David: Hello there. Welcome to another edition of Bangkok Thought Leaders. We have a very special Bangkok Thought Leader with us today, Brendan Cunningham. Thank you for being with us.

Brendan: Thanks, Dave.

David: I think the only person who’s been in this chair more than me is is Brendan. So Brendan’s had a fascinating career in the Bangkok business community, from working in recruitment for many years to being world famous as the Executive Director of AustCham for many years, where he did an amazing job and now he’s back into recruitment again.

Brendan: That’s right.

David: That’s right. So you’re now the… What’s your job title?

Brendan: It’s a long one. It’s Regional Business Development Director of ASW Consulting. Okay.

David: So tell us a little bit about ASW?

Brendan: Well so firstly my title by ‘Regional’, it means I take care of Thailand and Vietnam.

David: Okay.

Brendan: But ASW, which is  AS White Global, is in five countries. It’s originally birthed in Australia. Our headquarters is in Sydney. We then have offices in Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and we just opened Bangkok this year. As you know, you came to our grand opening party.

David: Indeed. Great day. Thank you for the invite.

Brendan: So the business, I’ll start on what we call the core business, which is our global business. The story is great. What happened, our CEO, Joe Fussell, he was working for a big insurance company down in Sydney as the CIO of that company. He found himself looking for really talented software developers for a new project, and couldn’t really find the right people in his immediate vicinity in Sydney, jumped on a plane, went to Ho Chi Minh City. This is 2011, and within a month had employed 10 software developers to work for his team in Sydney, the insurance company. He then employed more. They had an idea to employ more people in Manila. So they did the same concept in Manila in the Philippines and then realized this is a good business model. So that then grew from that 10 people in one month to 50 to 80 in Manila, to 700 to 1,000 in 2019, also opening the office in Kuala Lumpur. And then from 2019 to today, they’ve now got 2,000 employees.

David: Wow.

Brendan: So that’s our parent company.

David: That’s globalization in action.

Brendan: It’s great. It’s really having a focus on bringing the top talent in Southeast Asia to companies. Most of our clients are in Australia. So it’s bringing that top talent down to the companies in Australia without having to physically move them there. And obviously 2020, when we realized that we could work remotely, clients then realize that, yeah, this is a really good business model. 2022 the idea that we were taking care of our clients so well in Australia was great, but we had such strong recruitment teams set up in the region, why not take care of clients in the region as well? South East Asia? So ASW Consulting was born and ASW Consulting is an Executive Search Firm that takes care of clients in the region. We have offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok.

David: All right.

Brendan: Okay.

David: Very concise.Thank you. I want to ask you a question about what you just described. So I didn’t know all of those details before, but I see a lot of, I’m on LinkedIn a lot, you might have noticed.

Brendan: I have noticed that.

David: And a lot of the discourse on there is Americans, especially Americans, talking about work from home. And I think something that they seem to miss, which seems obvious to me, is what you just described in terms of the business model. Be careful what you wish for.

Brendan: Right.

David: Because if every American company is working from home fully, why would you choose Americans? Like, you’ve got to pay for their healthcare. It’s very expensive. You choose a company like yours where you can minimize the risk, maximize the talent. With less cost, it’s much more sensible. So I’m not sure if there’s a question there really.

Brendan: But you’re correct. I agree with what you just said.

David: Definitely feels like the trend around work from home. It’s like obviously everyone would prefer to be in their pajamas than on the train. But yeah, I feel that the trend definitely is either office community focused or it’s basically getting with you guys.

Brendan: And you can have both. So the model that we offer, because you’ve been to our office in Bangkok, it’s a nice office. So the people we’re employing to work with the clients, you know that a lot of people say in Thailand they want to work for good employees,want to work for international companies, right? So they can work for an Australian company. All of their colleagues online are Australian. Their teams are Australian, they’re working together. But then they come into the office. It’s a hybrid model. They come into the office 2 or 3 days a week, and they’ve got their Thai colleagues there as well who are actually working for other clients. But we’ve got the employee value proposition is really important to us. So making sure that people feel like part of the ASW team and coming to work birthday celebrations, lunches, Halloween dressing up. That’s all there. So it’s the best of both worlds. I go to the office. I have this really strong connection with a group of Thai colleagues and Australian obviously colleagues. But my day-to-day is communicating back to my colleagues in Australia or America or Europe or wherever they are.

David: That’s a fascinating business model. So you’re hired in Australia to work remotely, but while working remotely, you’re also working hybrid with a team that’s not necessarily your original team. I like that that’s complicated, but it sounds awesome.

Brendan: Yeah, yeah. And it works. It ticks a lot of boxes for sure.

David: I think human capital generally like where we work, how we work, it’s a major trend right now because obviously technology is emerging rapidly with AI and work from home systems and so on and so forth. But obviously you’re a practitioner. You’re in this every day. You’re dealing with people. Every day you’re hearing the trends like, what are some of the employment trends that are big right now and going to continue to be next year?

Brendan: I think if we look at big picture. So we have different sectors that are obviously anything in the digital space is always going to continue to grow. Different roles are coming up, different programs are coming up. So different niche type of roles are always going to appear. And that’s going to be one part. But I think one thing that all companies should be really keeping their eye on, because a lot of leading companies are, is that both the companies and the candidates are more focused on things like culture fit these days. So even if you look at candidates, they’re looking at a potential employer. Obviously salaries, number one, it’s never not going to be number one, you would think. But then other things are what development opportunities do you have? Not only with my career path but also what training do you offer? What am I going to learn? Importantly, what is my role going to be? Am I going to have more responsibility? And also looking at the company people and do I fit in here? Tell me about the people here. Am I going to fit in? So that’s from a candidate point of view and obviously the companies as well. You’ve got all the psychometrics, you do behavior tests. You’re obviously going through the interviews, but also looking at does this person not only fit with our core values in terms of answering questions, when we ask them about their personality and how they fit in, are they really going to be part of our fabric?

David: Yeah. So it’s really important for companies to try and articulate then what their value proposition is beyond just salaries.

Brendan: Yes.

David: Aye. You’ve read the Netflix book, right? No Rules Rules? So I love that book. Yes. That was my introduction to Human Capital, pretty much. They have a great line in there like, don’t hire brilliant jerks. I think that’s a really good one because, like, even if it’s the most talented person in your company, if they cause problems for everybody else, it’s not worth it. And the same with the single bad apple will rot the whole bundle. Whatever you put apples in,

Brendan: something like that. Yeah.

David: Basket.

Brendan: Basket is probably more the one.

David: Sure.

Brendan: Yeah. Sure. But it’s correct. So, yeah. Yu could have someone on paper who’s the best employee and you could see the talent, you could see that they’re going to perform individually. But if there’s, you’re also looking at the risk factor that, I’ll use the apple, could upset the apple cart. Then that’s going to go against your thought process. Is it worth the risk?

David: I think another interesting area which all businesses are seeing and we are too like from a Lexicon perspective, we’re a marketing company obviously as well as a studio.

Brendan: Great studio.

David: Thanks mate. We were very worried when AI started to come in that it would, you know, the whole industry would be destroyed, pretty much. But I would say that rather than destroyed, it’s enhanced. So we were able to kind of restructure our business by integrating AI into our processes. And that’s given our key people a lot more time to focus on really value-added stuff. Like business development, dealing with clients, R&D, the key things. And for you as an individual like you are the great connector. You’re the person who, you seem to love to help people, to bring them together, to connect them. I feel like there’s nothing that AI is ever going to be able to do to replace people like you,because you have such a unique skill set, such a unique network. How did you get that kind of character? What was it that made you into the Great Connector?

Brendan: I don’t think I could pinpoint a time when it happened. I think it is just natural from upbringing. My father, a very good speaker, not presenter on stage, but speaker, talked to everybody, asked about everybody how they’re going, how he can help and then helping people and people would always come to our place and drop things off and he’d do the same. So I think just nature I got from both my parents. And work wise, I think even if you come back to basic, basic life feelings, where you do something well and you get recognized for it. So if you start connecting someone and then they come back to you and say thank you for that, you introduced me to this person. Now we are doing this together. I think it’s just natural to go hmm, might do that again if the opportunity arises and the opportunities, I guess, just continue to arise frequently

that I seem to keep doing it. I guess that’s what must have drawn you to recruitment then, right? Because you’re all about identifying the needs and wants of both the candidate and of the client. And it is the same concept. It is. So the recruitment itself as a job, you get that, you get a client that comes back to you and says, thank you. This is the perfect person for our team. You have a candidate says, thank you, I love working at this place. As you know, I was in recruitment before going to AustCham. And when I came back to recruitment, I’m connecting back to my network. And I’m getting people from 10, 12 years ago. Oh, hi, Khun Brendan, I see you’re back in recruitment. I want to thank you for 10 years ago when you helped me. They’ve now moved on, but that was part of their journey. So that felt really good.

David: Amazing. So with that in mind, I guess you’re not too concerned about the effects of AI on the recruitment sector because of that, who can replace you? Your personal brand is so strong. Your persona is so strong, the things you bring to the market. I feel like for all industries, you’re going to be able to do more of the really important stuff.

Brendan: Yeah, and I agree. I think what you said, how it’s developing your business, not affecting your business, but assisting and developing your business, it will be the same in that our team will be able to use it to write briefs, job briefs, candidate briefs. So you’ll be able to summarize information faster to send to the client,which provides a snapshot. But in the end, when you’re on the phone or you’re with somebody, nothing can replace looking somebody in the eye like we are and having that conversation. Seeing nuances in body language and empathy, it’s all, yeah, you can’t replace that.

David: Absolutely. So there’s the serious of questions out of the way.  But the next question, you’ve obviously been in Bangkok a long time. I’m sure there’s many stories that we could tell after hours or maybe another show, but what are some of the major trends you’ve seen in Bangkok since you’ve been here? How has the society changed? How has the city changed?

Brendan: The city has rocketed up around us, right? The development, the buildings, the condos. It’s really interesting to look at pictures of the past or go past somewhere on a train. And speaking of the train, the network and how far it’s expanded, : it’s just mind boggling. I’m spending a lot of time in Ho Chi Minh City at the moment. I’m running both offices. Wonderful city, but being there without a train system really makes me appreciate the train system we have here, because I use it so often. So infrastructure development, I think has been amazing and it’s now a really modern international city.I don’t know, 20 years ago, even sometimes in the middle of the city, you felt like you were being pointed at.

David: There was an elephant, sometimes in the. middle of the city. Yeah.

Brendan: And it’s now it’s as modern and international, I guess, as any other city you’re going to go to in the world. But more importantly,I’m a people person. And looking at the people, always been wonderful people. So that part hasn’t changed. But the development and change, minor and major changes. If we look at the English skill in particular, I remember meeting people, say people I was working with or through work 25 years ago, and often if you met somebody who was fluent in English, you would assume they studied abroad. Where did you study? What country did you do your degree, etc. These days, the people who work in my office now and recently just really good, strong, fluent English skills. And oh, where did you study at XYZ University in Thailand. I’ve been on holiday, I haven’t studied abroad, so I’ve seen that development, which has been good. The overall skill set continues to develop, and I think that’s a product of a country and a region that’s always been focused on education and driving education and learning, which is good. But another thing that I think has changed, in fact, I was asked for my opinion for a report on working and setting up business in Thailand. And one of the parts has about hierarchy and the importance of hierarchy and people not talking in the office, etc. unless asked. And I’ve seen that change. Really? I’m seeing, well people I’m working with and in meetings and people, if you provide psychological safety is a really big buzzword at the moment. It’s been around 20 years, but it’s a buzzword now. So if you provide a psychologically safe environment, I have people arguing with me and saying, I don’t think that’s right Khun Brendan. Great.

David: Awesome.

Brendan: I still think I’m right, but I’m so happy you’re arguing with me.

David: Yeah. That’s what you want from a company culture, right? We talked about that earlier. In terms of culture. You really want that feedback? You need it. Yeah.

Brendan: And giving opinion and also really importantly asking for more responsibility. Okay. Here’s what we need to do. I’ll do this, this and that. I want you to do this, this and that. And people say, well, I can do this for you as well if you like. Brilliant.

David: Great. So it’s amazing that Thailand has. I’ve been here 20 years myself too. Right.

Brendan: Yeah.

David: Has made so much progress, certainly in terms of education as you described and infrastructure. Because like from a macro perspective, it seems like things have just been disorganized for 20 years. You know, coups and elections and coups and elections. But somehow that doesn’t affect the economy particularly. It doesn’t affect these projects. So, you know, just think about Thailand. It just works, right. Somehow it doesn’t really make sense, but it just works.

Brendan: And I think you’d remember over the times we’ve seen the disruptions when you’re working with your colleagues in the office, where all of the same opinion people would have their leanings towards different colored shirts, etc. and you try not to get involved in those conversations. But in terms of the disruptions, it’d be good if we could just come to work and get things done. We all agreed on that, definitely. Let’s just get on with things. As has always been, the opinion, regardless of where people swayed with their political associations.

David: Another question about Thailand here, but have you seen much change in the expat community over those years?Like, I certainly know for myself, like I’m now an old man in the expat community. And I was a young boy at one point, but I felt there was a hostility from the older generation, like the ones who have been here from like the 70s and 80s. They didn’t seem to like the younger people coming through. But now that I’m one of those older people, it seems that my generation, our generation are a much kinder bunch. I’m not sure why that is or was. Have you seen that?

Brendan: I know what you mean. I think the expat community just continues to grow, and I don’t have numbers to back that up. So if that’s not true, it’s probably that we’re better connected.

David: Yeah, that makes sense.

Brendan: And maybe that’s it. It’s just that we have so many, Apart from you’ve got your chambers of commerce, I don’t know the chambers of commerce based on what I know of the AustCham previously not been around, but, that’s matured a lot. It’s bigger, more members.

David: I heard the British is the best one.

Brendan: Also been around a long time and do great things at the BCCT of course, board of directors are very active. But I think I’m guessing there’s a lot more collaboration between the chambers. Maybe in the past, there was a lot of, if you were AustCham, only Australian companies joined. British joined British. Make sense, Whereas, you join whatever chamber you think is good potential for your business. So I think there’s a lot more collaboration there. Then also sporting groups, and pubs.

David: Yeah, it makes sense. Maybe there’s just more connectivity than there was in the past. So maybe there was a bit more hostility. You were either in the gang or you weren’t in the gang. Whereas with social media and networking and things like LinkedIn, you know everybody.

Brendan: Yeah.

David: So less hostility perhaps.

Brendan: Yeah. And probably more sense. I don’t know. Once again, I don’t know the numbers. How many SMEs here. If I think about expats in the past, the expat was sent here by your company in Britain who send you here for this period, and then you might stay here for an extended period. And the more people who stay here not only set up their own company as you’ve done, but, go and find multiple companies to work for and grow a career here through other companies as I’ve done. And you realize that, if you help each other, it’s it’s a lot easier.

David: For sure.

Brendan: Yeah. It’s just if you have a lot of actual friends, not just network and acquaintances, but if you’ve got a really strong group of friends in the community here, then it helps a lot.

David: Yeah, it’s. Also good karma. Yeah, Larry Parsons described it as Bunkun. Right. Like you do something for me, you get something back. And I definitely owe you a lot of Bunkun while we’re on camera, I should say this. Yeah. When we were just getting started, you were such a help for us. Like, we talk about your connectedness and how you bring people together. So thank you for that. You really. We were nowhere, and you helped us to make a mark. So I always appreciate that.

Brendan: And thank you. You just gave me that good buzz I talked about earlier.

David: All right then. So final question. We asked this one to every guest on the show. But obviously a Lexicon we’re a storytelling company. We love storytelling. You’re a great storyteller, which is why you’re here today. But who are some of the storytellers that you like or who’ve inspired you? These can be business storytellers or writers or whatever it is that that means to you.

Brendan: Can I give you three? Is that okay?

David: Please, mate.  The more the merrier.

Brendan: The first one I picked is a guy named Peter Baines.Okay, who’s not world famous. Anyone who’s watching, who knows AustCham, of course, he’s doing the run to remember. He’s with Hands Across the Water, a charity that’s supported by the Australian community. And he’s running from, I think, somewhere north, somewhere like Yasothon down to Phuket, which is 33 marathons back to back in a row.

David: What’s?

Brendan: Extraordinary, right? And his background is he was the lead forensics police detective sent up by the Australian government in 2004 to identify Australian bodies after the tsunami. So that’s what brought him to the country and part of what he saw. He tells this story better. He saw the devastation to the Thai community. There were a lot of orphaned Thai children, etc. so he set up a charity called Hands Across the Water to build a school down at Khao Lak to house and educate these the orphans after the tsunami, which has now been going for 20 years. And so he’s doing this run as a 20 year anniversary of the tsunami, which is really interesting, but he’s raised something like over 400 million baht for the schools. He’s got two schools that he runs and supports.

David: And he uses storytelling to make this happen.

Brendan: So sorry. When he gets on stage and he tells his story, the room goes silent. So I haven’t really told his story. I’ve just explained what he does and he gets up and his first statement about his experience, and it’s often a different experience. He starts with a statement about his how when he walked into Phuket that day, the impact of that experience, which none of us could really know, and the room just goes silent. And then he goes on to explain that, tell a bit more about it, and then importantly, what he did about it. He didn’t just look at and go.  Wow, this is really bad. I saw it, it was horrible. It was human devastation. I did something about it and have been doing something about it for 20 years, so it grips me every time. I’ve heard him speak multiple times, and he just grips me every time he speaks. And if people are chatting while he’s speaking. Give me a little room. So he’s my first.

David: So it’s compelling, but also it’s practical. He’s really lived that life.

Brendan: And he’s getting, and what he does is get on stage and tell his story. And 400 million baht later, he’s supporting multiple less fortunate children in Thailand.

David: Storytelling for good.

Brendan: Yeah. So he’s my first. My second one will be a shorter story. It’s Simon Sinek. Everyone knows he is world famous.

David: Why?

Brendan: And that’s why the concept of ‘start with why’, which went on, I think it still is the most watched Ted Talk of all time. The concept of why it gets me and I’ve stolen that. I mean, it’s probably been around for hundreds of years, but he articulated best and I use that a lot when I’m doing any speeches. And why are you doing that? Don’t always concentrate on what you’re doing, why you’re doing it first. So I really like that. And I’ve lots of other speakers around his genre. But the concept of why grips me the most.

David: Stuarts’s got a good Simon Sinek story, by the way.

Brendan: He knows him?

David: I’ll tell you about it after this.

Brendan: Okay, good. The final one. You have to have a comedian in there somewhere.

David: Oh, amazing.

Brendan: And I’ve got several. But my favorite comedian all time is Rodney Dangerfield.

David: Mhm.

Brendan: And I could watch him all day and sometimes you just I’m a bit bored. You jump on YouTube five minutes of Rodney and you, even if I’ve seen it many times before I’m just laughing.

David: It’s funny you should mention that, because I actually went to see my psychiatrist the other day and he said I was crazy. I asked him for a second opinion and he said, well, you’re ugly too. So Rodney joke. Rodney is amazing, I love Rodney.

Brendan: That’s a great and. He’s got a big book full of those. But it’s not only the content, it’s not only the material. I think he was the master of body language and voice and tone and delivery.

David: No respect.

Brendan: Yeah. And and those little, what what would you call them? Taglines?

David: Taglines and catchphrases.

Brendan: And I tell you, it’s tough, you know, and then he, you know. I don’t get no respect. And then he’d go into his next joke and just reel them off I wouldn’t see my doctor.

David: Doctor Vinnie Boombas. Yeah, I love him, too. As a storyteller, he’s one of the best. Like he just lives on from the 70s, right? And the 80s just as funny today.

Brendan: Apparently he didn’t start. He would have died in his 80s. And he I don’t think he actually got on TV as a comedian until his 60s. I don’t know what he was doing before. His first movie was Caddyshack.

David: Oh, really?

Brendan: Caddyshack was 80s, but he debuted in a movie at whatever age late 60s or whatever.

David: What a persona, though, as a storyteller. Just very strong persona as you said with the suit. The suntan?

Brendan: Yeah.

David: Yeah. Just brilliant. I love him, too. I love him, too. When? When are the moments when Rodney inspires you?

Brendan: Mostly when I’m bored or need a laugh. Because you just don’t take it. Sometimes you don’t want to take yourself too seriously. And he was a master because his comedy is all about self-deprecating. Yeah, that’s all he’s doing the whole time. He’s not doing it to anybody else. Occasionally he will leave his wife, but he’d always relate it back to him.

David: Yes.

Brendan: As well as saying, hey, he was brilliant.

David: Oh. Was it? My wife’s cut me off from sex. It’s not. It could be worse. I know two of the guys that she’s cut out completely. Or cut me down to three days a week. I think it was. Two of the guys just cut out completely.

Brendan: But my favorite one is, well, this is about his parents. He says I once met the perfect girl. You know, she was perfect. You know why she was perfect? She reminded me of my mother. She looked like my mother. She talked like my mother. Even when she was eating. She ate like my mother. I took her home. Guess what? My father didn’t like her.

David: You did much better Rodney than me. That’s very good. Very good. Awesome. Yeah, he’s awesome at that stuff. I think we could keep talking about Rodney for hours. Maybe we should do that after this.

Brendan: We’ll take that outside. But thank you. Brendan.

David: Any final words on this? How do we get in touch with you? How do we find out more about AWS? ASW sorry.

Brendan: A lot of people get that wrong, but that’s okay. ASW Consulting, and you can get me through phone number, email or LinkedIn. Connect with me. Brendan Cunningham, ASW Consulting on LinkedIn. You can find me at British Chamber events. You can find me at AustCham events. You can find me all over the city. In fact, I’m always out seeing clients as well. And so reach out. And as David said, I know a lot of people, so if you can’t find me, just ask somebody, you know, do you know Brendan Cunningham and they’ll put you in touch.

David: Get in touch with Brendan. He’s the man. Thank you. Bye bye.