John Cordrey is a Director at Foresight Group, which invests in UK and Irish SMEs. He joins James Plant to explain how private equity works in practice, including where the money comes from and how investors back a management team.

John also talks through his own route into the industry, from PwC and Inflexion to founding a business of his own. The conversation also takes in the shift in investor appetite towards profitability, how AI is changing the way software businesses are valued, and John’s practical advice for founders preparing to raise capital or plan an exit.

KEY MOMENTS

• 18:10 Where the money comes from: tax-efficient funds, regional funds and the British Business Bank
• 22:20 John's route from a Birmingham school to PwC, Inflexion and a business of his own
• 50:20 How AI is changing the way investors look at software businesses
• 56:19 How founders should prepare before talking to investors

GUEST
John Cordrey, Director https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncordrey/

GUEST COMPANY
Foresight Group https://www.linkedin.com/company/foresight-group/home/

HOST
James Plant https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-plant-sinclairjames/

Sinclair James https://www.sinclairjames.co.uk/

High-Performance Leaders is sponsored by Sinclair James, an executive, interim and project staffing firm specialised in Construction, Property and Engineering.

Produced by Vertical Drop.

Matt Redwood, Vice President of Global Solutions and Consulting Group at Diebold Nixdorf, joins James Plant to challenge one of the more fashionable pieces of career advice in circulation: that everyone should go it alone and start a business. Drawing on nearly 15 years leading global teams across banking and retail technology, Matt makes the case for staying inside the corporate world, and thriving there, and explains why the people who progress fastest are usually the ones who stop comparing themselves to everyone else. The conversation also covers what AI genuinely means for the workforce, the real difference between outcome-driven and process-driven leadership, and why hard work behind closed doors matters more than how well you manage upwards. It's a grounded, occasionally blunt conversation about what operating at the top actually requires.

FIVE KEY MOMENTS

• 02:16 How an engineering degree and a chance meeting in his final year of university set the direction for Matt's entire career
• 42:19 Why telling everyone to become a business owner can be the worst advice you could give someone
• 43:53 “The only person you're competing with is yourself,” and why comparison is the thing to drop first
• 54:23 Why it isn't AI that takes your job, but the people who use it
• 1:16:27 Why you'll never regret taking the leap, whatever the outcome

GUEST
Matt Redwood https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattredwood/

GUEST COMPANY
Diebold Nixdorf https://www.linkedin.com/company/diebold/

HOST
James Plant https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-plant-sinclairjames/

HOST COMPANY
Sinclair James https://www.sinclairjames.co.uk/

SPONSOR
The podcast is sponsored by Sinclair James, an executive, interim and project staffing firm specialising in Construction, Property and Engineering.

Produced by Vertical Drop.

Jody Egginton has spent three decades in Formula 1 engineering, from an unplanned first break at a small F1 team to leading Scuderia Toro Rosso, AlphaTauri and now Red Bull Advanced Technologies. In this episode of High-Performance Leaders, Egginton talks to host James Plant about the phone call that pulled him away from a graduate job, the reality of building a Formula 1 team from almost nothing, and the risk-taking, resourcefulness and openness that have shaped how he leads engineering teams under pressure. It's an inside account of what three decades in one of sport's toughest feedback loops actually teaches you about performance.

FIVE KEY MOMENTS

• 00:06:02: The phone call from Mike Gascoigne that ended his graduate engineering job
• 00:16:04: Markus Winkelhock's shock rise from last on the grid to leading at the 2007 Nürburgring Grand Prix
• 01:00:29: The decision to stop developing the 2018 car and gamble the budget on 2019 01:12:54: Reliving the closing laps of Abu Dhabi 2021 from the pit wall

HOST James Plant linkedin.com/in/james-plant-sinclairjames

GUEST Jody Egginton Engineering Director, Red Bull Advanced Technologies linkedin.com/in/jody-egginton-5a639927 linkedin.com/company/red-bull-racing

HOST COMPANY Sinclair James linkedin.com/company/sinclair-james

SPONSOR High-Performance Leaders is sponsored by Sinclair James, an executive, interim and project staffing firm specialising in Construction, Property and Engineering. sinclairjames.co.uk

PRODUCTION Produced by Vertical Drop. vertical-drop.com