Welcome to B&FTV. Today, we're at the offices of Gill Publishing speaking
to Ruth and Michael Gill. Ruth Gill is about to take over the
reins of the family business, the sixth generation in the Gill family to do so.
What have been the biggest changes in the publishing industry over the years
since Gill has been in business? Well, traditionally, publishing was combined
with book selling and with printing so that, and Gill very much had that
model because we had a publishing business in the offices in O'Connell
Street. Upstairs we had a book shop in the, at street level and in the back
there was a fully integrated printing works and this was very very common
really up to the early 1960s in the UK and also in Europe and then it began to
change where it was seeing that trying to combine all these three
together it wasn't a business model that was feasible anymore and gradually then
there was a separation of the three different activities. So now, nowadays,
there would be no publishers I think who would have their own printing works
there might be some associated with book shops but the three operations, the three
activities have become totally separated and all of that really happened over a
period of about 20 years and it certainly happened in the period which I
was associated with the business but of course there have been since then other
major changes. Yeah, I mean, I guess for, in most recent years, the advent of digital
has had a huge impact on publishing as well as other markets and for
publishing it's, in terms of kind of processes, but also the
route to market and really, I mean, digital now provides another route to
market and also on the education side of the business, the
products that are produced now you know it's not just a flat textbook which we
would have been used to you definitely would have been used in your generation
and but all of the textbooks now are embedded with digital assets so, you know,
you've got your games, your animations, your videos, so it's a very different
proposition than we're going to market with. So up until recently, there's been
an outsider at the reins of Gill and now Ruth is taking over managing the
company, what does it mean to you both to have a family member at the head of the
company again? Well, obviously I'm very very pleased. I think it's
it's a great development that a six generation is coming in to take over in
the company but I've always had a very, very strong view that family
businesses can be very dangerous places for members of the family, and unless
they really want to take over and unless they have had very adequate, very
good training, both theoretical and practical, preferably outside Ireland,
they shouldn't be that near management of a family business. So, obviously I'm
very, very pleased but we've also been very lucky in that, for the past 10
years, the CEO of the company, Dermot O'Dwyer, has been a very, very strong, able,
skilled figure in bringing the company through a pretty tough time, I mean,
managing any business in Ireland from 2008 to 2013, let's say, it was very, very
challenging and he had to take tough decisions but he has he's brought the
company through the storm and left it in probably a better condition than it was
when we entered it. Yeah, absolutely,
and I think from my perspective, I think I've been very lucky in that
there was never any pressure on me or either of my siblings to go into the
business and so it very much was a choice and a choice based on my
experience in the outside world, I guess, prior to coming back to Ireland and
so yeah I'm excited and I feel very lucky to be able to work in the
family business and carry it forward and yeah there's always kind of a sense of
there's a real responsibility I think when you move into a family business
but you also do have that feeling of being, I think, very honoured to actually
to be in that position, so yeah, I'm excited.
Ruth, can you tell me a
little bit about your career to date and did you always plan to go into the
family business? So, I think I probably had kind of a bit
of a childhood fantasy of maybe working in the family business but it's very
much a fantasy rather than anything else. I am was very clear
always so that I want to do my own thing as well, so I did my degree in Economics
and Finance in Trinity, and I then decided I wanted to kind of see what the
publishing game was all about but preferably not in Ireland so actually
did a graduate program in New York, so spent a year in New York working
in one of the large publishing companies. Absolutely loved it. Learned a lot about
the nuts and bolts of the business and industry and but decided that I
definitely wanted to kind of do something else and something potentially
that could lead me back into publishing and but that would also let me do other
things if that if that was what I chose so I did my masters. I did a master's
in Oxford in Management Research, and then worked in consultancy for the guts
of about eight years. So, first, working as a consultant which was a
fantastic experience because I got exposure to a really wide range of
businesses and senior management teams and projects, and then I headed up the, I
moved into the role of COO in that same business, so headed up the
finance, operations, IT, HR, marketing divisions, and at the same time
I qualified as a management accountants as well, which has been really
useful over the years. I then was quite clear at that point after about
eight years that I did want to move back into publishing and that I wanted to
come home but I decided that I really needed to get more deep experience in a
publishing company before doing that, so I worked in publishing in London for
three years as an internal consultant before coming back into the family business.
Do you think it was really important for you to gain that experience working
abroad and what has that brought to the business? Is it something you'd
recommend to other families in business? Yeah, I mean, I think, for me, it brought a
real range of experience which I couldn't have got here.
It brought a whole range of contacts, both within the industry and
outside of the industry, and it also just gave me a lot more confidence coming
back into the company. I think it's brought the company,
you know, each of those things so prospective, definitely a sense of
perspective, and contacts which we you know use a lot still in our
day-to-day business. So yeah, for me, I would definitely recommend that people
do get that outside experience. I think we have to remember that Ireland is a
very, very small society and to have the opportunity of work, to work abroad
in, you know, in larger industries, in larger countries is incredibly
invaluable and certainly my father had when I indicated that I would like to
join the business he insisted that I would get experience abroad so I
worked in London and in Paris, and then, for a year, as
Ruth did, in New York before I came back, and certainly that was the most
formative experience that I could have had much
more so than school or university actually working hands-on in another
culture, in another climate, in another place and seeing exactly how things were
being done, and things were very, very much more advanced then than they were here and I certainly
gave me a lot of perspective as well. I think one important point though
is not everybody will have the chance to work abroad and for a lot of
family businesses and potentially smaller family businesses it's vital
that people go in at a certain point so I think there are lots of different ways
of getting that exposure whether it be through you know internship programs or
mentoring programs but I think the outside perspective however you get it
is really key for any business but particularly for family businesses where
things can be quite insular. It seems like your family is very open to
discussing what's best for the business and I think, central to that, is that it's
really important to have a good board isn't that right? Yeah, so I mean I think
we are over the past few years, we reviewed, after, actually, our
partnership with Macmillan we went separate ways and we reviewed our board
structures and our supervisory board, as of this month, we'll have two
non-executive directors on it, two family members so I will be obviously
operationally involved and my dad isn't, and also our finance director, and I
think that structure and oversight is really vital in family businesses to
ensure, and one of the reasons is to ensure that the CEO and MD
or MD is doing the job that they're there to do and is doing the best job
that they can do and is the right fit. I think with a lot of
family businesses, there is the danger that the person who is, if the person who
is heading up the business is a family member that potentially they're not the
right person for that role or they are the right person for that role for
an extended period, for a certain period of time
but potentially that time goes on for too long. So I think one thing we're
very clear on is that you know there need to be review points for everybody's
role on the board and the CEO included in that. We also see a very, very
distinct difference between management and shareholding and I think that's
something in any family business that must be kept absolutely clear. In
other words, that you can be a shareholder but not a
manager in the company or you can be both, but are two totally separate
functions and with two totally different sets of responsibilities and I
think that's something we're very, very aware of now, and I think that's
very important in family businesses where the two of them can tend to become
meshed and unhealthily so. Which can be quite a dangerous thing for
the longevity of family businesses as well, you know, you have to as a
family business be able to operate successfully and sustainably without a
family member actually being involved in the business, you know, I know I can
speak on behalf of the sixth generation so for myself and my siblings we're very
clear that we want to retain ownership of the business and be active
shareholders but that doesn't necessarily mean that one of us has to
be involved in the operations of the business and I am choosing at this point
in time to be involved in the operations and I'm delighted to be involved in the
operations but if I was not, we still would want to be active owners,
so I think that separation between ownership and management is really
important. And finally, what are the biggest challenges facing the publishing
industry and how do you envision the future for Gill? I think on
kind of the general book side of the business for global publishers the
real challenge is making sure that books retain their space in the leisure time
market so, if you think now, our leisure time is consumed with social media, with
movies on demand and TV on demand, with all of these things that weren't there
10, 15, 20, 30 years ago so books really need to keep their value
and show their value in that leisure space. On the education side
of the business, again, it's probably it's it's along the sides of digital and
making sure that educational publishing companies are keeping
up-to-date with teaching methodologies, with learning, how students are actually
learning, and that changes over time as children are becoming more exposed to
technology and making sure that we are making really rounded products that
actually work for the teachers and the learners of today. They're probably
biggest challenges I see. Well, of course, in the short term I think Brexit
does pose a very real challenge to all businesses and all industry and of
course the problem I suppose with Brexit is that so much of it is so
unpredictable at this stage but publishers regardless of whether they're
general publishers, trade publishers or educational publishers, so much of the
trade we do is dependent upon disposable income and I think if there
was to be any downturn in the economy here as a result of Brexit
we would be immediately affected, certainly with the most recent recession.
The book market declined by something in the order of 35% over a
period of, relatively short period, between 2008-2012/13, now that's
a major decline, could Brexit do the same I hope not but I think
it is a challenge that is there. Publishing is traditionally this kind of
a high-fixed cost base, so if there is a contraction in revenues it can
become very difficult to manage so I think during any period of
uncertainty, which I think we're still in, it's really important to manage that
fixed cost base so that will be a priority for all publishing
businesses over the coming years. Great, thank you so much for talking to
us today.