Ep 79 : In Conversation - Steven Rodaway, General Manager, Singapore Rugby Sevens
Summary
From the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and then serving 10 years as a cavalry officer in the British Army to working in the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), Executive Director, David Kelly, sits down with Steven Rodaway, General Manager of the HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens.
Steven shares with us his incredible military career, the challenges and insights into the LOCOG in 2010 to how he uses his skill set and achievements in the Army to progress leadership and team building in his current role with the Rugby Sevens. As the Sevens build towards 29th – 30th October later this year, Steven shares how he & his team manage logistical challenges to help deliver one of Singapore's biggest sporting events in the calendar.
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"You need to find some common ground wherever you are, it simply makes life easier." Steven Rodaway, General Manager, Singapore Rugby Sevens [click to Tweet this quote]
Episode Resources
Click here to connect with Steven Rodaway on LinkedIn
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Episode Transcript
David Kelly: Hello and welcome to In Conversation with me David Kelly, brought to you by the British Chamber of Commerce here in Singapore. I'm really lucky to meet some hugely inspirational people. And this episode's guest has a fascinating, inspirational, stimulating career to share with us today. My guest attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and went on to serve 10 years as a Cavalry Officer in the British Army leading soldiers and dealing with diverse situations, operations and missions around the world. He's worked for the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games - imagine the logistics team and leading the delivery of logistics support services in the world's biggest sporting event. He's led logistics of Tough Mudder in the US, witnessing and helping the organization to grow from a startup to a medium-sized company and dealing with challenges following Hurricane Katrina as well. He was the National Transport Manager for the 2015 Rugby World Cup, Head of Game Services for the 5th Asian Indoor Martial Arts Games, which was the first major multi-sport event to be held in Turkmenistan. And then in Japan for the World Rugby tournament, he was the Tournament Services Director for the Rugby World Cup in 2019, the first Rugby World Cup to be held in Asia, with Japan as the host.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome Steven Rodaway, who is now the General Manager of the HSBC Rugby Sevens. Steven with 10 years experience in strategic operations, specialist helming diverse positions in major international sporting events around the world, your impact on the logistical success and leading teams, it really is a pleasure to have this conversation with you. Thank you so much.
Steven Rodaway: Thanks, David. A pleasure to be here.
David Kelly: Really, really good to have you. So, can we just start at the beginning? Because it wasn't necessarily the army you were interested in going into straightaway? What did you study at Aberystwyth University? And then how did you make that move?
Steven Rodaway: Yeah, it was an interesting start. So I decided to go and study accountancy and finance at Aberystwyth University. I'm from Wales, you might hear it slightly in my accent. But I kind of very quickly decided, even though it was a good degree that I didn't want to become an accountant, it was just kind of quite difficult when you're studying the subject, that's University. So then I started to think, actually if I looked back, what did I want to do? And that takes you all the way back and to the Falklands War. I remember rushing home as a child of seven years old, to find out what went on and how it was going. And thinking this is kind of what I wanted to do. And then I had to set it back on how I actually wanted to make this happen.
So like many other people, at the time, I joined the University Officer Training Corps, the army picked me up before the Navy did or the RAF. And the army, they're actually very good at that. And they put me in, started pushing me through the system of office training course, though regular commissions next, which is three days of university. And that's when you get effectively your pass, or fail, whether you've got some sort of leadership ability, and can actually go to Sandhurst. I actually got something which is called a company pass. And if anyone's listening or has been around the company at Sandhurst, it's no longer available. It's sort of styled as leadership development, 12 weeks, it's actually what we call a bee sting, which you get effectively lots of exercise, you do get your leadership developed, but it's very much pushed. And it's quite a struggle in order to get through that. And you then go straight on to the commissioning course if you pass out to that; it's got a pretty high failure rate.
David Kelly: It was actually a time where your leadership skills are identified quite quickly and you're identified as being a high flyer from that perspective. And then you should get more development within that space.
Steven Rodaway: Yeah, the gist of it is, effectively, they were slightly unsure about you, or you potentially need some more development or even some more maturity. And they want to make sure before they put all that money into you and further develop your leadership skills when you are fully committed until you have the required leadership necessary. So it's basically a pretty short 12 weeks, but it's long enough for them to make a decision on you, on whether they're going to push you through the next year of the Sandhurst training.
David Kelly: Have you got some examples of how that training was then put into practice, obviously, with your ten years serving with the army? Were there moments where you thought actually this training is really good because it's allowed me to think in this way and really process and bring the team along with me?
Steven Rodaway: A lot of its very much value-based. Because, again, you're going into many diverse situations, you could be having tea with tribal elders, you could be dealing with oil executives, you could be doing convoy duties, you could be doing warfighting, or you could just be on training exercises working with partners, every single one's diverse. Sandhurst really develops your basic leadership, your basic value system, and basically also tries to develop your integrity and dealing with people. And even though you're then kind of leading your troops into many, many different sets of situations, hopefully, you'll come out with a good outcome and make sensible decisions in the process.
David Kelly: Fabulous. And you must work with a huge amount of diverse people as well, I'm sort of jumping the gun a little bit in terms of the rest of the podcast, but in terms of that diversity of the people you're managing from backgrounds in difficult situations, it must have set you up for your corporate career, later on, I guess.
Steven Rodaway: Definitely. When you're working with the army, again, you're working with some excellent people, and they want the best for you. I've often said this, especially from the soldier's side, you can have a young soldier leave the school with absolutely no new qualifications at all. And then 20 years later, he's turned into this amazing, amazing person with a whole raft of skills, a whole raft of leadership experience, and basically can pretty much take on the world. And you're working with these people, and these are your mentors, as you're starting up your early career. So effectively, it's a great basis for anyone, you go to one of the world's leading leadership development courses. And then you get at a very young age, the opportunity to put that into practice with excellent, excellent people who want the best for you and want you to learn, and want you to be as best as you can be. So yeah, it's a great experience.
David Kelly: Brilliant, and you must have experienced some challenging times in the military. I think you were in Oman, when the September 11 attacks happened in the US, can you just talk us through what was it like when you're getting that news through when you were on the ground in Oman? And how did you process that? What were the next steps that you had to start thinking about? And then how do you reflect on what's happened as well, because if you must have felt quite vulnerable there.
Steven Rodaway: It was quite interesting, because when I joined, the world was very, very quiet, really not much was happening. And then suddenly, you've got straight out of Sandhurst, you're on your first deployment with the regiments who's on an exercise called Safe Syria. And you come in from being out in the desert. One of the guys in the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers picked up a black and white TV at the back of their armoured vehicle. And it was gathering around it, you joined the group and then you see September 11. And suddenly, your what, what I'm guessing is very, very early 20s here, and you get your soldiers just turn to you and ask me - boss, are we going to war? Everyone's talking about Afghanistan at that time, less so about Iraq, but that's the questions you start getting hit with. And then that obviously, right at the start of your career is - right, ok, the world has changed.
At that stage, you don't know which way it's gonna go. But certainly, as a professional soldier, you certainly want to go on operations, and you want to be as good as you possibly can be. And that's what you train for. And it's kind of mixed feelings. It's obviously a bit of trepidation, but also very exciting and interesting as well. And it's the step into the unknown. To be honest, I'm not sure if that's fully answered your question. But that's kind of what happened with the 10 years, they certainly led then into again, a very interesting and very diverse career. I touched on it in the earlier answer, in that you end up using a skill set. And you might not be fully trained in one specific thing, but you end up using a skill set for many, many different situations, whether it is you know, hearts and minds sorts of operations, mentoring yourself, mentoring foreign forces, or whether it's your much more, warfighting, even you know, you're doing things like winning elections, and you do not necessarily change when the election or a change right-skewed, but around the election, but your basic leadership and your basic decision-making skills, and the people you're working with make it possible. It makes it possible to make good confident decisions and some quite challenging environments.
David Kelly: And so in 2010, you left the British Army and you became the senior manager of the logistics team at the world's biggest sporting event. Let's face it, the London Olympic and Paralympic Games, what an amazing experience. I mean, how did you transition? How did you find the opportunity and what was it about that role that really grabbed you?
Steven Rodaway: So my last role with the army I was working for HQ London district, and obviously they had involvement with the Olympics and obviously they were using some of their lands as well. And so I heard that this was going on. I was coming to the end of my career. It was time for me to move on. I heard about this and I was looking at just literally a website search and what sorts of roles I could do. Because you've got the challenge when coming out of the military, you have all these great skills, but then it's how do you transfer them into the civilian world? Saying, you know, you've led men now on difficult scenarios, and difficult operations, knowledge, and all these training exercises, etc, it's quite hard sometimes to translate that course. And I was very fortunate to then get the opportunity actually to interview for the Olympics. And it was part of the logistics team. And be very honest with you, at the time I had no formal logistics training.
I was very lucky to meet one of the guys who became a major mentor of mine in life, who's the head of the logistics team, and what he was looking for was somebody who could bring his team of roughly around 3,000 people together, to make sure that they were trained, they have all the right kit, and they were properly trained to perform this huge, huge task that is one of the biggest, largest logistics operations in the world. And there are all sorts of stats around that, about why it is and how truck movements and the warehousing and all aspects we can imagine, effectively, you're equipping towns, all the different various sporting events, all the stadiums, all the athletes' village, just a massive, massive operation. And all the workforce has to be prepared and ready to do it. And this is pretty diverse, working across all the different functional areas within the logistics team. But then also all the different functional areas within the wider Olympics laws to get this to happen.
So I thought this is a job I can do. Because what I do know about is training and organizing large groups of people. Even though I wasn't formally, I didn't have any formal logistics training, I had a lot of formal leadership training, I knew how to bring a plan together. And that's what I brought to the party. And as a team, as a whole, we were a real mixed bag, there was obviously me and the military in the senior team. There's a number of people who had done major events before and the events experts. But then there was a number of people from major industry, especially the major logistics industry. And we have UPS as our logistics partners as well. And they all brought something to the party. And again, what I've found is usually the best teams are a mixture of people, if you just have everybody from an events background, often they get very narrow thinking, again, you're from an industry background, they might not have had the nuance. But you've started through that all into the mix, they end up having a very high performing team because often it brings the best from each element or each industry into that team. And also it gets to mitigate the worst of each of our elements, you know, you get the two, again, for events, pure events, organizers, it kind of brings in every industry people will bring them into much more into a formal way of thinking and a formal process. And then again, for the industry guys, for the event's organizers, they learned so much doing so many major events that they'll go actually you don't want to do that. We've done it before, back in the day. And we know it doesn't work for this reason or this reason, we just saved them a whole lot of time. So it's a mixed team that worked really, really well. And I think it sets and it's actually been registered to set the benchmark actually for the Olympic process, and the Olympic organization.
David Kelly: Amazing. I guess for me who's quite naive but was very proud as a Brit to see London hosting the Olympic Games, and you see all the volunteers and there was a great spirit there. There's clearly a lot in terms of the logistics behind the scenes. So can you just describe to our listeners, what a typically challenging day might look like? And what also a really, really good day might look like as well.
Steven Rodaway: It's actually quite simple. A really, really good day is when there was basically no one talking about it. Because when you do the logistics for the Olympics, if someone's talking about you there's a problem. And something's happened, whether it's trucks not having arrived on time, people got the wrong piece of equipment, and you're having to solve a problem. And basically, when no one's talking about you, it's just going smoothly, and it's just quiet. Things go right. It's very extreme because you're back of house and all the other stuff of them as well as all being back of house stuff. No one sees it. People only ever see it if it starts going on. So people are talking about it. That's a big problem. And that's how it should be, you know, that's when you're effectively the sinews of the organization. It's just expected for things to happen on time. It's expected that you have all the right equipment. It's just expected. If it doesn't, that becomes a big problem. Because things won't happen, the event won't go on.
David Kelly: Did you find that it was tough transitioning from the military? I mean, you talked about having a mentor there with you, you had diverse teams bringing corporate event experience together, it was great with that mix of experience that helped you in that traditional transitional journey, or did you feel a bit nervous getting into the civilian world of work?
Steven Rodaway: It's a really interesting question. I know many ex-military people have struggled in moving into the civilian world. And I didn't feel I did. And for a couple of reasons, I think number one, the industry I actually moved into, because there's a huge amount of similarities between it effectively, it's about your people, you have a team in order to do a mission. A mission, whether it's - if you're in the army - take that hill, whether it's put on that event, you have a timeline, you know, that the mission will have a timeline in the army, you've got to do it by this time, and then also the event has a timeline, this is a date it's gonna go on, it all has to happen.
Steven Rodaway: And then you've got assets to it, whether if you're in transport that's cars, or doing logistic that's tracks, or with sporting equipment, or whether it's tanks and whether it's bullets, there are lots of similarities. And also, the military is pretty vocational, it's more of a vocation, rather than just a job. And actually, the events world, I would say, it's quite similar. It's more of a vocation, you love the job, it's a job, but you love it, and you're willing to go in that extra mile. And you're part of the team, which, you know, you're going through some tough times together on many, many different events, I've worked 24 hours through just to get the job done. And you work long hours, especially as it gets closer, it's pretty much up and down. It's very similar to the military, preparing for an operation and working hard on operation, and then you have a bit of downtime. And hopefully, a bit of an easier life before we get ramped up again. It's exactly the same within the events world, you know when it's coming and as it goes from this, I mean, to me starts to ramp up that as you get closer, I mean, in the end, you're just working. It's just work. And, you know, don't expect anything different.
David Kelly: Fabulous, fabulous insights. So from the London Olympic and Paralympic Games, you've also worked in New York, you worked in Turkmenistan, you worked in Japan with the Rugby World Cup, and absolutely amazing. I mean, was it ingrained in you doing more travel and getting more cultural experience and using your expertise in that way? What led you into those other roles within the events and the sports space?
Steven Rodaway: After the Olympics, I loved doing the Olympics, it's something special, your home Olympics as well, in the UK, so that was amazing. As an industry, I wanted to keep being part of it. The opportunity in New York came to me, I was recommended to them and I got offered the job. Moving out to New York, again, was a very new industry. So now in the private sector very, very different. As their director of logistics, a very new company, it was really the first time in that space. So kind of new industry, new events. And the company at that time was going from a small scale company into a kind of a medium scale, it was going through this classic growing pains where if you're a CEO you know absolutely everyone's first name, to actually, I don't know these people not quite so well, because we'd go grown from a small group of people into bigger offices, plus all the logistics had been hit with Hurricane Katrina. So all the warehouses throughout had to be reformed, and we had to bring them in cost savings. And so it was a pretty tough time actually because you're going into this event all new. And it's just you're setting up everything effectively again. Again, you're working with a good team and a very young team who just wants to work and get this event off the ground. Classic startup mentality of the business. And it was a great time. And that became very different to the Olympics, and again, very different to the army.
And then moving from that back to the UK, I got the opportunity to work within rugby, which is a sport I love. And again, it was another home sporting event. So England, Rugby 2015, that was absolutely amazing. Again, working for my old mentor who I worked for in 2012. He was heading up the whole Game Services. So I got to work for him in a totally different area. I hadn't been in transport before. But suddenly now I was put into the transport space, which is again very much back of house, working with again, lots of transport experts, and my role there was Head of City Transport, so I had all 13 venues and I had my transport managers when they roll the transport, whether that's your team coaches, whether that's your spectator transports, you link them with all the train companies, you're linking in with TfL, all the rest of them. And that was a really fascinating time.
You're negotiating with TfL, basically, to close down some of the main arteries into London, for this period of time. So effectively you've got to get over the worries of people that effectively we will gridlock the whole of London while this is going in, while Twickenham is running. And that was a really big success for the transport team and as a whole, because we actually proved that by closing down this main artery, the A316, we actually can move people way quicker than a normal match on a Twickenham day, because effectively, it's all closed down anyway, because there's so much traffic going through a normal Twickenham day it closed it anyway. And then by actually formally closing it, we can divert people around promptly. And then we can open it up to normal traffic much quicker. But it takes a lot of persuasion, as you can imagine.
David Kelly: I can imagine it would be absolutely a minefield to navigate. This is a really silly question, but how do you know that that's the right thing to do? Are there templates in place? Are there consultants that are helping to share their expertise in place? I mean, how do you just go in today right, OK, I've got to run all the transport for the Rugby World Cup in the UK. It's just quite an incredible role.
Steven Rodaway: Yeah, it was, it was absolutely fascinating, we had had a transport guy called Tom Leg, again, very, very, very competent guy, what he doesn't know about transport isn't worth knowing. And we also brought in people who could model the whole event as well. And so they're modelling how the transport runs. And some of the guys in Tfl London, we've got these brains the size of planets, as we like to say, and you know, they know this stuff inside out. And it's a pleasure working with these guys. Because once you got them on board, and you start showing modelling, it's just like can this work? Yes, it can work, and then how do we make it work? And how then do we get it across to all the people who might not be transport experts? You might go actually, this won't work. And then this persuasion, I mean, you've got to have the whole thing was backed up with the modelling to show them how it could work where it would open, what do we foresee, but again, you still have to complete. It's a good case forwards. And again, in the events world, you don't win every battle. And you've got to remember that you won't win every battle. But as long as you win enough of them, you'll be okay.
David Kelly: So you went from being in the great outdoors with the army to a lot of the game is outdoors with the Olympic Games. There are a lot of sports being outdoors from the Rugby World Cup to then the Asian indoor and martial arts games in Turkmenistan. How did that come about?
Steven Rodaway: So again, that was absolutely fascinating. Again, I didn't know where Turkmenistan was before I went there. But I can't say I ever imagined myself living there. Totally fascinating. I think when I arrived in Turkmenistan, I think there were only six other people from the UK in the whole country. Yeah, it's pretty much a closed country, you can get through but not many people go through there. And it's very hard to get visas to go into the actual country. Very wealthy through gas, a black sands deserts, we were living in a place called Ashgabat. And they'd effectively built a massive Olympic Park there. And it was an all singing all dancing Olympic Park. But they haven't any experience of how to actually operate it. So actually, how do you put events on in this massive white marble Olympic Park that they've actually built? They won the bid for the Asian indoor martial arts games, and then they have to deliver it. So then we have a series of international experts brought in to help them do this. So I was working with a counterpart in Turkmenistan. And I was very much taken on again, the back of the house elements of it. So that's your transport, your logistics, your arrivals and departures, last-mile operations. The operating language was Turkman. You could get away with some Russian as well in Turkmenistan, through interpreters and a very, very different culture. You know, for example, the internet that's all controlled and locked down. It's a fascinating country to work in, wonderful people actually to work with, hardworking and we delivered, but again, there are some challenging events.
For example, you have to work through all the government agencies. Two days before the event I'm meant to have 250 Mercedes arriving and suddenly two days before I panic, in fact, this is just before the start of the event, I haven't got any of my Mercedes, any of my fleet of vehicles, so I can't effectively operate. I mean, then suddenly they all start rolling in. Actually, I tell a lie, this was five days before. And I've got basically blocked out two of these effective car parks, each they hold about 600 cars and they're filling up with these cars. Great, we've got an operation now we've got it. And then two days before they were all removed because the decision was that they were different colours, and they will all have to be white. And then suddenly, middle of the night, they all left. And it was one day before I got a whole new fleet of white cars, but you can imagine your blood pressure going up and down while this is happening, and it's that sort of element in Turkmenistan that was challenging, but I really enjoyed it, really enjoyed working in the country and working with the people.
David Kelly: And then from Turkmenistan to Japan, is that right?
Steven Rodaway: Japan, yeah, straight away, actually. So again, lucky enough to work with World Rugby. World Rugby are a great organization, and what they needed, again, will be a long time since the Japanese had run a major event, I think it's 2002, which was a football world cup. So you take that all the way up to 2019 it had been a long time. So World Rugby very much took the view they wanted to be intimately involved in the running and the mentoring and being part of the process. Rather than just let the organizing committee go off and do it. They want speakers involved. So they needed people in there who had organized them before. And my piece of the puzzle was, again, the whole back of house and helping to mentor the Japanese and bringing them on. So that was whether it's, again, many other new elements which I actually hadn't done before, whether it's a tournament guest programme, accreditation, catering, again, as well as logistics, transport, security and all the rest of it. So again, all the series of events, which many people don't think about happening, because hopefully, they'll just go smoothly. Absolute pleasure working with with the Japanese, very hard-working people, very nice people, they do have a particular way about doing business. And that's something you've just got to navigate when you are a guest in their country, and to get the best out of you and them as a team. And again, it was a pleasure working for World Rugby. Pleasure working for Alan Gilpin who is now the CEO of World Rugby and who's now actually out here in Singapore as well, and working directly for him and representing World Rugby.
David Kelly: Great, what an amazing career. We'll bring you back to Singapore in a minute because you're here. Do you find it easy to adapt to those different styles of the way that countries culturally work, but also the way that different companies in those countries work? Do you find it easy to mould yourself into it to be more successful?
Steven Rodaway: I wouldn't say it's easy, actually. And there are definite challenges and sometimes you've got to know when to bite your tongue with something which is happening, and when to be able to put pressure on. And when's the time to actually go - is this important? I think flexibility is the key element and trying to not burn the important bridges which you're going to need. Because you need the support of the locals in order to get things done in all these countries. In an extreme way maybe, in Turkmenistan. But still, whether you're in Japan, you need the support of the locals and you need their buy-in, in order to get the essential pieces done, especially when you're working across languages. You have to find common ground. Again, going back to Turkmenistan. It was fairly interestingly easy there because I met my counterpart and his sidekick as well who I would be working very closely with and it turns out they were tank commanders in their army. So we had a discussion about the relative merits of a challenger to the T72. So that was the beginning of our relationship. So again, you need to find some common ground wherever you are, it simply makes life easier.
David Kelly: That's a really good takeaway. So flying you virtually to Singapore, you're the GM of HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens at the Sports Hub here. I think it would be remiss of me not to mention COVID although I think everybody's getting sick on this podcast channel about us mentioning it, what a challenge it must have been, an incredible logistical nightmare in terms of rearranging the schedule for such a large event with some potentially good news - I think it's still pending going ahead on the 29th and 30th of October this year, hopefully?
Steven Rodaway: Yes, yes, it's looking good. And it was a major challenge. You know, I arrived out here in January and I think it was April-ish around that time. Well, COVID started happening, and we started hearing rumours of it. And then obviously, the first year then there was the cancellation. And then there's been this postponement, but it's looking good now for this year so a major, major challenge. I was pleased it happened the year before because obviously, that would have been right on the Rugby World Cup in Japan, which would have been challenging after a couple of years of work there. But yeah, majorly challenging time COVID, we're working with some great stakeholders, whether that's our government partners, Sports SG or STB and also our partners and suppliers locally within Singapore. I mean, again, you know, working through all these challenges in-depth with them constantly re-planning things, getting lots and lots of questions. Again, you think it was quite a quiet time now because it hasn't actually happened, the events, but we've got plans upon plans on different versions of how the event might look. And again, working with World Rugby as well, because on the World Rugby side they're not just doing Singapore, they've got to plan the whole series. So again, it's linking back into them on that side to help them plan the whole series. And we're part of this wider series. So yeah, it's been, it's been a massive challenge. But as you say, fingers crossed. Now it's looking more and more positive. And hopefully, we're starting to come out of this. What it has shown I believe this whole COVID piece, is the value of human interaction. And a lot of people haven't been haven't had the opportunity to interact fully with other people and the value of the live events in general, because it provides a certain morale boost. And a certain community cohesion within wider communities to have these major events, not just the Sevens. You know, whether it's concerts, whether it's football matches, whatever it might be, to have these live events where lots of people get together, it just has intrinsic value.
David Kelly: And just as you were talking there, I mean, you made the life change to move your family down to Singapore, you're in a new role with a global pandemic going on, which is probably one thing you can't control. So if someone's taking away the taxis in Turkmenistan, for example, you can try and provide a provision to find vehicles going forward, I guess. But with the pandemic, certainly, mental health has really come to the forefront, hasn't it in terms of keeping all of ourselves motivated? And that social interaction piece that you talked about. Was that more challenging? And how did you get through that? How are you getting through that?
Steven Rodaway: Again, I tend to try and make the best of things, as you can only play the cards you're dealt. And there are some things out of your control. And I like to think of myself as a fairly stoic person. If I can't change it, I'm not going to necessarily worry about it, but make the best of the situation where I can. I mean, there are lots of people who will win, say a million dollars, and think it could have been $2 million, and how great for them if it were $2 million, and there'll be others who think wow, a million dollars. Living in Singapore, I was lucky enough to be able to get myself out there and get myself established slightly before COVID hit. Now it's been this period of time to actually get into the bones of the actual event and how we can make it better. So hopefully, out of all this challenging time we've actually had, hopefully, it will end up one, as I said earlier, just showing the value of driving events and valued community. And so that we can make the event better. So when we come out we do come out of this actually stronger so that it's not things just cruise along as normal, that we can actually have a real impact of having a look at how this event can get better and how we can provide as better value for the thought for the sportsmen themselves and for the fans.
David Kelly: Absolutely amazing, you're very inspiring. Just two or three more questions for you, Steven, I guess you've had an amazing career. And this has been a brilliant, brilliant conversation. What would you reflect on as being the biggest achievement to date for you?
Steven Rodaway: The biggest achievement? I think everybody again in the events world will look back on their home events as something special. I mean, Japan was an amazing experience, Turkmenistan was major as was the experience living in New York in America, chapter one that was amazing. But, you know, when you've effectively got something, like you're a cog in this big, big machine, you know, which is a UK PLC effectively, for London and England, and you're running these events, which will live on in the memory forever, and you were as a small cog in being part of that and making that happen. I think that's pretty inspiring because again, it's for your country, you're effectively hosting the world in these events, you're opening the doors to the world as they come on in. And this is much like when I was in Japan, I'd say this to Japanese, as in this is actually your chance, you are hosting the world, you open the doors saying this is who we are, this is us.
And we did the same, whether it was the World Cup in England, or even earlier in London, 2012. And my feeling as well, especially London, 2012. There was sometimes a bit of a strange feeling in the UK at that time, as before, the Olympics is actually happening. There are lots of people who are naysayers saying, Oh, no, this isn't going to be successful, we won't be able to do this, this is challenging, etc. And, yeah, that was a bit of a time of austerity as well, you know, that was going on at the same time. And I think our experience that it was a very, very successful event. So in organizational teams, everyone looked back to Sydney before that as a high point of organization, as Sydney went really, really well, really smoothly. And again, our mission was to set a really great benchmark, to say this is how you should do Olympics and show how good London could be and how good the UK could be. And I think we did that.
David Kelly: Absolutely amazing, really amazing. Final question, I promise. And that's a perfect segue as well, because everything that you've learned now, everything that you've known throughout your career, and everything that you've learned, and I've really enjoyed your honesty throughout today's sessions it has been really nice to hear. If we could offer you the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore's Time Machine, and with all of the knowledge, you know now in your mind, you could go back to a point in your life when you can talk to a younger you and give yourself some advice. What would that advice be? And when would you go and tell it to yourself?
Steven Rodaway: Again, an interesting, very interesting question. I'd probably never considered myself much somebody to worry as much about it. But I do remember trying to make me concerned as to what are you going to do in the future? And I think I'll probably just go it'll be okay. It'll come all right, you'll find your place in the world where you can do well, and again, I think you might as well, a lot of people try and put people into boxes, especially when they're very young. And you know, the person themselves might not know much about world life. And they only do that through their own lived experience. And so it's a big wide world out there. And there's plenty of things you can do is as a spot for people, if you can just kind of find that, that place of just to calm down and not worry too much about it, you will find your place in the world.
David Kelly: Absolutely amazing. Steven, thank you so much for your time today. It's been brilliant to have you with us on our podcast channel. And I hope everybody else has found this as inspiring as I have listening to you in your career journey and the decisions that you've made around leadership and mentoring and support, and just getting on with it and having a positive attitude has been really inspiring. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Steven Rodaway: Thank you, David. It's been an absolute pleasure.