Working Lunch
Nick Paul needs coaxing to talk about the past but is enthusiastic about the future.
Rules of engagement
Two years after sweeping board changes ended his lifelong career with IMI, Nick Paul has taken on an arguably even greater challenge. Jim Pendrill took him to lunch
My date with Nick Paul didn't get off to an auspicious start. No sooner had we sat down for a pre-lunch orange juice at the bar of Birmingham's Malmaison restaurant (to cool us from the rare mini-heatwave outside) than Paul is tearing a strip into my magazine.
The offending article concerns a news piece in the last issue about continued problems at the city's Millennium Point complex as it struggles to bring in the crowds.
"Rubbish," snaps Paul about the piece, as he proceeds to mount a vigorous defence of the lottery-funded museum and entertainment centre.
I venture to disagree and promise to take issue with his view later, but for the time being switch the conversation to outline what I'd like to talk about over lunch. You know, the usual kind of stuff. His new job at Advantage West Midlands, his vision for the region, his days at Midlands engineering giant IMI. . .
I'm stopped in my tracks again. "Oh no, I don't want to talk about IMI," he insists. "That's all in the past, I'm sure your readers won't want to hear about all that."
Oh, come on I say. You're a very well known businessman in these parts. People will be very interested in your views looking back on your 24-year career, particularly now that you have been gone a couple of years. Besides, I add, to understand the man now I'd like to know a little about the man before.
Still a rather stony silence. I can see I'm going to have to work hard on this one.
Paul, an intensely private family man as I am very quickly finding out, appears naturally suspicious of the media. He knows we have a job to do but gives the impression he would rather we didn't do it.
Mind you, it's hardly surprising given the ride he was given by both the tabloids and the business press upon his departure from IMI just over two years ago following sweeping boardroom changes.
On the business front the column inches were full of how Paul, then 56, had been allegedly looked over for the top job at IMI to replace chief executive Gary Allen (Paul was then deputy chief executive) because of his age - he ended up standing aside for heir apparent Martin Lamb who came in at a positively youthful 40.
On the tabloid front all the headlines were over the handsome compensation payment that Paul would subsequently receive for loss of office, a controversial payment that would spawn its own string of "fat-cat" headlines.
So even IMI appears out of bounds for now. But when I try an hour later to broach the subject over our light lunch (Paul goes for tuna, I for salmon) he is far more forthcoming and eventually seems quite happy and relieved to put the record straight over his departure from IMI.
"Put yourself in my position. Gary was the same age as me. What was going through my mind? Well, the chance of succeeding Gary was limited for that reason. Had he been four or five years older it may have been different.
"To be honest I would not have given myself the CEO job. Shareholder pressure was enormous at the time, even more so than today, given that we were in the middle of the dotcom explosion and the City was after young blood everywhere.
"It was portrayed as this great boardroom clearout that happened overnight but that just wasn't the case."
However, Paul admits that he did look for a CEO job elsewhere. "I looked at a few but they didn't work out for one reason or another and I didn't pursue it. Besides, I still enjoyed what I was doing at IMI and I did have a life. If I'd become CEO I could have said goodbye to the family for three or four years. I allowed the inevitable to happen."
Besides, as Paul adds with a wry smile and clearly dropping his guard for a moment, "it wasn't as if I didn't come out with a handsome package". For the record the package included a £3750,000 compensation payment - a fact, incidentally, which Paul was very keen for me not to print even though it was in virtually every national newspaper at the time. Paul has clearly had enough of the fuss it caused.
Going back to the IMI departure you could hardly blame Paul for wanting a break from corporate life after an illustrious career rising through the ranks at IMI, which he joined in 1977.
Had he never been tempted to move on sooner? "Oh yes, plenty of times. But I was always moved on before I had had enough. There was always another challenge around the corner."
And a challenge is certainly what he has met since taking on the chairmanship of Advantage West Midlands (AWM) at the beginning of the year.
Mind you, the selection process to succeed Alex Stephenson was a challenge in itself as the job became portrayed as some kind of titanic lobbying duel between the Midlands financial community (backing PwC's Brian Woods-Scawen) and manufacturers supporting Paul.
The truth is rather more dull. Paul was simply approached by consultants looking to fill the role, started talking, and given his strong connections (general champion of manufacturing in the region/strong CBI voice, etc, etc) was eventually persuaded of the job's merits.
The fact that Paul has taken on the role - albeit on a two-day a week part-time basis - still seems a little surprising.
Paul insists that after leaving IMI he made a clear decision that he didn't want full-time employment again. "I wanted a portfolio of interests and that is what I went about looking for."
But he must have known that with the AWM role there was probably no such thing as part-time.
He freely admits: "The role is really quite demanding of time, demanding in terms of its flexibility of time which can be destructive. My wife smiles at me when I say it is a two-day a week job, I could easily do five days.
But I don't want to. It is important that I retain objectivity and am involved in other things outside AWM." For the time being that includes inter alia a chairmanship of Malvern environmental engineering company Tricorn.
However, five days is precisely what many of the Midlands' corporate elite would like Paul to do with AWM given the immense importance that now goes with the territory of being chairman of a regional development agency, a channel through which the government increasingly directs both regional policy and funds.
As such, they argue, the need for a big hitter in the mould of a Digby Jones or a Derek Mapp (the latter is Paul's counterpart in the East Midlands) is clear.
What's more, given Paul's background, they see him now as the ideal conduit to relay the message that AWM really is listening and engaging with business after its notoriously shaky start five years ago.
Paul himself has had a good start. He promised from the word go that 2003 would be AWM's "year of delivery" and that it would start to deliver on big projects, and has certainly been true to his word.
For instance, since the start of the year AWM has invested £310m to kickstart the redevelopment of the landmark Fort Dunlop site off the M6 into offices, flats, shops, leisure facilities and a hotel. It has invested £370m on land purchases to help drive the second phase of Birmingham's Eastside to help develop a learning and leisure quarter, new city library and technology park.
It has also finally got off the ground a hi-tech microsystems research and development centre at Longbridge after buying 40 acres of derelict land from Rover. The centre could be a forerunner to a more advanced nanotechnology centre in the Midlands, although Paul insists the national focus on different regions fighting for a single nanotech centre is wrong.
"There is no reason why you couldn't have separate nanotech and microsystems centres for different sectors such as automotive or aerospace."
And the pick of the bunch? How about a £340m investment in a £370m International Automotive Research Centre at Warwick University which will ensure every link in the Midlands automotive supply chain has access to the latest technologies while further improving skills and technology to ensure supply chain companies stay ahead of the game.
The cash injection was the biggest single public-private investment of its type and was bigger than the DTI's entire annual automotive budget. The investment was also made despite AWM having to go through some major state aid and intellectual property hoops.
Paul claims no credit for the string of announcements - all of which have been years in the making. But they have certainly made his job easier in fielding off the still numerous sceptics of the agency.
"We had to start showing clear evidence of delivery and that is what we have done. Of course, I personally didn't also want to be a hostage to fortune. I said this was going to be a year of delivery and I obviously was aware that we would be announcing these initiatives."
As far as Paul is concerned the momentum is only just beginning. "This region was at the forefront of the industrial revolution so as a consequence it has been at the forefront of its demise. If we are going to make it really world class we have to focus on key initiatives like the ones we have already announced this year. Look at the automotive centre. That is where the fightback begins."
Paul outlines the problem in stark figures to me. AWM presently has 1,530 live projects on the go, 860 of which are for schemes worth less than £3100,000. "Although those 860 will be very important to the people running them I doubt very much whether they are going to be on a scale that is going to mean we are going to become a world class region. As an agency we have got to delegate responsibility better."
Paul cites our earlier debate over Millennium Point as a case in point. "You might take that view of the Point now. But it is part of a massive redevelopment. Just wait until we have begun on the Eastside regeneration, the museum quarter, the new library. They can make us world class."
Another key plank of Paul's own strategy is to better articulate AWM's vision. "We say we want to be world class, but what do we mean by that? Putting the flesh on the bones of our vision will make it easier to deliver."
Paul is doing so by steering a "minor" revision of AWM's regional economic strategy, consultation on which is taking place as we speak.
I suggest that the exercise might only add to the perception among business that the agency is obsessed with paperwork and planning documents.
Paul accepts the point in part but stresses: "As well as personally believing this is what we need to do, don't forget we are a publicly accountable body and responsible to the needs of government and others to explain what we are planning. You mustn't forget that." Paul insists that business will start to see more tangible results given the increased budget AWM is now handling.
"In our corporate plan we spent £3220m last year. This year it will be £3300m. The total spending over the next three years will be £31bn and business will see the impact of that spending more and more widely."
Another key plank of Paul's strategy is to get businesses engaged and here he says business itself has to take some responsibility to get involved with AWM and its initiatives.
"My message to business is you cann ot win the lottery unless you buy a ticket. Unless you get engaged with AWM then you do not see any benefits.
"The simple fact is that there are 10,000 SMEs in the West Midlands and it is impossible for us to communicate with each and every one. If for instance they do not think we are providing the right finance for their business they have to get involved with our regional finance forum.
"Businesses do not sit waiting for customers. They go out there and knock on doors."
Paul adds that sceptics forget that as an organisation AWM has only been going a few years. "This is a new organisation that is still growing very quickly."
Paul is also pushing for more devolution of powers from his AWM soapbox. He has previously stated that if the government has not got the money to sort out transport needs in the regions - such as Birmingham's New Street station or congestion on the M6 - then the regions themselves should be allowed to seek more radical funding solutions. Paul points to congestion charging of which he is a big fan. "Why stop at the M6 toll. Congestion charging is working in London and has had a dramatic effect."
He extends the theme to another of his great passions, technology, a passion he developed at IMI where he was heavily focused on the R&D side and inventions. "If you look at something like broadband technology we already have a digital divide in this region between our rural and
non-rural areas. Yet there are numerous agencies sitting around with pots of cash on a regional level who could help the situation. The higher education association has one pot, the LEAs have another pot, and the NHS has a pot too."
To make such things happen will require a Herculean effort from Paul and others, but I for one wish him well, not least on the transport issue where Paul really could play a major role in getting the region moving.
Meantime, our coffee is supped and Paul is soon heading back down the M5 to his Worcestershire home for his son's 21st birthday celebrations. Back to the family and away from the attentions of the Press.
Providing he can beat the traffic, of course.
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