CEO Today United Kingdom Awards

113 www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today United Kingdom Awards 2018 TECHNOLOGY Tony Quinlan CEO of Laird Laird is a leading global electronics and technology engineering group that was taken private and bought by Advent International in the summer of 2018. With over 10,000 employees working across 20 countries, Laird is a partner to many of the world’s leading technology brands. Tony Quinlan joined Laird PLC as Chief Financial Officer in July 2015, and was appointed Chief Executive Officer in September 2016. Prior to joining Laird, Tony worked as Group Finance Director at Drax PLC, a FTSE 250 electricity generation business supplying circa 7% of UK electricity. As well as Finance, Tony also held other roles, including Communications, Risk, IT, Procurement, Facilities, US Business Development and other ad-hoc strategic projects, spending a total of six years at the company. Before Drax, Tony worked for a long period at major UK retailer Marks & Spencer, where he held a number of senior positions within Internal Audit, Corporate Finance, Investor Relations and Financial Control, before being appointed Deputy Finance Director in 2005. Between 2012 and 2018 Tony was also on the Board of the Port of London Authority (PLA), the organisation responsible for the commercial activities on the River Thames, as a Non-Executive Director and was appointed Vice Chairman in 2014. He also Chaired the Audit Committee. Born and raised in London, Tony studied for a degree in Chemistry with Business Studies, graduating in 1987 from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Qualifying with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), Tony is a Chartered Accountant (ACA) by profession. How did you manage the transition from Chief Financial Officer to CEO of Laird PLC? Throughout my career, I’ve always coupled being a CFO with a number of commercial roles, so I’ve worked outside of finance as well as within. When I took over at Laird, the timing coincided with some very difficult operational and trading challenges, which led to a significant cut to profit forecasts and all of the consequences that these things bring, including a re- capitalisation of the Balance Sheet. It was an experience of being thrown in the deep end. However, I had many experiences of challenging situations, both financial and non-financial, during my career so I felt well equipped to do what had to be done to remedy the situation. I also have a character which is self-confident and fairly calm in crisis situations, so that helped enormously. What experience have you brought to Laird from your time at M&S and Drax? Number one is recognition that it’s all about talent and talent management; how critical and important it is to hire and develop the best possible talent around you. This was the ethos at M&S during the period I was there and at Drax. Another importance is to keep things simple and not overcomplicate the business. I saw the positives of simplicity and the negatives of complexity in my past companies and drew lessons from that. Similarly, it’s vital to manage the detail, whether you’re in retail, of course, but also in a complex commodity trading and infrastructure company like Drax. The differentiating factors are often about being