LOCATION: Surrey, UK
LANGUAGE SPOKEN: English
CURRENT ROLES:
PREVIOUS LEADERSHIP ROLES:
CEO, Azets
CEO, Kinapse
COO, Capita PLC
BOARDWAVE ROLES: Patron, Partner and Mentor
Dawn Marriott explains that she isn’t a sitter: “I don’t even have a chair. My desk isn’t one that moves up and down,I deliberately made it to be tall”. And that isn’t the only slightly unconventional aspect of Marriott’s workplace set- up. Not only does she prefer to stand during meetings, she also hula-hoops during them. “It’s legendary at work. I ask my team if they mind me hula-hooping while we talk. At first, they said it was distracting but now they don’t care,” she says, laughing. The hula-hoop is a way to keep fit and calm.
Marriott lives life in the fast lane. She has run countless companies during her career: first at the business process outsourcing firm Capita and now asa partner at private equity firm Hg. She has learned a lot of lessons along the way – the most important being the need for good mentors.
Aged 16, Marriott decided that shedidn’t want to study for her A-levelsor go to university like many of herpeers. She wanted to get on the careerladder – and she wanted to do it asquickly as possible. She responded toan advert for a job at private healthcareprovider, BUPA. “They didn’t normallyemploy school leavers, but I chattedmy way through the telephone screening interview without even realising it was an interview. When they said I wasn’t old enough for the job I thought, okay, it doesn’t matter because
I was just happy to have an interview.”
She must have made a strong impression because they called back and offered her a job. Initially, she worked as a sales support to the sales manager but she was quickly promoted. Marriott says that the three years she spent at BUPA were “probably the most impactful” of her career.
This was, in part, down to her boss. “She was an amazing lady. She took me under her wing and taught me all about business: how to have influence, how to get things done, and how to be with customers,” Marriott says. “It was about putting customers first, having good empathy, being very honest and straightforward – and working very hard.”
Another key mentor in Marriott’s life was Paul Pindar, the then COO and later CEO of Capita, a company that brought Marriott in to run the sales of an acquisition a few years later. She remained there for almost 20 years. “They approached me to come andrun the sales team. I accepted the job because I liked them. Everything I put into what I do today is because of those two role models, and the learnings and the opportunities they gave me,” she says.
Mentorship remains hugely important to Marriott. Today, she advises 50 people across multiple businesses – including some within the Boardwave community. “I feel a real sense of worth when I find someone who wants to be mentored and who I can genuinely help in a productive way.” And she has lots of experience to share. Marriott became a CEO in her early 20s and admits that she made a lot of mistakes during that time. “I was far too lenient. I trusted everyone, I didn’t measure enough things – I was more face- value. Now I measure everything.”
She describes earning both her “scars and stripes” during her tenure at Capita. One was not failing fast enough. “I would always try to fix someone. In reality, they may be a great person in the wrong job. Sometimes, it’s a personal fit problem but more often it’s a skills and competency issue. As a company scales and grows, not all people can grow and innovate at the same rate.”
Woman in charge
Marriott has been the head of a range of companies, from a pharma tech business to accountancy and geo-spatial software. She doesn’t mess about when she is appointed. “I went into this pharma tech business that was failing and, after one day,I knew I could fix it,” she says. By the end of the first week,she had agreed with the founder that he would leave theboard. The CEO was also dismissed.
“It was a highly scientific environment, but I didn’t need the subject knowledge. I was able to see that they had some wrong people and some right people who were hidden, and they needed commercial help to understand the numbers that were running their business.” She admits that she has become very good at letting people go if they aren’t right for the team. “It makes me sound terrible!”
The truth is that she inspires loyalty in those she works with. “Since I left Capita, I’ve had around 200 of my old colleagues come and work on projects that I’m connected with,” she says. “That’s because if you treat people well and respectfully, and you look after the whole person, not just the employee, that loyalty and trust creates a bond that never goes away. I’d like to think that people who know me would say, ‘Dawn works incredibly hard but she’s a nice person to work with’.”
The “working incredibly hard” part is an understatement: Marriott is a self-confessed workaholic. Her typical day begins at 5.30am with a swim in her home pool, followed by back-to- back meetings. On the day in question, those meetings finish at 8pm. Afterwards, she has a parents’ evening appointment for her 14-year-old daughter. Though she does allow herself Saturdays off, Sundays are all about home admin.
Marriott is proud that she didn’t go to university, and laughs about how she was once asked if she went to Oxford or Cambridge. “I’m the only person in the entire office who didn’t go to university, including the PA and the guys who run the kitchen.”
From Birmingham to brilliance
Marriott grew up in a working-class family in Birmingham and always craved independence. At BUPA, Marriott saved enough money to buy a one-bedroom house and found herself playing host to her friends who were all studying for their A-levels. “They used to come around to my little house and do their homework. Looking back now, I think that was so crazy. What kind of teenager must I have been to have that level of dedication, focus, and commitment?”
She says she was compliant and hard-working at school.But she also learned early on that “you’ve got to fight for yourself. No one else is going to look after you”. Marriott has become very used to doing things her own way. She even points out that her curly corkscrew hair is “more rock chick than business executive”. “I don’t try to change to fit in. I am always completely myself. I’m very confident and communicative about what I can do and what I’m good at. But I’m equally confident and communicative about what are not my areas of expertise. It’s about understanding your own strengths and limitations, and making sure that the team around you is supplemented, so you don’t over-index on people who have the same strengths as you. Otherwise, you end up clashing with them.”
Despite her workaholic and perfectionist personality, Marriott hasn’t considered starting her own company. “It has never appealed to me. I like things that already exist that I can improve or grow.”
Marriott reveals that she is a fan of another workaholic: Elon Musk. In fact, she recently finished the billionaire’s biography. “I think he is a complex individual. He has characteristics that mean I wouldn’t enjoy spending time with him, but I thoroughly admire his innovation, ability to create a following, and his willingness to take risks and back himself.”
With children in their teens and 20s, Marriott’s personal life is as busy as her professional one. She is a keen swimmer and she took up cross-country skiing at the age of 48. She is also a talented musician who can play the violin, flute, bugle, and recorder. As she says: “I put pressure on myself to be the best version of myself and I put 110% into everything I do.”
Tips From The Top
What are your tips for a successful business?
1. Get some good mentors.
2. Know your strengths and limitations and build a diverse team, not just in gender but in experience, competence, and economic background.
3. Work bloody hard, show kindness, and take some educated risks.
If you hadn’t become a CEO, what career would you have pursued?
Probably a musician. Music was very important to me growing up.
Is there a piece of tech, other than your phone, that you could not live without?
My ReMarkable (an electronic notebook).
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