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Origin Story w/ David McIntosh JrOrigin Story w/ David McIntosh Jr

Ex-Banking CEO (RBS and Tesco Bank): Benny Higgins on Power, Money, Art & What Really Matters

Benny Higgins grew up in Toryglen tower blocks, captained Celtic’s youth team, and became a defining force in modern Scottish business — from RBS during the NatWest takeover, to building Tesco Bank from the ground up. But what makes Benny different is the paradox: a numbers man with a lifelong devotion to poetry, art, and culture — and a Glaswegian accent that never moved an inch. We recorded this in Kelvingrove Art Gallery, a place that shaped Benny as a 10-year-old at his first ever art competition — and still represents the thread running through his life: curiosity, pride, and the desire to win. We get into Celtic, class, and leadership… the reality of boardrooms at scale… why he hires through trust over “perfect CVs”… and the stories you genuinely couldn’t script: Maya Angelou, the Golden Globes, Soho, and a cocktail named after his fifth wife Sharon In this episode Why Kelvingrove is symbolic to Benny’s origin story Toryglen tower blocks: toughness, community, and confidence through football Celtic youth captaincy and the first leadership lessons that stuck “I just wanted to win”: the mindset behind academic dominance Actuarial exams in 2.5 years (when the average was ~7) RBS context + how the NatWest hostile takeover happened Building Tesco Bank from scratch: 140 people → 5,000 → 8m customers Hiring “the best people I knew” and why trust beats process Social mobility: money, identity, and why he treats everyone the same Soho stories: tailors, members clubs, and the “Higgins No.5” cocktail The Golden Globes: Jon Hamm photo… taken by Bradley Cooper Lunch with Maya Angelou: poetry, Burns, and an unforgettable moment What people think is true about him (but isn’t) What’s next — and the ambition that still drives him Sponsor - Slater Menswear (Made To Order) Quick shoutout to Slater Menswear’s Made To Order service — they’ve been part of some of the biggest moments in my own origin story: first job interview suit, first corporate role, big talks, and now sitting across from guests I genuinely admire. They measure you properly, you choose every detail, and you get a suit that actually feels like it fits the life you’re stepping into. If you’ve got a moment coming up — wedding, promotion, graduation, or a first interview — check out Slaters Made To Order. It’s a belter.

David McIntosh JrhostBenny Higginsguest
Dec 21, 20251h 13mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:24

    Why Kelvingrove matters: art, identity, and Glasgow roots

    1. DJ

      Benny Higgins, welcome to Origin Story

    2. BH

      A pleasure to be here

    3. DJ

      I've chased your story over Soho the last 24 hours, but we're here in Kelvingrove. Before we speak about banking and boardrooms, this place itself is very symbolic to your story. Why are we recording here in this museum today?

    4. BH

      Well, I guess it's part of the, my origins in so far as a big part of my life has been the love of the arts and culture, poetry, reading, and it was instilled in me initially by my maternal grandfather. But when I was at primary school, St Bridget's in, uh, Toryglen, I was asked to come here for a art competition, and it was the first time I'd ever been in a gallery. And it had a very big dramatic impact on me, walking around, seeing these masterpieces. Even as a wee boy, 10 years old, I realized it was gonna be part of my life, and it has become part of my life. Um, and so therefore it's a very special place to be. And of c- of course, not that far from here is the University of Glasgow. I was the first person in my family to attend university. I went there. I did mathematics and, uh, it, it re- and I came back in 2019 and was given a honorary doc- doctorate. And so the, the city is important to me. I travel with the indelible mark of being a Glaswegian, and Kelvingrove in some ways brings together not all of the elements, but some of the important elements of my story.

  2. 1:24 – 2:32

    Growing up in Toryglen: tower blocks, toughness, and feeling lucky

    1. DJ

      Paint a picture of Toryglen for me, Benny. What did it look and feel like when you were growing up?

    2. BH

      I think the experiment of the tower blocks was an, was a mistake. I think to try and have that density of family life in a working class environment was destined to fail, but it did fail. But nevertheless, I had a very content and happy childhood. I felt very lucky. I had loving, caring parents, and I went to St Bridget's, which was a good primary school, and then I went to Holyrood Secondary, which is a fantastic school. And the luck of the confluence of having those parents and going to that school was, was fantastic. And I played a lot of football, which we, we will return to, I'm sure, and playing football gave me a kind of credibility even for the, the wee guy that was studying all the time. [laughs] Um, so I, I, I have no complaints about it, but it was a pretty tough place. I remember when I was in, in the youth ranks at Celtic, uh, one of the boys came to stay with us in, in the tower block in Prospekt Hill Circus, and he'd come from the east end of Glasgow. And I said, "Let's go to the fish and chip shop." And he was walking through saying, "This is pretty scary."

    3. DJ

      [laughs]

    4. BH

      But of course it's the unfamiliarity that was scary. I wasn't scared.

  3. 2:32 – 4:18

    A ‘walking paradox’: footballer, academic, and culture lover

    1. DJ

      Before we hit record today, we went for a coffee, and you were telling me this story whereby your mother was asked to describe you as a youngster, and she said determined.

    2. BH

      Yeah.

    3. DJ

      How did you see yourself as a young man?

    4. BH

      I don't really think you do think about yourself. I think you just try and get on with what you do. What I was aware of is I had a pride. I had a pride in getting good scores at, at school. I had a pride in doing my best on the football pitch. Uh, I had a pride in reading books and trying to learn from them. So I, I think curiosity and pride, uh, and determination, I think I was aware of it, but, but you don't think much about it. You just get on with your life.

    5. DJ

      From hearing your story so far through the research that I've been doing-

    6. BH

      Mm

    7. DJ

      ... to get to know you, it seemed that you were quite unorthodox as a young man. You played football for Celtic on one hand.

    8. BH

      Mm-hmm.

    9. DJ

      You grew up in Toryglen on the other. You had this love for the arts. I described you earlier when we first met as a walking paradox.

    10. BH

      Mm-hmm.

    11. DJ

      Did you feel that sense when you were a young man?

    12. BH

      I think the main obvious paradox was having interest in my, in academic things and playing football, uh, because I grew up in a world of football where it was very non-academic. Ac- academic interest didn't really fit in. I always remember when I was 15, the first time I'd ever left the country, and at Celtic Boys Club, we headed off to Italy to play in a European tournament. We flew from, uh, Glasgow to Milan. We got on a train in Milan, and Milan's become an important part of my life, so how, how amazing is that? And we got the train from Milan to a place called Russi on the east coast of Italy, and on the train, I was reading a novel, and all the boys at the front were shouting at the manager, "Higgy," you've all got a nickname, "Higgy's doing his homework, boss."

    13. DJ

      [laughs]

    14. BH

      So, uh, reading a novel was doing your homework.

  4. 4:18 – 5:43

    Celtic youth captaincy: choosing university and learning leadership early

    1. DJ

      Talk to me about being a youngster at Celtic Football Club.

    2. BH

      Yeah.

    3. DJ

      How competitive was it? What was your potential? Where did you rise to, and ultimately, when did you stop playing for them?

    4. BH

      Yeah, I mean, I started around 13, and I played through to be captain of the youth team at under 18, so I played a few reserve games. Um, I was in my first year at university when I captained the under 18 team, and I felt that it was, the university choice was always a better one for me. Could I have played football to a higher level? Perhaps. I, I think I probably could have a little bit, but my interest was always in looking after my future through my sort of academic interests. But I loved it, and you know, it's interesting, to this day I've got a great pal, Tommy Coakley, and Tommy played at the same time as me. When we're together, you'd think those years from 13 to 17 were 100 years 'cause you, you spend all your life talking about them. It's the first time in our generation you'd go abroad. You make friendships. You have experiences that you didn't have in any other walk of life. So it was an extremely special time, and actually being the captain for me gave me an insight into what it meant to be a leader. And the leadership skills that you get captaining football teams, even as a, at a young age, I think gives you an, a level of experience and education and allows you to reflect on what leadership means, even though you would never have thought about it like that. But it, so it was a very important building block for me, a very special time in my life.

  5. 5:43 – 12:18

    Family influences: father’s competitiveness, Barlinnie secrecy, and the 1970 World Cup

    1. DJ

      What encouraged you to be academically inclined, especially when you played football in an environment where the rest of the lads weren't? Was there a role model in your life or something you read or consumed that nudged you towards academia?

    2. BH

      I think there's two things that strike me as important. I, I probably don't give my father credit for this, but he did to a large degree live his life vicariously through me, and I think he wanted me to succeed In his place. And that gave me a desire to succeed. I think I wanted to please him. And I don't know what came first, my pride in succeeding or his desire for me to succeed that I then got used to it and then wanted to succeed for myself. I don't know what the running order was or whether they came at the same time, but they both did play a part. And you got to remember, my father was expelled from Holyrood, the school I went to, when he was 15. He went on cargo boats. He then went, went to the merchant navy, and by the time I was 16, 17, he'd, he'd regaled me with stories that he'd traveled the world three times by the time he was my age. Um, the interesting thing is when I went to Holyrood when I was 13 years old, I turned up and the assistant headmaster is Mr. Doherty, the very teacher whose nose had been broken by my father-

    3. DJ

      [laughs]

    4. BH

      ... so many years before. And I spent my first year terrified that Mr. Doherty would recognize me 'cause I was the spitting image of my dad. Um, but anyway, there's probably been a few Higgins that flowed through the biggest Catholic school in Europe by that point.

    5. DJ

      [laughs] Ah. You shared with me that your father had spent some time in Barlinnie.

    6. BH

      Yeah.

    7. DJ

      Do you have any memories of that time?

    8. BH

      Yeah, I mean, in the world I lived in in Toryglen, it wasn't uncommon for, you know, people to offend. It wasn't th- th- that unusual for people to get caught offending and have to pay the price. Um, I can't remember the dates precisely, so my dad... It was for petty crime. I, I don't say that condoning it, but it was petty crime, but he was in Barlinnie for I think about 18 months. And during that time it was quite hard, 'cause my mother wouldn't tell anybody. Um, so I was sworn to secrecy. We didn't tell my wee brother, [laughs] so he, he thought he was in London. And-

    9. DJ

      [laughs]

    10. BH

      ... so we, we just carried on living our life, and my mother was very proud. The only thing is, in that community, when someone disappears, everybody kind of knew. And when they come back with a short haircut and they're whispering quite a lot-

    11. DJ

      [laughs]

    12. BH

      ... it tends to be a bit of a giveaway. What I do know, and this is the link with football, is I don't know, I can't remember precisely when he went in and I can't remember precisely when he came out, but I know that in 1970 when Celtic played Feyenoord in the European Cup final and lost 2-1 to Feyenoord, that he was still inside. I know that by the World Cup in Mexico City, well, Mexico, the final in Mexico City, in 1970, I was sitting between his legs watching the football every day for a month. That was the first World Cup that was played in color. It's a very vivid memory for anybody anywhere close to my generation. And interestingly enough, it was also the, that was when the football pundit started. There was this amazing football panel, uh, Jimmy Hill and Brian Moore with Derek Dougan, Paddy Crerand, Malcolm Allison, I think it, Bob McNab was the other one, all on this panel. And at the end of the World Cup when Brazil beat, uh, Italy, I think it was 4-1, um, Brian Moore said to the panel, "We've all been invited to the Brazilian Embassy for a drink," to which my mother said, "That's a terribly far distance to go for a drink, is it not?"

    13. DJ

      [laughs]

    14. BH

      And I said, "I think it's London, Mum." [laughs]

    15. DJ

      [laughs]

    16. BH

      But there is a wee follow-up because many moons later I'm living in Montreal for three years. I'd just got to Montreal, still thinking more about my Glasgow and Scottish life than maybe than my Montreal life. And it was St. Patrick's Day and I had a date, a French Canadian girl, but then I realized that Celtic were playing Rangers and it was getting transmitted at one of the Irish bars or clubs. So I did persuade her that she would come along with me. We got to the club and the transmission wasn't connecting properly, so they decided to play highlights of the final, well, actually, the finals, the, the, the finals of the World Cup in 1970. And I sat there on my first date. Because I had this, uh, kind of on, almost on the spectrum memory of the, the whole, the whole tournament, I'm sitting there going, "This is when Pelé dummies it. Uh, this is when Pelé tries to score from the halfway line, but it goes past the right-hand post. This is, this is where he just lines up this beautifully weighted pass for Carlos Alberto."

    17. DJ

      [laughs]

    18. BH

      Anyway, that was my first and last date with that lady. [laughs]

    19. DJ

      She must have thought she was on a date with Rain Man, like Dustin Higgins or something-

    20. BH

      Maybe as well

    21. DJ

      ... Dustin Hoffman.

    22. BH

      I haven't heard that one before.

    23. DJ

      [laughs]

    24. BH

      That's a new one. Not many.

    25. DJ

      Oh, that's fantastic. Why do you think football or sport in general has been such a hallmark of your life? What does it bring to you that other things don't?

    26. BH

      I think football brings many of the same things. I mean, I, I do remember when I came back from Montreal, I had never managed anybody in my life. I was 32 years old, and I was asked to manage a group of 500 people. First management job. And not so, not long after, I was asked to manage one of the biggest IT projects, which had a whole bunch of people. Um, which is quite interesting, because when you don't have authority over people through line management, you learn a lot more about management. So I had both of them happen almost at the same time. And it was at the time when coaching and leadership development was all beginning to kind of become norm, the norm. And I, uh, I w- I was asked alongside a whole bunch of people who were a lot older than me, would any of us like to go for a leadership assessment? And I put my hand up saying, "I'll do it." So I went along for it, and I was asked lots of questions about leadership. And they're always looking for evidence-based answers, so every time you say something, they say, "And when did that happen to you? How did you deal with it?" Of course, in my case, I had never had to deal with it. At the end of the session, I said to the guy that had been, you know, conducting the session, "I apologize. Maybe I shouldn't have come along because I don't have any examples for you." And he said, "Don't underestimate the power of sport in how you think about leadership." So there's one thing for sure. But sport is fun. It's passionate. I mean, I, I learn things about life from all parts of our society. I think of somebody like Sir Alex Ferguson as a huge inspiration for me about how you manage people. I read literature and understand the human condition. So I don't see the compartment, compartmentalization of life the way some people do. People say to me, why is someone who was clearly talented at mathematics and able at mathematics so interested in poetry? Well, because it's about shape and form and rhythm. Why are you interested in art? Because it's about the same shapes and forms. What about music? It's all the same. So the surprise is that society has decided to try and play people off against each other. The humanities, for me, matters as much as the science and mathematics. And for me, it's just one spectrum of connectedness

  6. 12:18 – 14:22

    Grandfather’s gift: books, poetry, and learning the human condition

    1. DJ

      Your maternal grandfather was such a role model-

    2. BH

      Mm

    3. DJ

      ... in your life. What seeds of knowledge did he share with you that-

    4. BH

      Yeah

    5. DJ

      ... continued on to become part of your character?

    6. BH

      Yeah, I wouldn't say he was a role model. Um, he, he was a bit of a rogue. Um, he liked his drink, and he, he, he misbehaved quite a lot. So role model would probably not be the right expression. Influence I would rather take as the question. He was a big influence, but he was an influence in a very specific sphere, and that was the benefit of books and culture and poetry. And in, in particular, if we, if we consider literature, he was a voracious reader. Um, he would say to me, you know, "If you... It's only through reading that you can find the opportunity to experience things that you don't have time to experience yourself or face circumstances you may never face." And for me, reading is probably more about that development of how we think than it is about the story. I would rather read a good book that made me think than read a good story. I'd rather read a good book that for me was well-written that I have to stop and read again. And I... We can talk about examples. I mean, The Great Gatsby's a wonderful example. I mean, The Great Gatsby has got no plot really. It's got poor characters. Well, it's got a plot, but the plot and the characters are neither here nor there. But it's got rhythm, and it's got beautiful language, and it really is... It's, it's almost a homage to the power of language, and that is a book that's never been turned into a particularly good movie or stage show, but it's a beautiful thing. Um, and so he gave me the desire to read poetry, to understand poetry, to learn from it, and to see the connections, I think, with life. So, um, that, that's what he, uh... And, and that foundation is not unrelated to my love of other parts of the cultural spectrum. It would be... I don't think it'd be a stretch to say he took me directly to the world of art, which is a very important part of my life, but it certainly is connected.

  7. 14:22 – 17:35

    The letter and the canon: being chosen, book lists, and a lost keepsake

    1. DJ

      I think I have read or heard you speak about when he was in the last furlongs of his life, he gave you a stack of books or a recommendation list-

    2. BH

      Mm

    3. DJ

      ... of books for you to read, and he didn't pass that on to any of the other grandchildren.

    4. BH

      Mm. Mm.

    5. DJ

      He, he chose you specifically. What books did he suggest, and why did he choose you amongst all of your, uh, family members?

    6. BH

      Yeah. I, I th- I suppose he chose me because he felt some connection that, that took place at an age when I would, I, I'd have been too young to remember it. Because for as long as I can remember, we had a special connection. Um, and I was... It wasn't so much that he favored me. He had 18 grandchildren, and he only had a connection with me. He had no connection with the others, and he had a very strong connection with me. But it began so early, David, I can't, I couldn't tell you, but there was ob- obviously some natural affinity. I do remember one night when I was quite young, though, and he and my dad had a bit of a tension. My dad was very much a, a person who was mathematically orientated. H- I'll, I'll come back to him in a moment, um, my dad. But he, he was someone who c- who thought that people who were good at science and maths were, deserved more respect than people who were in the world of humanities. And my grandfather, I don't think, took that view, but he was very much someone who was a, he was, he, he had a great political interest, but he also was someone who, um, who read voraciously. So words and books mattered to him. And one night, my father, even though I was a wee boy, he was very competitive. I mean, if I played snooker with my dad just only up the road here at the Glasgow Union, I mean, he would go in a huff if I beat him.

    7. DJ

      [laughs]

    8. BH

      You know what I mean? He was just so massively competitive. And one night he was talking about numbers, and even though I was, like, about eight, he said to me, "Right. Are you a numbers man, son?" 'Cause he was gonna compete with me at counting. To which I said, "What does that mean, Dad?" And my grandfather said, "He's a clever boy, that." [laughs] Because I wasn't drawn into something that I didn't even know what I was being asked. Um, but when it came to the books, it's interesting. So I did get this letter written to me. So he chose me 'cause I was the only one he was ever gonna choose. He... I was the only one that he was ever likely to write this letter to, and it did begin with, "As I approach the last few furlongs of my life, I write to you not as my eldest grandchild but as the one who I think will take most interest in what I have to say." And he went on to describe the power of reading and the, and the importance of reading, and then gave me a list of books. To be honest with you, the books were just a whole list of the great writers of the 20th century and before. It was the Steinbecks. It was the, you know, it was the Fitzgeralds, the Hemingways. And you know, I have trailed through those books, and indeed my poor wife when we go on holiday has to put up with me trailing around every kind of destination that's associated with all these great names, especially the American sort of 20th century. Um, but it was, uh, you know, it was a very important thing. Um, although I have to say, sadly, um, I have had a habit of upsetting women from time to time. I suppose it's not a novel thing.

    9. DJ

      [laughs]

    10. BH

      But I did come back one night after obviously causing sufficient upset to find my letter ripped up at the front door. So that letter no longer exists.

    11. DJ

      [laughs] Oh, wow.

    12. BH

      I'm over it. [laughs]

  8. 17:35 – 21:05

    Winning mentality at university: first-class maths and a career chosen late

    1. DJ

      [laughs] At the University of Glasgow, you were a high-flying student receiving a first in mathematics. What encouraged you to excel during your academic career? What caused you to be such a highfalutin student? Was there, is, was it ambition? Was it the desire to earn post-university? Was it just a deep curiosity for mathematics? Were there any specific components that made you so competent?

    2. BH

      Just simply a, a, s- a vi- a, a desire to win. I was, when I played football, I always wanted to win by any means, and when it came to my academic life, I wanted to win, and I wanted to be proud that, that I had won. Um- There is no more to it than that. It never occurred to me about what... I hadn't even given any thought to what my career might be when I was halfway through my final year. Still hadn't given it a single thought. I had, I narrowed it down in my last six months to either going off to do a PhD in mathematics, and I was probably gonna go to the US just to get myself into a different environment. And I actually came in, uh, to the university to talk to us about what actuarial, the actuarial profession was like, and said two things. One is, it is a very respected profession, and secondly, the exams are very difficult. And I thought, "That's what I'll do."

    3. DJ

      What do you think that says about you that you had such a proclivity to then go on and do that after those two remarks?

    4. BH

      Um, well, the first one's pretty straightforward. I mean, I think to, to wanna do something that's respected, I don't think that's, it's too difficult to understand why you wouldn't want to do that. Why would I want to do something that's difficult? 'Cause I think it, it's only things that are difficult in life that are... It's not the only things that are worth doing, but things that are difficult are often the things that are most worth doing. And I thought, "If I can do that, that will distinguish me." Um, I then went to, uh, join Standard Life, which was the prominent... S- Actually I sort of, I, I kind of compromised. I, I knew I had to leave Glasgow. I just had to get out. I'd lived at home all the way through university, so I had to get out of G- I had to get out of, uh, Glasgow. Um, and I had offers from London and Edinburgh, and maybe if I was, if it was my child that was in that position, I'd probably say, "Go to London." And I sort of chickened out and I went to Edinburgh 'cause it was just an hour on the train.

    5. DJ

      [laughs]

    6. BH

      Anyway, I did go, and I went to one of the most prestigious companies in Europe at that time for doing actuarial s- uh, studies, and that was Standard Life. I went for lunch my first day. I ha- went for lunch with three guys. I can't remember precisely the duration they had been studying for, but it was something like seven years, nine years, and 10 years or something. And we had lunch, and they b- they all said, "You know, this thing takes forever. I would, you know, don't f- I, I think you should just back off. Just drop it now before you get s- get caught up in it." And I went back and I sat at my lunch table, uh, my, sorry, my desk after lunch, and I said to myself, "I'm either gonna do this in record time, or I'm going to pack it in and do something else." And I qualified two and a half years later.

    7. DJ

      And your peers and contemporaries were doing it-

    8. BH

      The average was seven at the time, yeah.

    9. DJ

      [laughs]

    10. BH

      Yeah. The, the, the, the kind of, if you like, the duration of it, if you passed your exams in, in sort of sequence, would've been about four years. Um-

    11. DJ

      That is orders of magnitude faster than anyone else. That's-

    12. BH

      It was at the time. I mean, it's like even, you know, the famously Bob Beamon held the long jump record for a very long time from actually the, the Mexico Olympics. Um, so, so there's probably somebody that did it in 18 months now. I have no idea. But, but at the time, it was, it, it did certainly surpass what anybody else had done.

  9. 21:05 – 22:31

    Actuarial sprint and early career leaps: Standard Life to Montreal and beyond

    1. DJ

      How would you describe the roles and responsibilities of an actuary? Some of the listeners may have never heard that term before. They may be familiar with it, but don't know how it's described.

    2. BH

      Yeah. I mean, it, look, the, the, it's, it's... People often say it's almost a mathematical version of an accountant. But I mean, I've never actually worked as an actuary, so you're ask- you're tr- you're now trying to ask me tricky questions.

    3. DJ

      [laughs]

    4. BH

      Uh, 'cause I was an a-

    5. DJ

      There you go

    6. BH

      ... within, within months of being an actuary, I became an investment manager, and then went on and done other things. I have done other things. But, but to be honest with you, it's, it served me well. But actuaries, I mean, uh, the application of mathematics for long-term financial planning purposes, uh, for pension funds, for life insurance companies in my day, in the general insurance market. So, it, uh... But these days also actuaries are employed in, like, instruments in the stock market around hedging and, uh, options and, you know, there's a whole range of areas where the training of, the actuarial training is, is, is deployed very effectively. Um, but it is, it's, it... These days you'll get more actuaries working outside the core insurance and pensions world. You'll get them in banking too. But it's unusual for somebody to find themselves in my shoes where, you know, for three years I was the group strategy director for Tesco, um, looking after the strategy for the, the stores and the whole business around the world. Now, when I left Glasgow University, it, with a mathematics degree, and when I qualified, you know, three years later as an actuary, it is, uh, if somebody had said, "You'll be working for Tesco doing strategy," I think I'd have found that quite hard to believe. [laughs]

  10. 22:31 – 28:06

    Verbal CV and the ‘outsider’ thread: Standard Life, RBS, HBOS, Tesco, and portfolio life

    1. DJ

      Could you walk me through your CV? Like, give me, like, a verbal CV of Benny Higgins from Standard Life to-

    2. BH

      Uh, yeah

    3. DJ

      ... current.

    4. BH

      It's funny, actually. If you ever ask that in an interview, I al- when I ask that, I always say, "Could you tell me it backwards? 'Cause I don't wanna hear about your paper round."

    5. DJ

      [laughs]

    6. BH

      Anyway, but I'll, I'll, I'll, uh, [laughs] I'll, I won't, I, I will, I will-

    7. DJ

      I don't wanna hear about your paper round anyway. [laughs]

    8. BH

      I, I, I, it was actually doing the Celtic, it was doing the Celtic pools, walking round the, the, the flats at, in Toryglen. Now, actually, just to think about it, in a very rough area, a lot of drug trouble, a lot of violence, a lot of gangs, and I'm walking around as a, you know, from about 10 years old all the way through to maybe 14, with bags of money, collecting the money for the Celtic pools. But anyway, um, why my parents let me do that I'll never know. But again, it's interesting. I, I do think the, the football side of it gives, gave you a kind of, in that kind of working class community, it gives you a wee bit of kind of... I, it's not... What is it? It's just the credibility I said earlier, but you've got a wee bit of a presence 'cause you're one of the young prominent footballers in the community, and it does, it d- it does help. So anyway, I, so university, Standard Life. Left Standard Life for 12 years. I worked in investments. I worked in Montreal for three years, which was a glorious three years. I, I adored working in Canada and Montreal. If I have one regret about my career, I suppose like other people I've known, like Alan Jope from Unilever is a friend, or Dave Lewis, who was my chief executive latterly at, um, uh, uh, at Tesco, who was also Unilever, and there's people from places like Procter & Gamble, they moved around the world. Now, I don't know whether, you know, these are... Who, where would I be now if I'd moved around the world? Probably not here, but who knows? Um, but I loved be- I loved being... I've always felt a wee bit of an outsider, and I think when I, when I moved to Edinburgh, I was the Glaswegian. When you're at university here and you're working class, back then, maybe still today, you're a wee bit the outsider. When you come back from, to Glasgow from living in Edinburgh for a long time, people wanna know why you went to Edinburgh. Um, and so there's a kind of sequence of being the outsider in different ways. And partly that sort of paradox, maybe that leads to it too. The football world thinks you're studying, the studying world thinks that you're playing football. Um, but being the actual outsider in Montreal suited me. I sounded different. I was different. But everybody s- that's fine. And I loved that so much. I came back and then had a s- a, a, a series of senior jobs in Standard Life. Then I went off to Royal Bank. Uh, I was in Royal Bank during the t- at, at the time of the NatWest deal. I was at the forefront of that transaction. I mean, when I think back to it now, 39 years old, biggest hostile transaction in banking history, and you're right on the front line. The deal gets done, and my job is to integrate NatWest, one of the biggest banks in the UK, with RBS's retail bank, put them together, 40,000 people. Um, you know, and I'm sort of 40 by that point. Um, I then moved on to HBOS briefly, which was not a happy experience, then went to Tesco, um, and at the end of, uh, 2017... Actually, my last day in Tesco was 2018, at the end of February, and I've been doing a whole bunch of things now, uh, ranging from, until recently, National Galleries of Scotland. I'm chairman of the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm chairman of Sistema, which is an amazing charity, and it's got a center in Govanhill, my first home, um, just down the road from here, and it's changed out of all recognition. You know, um, it's got th- I think the average community in Glasgow now has about 12% of kids were born outside the country, and in, uh, it, it's over 30% in Govanhill. Um, there's a huge range of languages spoken, a lot of refugee kids. It was very important to me seven years ago or so when I became chairman of Sistema to be able to be... We, we launched my, you know, role as the new chair, um, in Govanhill, and what a, what a proud moment to do it, literally 100 yards from my first home, uh, on Daisy Street opposite. And we actually used the school that I used to be in. In fact, I took the Duke of Buccleuch, I'm the executive chairman of Buccleuch, and I took the Duke of Buccleuch with me to my old school to see Sistema. I didn't tell him it was my old school until we got there, but he wanted to see Sistema. And Richard is one of the nicest human beings you'll ever meet in your life. He's the most decent, incredibly generous man. And I took him, and we were standing at one point, and I said, "If we look out that window above the laundrette, Richard, that was my first home." And that was a sweet moment. I've, uh, you know, we've, we've shared a lot of things together, and for me to be able to, to do that was amazing.

    9. DJ

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    10. BH

      Mm-hmm.

  11. 28:06 – 32:30

    RBS and the NatWest era: scale, preparation, and integrating 40,000 people

    1. DJ

      Can you give me some context around your role at RBS? Give me context about the s- the scale of RBS at that moment in time. Like, I'm 27, so I-

    2. BH

      Yeah

    3. DJ

      ... wouldn't have really remembered that.

    4. BH

      Mm-hmm.

    5. DJ

      And a lot of my average listenership is between maybe 25 and 35.

    6. BH

      Yeah.

    7. DJ

      Could you give some context to why that was such a prominent role and the kind of context to why that hostile takeover took place?

    8. BH

      Well, first of all, RBS had been a very historic bank. Um, in fact, the first governor of the, uh, Royal Bank of Scotland was the Duke of Buccleuch. Um, I think it was the third duke. Um, and so there's another link there. He was also, he also formed the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and I'm a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. So it's interesting how these different links start to sort of emerge in your life. But notwithstanding that, RBS had had its ups and downs. Um, and in fact, George Mathewson, who's a great hero of mine, who I met at the weekend, last weekend, had become, I think, head of strategy. And it was going through quite a tough time. Um, and then George was appointed as the chief executive. This is before my time. And George did something which, you, you can't learn everything from reading books, um, or just thinking about it in isolation. Experience is so massive. And you can't... It's a bit like my grandfather saying read books to experience things you can't experience. Well, this is where the book has to be taken out the equation, and listening to people who've got experience has got merit. And George told me about how he put his team together. This is long before the NatWest deal. And he said, "I just went out and I got the best people I knew. I knew their strengths, I knew their weaknesses, I knew their limitations, but I knew them." And he brought them together. And I did that at a later stage in my career at Tesco. And by doing that, he brought a team together that worked, and a team that actually made RBS a, you know, a, a modestly large bank by world standards, but a substantial bank nevertheless, that was a very high-performing bank. And he had some of the most able people I've worked with there. Not long after I joined in 1997, Fred Goodwin joined. There was actually a rehearsal for acquiring NatWest when Barclays Bank was struggling a bit, and we basically went through all of the huge amount of, um, preparation that it takes to, to be ready to launch a bid for a big bank. And nobody had launched such a hostile bid. Certainly nobody who was a lot smaller than the target Anyway, I can't remember the name of the guy now, but they brought in this Irish-Canadian chief executive, and that sort of burst that bubble. But I always say to people, based on that experience, the thing you prepare for that doesn't happen can often prepare you for the thing that will happen. And a year later, Bank of Scotland launched a bid for NatWest. And when Bank of Scotland did that, it became kind of untenable that Royal Bank wouldn't try and join the race. And so whether we would have or not, George sometimes says that we might not have. It, it kind of is irrelevant. Fred would have said at the time we always were going to do it, but we did anyway, and we joined the race. So there was basically the two Scottish banks chasing down the mighty NatWest. And I'll never forget, we, we were going around the city, so I... It was myself, Fred, George and Ian Robertson mainly. I was running retail, going round the city talking to investors and talking to analysts about what we would do if we got NatWest. And it was in about November. The date will, the date could be trap, trapped very easily because the night we found out that we'd won the biggest hostile takeover in banking history worldwide was the night Celtic lost to Inverness Caley Thistle.

    9. DJ

      [laughs]

    10. BH

      So when I got off the flight the next morning, uh, it was at a time when it would, it, it was acceptable to have a bank driver, you know. And I got off, and we were in the middle of the deal.

    11. DJ

      Yeah.

    12. BH

      And the driver's, in fact, the very guy who was holding the sign up was somebody I bumped into in Melrose in a, a pub last weekend. I hadn't seen him for years. Funny we're talking about it now. And he had the big sign up, which was at, what was the famous thing of it? Uh, it, it was the big, it was the headline about that, that game. But anyway, that was the, that was the day, uh, that was the day after it. And then we spent the next couple of years integrating it, and that was, that was an extraordinary thing as well. Um, and that sort of run its course, and I nearly

  12. 32:30 – 35:55

    Building Tesco Bank from scratch: £1bn deal, hypergrowth, and crisis moments

    1. BH

      left a couple of times. I nearly went to Bank of Ireland to be the group chief executive. I got close to being a group chief executive somewhere else, and then I was approached by Yates Boss. Um, I'd been approached before. I went there. I didn't enjoy it there. I left. Um, and Terry Lea, who's one of the most able people I've ever worked with, approached me and said, "Well, how would you like to come in and buy the Tesco financial, financial sort of, uh, company?" It was called, called, um, uh, Tesco Finance back then, but it became Tesco Bank quite quickly. We rebranded it. How would you like to do the deal to buy out of RBS and then create a bank? Because the bank didn't exist. It w- it was all dependent on RBS.

    2. DJ

      Creating a bank from scratch.

    3. BH

      So I created a bank from scratch. So I, I led the deal that paid RBS £1 billion for half, the other half, so it was valuing the business at 2 billion. And then I inherited 140 people-ish. Um, and I, uh, about half of them left quite quickly, and three years later, we had 5,000 people. Um-

    4. DJ

      [laughs]

    5. BH

      ... so I started. I had no legal function. We had no IT function. We had no treasury function. We had no marketing function. We had sort of kept some commercial activities, and so we were... And, and this is the point where the hi- history repeats itself. I didn't have time to go to headhunters. I didn't have time to go and say, "I've got to find the very best person to run treasury. I've got to find the very best person to run my operations." I went and found the best people I knew personally who I could get my hands on, and I asked them to do the same thing. And to the great, um, disdain of the search community, we didn't use any search people pretty much to find all of the top talent. We just went out and found friends and family. [laughs]

    6. DJ

      [laughs]

    7. BH

      And we got on with doing it. And, you know, I left 10 years later. We had 8 million customers. We had launched a whole full range of products. Um, it was, it was amazing. It had its bumps in the road. You know, we had what was called a cyber attack, one of the most scary kind of experiences in my working life. Um, but, but we had... It was a great achievement. And since then, I've been doing a huge number of things, which I love. You know, I, I've already said I'm chair, group chairman of MarkerStudy. I've worked with a guy called Kevin Spencer, who's, you know... And these days, people say that character has been lost in the business world. There is an element of that. You, you know, journalists will say to us, trade journalists will say they come to lunch with us, and they enjoy it because we still talk to them openly, reasonably, you know. We, we tell them anecdotes. We tell them stories. Uh, we, we share our fears. We share our hopes. And these days, unfortunately, w- you're getting too many people who are sanitized. You know, a journalist asks a chief executive a question, and somebody has to whisper in their ear what to say. Um, so the world's moved on. But Kevin is, is a character. He's, he's, he's an entrepreneur. He's a winner. He knows how to get things done. He's an amazing guy. I work with him. Um, I'm working with the Duke. I've already said about that. I'm working with some of these amazing people in other parts of... I, I work with a business called Oxygen Conservation. Chief executive's a young guy, um, called, um, Brett Stockdale. The proprietor, Mark Dixon, is an amazing guy. These are great people. And to work with these people across different sectors, and also my experience being able to work into the Fringe and, until recently, the galleries was an amazing experience for me. I was, I was chairman of the Fra- uh, the galleries for eight and a half years. I was a trustee in t- in total for 12 years. I'm very proud of what we achieved there. We opened a new wing in Edinburgh. These are all just amazing things to be able to be part of your life.

  13. 35:55 – 44:42

    Money, mobility, and staying grounded: treating everyone the same and accent prejudice

    1. DJ

      I love that you're speaking about all of the outcomes that you've delivered for other people.

    2. BH

      Mm.

    3. DJ

      How did your life change on this socially mobile journey, uh, from a fiscal and nonfis- fiscal point of view? Like, a boy from Toryglen and-

    4. BH

      Mm

    5. DJ

      ... flats, surely you had some nice things, nice experiences-

    6. BH

      Mm

    7. DJ

      ... a nice paycheck and experiences that, I guess, young Benny would only dream of having. Is there anything that comes to mind when I kind of probe into that?

    8. BH

      Yeah, I mean, look, I, I've definitely lived a different life from the life my parents lived. I mean, I should say, by the way, I, I sort of did miss out. We did mention my da- my father having, you know, some challenging times. He graduated at Glasgow University five years after me. I was very proud of that as well. Um, and it's, it's important to, you know- Remember that, and in fact, I was the one that coaxed him into going to university. So, you know, it's, it's funny how life has its different twists and turns. I have clearly lived a life that has been a, a more comfortable life in financial terms, given the jobs I've had, than my parents would ever have had. But it's not changed me. You know, I enjoy what I enjoy. I, I, you know, I, I, I, I would, I'll buy art today that they couldn't have bought. Um, but I, I, you know, I, I, I, you know, I've got homes that I enjoy, but I'm the same person, you know. And the thing that I would... I, I do remember, I had this guy, um, who worked for me at, um, Tim White, who was head of security at Tesco Bank for me, and he'd worked in the Met in the anti-terrorism squad. And I mean, we had so many amazing chats. He would often say this, "I don't know how you do these things and make these decisions." And then we would reflect on the crazy decisions he had to make. I remember him telling me, I said, "Come on, Tim, I've, all we've done is redesign a product. All we've done is decide some new strategy. You must have had some things that were much more challenging than that." And he said, "Well, yeah, I suppose, uh..." I mean, and I said, "Tell me, tell me." And he said, [laughs] "Well, there was one day there was this guy, and he had, he had all the explosives in the back of the car, and he was driving through London, and he was going to blow up a house. Um, and we had a choice. We either stopped him and charged him with being in possession of explosives, or we let him carry out the deed and, and charge him with attempted murder." And he said, "We basically had 15 minutes to decide." And I said, "That's pressure, Tim. Don't tell me you have the pressure." [laughs]

    9. DJ

      [laughs]

    10. BH

      You know, so, um-

    11. DJ

      Yeah

    12. BH

      ... but what T- Tim once said to me, he, he paid me the compliment that is the most important compliment. He said, "You, you speak to everybody in the same manner. You treat everybody the same way." And I think maybe that comes from being rooted in the past. I don't know. Maybe whatever would've happened in the past would've... I, I've never thought that it would've been an impossible passage of events, that I wouldn't have been doing something that was in a, not, not as glamorous or well-paid. I, it, I have never taken anything for granted. Um, and I think that's very important, and, and it's important to me to feel like that, and I feel like that to this day, you know.

    13. DJ

      One thing that I heard from one of your mentees and friends, Chris-

    14. BH

      Mm

    15. DJ

      ... he encouraged me to ask you around your accent and how it's never changed.

    16. BH

      Yeah. I mean, if it had changed, it would be a better question, why has it changed? [laughs]

    17. DJ

      Yeah.

    18. BH

      Um, it's never changed 'cause I don't... I think maybe it's a sym- symbol of me not changing, but I mean, it's, it's a hard one. I mean, I don't know how people whose accents have changed a lot answer that question. It seems to me more natural, um, that your accent wouldn't change. Although I think there is accent tone in language. Um, my language has changed 'cause I've had to, it, I've had to exist in an environment where, you know, you, you are still trying to... You've got to express yourself, and you've got to be articulate, and so language. But then that's not to say that people from all walks of life can't be articulate. There are people who are extremely... You know, I, I, I actually think that one of the things that people do is apply prejudice to accents, and there are some... Let's never c- c- confuse intelligence with education. Um, intelligent people might not be educated, and educated pe- might n- might not be that intelligent.

    19. DJ

      [laughs]

    20. BH

      I mean, so let's not, let's not make that a, that's a very spurious kind of, um, interpretation, so we must never do that. Um, but I think it is really important that you... I think, I think it's about being who you are. If, if your accent does change, who cares? If your accent stays the same, who cares? It's what you say and what you stand for that really matters. But, you know, going back to this whole notion about, and I, I think I said to you when we were having coffee, and there's this, uh, I think it was Arthur Ward said that curiosity is the wick of the lear- of the c- of the candle of learning, and it's such an important... I think curiosity is the really big thing. I, I was starting to tell you a story, but I didn't tell you that I was in Paris last year, and I went, uh, I was... Saturday morning, I was on my own, and I was heading, uh, to the Eighth Arrondissement. There's a lovely, uh, gallery that's, well, it's a hotel, actually. It's the, uh, Camondo, and the Camondo is the... There was a book written by Edmund de Waal, famous for writing, um, The Hare With Amber Eyes. He then wrote another book called Letters to Camondo, and Camondo was one of his, his longstanding ancestors. And he wrote it during COVID when he was observing dust and things and thinking about memory and thinking about loss, and he wrote this epistolary book, which is a beautiful book. I'd commend it. It starts off very observational, like almost a literary still life, and becomes this, then you rush into, you know, the Nazi-occupied Paris, and it's an amazing short book. Anyway, I'd been there, uh, but I decided to walk past it to a place called Gallery Kremer. And when I got to the Gallery Kremer on the Saturday morning, uh, the door was closed, and it was locked. Now, maybe some people just decide it's locked, it's closed, they walk away. I rang the bell, and this delightful German young woman came to the door. We realized that she speaks German and French. I speak English and decent Italian, but we hadn't, we didn't have a language to share between us. But as ever, you communicate. So she said, "Come in." So I went in, and I was then taken into this very, well, uh, very beautiful d- um, office space with beautiful pictures and objects, and she disappeared. And she was away for a while. [laughs] Um, I tried to take a picture, and I set the alarms off.

    21. DJ

      [laughs]

    22. BH

      Anyway, while I was waiting, I mean, I have to say, I tell my pals joking or half joking that I wasn't sure if I was destined to be a sex slave or arrested, but, or, or both.

    23. DJ

      [laughs]

    24. BH

      Uh, but anyway, nei- neither happened. And, um, anyway, at this point, Olivier Kremer comes down fully, fully dressed up with his shirt and tie on and comes in and says, "Can I, I'd like to introduce my- I'm Olivier K- Kremer." And we start chatting. Um, at that point, I've got to try and find a way to legitimize myself, if I'm honest. And I said two things which seemed the most helpful, which was that I was chairman of Buccleuch- And I was also chairman of the National Galleries of Scotland. As soon as I said that, he said, "Well, many years ago at Boughton," which is the, the Buccleuch estate in Northamptonshire, he said, "I visited and I met the Duke's father, the previous Duke." And so suddenly everything started to become kind of quite convivial, 'cause he had no idea who this stranger that had walked into his gallery was, and he spent the next three hours taking me around. But he told me a lovely story, which doesn't appear in Camondo. So Count Camondo's son was lost in the First World War, Nissim Camondo, 1917. His daughter, Beatrice, um, the, the, the house which was ... He created this house, the Count, as a memorial to his son, with the condition that it could be given to the French State, but nothing could ever be taken from it. And when the Nazis occupied Paris, they stripped it out, and it became a, a Gestapo, one of the Gestapo's headquarters. And Beatrice, who had converted to Catholicism and divorced her Jewish husband, was, felt very safe. And sh- and this is not in the book, but this is what Olivier told me. He says, "And she was in a ... She was a very good horse rider, and she was in a competition, and she beat a senior Gestapo officer into second place. He asked what her name was, and that day, he sent his soldiers, his Gestapo officers, to collect her, her ex-husband, and their two children, and they went straight to Auschwitz and were never seen again." So that little, that ... When I rang that bell, I, I learned that story, as well as having a, an magnificent tour of a brilliant gallery. And maybe that's the Glasgow boy that presses the bell.

    25. DJ

      I was a Glasgow boy that pressed a bell a few nights ago in London, uh, at a place called John Pearse-

    26. BH

      Hmm

    27. DJ

      ... who's a wonderful friend of yours-

    28. BH

      He is

    29. DJ

      ... and your tailor.

    30. BH

      Yeah.

  14. 44:42 – 53:36

    Soho as a ‘home away from home’: tailor John Pearse, private clubs, and Higgins No.5

    1. DJ

      I, to break the fourth wall here, I, I sent you a message, because I understood that Soho was such a home away from home for you at a certain point in your life, and you gave me this-

    2. BH

      Hmm

    3. DJ

      ... Tour de Higgins, almost, to embark on.

    4. BH

      Yeah.

    5. DJ

      And the first spot was your tailor. And I've never been to a place like this before, Benny. I, I don't typically feel like I belong in a place like that. And I expected, like, a, a retail unit, like a shop front, almost.

    6. BH

      Yeah.

    7. DJ

      And, uh, uh, well, that wasn't the case. It was very much, as you know, a doorbell. And because I rang that doorbell, your mate John invited me in for about 45 minutes to an hour, where I had such a beautiful kind of one-to-one storytelling experience. Tell me about your relationship with John and his services, I guess.

    8. BH

      Well, first thing, I, I met John by just walking along that street. And so I either pressed that doorbell or the door was open, so that's the start of it. Um, so we had, we, we share the same starting point, although I did nudge you in his direction. I, I just wandered in. And our relationship over 15, 18 years has just developed and developed. He's a, he's a friend. I said to you, when I'm, if I'm in Soho going between meetings, I, I, I, I often go to the Groucho Club for meetings. It's convenient. It, it's close to where, uh, I am in London. Um, it's, it's, there aren't, there is no dress code. I'll tell you a funny story about that in a moment. But there is no dress code. Um, and so it's a very convenient place to meet people, not having to worry about how they all turn up. They could turn up with a suit. They could turn up in the summer with shorts and flip-flops. It doesn't matter. But that's very close to where John is. And as a consequence of that, and me trailing through Soho at various times of the day and night, um, I will often pop in. M- uh, most days I'm in Soho, I'll, I'll go in and say hello. I could even pop in more than once. He's an incredibly clever man. He has been in the fashion world since the 1960s. He's dressed every Beatle. He's dressed every Rolling Stone. He still dresses Eric Clapton, Bill Nighy. Um, he dr- he dresses, he used to dress Jack Nicholson. He used to s- he used to go to LA for fittings. Um, even the other day I was talking to Chris Evils, um, and I was recommending a book to Chris Evils, which is kind of what I do quite often. And I was saying to him on ... I was standing beside John, and I said to John ... No, I said to Chris, I said, "It's a brilliant book. It's called Just Kids, and it's about ..." I can't remember her name, with Robert Mapplethorpe, the, the, the photographer, 'cause Chris had mentioned Mapplethorpe to me. Um, and I went off the phone, and John just said, "Patti Smith. Um, I first met Patti Smith at the Carlyle Hotel in 1969 in New York. And Mapplethorpe was quite g- ... He was around as well. He was a hustler. He was more of a hustler in New York." This is just this little kind of moment. [laughs] Um, and these moments happen a lot, you know. Um, and, uh ... Now, John is a, John is a wonderful character. His wife, Florence, is so glamorous, um, with, w- a, a natural glamorous lady, beautiful in every sense. And she said something I found very romantic. I was in The Academy, which was another stop-off on your tour, um, and, uh, with ... And I walked in and, for a drink, and the two of them were having dinner. And we started chatting, and I said to Florence, I said, "You know, growing up in Paris, Florence, when John met you, he must've had this great luxury of being shown around Paris by a local." To which she said, "No, Benny. When I met John, John showed me Paris."

    9. DJ

      Oh, that's beautiful.

    10. BH

      It is beautiful.

    11. DJ

      That is beautiful. On my Tour de Higgins, naturally I then went on to The Academy.

    12. BH

      Hmm.

    13. DJ

      Uh, this members' club that I'd never heard of.

    14. BH

      Mm-hmm.

    15. DJ

      Uh, and it, it makes sense to why someone like me had never heard of it.

    16. BH

      Yeah.

    17. DJ

      And I had this remarkable experience, because my predisposition of what a private members' club was like this kind of contemporary Soho house-

    18. BH

      Hmm

    19. DJ

      ... full of Instagram influencers, and-

    20. BH

      Hmm

    21. DJ

      ... this place was further from [laughs] couldn't be any further from something like that.

    22. BH

      Creaking. [laughs]

    23. DJ

      [laughs] It was.

    24. BH

      I often say it looks like, as you're on your way up the stairs, it could be a bordello you're heading to-

    25. DJ

      [laughs]

    26. BH

      ... which is, uh, sometimes perhaps too revealing. [laughs]

    27. DJ

      And then afterwards I went to the Soho Hotel, where there's a cocktail named after you.

    28. BH

      Yeah.

    29. DJ

      How did that come about?

    30. BH

      Well, in 2012, uh, it was the Olympics, uh, in London, and I was coming back from a night out, walking through the bar. At that time I was staying pretty much three, four nights a week every week. I, I did that for about seven years in the Soho Hotel, so I was kind of semi-resident really. And as I walked through, I knew everybody. I mean, and naturally I talked to people, and that, it pays off. Not because you want anything from them, but they get to know you, you know, get to know them, and you make friends in every... It's a victory, you talk to everybody. A- a- and you know, it, it, it's wh- the great final line of The Beatles last track on the, uh, or the last line on the last track on the last album, Abbey Road, which was the last one recorded by the four Beatles is, "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." And that's what, that's what talking to people is about, you know? And as I was walking through, the barman said to me, "Benny, we're considering, um, getting a few of our favorite guests to have a cocktail. Are you up for it?" And named after them. And I said, "Too right."

  15. 53:36 – 1:04:55

    Celebrity encounters with meaning: Golden Globes, Jon Hamm, Bradley Cooper, and Maya Angelou

    1. DJ

      We need to talk about the Golden Globes.

    2. BH

      Yeah.

    3. DJ

      This is, uh, one of the first stories I remember that you telling me over the phone, and w- I need to share that with the world, if you don't mind. That's-

    4. BH

      No, that's great. [laughs]

    5. DJ

      ... one of the most incredible stories I've ever heard.

    6. BH

      Yeah.

    7. DJ

      Take me to the Golden Globes.

    8. BH

      Well, first of all, how did I end up at the Golden Globes? So I'm on the board of a Saudi business, uh, based in Riyadh. That's one of my, one of my roles. Uh, and this is 2000, January 2013. Uh, the, one of the people I've got to know in, uh, Riyadh is thinking of potentially acquiring the Beverly Hills Hilton, whi- which is the venue for the Golden Globes. And so I go as a, as a sort of advisor to check out whether or not there is a deal to be done. Uh, not that that's actually my forte, but this person trusted me to be a, a good, um, confidant and, and counsel in this matter. So we go, and, uh, the person who owns the Beverly Hills Hilton, 'cause this would be a matter of public record, is called Benny. But he's only got one N. I must be... Let's be clear, I've got more ends than him, but he's got a lot more money than me [laughs]

    9. DJ

      [laughs]

    10. BH

      But there we go. Um, and anyway, during the course of the conversation, the Globes are on the following night, and he says to me, "Would you be interested in going?" Now, some people listening to this will have been at things like, uh, the, the Brits, which I've been to many times, and there's a lot of corporate presence there. You know, um, uh, different sponsors take along corporate mem- uh, corporate customers. The Globes is not like that. It's basically the industry itself. Um, so anyway, so I am... I, I'm, I'm not surrounded by corporate people, I'm surrounded by people in the industry. And it's quite interesting 'cause they've, they've already commented on my accent. It's kind of thick enough at the start, but the more I drink, the thicker it gets [laughs]

    11. DJ

      [laughs]

    12. BH

      And as I'm, you know, wandering around the Globes all night, at the start of the night, people would say, "So why are you here?" 'Cause Brave was the animated, uh, film that won the Globe that year. Interestingly, the soundtrack is by a guy called Patrick Doyle, who's a friend of mine. But anyway, that's a, that's a, that's another little connection. However, they were asking me, "Are you here with Brave?" And I was sort of making... I was telling them about me and the other Benny, and, you know, I don't think they understood half of it. But as the night went on, people really had no clue what I was saying.

    13. DJ

      [laughs]

    14. BH

      'Cause they were getting drunk. Uh, I think their comprehension was getting weaker, and my, my, my, my accent was getting thicker. And people started saying things like, "Oh, you're Benny. We were at your table at the Oscars last year." And I was getting to the point where I was like, "Whatever."

    15. DJ

      [laughs]

    16. BH

      You know, does it matter? Anyway, the point you're g- you were leading me to is at the time, Mad Men, uh, the TV series, was, was at its height of notoriety and popularity. And I must say, I, I loved Mad Men. I think it was a, it was a very clever series. Uh, interestingly enough, I think written largely by women, 'cause who would write misogyny better than a woman? Um, and they all got... Th- they were all told to read some of the great books from the early 20th century, um, you know, uh, that, that, that were, that were in that time. The other thing I read somewhere, and I'd need to check if it's true, but the act... Un- unlike, say, something like EastEnders, where there's always noise and people talk across each other, it was performed more like a stage play in that people speak and then someone else speaks. But anyway, I, I, I loved the fashion, I loved the acting. Um, I think it was just, you know, the, the, the fact that it was such a kind of brilliant, um, representation of its time. Anyway, the star man, of course, is Jon Hamm. Um, and, um, Jon Hamm's standing beside another person, and I walk up to him and said to him, I said to the two of them, I said, "I'd really like a picture." To which the two of them said, "Sure," thinking I was gonna take a picture. And I was like, "No, no, no. [laughs] If you don't mind."

    17. DJ

      [laughs]

    18. BH

      And I gave my phone to the other guy and I said, "Could you take a picture?" And that picture remains my WhatsApp picture, uh, from 2013. But it's often the case when... It's, it's quite often the case it's when one of my, one of m- somebody I'm connected with is on their phone and my picture's there, and maybe the wife or the girlfriend will look at it and go, "What's he doing with him there?" You know? And, um, I, I then tell the story, which is the f- the, is the denouement of the whole story is I only realized later that it was Bradley Cooper who'd taken the picture.

    19. DJ

      [laughs]

    20. BH

      I didn't know who Bradley Cooper was. I, I don't know what big movies he'd... He'd been in Hangover by then, but I had never seen and still have not seen Hangover.

    21. DJ

      Me too.

    22. BH

      Um, but anyway, I didn't know who he was.

    23. DJ

      [laughs]

    24. BH

      So not only am I, am I getting pictured with Jon Hamm, but it's Bradley Cooper that takes the picture. [laughs]

    25. DJ

      And the... How did Bradley Cooper react in that moment? Did he suspect that you might know also?

    26. BH

      Very obediently, as far as I can see.

    27. DJ

      Yeah.

    28. BH

      I don't know if that's a characteristic that's common in his behaviors, but-

    29. DJ

      [laughs]

    30. BH

      But no, he was, no, he was great, to be honest. The two of them are great. Um, there was no, uh, there was no, no issue.

  16. 1:04:55 – 1:13:07

    Leadership models, name origins, and the closing question: what’s next?

    1. DJ

      Sir Alex Ferguson, Fergie, is also-

    2. BH

      Mm

    3. DJ

      ... a hero of yours-

    4. BH

      Yeah

    5. DJ

      ... that you've begun-

    6. BH

      Yeah

    7. DJ

      ... to become friends with. And that actually, that relationship actually stemmed from an earlier interaction as a young man.

    8. BH

      Mm.

    9. DJ

      What's your relationship likes with Sir To- what's your relationship like with Sir Alex Ferguson?

    10. BH

      I d- I don't really have one. I wouldn't claim to have one, but, but I, what I do have is a very vivid memory as a, when we were 13, 14, 15, when we were playing at a kind of a high level for the age group, he would be the manager of St. Mirren at the time. And when he came along, you know, you had this undeniable, unforgettable sense of presence that, that, you know... And it wasn't there when some of the other managers turned up to, to watch games and some sort of, kind of... I guess back then they didn't have the same range of scouting, um, you know, resources, so they would do it themselves. And I guess smaller teams, they probably still do. But, you know, he would turn up. Um, but he was someone who, you know, I'd, I'd, I'd lost kind of touch with him compl- well, I didn't have any real contact with him. But when I was at Tesco, I went to see him. It turned out to be the last season, and it was pre-season at Carrington, and I spent a half day with him. And he remembered the player... I mean, I couldn't believe his encyclopedic memory around football. With the number of players that must have w- gone through his hands over his whole time, and yet there he was talking to me about people that played in my team, you know, um, who he had signed. A guy called Phil Mac name. He had signed him for St. Mirren. And he told me about... I'll always remember him telling the story. I said to... He s- he said, "Oh, I remember Phil." He said, "I thought Celtic were gonna sign him." He said, "So I said to my scout, 'Find out what the family circumstances are.' Scout came back and said it's a family, four big boys," I think it was. And, um, he said, and so he said, "I said to get the biggest turkey possible for the mum at Christmas, 'cause the mum wants to make sure the boys are well fed and healthy, and we'll get a s- new suit for the dad, and I'll take him to the Cup, the League Cup final."

    11. DJ

      [laughs]

    12. BH

      So [laughs] the things that probably happen forever were all happening back then.

    13. DJ

      Wow.

    14. BH

      But what I have to say, what an impressive man, what a clear eye for m- man management and getting the best out of people. Uh, someone who, you know, I just think k- u- understood that... I mean, he, he said something that kind of resonates what we say. I'll always remember- The, the story that a, a journalist had said that he'd done so well despite growing up in Govan. And he, he blew his top and wrote to him and said, "I, I, I, I've succeeded to the extent I've succeeded because I grew up in Govan, not b- not despite it." And, and I think that's, that's... I think he is a very special person, and my goodness, what, what does he know about leadership going back to the very origins of this conversation?

    15. DJ

      Your name, Bernard Franklin Higgins.

    16. BH

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    17. DJ

      Can you tell me the, uh, history of why you were given that name?

    18. BH

      Uh, yeah. So, um, people are often interested in the Franklin, but the Benny's probably a wee bit more, um, of, of kind of... It's, it's, it's got more of a background. My father had... My father's best friend when he was in his, uh, ear- late teens and early 20s was a guy called Benny McDonald. And Benny McDonald, uh, was a footballer and signed for Derby County. And my dad and Benny McDonald and another friend, whose name has never been in my head, so it's one of them... If I was to write a memoir, maybe I should get the name, or maybe the mystery of not knowing is part of the story. But anyway, the three of them went down to Derby for the signing. The, the signing took place. They all went to a nightclub. They came out the nightclub. They're walking along the road, and a drunken driver in a, in a lorry hit them. Now, what hit them means I don't know, but one thing I do know is the third man was dead, and my father and Benny McDonald went into the ambulance together. And in the ambulance, for a young guy, it's... You know, I don't know if it's apocryphal, but it's been the story all through my life that Benny McDonald said to my father, "Whatever happens to us through life, will you name your first child, your first male child, after me?" My dad said he would. And, um, that guy was pronounced dead overnight. He'd had some knock to his head that hadn't been visible or, or diagnosed in the ambulance or when they first got to the hospital. So he pa- he died that night, and I became Benny. And Franklin's more of a wee bit of a mystery. Um, I think that my best, uh, analysis is that my dad had a few drinks, and when he went to register me, wanted to give me something a bit more exotic. And if he'd gone for Benjamin Franklin Higgins, it might have made more sense.

    19. DJ

      [laughs]

    20. BH

      He went for Bernard Franklin, but after B- after Benjamin Franklin, the great polymath. Um, and, uh, so maybe I, maybe I should be pleased. But it's, it's, uh... Yeah. [laughs] I'm not sure where Franklin came. I know, I know who it was, I know who it was, who, who it was derived from, which is Benjamin Franklin, who actually was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. And so the... It's funny. Through my life, Benjamin Franklin kind of appears on the scene now and again, and I think, "Oh, well, maybe not so bad."

    21. DJ

      A question that I'm led to believe that you ask in interviews is, what is p- what is something people close to you think is true about you that is in fact untrue?

    22. BH

      Hmm. I do.

    23. DJ

      Well, I- I'm asking that to you

    24. BH

      ... I think there's quite a lot, actually. It's, it's interest- People find it a very difficult question. I should say it's not an original question for me. I was asked it, so. I think there are a few things. I- I'm an introvert, um, which because I have had jobs where you have to stand up and speak in front of hundreds of people, thousands of people, some people confuse introversion with an ability to perform, um, or an ability to do your job in a outspoken way. But introversion's got nothing to do with that. So that's one. I think sometimes, and I probably play to the audience a wee bit, I'm, I'm prepared to let people think I don't prepare for things, but I always prepare for things. I prepare for everything. You can't, you know... I do remember one day getting slightly irked by somebody that works with me. We'd had this big product launch, and the person said to myself and one of my colleagues, "It's interesting the difference between you two guys. You know, he prepares really thoroughly. Benny, you don't prepare at all." And I just thought, I don't know why it would irk me that day, and I just said, "See every time somebody asks me a question about market shares and, um, growth numbers and [laughs] all these bits of detail, and I know them, how do you think I know them?" [laughs]

    25. DJ

      [laughs]

    26. BH

      "Do you think I just sleep with something under my pillow and somehow by some form of osmosis it sort of goes into my head?" Anyway, it's my own fault. Um, when I was at HBOS, Lord Stevenson, uh, said to me... And this is actually something else I don't think people realize. I worry a lot more about things. I try not to look like I worry, 'cause I think when you're in very senior jobs, looking worried worries everybody. So try not to look worried. Try and look as though you're getting something, getting it sorted. But you need to worry about to understand the problem. Um, but I always remember Lord Stevenson saying to me, "You are a sort of Renaissance man." He said, "You really need to... Sometimes maybe one should roll your sleeves up and, you know, look, look as though you're much more kind of agitated about it all." And I just said to him, and it was rather, um, prescient, I said, "Don't think I'm not worried about this place." 'Cause I was.

    27. DJ

      [laughs] All roads lead back to Soho in this conversation. When I was sat with your tailor, John Pearse-

    28. BH

      Mm-hmm

    29. DJ

      ... I asked him the question, "What's the best thing that you've ever given or created to Benny?"

    30. BH

      Hmm.

Episode duration: 1:13:09

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