LinkedIn15 Mar 2024 07:35
“I’ve been putting this one off for a while 🙈
This morning, we announced that, after 14 years, Iain McDonald is stepping down from THG’s board ahead of our upcoming AGM.
In this world of relentless chaos, I rely on a small group of “anchors” to keep me and THG steady. Iain is one such anchor.
What a journey together. I first met Iain back in early 2010 when I was searching for investors to back THG in moving away from CDs/DVDs and to enter the Nutrition and Beauty markets. We’d bootstrapped the business to this point, living hand to mouth, and needed cash to make it happen.
Back in 2010, Iain was managing monies for a small London family office. He’d been incredibly successful seeing the potential in backing early-stage UK digital businesses. He built a big stake in ASOS.com back in 2005/6 when it only had revenues c£15m! Back then, iPhones didn't exist the internet was only for geeks!
And so, Iain quickly became the UK’s “go-to man” for UK tech businesses raising money. If you could get Iain to invest others would follow.
I had to convince Iain that I wasn’t a mad man, that we’d built serious tech, and we could leverage it to be successful in Nutrition and Beauty, even though we knew nothing about the sectors.
After just 3 few weeks of meetings, site visits and diligence, Iain agreed to invest. Better still, he also brought onboard a major London fund manager. Just a few weeks later, he then added the legendary Sir Terry Leahy as an investor. These were pinch yourself moments that set us on a whole new journey.
Like anything worth having, it’s not been a perfect journey together. We’ve had plenty of fallouts over the past 4 years. We joke about it now, but we had a real “humdinger” within 2 years of Iain’s investment. THG was growing at an explosive rate. We were making acquisitions, building out our own tech while also opening new warehouses. Looking back, it was lively 😂
We inevitably got some things wrong, creating 6-12 months of difficult growing pains. This led to Iain and others understandably asking if I was the right person to be CEO.
Naturally, I told everyone to “p*ss off”, refused the notion of a new CEO, and fought everyone every inch of the way while fixing the growing pains with the help of John Gallemore.
Both Iain and I learnt so much during those times. For me, I learned the need to keep a tight grip on your company. If you don’t, there’s a risk that when things inevitably go wrong people will try to push you out.
From that day onwards, I made sure THG would never be put at the mercy of short-term decision making…….only to then join the LSE in 2020 😱
But Iain’s THG journey doesn’t end here. I'm so grateful for the huge impact Iain has on THG. And so, thankfully, he’s agreed to dedicate more time than ever to us by becoming an advisor, working closely with our 3 businesses to deliver their strategies 💪 “
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