I'm going to I'm well I'm going to go to it tomorrow again but three three days out three days out of 10 and what are you eating there are you doing the buffet or so it's a buffet um and people who do go there always say that the that it is the best Indian food that you're going to get in Singapore really I mean you can go to Indian restaurants now the restaurant is seen in Singapore for Indian you know there is a lot of South Indian food because there's a you know a large South Indian patronage in this country yeah um but the North Indian side you know has a more milder um um spice level and and spices that go into it which is more to my palette and lot to my friend's palette as well so we tend to find the strength kitchen consistent in Indian food consistent in its palet and taste so some people just go and eat Indian however for me I like the variety of going for one visit to getting my roast duck one visit to go and get a bit of the the crab another visit to go and get a bit of beef endang and then another to go something from the Indian I don't need to go everything in one go you know it was funny the um I had uh and I we placed a really senior head of Japan um we relocated him and his wife uh to Singapore from Tokyo and they've lived here three times before but they used to live in Jakarta and funny enough he doesn't like fish in Japanese so I was thinking what to cook and I was just so busy that day so my wife suggested uh our neighbor and a very dear family friend Auntie Morin and we asked her could she cook some Indian dishes like beef and dang and and and it's it's home cooking but it's bloody delicious and she'll spend a bit more money to get decent ingredients and um yeah there are some restaurants that you know you get highend but I I also love hom style cooking you know what I mean so give us give us another couple the engine is very hom style okay um in the UK um one of my favorite places to go to is a place called burnt Smokehouse okay another interesting story there so where are they based so they're based in an arch in Leighton oh really so I these arches are going through a bit of a regeneration so there is this sort of um um I I guess um um micro buy at the end one end of the road okay and then there's some garages that are still you know doing mots really and then they got this like filling ground in this place which has been completely made out into a smok house an American Smokehouse at that oh really so you know you got your briskets you got your um other cuts of meat they're making their own sort of um sausages and on weekend they just now added on um some other cuts of meet nice um you know they've been they've had Jay way around nice right so who's one of the very um influential critiques in the food scene in the UK yeah um I went to it on day two okay of opening I went then again on day three of opening right and then I've been shouting about it to a lot of my friends after that oh good to know um and it's very much a you know very much an American style you know in the sense of the meat cuts you get are by the gram yeah so if you want that 100 gr of that 200 g you PID by the gram yeah amazing food you know they've done really really well again there's a a case of a husband and wife who were a little bit in the corporate world they' been out to the US they really love the food they wanted to come back they wanted to do it and the guy who really has been their I guess their chef and um food Creator to begin with yeah um he he's he's a Muslim Reaver from Romania um and he wears a t-shirt which says 0% vegan right love it and amazing guy his name is Tibby Tiberius Tudor okay um and they have done extremely well so I I love going there um it's a bit out out of the way for us but whenever we go that way you got to do it man and not only that if you get there at 5:00 one occasion we got there at 5:00 and we're like 40 minutes in the queue waiting to get in oh jeez people are already inside and it's not Singapore it's not hot it's cold yeah so you got to be dedicated to Thea be dedicated to the cause to to get in um and then the other place is in Southall um and um which is as you know is where I grew up right Little India back back home yeah spice Village yeah um so a lot some some of these places have been going through a lot of refurbishment they've been putting in a bit more up Market um seating etc etc but it's about the food can you can you imagine the grief that I got back in the day when I was like the only non- brown person in South Hall but it was but you you had to have banter you have to have banter and I think you have that thick skin and you have to get through it's just like on the flip side you know some of us grew in you know um in in majority white areas or majority white schooling at the time and you got roll with it you got to roll with it and you got to adapt to it uh and if you can't then you know you're going to carry some scars which I hope those people who carry those scars don't take them too deep there are some people that did but I think have a bit thick skin and get through it racism is a funny thing like when I speak to a lot of people um now maybe all my Singaporean friends they can't really quite relate to it maybe and I said no man there was Next Level you know you grow up with it especially back in the day um and I laugh about it now and I remember when I moved to the us we when we lived in Connecticut I think there was one or the two other like Asian people there um but actually everyone was very very friendly what I've realized is you have to you have to be yourself you have to own it yeah right and how you engage people is a big thing yeah yeah I mean you have to you really do have to um not take it too much to heart yeah because if you do then you're going to be left with some very mental scars unfortunately yeah I I mean I had one or two incidents I I won't talk about them on camera but it was um they at the time they were quite traumatic you know lighten things up a bit a friend of mine um that I kind of got to know over Instagram is Andre Walsh who run he's a restaurer here and he owns quite a few restaurants and uh he's an Irishman and he's got a mission Star restaurant called cure it's an Irish themed restaurant and um a dear friend of mine took my wife and I and he's from from Ireland and uh what was really interesting was he had a dessert and in Ireland where my dad grew up Carlo where I used to go many times every year they used to have Peete bricks to heat the houses with so there's a very distinct smell and I associate that with Island and in particular small towns and you open the dessert box and he's he's infused the ice cream with the p and the thing is unless you're from then you never smell you wouldn't know but it took me back like literally took me back and um and that's the funny thing about cooking that the smell is just so important and and you know that that's the the the Reviving point so um Kev maybe just uh touching back on uh my new Venture yeah um that's what we want to do we want to help reconnect people to their memories of some of the puddings that they would have had but one of the dishes you told me we can't mention it's going to it's going to transport people back to their school days that that's that's the idea we want to transport people back to either moments where they've had from with their grandmothers or their moms and dads or at school and we also want to open up the door to people who've never experienced that especially you know transiting people um you know into into the UK and we want to help Delight them with something that's British you know um I watched uh I don't know if you ever watched Twin Peaks when it was on back in the day no yeah so it was it was it was probably the biggest show of my my childhood like it shaped me quite a lot and it was written and directed by David Lynch who was an amazing director um but in Twin Peaks was this small town and this Cafe was famous in the show for doing Cherry Pie and and I've been back to this area twice in real life where they filmed and the actual Cafe is there and um it's just got to be Cherry Pie and it was funny it's like I don't know if you ever watched Coronation Street back in the day I was East Enders you East well I did both I actually did both my mom and dad did um uh cor Cory but I love East Enders more but in Coronation Street there was a woman in the pub um called Betty and she had Betty's hot pot and I always wanted to know what Betty's hot pop tasted like do you know what I mean I know I know it actually existed like I just wanted to try Betty's hot Pop um so funny all right few more questions um what skill do you think is the most underrated skill today in business I think there's two um one is listening and the other is time right and and I say that I I'll go back in Reverse in that time every everybody wants something today um everybody needs something today um sometimes even yesterday uh I um also foul of that um in my S I can be impatient and want things today and want things yesterday um but sometimes things take a little bit of time and that's happening right now you know with this business venture where I I I when I when I set up my mic C business here when I was back in here in Singapore during Co I actually started preo but through covid it was it was a main stay um that I was able to come up with a brand I came up with a brand that I wanted to have and which had a connection I went and designed labels I got labels printed within like 24 hours I was setting up an Instagram I was taking photos I was doing this I was doing that um and I was off I sort of wanted to do the same yeah um but having business partners and having people with some level of experience about how to develop and grow businesses has meant that we're going to do it the right way yeah and that has involved you know hiring a branding development agency blah blah blah blah blah and which takes time and now looking for premises which I never needed to look for because my premise was my apartment yeah um but looking for premises is requireed some level of um documentation branding and development to to be able to articulate your yourself um and that takes time so time you know is something that you need to take wisely for the right reason and just but at the same time not accept it that it can be as slow and blah you know you you need to keep pushing but you need to push in the right time frame that it should be but it's but it's like if you're cooking if you're cooking a state you can defrost it and rush it or you can leave leave it over the fridge overnight there a process right yeah or in baking you know if you open the oven door too quickly right you can make things flat yeah right so sometimes you have to go with it I need to learn that one yeah you have to go with it yeah um and as far as listening is concerned I think the listening is not just listening to yourself don't just listen to yourself you got to take the listening from others and listening from others is actually quite hard and it takes time to adapt to and sometimes you're going to listen to things you don't want to listen to yeah right now from that can you change things certain things you can and then and that's as a at a business level or a product level you can change certain things at that about yourself there are some things you can change but you can't change your DNA completely somebody said to me you need to talk in a different accent I can't change that yeah right yeah You' definitely still got your accent right you can't change that but if if somebody said to me you know you try try doing that well yeah if that works then you try doing that I mean one of those things I I'll tell you now one of those things was um in a meeting you know in know in a group setting because your you've got that personality to speak a lot yeah right you could end up speaking a lot more than you should great right so one of the coaching techniques I was taught was if you're in the meeting sit there with you can't see this sorry guys but with a finger over your your mouth you know in a pose which is to help you to not speak yes but so you've got to find certain ways to help you coach yourself uh and do that so interest list so interesting mate it's been a pleasure you know I've I've admired your journey from afar it's it's weird it's ironic and I'm a little bit sad when I look back at it and I'll try not to be that we we didn't really connect properly when you lived here absolutely absolutely I feel sad about that as well but listen I've got another brother across the pond now so when I'm back home definitely all right um You got two stops to make London and leester well I'm going to make I don't go after Leicester just I just say to because the worst thing about going home is everyone expects you to go where they are absolutely and you're you're there for like 3 days it's it's so hard right and for me I mean so my my brother just messaged me yesterday so my mom died as you know like about a year and a half ago so we he we we're selling the house and um he found an email that my mom sent 10 years ago cuz she she she was very advanced in her thought process about how she wanted our ashes scattered so some physically planted with my dad some scattered at the house some on the river and he's going over and I he just told me the dates this morning and um so obviously I want to go back there and uh but whenever so it's the first time I've gone back since she's passed away right after the funeral but what I realize is when you go on these trips you you want to see as many people as possible but it's it's impossible it's you can't do it well I think there's there's two parts to it one is that um you know whenever we used to go back from here hey everybody wants a slice of you yeah right um but when you do move back they don't want a slice of you that's that's the irony they don't need as much of a slice of you and um that's sort of fine I think that you know you need to live your own life as well um that's that's one and holiday is always a holiday you know because people are attracted to you and and everybody wants to meet up but once you settle down you need to settle down and everybody else everybody else goes back into their lives yeah so it's it's it's a it's an ironic one it's but I I feel that um we we're Kindred souls in many ways because again I don't know you know a lot of people probably don't even know that I I like to cook a lot I don't Sly do it on the the level that you do but I I've tried a lot of different things um I've baked a few cakes some went well some didn't you know but that's that's trial and error right then you learn but it tastes so much better when you've done it or or if if you know your wife or the kids have cooked something with love and I always say to to My Wife and Kids you know like I always say to my wife you know if you make me a cup of tea even if it doesn't taste as good as if I've made it fact that you've offered to make it and that's my to get it to offer me to make me a cup of tea you're now feeding thoughts to my wife I don't drink tea or coffee my wife always would love me to make her to to your cof and I don't because I know that I'm going to get it wrong mate well well you know what my mom and dad they would uh I'm going to use a pun here they would scold me for not making a pot te correctly because if I was Russian I wouldn't scold the pot and in England the pot gets cold very quickly right so so they taught me everything and I I'll give an example I've got pet peeves so I teach people even in my office when you serving a drink most people do this right and they put it down it's like no that's not how you do it right and um you know so anyway mate it's been a pleasure thank pleasure Absolut pleasure as well thank you very much for having me no good man thank you

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