There’s a no-nonsense urgency to Karen Green’s questioning on her new podcast The Friday Accelerator (online, weekly). It’s befitting of the subject at hand: helping food and drink brand founders and leaders achieve profitable growth in a ruthless market. And fast.
Green knows her stuff, having spent more than 30 years experience in grocery as a buyer for Tesco and Boots, and now as an advisor for food entrepreneurs. She’s worked with more than 1,000 grocery businesses, she says, helping them secure more than £350m in new listings.
Green’s debut guest was Kelly Dowson, MD of FIS Group, an innovation and research consultancy that’s worked with Ben & Jerry’s, Pizza Express, Subway and Wagamama. It has grown from “front room to 40 people inside 15 years”.
Against a near-interrogation by Green, Dowson shared the tough reality of swift growth.
“It’s been brutal,” she said. “It’s hard yards. You’re busy being busy or you’re busy trying to get busy, there’s no let-up from that.”
Being a now bigger business has brought new challenges. A natural “doer”, Dowson had to overcome the fear of leaving certain tasks to others. “I’m taking the wrong money from the business if I’m paid what I’m paid and doing that. That’s not hierarchy or status, that’s just a fact.”
The 25-minute podcast’s breathless presentation plays in contrast to the meandering, please-shed-a-tear style of (often two hours-plus) Diary of a CEO, but it works. Because what actual business leader has got time for that?
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