David: Hello there, welcome to another episode of Bangkok Thought Leaders. I’m your host, as always, David Norcross. This series is focused on talking to some of the real trendsetters and thought leaders in the Bangkok business community, and today we’ve got somebody who fits that mold exactly. Today we’ve got James Egremont, who is the Global Head of People and the co-founder of Connexus Global Value Chain Recruitment, one of the most exciting companies that have come up in Bangkok and the region in recent years. James, thank you for joining me today.

James Egremont: Thank you. Thank you for having me on your prestigious show.

David: Did I miss anything on the introduction?

James Egremont: I think you nailed it. You nailed it. Thank you very much.

David: Yeah, no, well, thank you. Thank you. So as I mentioned there, there’s so much to say about Connexus. It’s such an exciting company. But you focused from the very start, you knew your audience and you focused on a specific niche, which is the value chain.

James Egremont: Correct.

David: So when I first heard of the value chain, I was a little bit lost. So for the folks at home, could you tell us a little bit more about the value chain?

James Egremont: Sure. So look, the value chain can run across multiple different industries and multiple different businesses, but for us personally at Connexus, we focus on the product value chain, okay, which is the manufacturing. So effectively how it works is it’s the conception and the extraction of the raw material, which is then traded, and then it goes through the sort of the R&D and the product development process, and then the procurement process when they’re buying the raw materials, and then through to the production of the product, and then the marketing process of the product to the consumer, and then the supply planning and logistics, and the delivery of the product to the end consumer, basically. So that’s the concept of the value chain.

David: Okay, so that would be like from the farmers growing the product all the way through to distribution, branding, labeling, how we turn it into a single bean of coffee becomes 50 different types of brands, and you’re involved in every step of that process.

James Egremont: Exactly, correct, yeah.

David: Okay, that’s very interesting. As they say, farm to fork.

James Egremont: Farm to fork, yeah. I like it.

David: So James, obviously the whole world was impacted by COVID. Every industry felt it in a slightly different way. But I would imagine when it comes to people hiring especially, the recruitment industry, how was that experience?

James Egremont: It was tough, yeah. I mean, like the whole recruitment industry as a whole, and I’m sure many other industries, really just went completely in the other direction. So onboarding had to be done remotely, the whole sort of virtual interview, no one was having face-to-face interaction, which was extremely challenging. Not only that, people didn’t even want to move jobs because they’re extremely risk averse and there was just no one really knew what was happening. Employers really didn’t want to hire at that time, and there was a lot of multiple headcount freezes as well, unless it was a senior critical hire of high importance for the business. So overall, I mean, it was catastrophic to many talent acquisition teams and recruitment businesses, and it devastated some recruitment businesses. And ultimately, I think that the pandemic really sort of highlighted perhaps some issues that a progressive world is now sort of getting involved with, like working from home now and all the rest of it. So that was really what was going on in 2020 and 2021.

2022 has been the complete opposite again. It’s just been gangbusters. Everybody’s hiring at the moment and the candidates have got various offers on the table at this moment in time. Although they’re passive candidates, or what you believe is a passive candidate, you call them and they’ll have one or two other opportunities, which is madness, and it’s been unheard of.

David: Let me pause there because my next question is actually about the great resignation, and I think it’s relevant to this.

James Egremont: Okay, yeah.

David: But as a, I know anyone who knows you, James, you’re a very humble man, and you said that it was a catastrophic couple of years for the industry, but I’ve seen Connexus during those years. You’ve gone from strength to strength, you’ve opened new markets, you’ve doubled your team. It’s been really inspirational to see. So just congratulations on that.

James Egremont: Thank you, thank you. Well, look, effectively what happened was there was a lot of recruiters being laid off in the market. Previous to that, Connexus had been extremely cautious with our cash reserves, which enabled us to then really push forward during the pandemic, hire some great people, and scale out much faster where everyone was getting rid of people. We were actually growing because we thought, you know, potentially in the long term the market will bounce back and then we’ll be in a much better, stronger position.

David: Proven to be the case.

James Egremont: So yeah, it was proven to be the case. So pretty lucky in that respect. But that’s how we managed to grow, just being cautious and making sure that we had strong cash reserves, and inevitably this COVID happened and we were in a great position to capitalise on that.

David: I admire that. It’s bold leadership during a pandemic. While most people were retracting and being in fear, you pushed forward and that’s why you were successful. Fortune favours the brave, as they say. So you touched on earlier the fact that candidates now are much more aggressively hunting after work. So I’ve heard the phrase, the great resignation. Is that what’s happening here? Is this a kind of seismic shift post COVID?

James Egremont: Yeah, okay, so this is exactly what’s happening. So what’s happened is a lot of people have stayed in their jobs for the last two to three years, maybe not being happy, but they just don’t want to leave purely because they’re extremely risk averse, and who wants to leave in a pandemic and join a new employer and all the rest of it? So basically, hardly any people quit their jobs. I mean, obviously a lot of people were let go during the pandemic, but that’s a different story altogether. So now that the pandemic is over and people have got a taste for a new way of working and different sort of styles and companies offering various different remote working or working from home three days a week and all these different benefits and stuff like that, and a lot of good companies have adapted, now a lot of people just want to resign and either go and work for these good companies or take some time out because they’re burnt out because they’ve been working so hard. And I don’t know about yourself, David, but when I work from home, you end up working much longer hours, much harder, because you don’t have any other distractions going on in theory. So a lot of people are just burnt out and they just need some time out, basically, of the market. So this is what’s happening.

David: So do you imagine this to be more of a short term thing? End of this year perhaps, not so much into next year?

James Egremont: Correct, yeah. I think 2023 we’ll see something different, but I think a lot of people over the next six to 12 months just want to take some time out of the market, rest, recoup, and then focus on what they really want to do. I think the great resignation gave a lot of people time to think about if they really enjoyed their jobs, if they really enjoyed the career that they were embarking on or on. And I think it’s given people a lot of time to reflect and go, actually, work-life balance is important. And actually, do I need to bust my ass five days a week, Monday to Friday, get on the train every day to work, or the tube, or whatever, wherever they’re going? And actually, they’ve really reflected and a lot of people have taken a completely different direction, different career. So I think it’s been quite amazing to see, really.

David: Yes, yes. As a business owner too, it’s been an unstable couple of years, but things definitely seem to be getting back to normal. But I guess if you’re saying it’s not till next year that things will really stabilize, then we’re not yet in the new normal. We’re still in this period of disequilibrium.

James Egremont: I would say so, yes. But obviously there’s new sort of news coming out for 2023 and talks of recession and all the rest of it. So this could be the next challenge that we all go through.

David: Fun. So, James, I’ve known you for a long time.

James Egremont: Yes.

David: Yeah. How many years have we known each other now?

James Egremont: 2005, I think we met originally. So yeah.

David: Since we were just young lads.

James Egremont: Exactly.

David: And obviously since you set up Connexus, we’ve worked closely together and I’ve known you all of this time as the boss, the focus, the driving engine of the business. So I was quite surprised to hear that you’ve actually hired a new MD and you’re going to be taking on a new role. This is very exciting. I’d love to learn more about what this all means for Connexus and you personally.

James Egremont: I mean, it’s super exciting for the business and it’s super exciting for me as well. So, you know, I think succession planning is fundamental to any business to enable new ideas, growth. And really, that was at the forefront of my mind always in setting up Connexus. And this year, we really sort of dug deep and thought about it and thought this is probably the right time to create a succession plan within my role so I can move into 2023 and focus on another part of the business, which I’ll discuss. So anyway, we went to market. We went out and mapped the market, researched, headhunted, and benchmarked internally and externally candidates. And inevitably, we hired a gentleman by the name of Peter Fitzroy. And he is, I’ve known him for over a decade now. He was actually a previous colleague and boss of mine who brought me to Thailand. He gave me my first job in recruitment. So there’s a lot of trust with this particular gentleman in question. And for the right reasons, we decided that he was the best candidate, and that’s probably for his skill set, his knowledge of the market, his time in the market, his leadership capability, and primarily his values and ambition with the business and what he wants to do with it. And we’re 100 percent certain that he’s the right person to take Connexus to the next level. So there we go with that.

David: So actually, Peter’s a great hire. I’ve known Peter through you for a few years. I actually interviewed him when we were much smaller on a Virtual Bangkok. It’s great that it’s gone full circle. So fantastic hire. It’s very exciting move for Connexus. But what does it mean for you personally?

James Egremont: So for me personally, look, Connexus is all about the people and its culture. So without the people, we don’t have a business fundamentally, okay. And that’s everything from candidates through to clients through to colleagues, okay. So my role will be globally, sort of strategically building on our people and our culture. So that’s going to be everything from bolstering our capability as far as learning and development is concerned, talent attraction, and really implementing better processes and systems within the business. But fundamentally, our goal is to, you know, we’ve got to grow and we’ve got to scale across all locations. And I think being a co-founder of the business and also being really passionate about people and the culture of the company, I thought I was probably the best man to take on this particular role. So there we go.

David: That’s very exciting. Congratulations again, James.

James Egremont: Thank you.

David: So I think we’re done with the recruitment portion of this section. I want to kind of be a bit selfish and talk about my personal interest stuff here.

James Egremont: Please.

David: So James, I mentioned at the intro, you are truly one of Bangkok’s thought leaders. I see you all over LinkedIn. You’re very active. You have a really strong personal brand. Why have you chosen, is that by choice? Was it by accident? How did you come up with that?

James Egremont: I mean, look, great question. It’s by choice, 100 percent. It’s certainly not an accident, you know, because it takes a lot of time, money and resources to actually keep posting on your LinkedIn all the time. But fundamentally, I read a book. It came actually when I read a book called Building a StoryBrand. It’s a great book.

David: It is a fantastic book.

James Egremont: And I read this book and it really inspired me. And then I went to an event held by Lexicon here, and you did an amazing speech about personal branding, which also inspired me to take action, basically. So yeah, it’s just been an amazing journey.

David: And I think you do a really great job of kind of taking the best lessons from that book. I think a lot of people, when they’re trying to tell stories with their marketing, whether it’s for business or a personal brand, they always tell their own story about what’s good for them. What you do a great job of is understanding the needs of your target audience and helping them, giving them podcasts and insights and articles. I think you really help them to succeed, which is a great guide, a great leader, and you’re doing very well. But what are some of the secrets? How do you, for anyone watching out there, how do you start? How do you start to build a successful brand?

James Egremont: Yeah, all right. Well, good question. I think first and foremost, you need a strategy, okay. You need to understand who your target audience is. Why are they your target audience? Primarily, they’re going to be your customers, right? But, you know, everyone’s got a different strategy. So think about the strategy. Once you’ve got the strategy, then it’s all about the implementation. So speak to your customers, speak to your clients, find out their pain points, find out where the challenges are. And when you’re speaking to your clients, and I’m sure all business leaders are speaking to their clients on a regular basis, right, so it’s not too difficult to say what are the biggest challenges you’re facing and then come back with solutions. And the more people that you speak to, the more they’re going to offer different solutions. So once you’ve got the challenges, you understand the solutions, then bingo, you’ve got the content and then you can start posting content.

But personal branding is about consistency. From my experience, it’s about regular posts and at a minimum really three times a week. You’ve got to be posting, and it’s got to be personal, it’s got to be valuable, and it’s got to be credible. And if you’re doing all of those things, then it takes time. I would say that it’s not going to happen overnight. Two to three months, you’re not going to get any results. And I think a lot of people give up. They do a few posts and they’re like, oh, I’m not getting any inbound leads or I’m not building my relationships better or the rest of it. So the most important thing is consistency long term. And you have to really be dedicated to it. But as long as you’ve got a good strategy and you really understand your customers’ pain points, then it gives you all the content that you need to be posting regardless.

David: I’ve been at many events where you were there and people you’d never met before, they knew your name, they knew what you did. I guess that’s the power of it.

James Egremont: It can be good. It can be bad as well. If you’re just trying to have a quiet pint and a roast, and people come up and go, oh, you’re the recruiter, can you help me with a job or something like that? But ultimately, it has been really powerful. And I think the best point that I can take away from it is that when you do a post and let’s say you’ve got a thousand views on your post, it’s the equivalent of making a thousand calls in my mind. And if you’re connecting with your target audience on a weekly, daily basis, these people are seeing your post. They’re seeing that you’re credible. They’re seeing that you’re posting valuable content. They’re seeing the real side of you as well, your personal side as well. Doing videos like this really helps. And ultimately, when you pick up the phone and you speak to a prospect that you’ve never actually spoken to before, but they know you through LinkedIn, it’s ultimately a warm call. So it’s fundamental to anyone’s success, I would say, with regards to business development and building your own personal brand and all the rest of it. And I think everyone needs to be a good marketer in this day and age.

David: Definitely. I think the phone call thing is really interesting. I never thought about it that way before, but you literally have a broadcast network of your own connected to your perfect audience on a daily basis. It’s the value of that. Imagine 10 years ago having access to that. I think most people don’t get that concept yet.

James Egremont: Yeah. Phenomenal.

David: And the key, I think for me at least, is it’s all about being customer-centric. Every post you put out there tells a different part of your personal story. As you said, some of it’s personal, some of it’s about authority. So yeah, great work. Well done on that, James.

James Egremont: Thank you.

David: So James, just to finish off on this point, if you had one piece of advice for people looking to get started with executive branding, what would that advice be?

James Egremont: I would definitely come to Wall Street Tower and I’ll come and speak to you at Lexicon.

David: Me?

James Egremont: Yeah. Wow. Thank you, James. No, I mean, look, you’ve done a phenomenal job for me, genuinely. You’ve done a phenomenal job. You guys have posted continuously. I’m pretty demanding as a client. And I would say that if you’re looking to build a personal brand but you don’t have the time, then I’d definitely be coming to see you. But if you do have the time and you don’t have the budget, then like I said before, create the strategy, personal, valuable, credible posts, start off with that. If you start getting traction, then maybe you can turbocharge it.

David: Thank you, James. You’re so kind. I appreciate the kind words. So one more serious question, and then I’m going to ask you some more personal things, but what does the future have in store for Connexus?

James Egremont: The future is pretty ambitious, I would say. We are in growth mode at the moment, so we want to be in North America by next year. So let me just paint up a story of where we’ve come from and where we are. So January 2019, we officially started Connexus from Bangkok and Singapore. This year, we set up the London office, and then next year we want to be in North America. So ultimately, it’s about growth, but it’s about sustainability. It’s about succession planning, which we’ve already discussed. It’s about the people. It’s about the culture. But a high-level overview of the business is we want to be in four to five different locations globally. We want to be known as the leading value chain recruitment company worldwide. We want probably 80 to 100 staff within the business, 30 million in revenue. But that’s kind of like a high-level goal overview.

But fundamentally, and most importantly, it’s all about the people. And I keep going back to that because it’s so true. Because without the people, we don’t have a business, effectively. And without the people, we don’t have customers, and we don’t have candidates. So our business will not operate. So for us, the key focus is delivering exceptional service to our clients and candidates alike. And also, not only that, making sure that we have a workplace where the majority of the people, or hopefully all of the people, wake up feeling inspired, feel safe in their jobs, and go home at the end of each day feeling fulfilled. And I think that’s really our internal mission and our vision of what we want to create as a culture internally. And what I mean by that is feeling safe in your job is like, okay, if you have a bad month, week, quarter or whatever, we have empathy, which is one of our core values, and really making sure that people feel safe in their jobs. And recruitment, traditionally, as an industry, has been a very hire and fire type, performance-led industry. But I think Connexus is different to that. And we really give people time and the resources and the training to be successful within their niche.

And the final point is making sure that people go home at the end of each day feeling fulfilled. And that’s really important to us, because you can’t always have a good day and bad things happen. But as long as one good thing happens, this is what we say to everybody. Go home feeling fulfilled, whatever it is. We had a good client meeting. You won a pitch, won a proposal. You made a placement or whatever. So these are the types of things that we’re looking for and driving. So that’s what the future looks like. A lot of growth, but equally a lot of focus towards people and culture.

David: Fantastic. So James, I know from personal experience that Connexus already has a great culture. So the fact that you’re going to be focusing more time on that is going to be, for sure, an amazing place to work all over the world. And if you’re looking to get a job in recruitment or if you’re looking to engage with somebody, I can’t recommend James and Connexus highly enough. So again, back to a selfish question here. So James, you’re a storyteller. You, on a daily basis, create a narrative that helps your audience succeed. I’d like to think I also do something similar. But storytelling at its core, it’s something that we all engage with. Every religion, every nation, it’s all a form of narrative. It’s a love story. So what are some of the storytellers that have inspired you throughout your life, whether that’s business or personal?

James Egremont: Okay, good question. I would say that I have different categories for different storytellers. So if I’m looking at business and I’m looking for inspiration, then the likes of Richard Branson, of course, up there 100 percent. Robert Kiyosaki, love his books, love his videos, love his storytelling. I think a lot of this stuff resonates. If I’m looking at leadership specifically, people and culture, who we talked about a lot, is Simon Sinek. I love the guy. I think he’s spot on with his philosophies around leadership and the way company cultures should be. And I guess the third point is, like, you know, I guess growing up with Roald Dahl, for example, BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, you know, allows the mind to wonder. And more recently, George R. R. Martin with Game of Thrones. I love the storytelling. So yeah, hopefully that answers your question.

David: It does indeed. Thank you, James. And yeah, like I said, you’re a storyteller. I really enjoyed the videos you’ve done with Larry Persons and George Attell, great stories in there. I think what is important for people to realize when it comes to business communication is that people just, you know, even if we’re doing business, it’s still with people. So they want to engage and have a good time. It doesn’t always have to be super serious. I hope today we’ve not been too serious for the audience. But it reminds me, you mentioned Roald Dahl. There’s a great quote that I love from him that I try to live by. I think the quote is a little silliness now and then is cherished even by the wisest of men.

James Egremont: I love it.

David: On that note. Thank you, James.

James Egremont: Thank you.

David: It’s been a pleasure.

James Egremont: Thank you.