New linked in post…26 Sep 2023 11:52
Nothing groundbreaking..
Each September sees a big influx of THG’s future leaders.
This September, c150 people joined our graduate and apprenticeship program, fresh from university, college, or school.
This is a serious initiative to both me and THG – it’s at the core of our culture. The success of the scheme can be seen everywhere at THG.
The first graduate on the scheme, back in 2011, was Adam Knappy – an overly confident graduate from Durham University, with a degree in Physics. When Adam walked through THG's small overcrowded office on his first day, he brought a step up in brain power.
I will always remember sitting down with Adam in his first week at THG. He’d asked for a 1-2-1 with me to voice concerns about my recent hiring of a Group Commercial Director. He went on to tell me he felt this senior hire somehow could limit his future career path at THG 😲
At the time we maybe had about c400 staff - 200 in the office and 200 in the warehouse - and annual Revenues c£150m. And so it was a ballsy statement for a young lad straight out of University.
On any other day I would have mentally vomited and written Adam off as a loon. Any further 1-2-1 requests would be swerved and passed onto someone else – probably John Gallemore 😂 But we’d invested a lot of energy into hiring Adam. It needed to work if we were serious about making graduates the bedrock of talent at THG.
I began to see Adam as a personal challenge. We threw him at some problems – starting with an underperforming website. Despite no experience and little guidance he delivered immediate results.
This was all the proof we needed and quickly set about scaling the graduate program. We made countless mistakes each year. One year we ran out of desk space, with some grads working from cars outside the office.
In the meantime, I grew to admire Adam's inner confidence. It helped that he was irritatingly right far too often. The Commercial Director he objected to left THG within 12 months - shortly afterwards Adam became part of the senior team, sharing a cramped office with me and the others.
But it's not been all smiles. When he led the launch of THG's Nutrition offering in the US 8 years ago, things didn’t go entirely to plan. But Adam owned his lessons, as did I. It helps that the US has gone on to become a core market for THG - we can laugh about it now.
The scars from his US lessons have made Adam even more valuable to THG. He’s gone on to hold most of the senior roles there within the Group, and is currently Group CMO. Unfortunately for him, this means he continues to sit next to me each day 😬
And so, for the 150 graduates/apprentices joining THG this month, and the thousands before, Adam is a big reason why you're here. Not too shabby given I wanted fire him in his first week!
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