Fellows stories: Scott Russell

I’ve been in everything from jewellery and emergency plumbing to electrical data engineering, software, healthcare, property, farming, you name it! I’ve done absolutely everything.

Selling a business allows you to pursue your goals, and the telecommunications business I sold with you, NEG, helped me do just that. That was a great business, because we found a niche marketplace, and solved a big problem: being able to speak to your NHS doctor. Our ‘Surgery Line’ service was designed specifically for GP surgeries, and it handled millions of patients’ calls a month. Long story short, it became hugely successful. We were the dominant market player – which meant we caught the eye of larger businesses.

We got an offer for £15m and we agreed as a board that was fair. I’d used one of the major accountancy firms for previous business sales, but this time, I was recommended to you. And you guys got us about £27m. [£23.5m initial consideration plus add-ons.] So you got us literally huge amounts more on top.

I’d never dealt with a boutique advisor like you before, and I found you guys brilliant because you sat down with us and asked us questions that the other companies weren’t asking. There was a team there, and it sounds really clichéd, but it was like a family. It felt a lot better doing business with you than the big accountancy firm.

With the big firm, I had felt like an irritant to them. You’d get a junior doing some of the stuff. They didn’t really research the marketplace. They were lazy. But you did a superb job. I think that what makes Initium special is the people behind the business.

To me, selling was a great relief. Within a week, I’d flown to France, and I was looking at châteaus! You know, I bought my Ferrari. We did all the things that you do when you sell a business. We travelled. I paid the school fees up front. I even bought an old manor house that once belonged to General Cornwallis. He’s the man who oversaw the British Army’s defeat at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. Americans I have met find this hilarious – I owned the house of the guy that lost America! I later sold it. Like everything, I’m not emotionally attached to it. So when it got too big and cumbersome, I just sold it… to an American!

Instead of material things, I think what means a lot to me is the impact I have on human beings. I get emotional when there’s good stuff going on. That’s what led me to co-founding an ethical coffee business. As we said, don’t gauge us on the size of our balance sheet, but the bellies that we fill with food every day.

At our peak, we were making about 90,000 cups of coffee a day. And what made that business so special is that it was a for-impact company where we invested much of the profits back into the communities that were growing the coffee.

“It’s really important in life that you set your goals. Money doesn’t make you happy, but it does allow you to achieve your goals”

We invested in a lovely, sprawling farm in Kenya that had been owned by four generations of coffee farmers. We spent three years remodelling it. We turned it into one of the first organic farms in East Africa, and then we used different ways of harvesting coffee that used less water. We built a washing station. We invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the farm. And we then built a new school. Initially, I think the school had 60 kids. There are now 500 pupils.

I’ll always remember one little girl. She was a tiny little emaciated child. I thought she was about 11 or 12. It turned out that she was 15, but she was so malnourished. They have to wear these little stockings at school, but her legs were so skinny her stockings wouldn’t stay up. She had baling twine at the top of her legs to hold them up, and that just broke my heart.

I said, well, OK, so we need to do something about this. Not just for this one girl, but for everyone. We put a food programme in for the school. They all had a hot meal at lunchtime. They all took a little protein pack after school, because a lot of these children, they walk up to 10 kilometres get to school, there and back.

“I still have my Kenyan name, ‘Marrata’, which means man of good bringing”

And the little girl was in the first cohort from the school to go on to the University of Nairobi. I don’t even think anyone had ever gone to university from her rural community before. I’m so proud of stories like that.

Although I’ve now exited the business, I’m still an honorary founder of the project. I still have my Kenyan name, ‘Marrata’, which means man of good bringing, and my support will remain there until they don’t want me anymore!

And now? I work with leaders of owner-operated businesses – that’s my day job, mentoring. I work with the chief execs, the owners, to try and give them direction, and talk to them about whether they can make their company more environmentally sound, and how they can use their profits for a driver for good. I’ve invested into a radio station. I have a digital agency business that does branding and marketing, I’ve got some properties, and I’m putting in an offer on a Maison de Maitre in South West France with an option on a lovely little vineyard. So that’s another business, another opportunity!

You know, I always use this analogy. What’s your château? What do you want to do in life? What do you want to achieve? It’s really important in life that you set your goals. Money doesn’t make you happy, but it does allow you to achieve your goals.