By Paul Hinds, Managing Director Asia-Pacific

This week marks my 1-year anniversary of starting my role as the MD for IRI APAC.
 
While I knew the change would be both exciting and challenging, I could never have predicted the curve balls that have been hurled at myself, family and, team in the last 12 months. Bushfires, flooding, new business wins, business challenges and to top it off a global pandemic. It’s certainly been a learning curve, so to honour the year that’s just been please read on for my top 12 take-outs for the year. I, for one can’t wait to see what the year ahead holds.

On the work front:

1. People are your vital asset. Without your team you’re nothing and their safety, wellbeing and, happiness are paramount. If you look after your people, they’ll look after you
2. Leadership can be a lonely place – but only if you let it be. You need to empower and trust your team in what they are experts in so they can make decisions. The payoff is that they take ownership for making it happen and the positive outcome, your role then becomes one of support and to take action when help is required along the way
3. Say thank you frequently and often. Acknowledgement and appreciation matter more to your team than you think. Don’t let imposter syndrome fool you otherwise
4. Humility and honesty go a long way. It’s a great thing for your team to know much more than you – so let them be the experts in the room
5. Be decisive and accountable. Making a decision is always better than no decision, even when you have limited information and the outcome is not perfect (and at least you learn for next time)
6. Time is always running out - there is never enough. But all you can do is keep pushing for today, rather than tomorrow and understand that progress is always better than perfection.

1. When you pitch to your kids that Sydney has the world’s largest Imax and a monorail, check they are still actually up and running
2. Tim Tams beat Penguins in the biscuit race every single day of the week
3. The correct boardshorts etiquette is to wear speedos underneath. Do what the Australians do on this front
4. Double demerit points are not a loyalty reward
5. Chicken salt sounds weird (how did this even become a thing?!). But trust me – it’s a stroke of genius (particularly on chips)
6. My team has gone to great lengths to ensure I am aware of every creature that can kill me in Australia. Numerous shark stories, advice of spiders, snakes (brown ones kill you quickly, black ones kill you slowly, green ones just hurt you). So far I have not encountered anything life-threatening, but I’m still on my guard though!

Paul Hinds is the Managing Director for Asia Pacific at IRI. He joined the company five years ago to head up the UK retail business unit and became a member of the UK executive board. His passion and drive have transformed our engagement with retailers, implementing our “retail as a client” strategy to great effect and establishing new partnerships with Tesco, M&S, Boots, Waitrose, Costco, Lloyds and One Stop. This strategy includes the development of our largest Gateway function outside of the U.S., with over 200 CPG clients investing in our solutions, and the establishment of IRI UK as a major player in the manufacturer insights customer loyalty space, with our IRI Liquid Data® platform in place at M&S, Boots and Waitrose. Paul’s ability to help retailers optimise the insights and value they gain from data to achieve tangible results, coupled with his background of more than 20 years’ experience in the data and insight industry, are all strong attributes that will help to deliver growth for our clients in the APAC (Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and South Korea) region. Contact Paul direct: paul.hinds@iriworldwide.com.au