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Big Interview | 'Lego building as a child made me the HR architect I am today' - Meet the CPO of Pure Data Centres Group
Lewis-Roberts, CPO Pure Data Centres Group, has some eye-watering M&A experience for some of the big...
Susan Graham
Managing Director, Filofax, Letts, and Blueline Group (FLB)
Susan Graham, Filofax, Letts and Blueline Group, has some eye-watering M&A experience for some of the big players including Cadbury-Kraft.
Susan Graham
Managing Director, Filofax, Letts, and Blueline Group (FLB)
Susan Graham, Filofax, Letts and Blueline Group, has some eye-watering M&A experience for some of the big players including Cadbury-Kraft.
“She doesn’t know a print machine from a washing machine,” Susan Graham, Managing Director of the Filofax, Letts, and Blueline Group (FLB) grew up dealing with male-dominated Unions that ruled over the print industry.
As one of few women brave enough to head up the negotiations, there is a grit and determination that is hardwired into her – there’s little that phases her these days, yet she is also a rare mix of tough and kind. She talks to HR Grapevine about her career, making the business work when the iPhone surfaced and why people management has been her best career ally.
I grew up in the 90s and that meant Filofax was part of my childhood. Not many Christmases went by without a shiny new version, or a re-fill wrapped in some twinkly paper, packed with dates that were yet to be filled and memories that were to be etched against a day of the week. I still have mine – retro some would say, classic others – whichever, for me it was my trusty friend, my diary planner, a container of photobooth photos and business cards, perhaps an age gone by until Susan Graham corrected me that Filofax has been brought bang up to date. I’ll admit it’s a long time since I used one as my planning resource of choice. Like most other people, I pop dates into my iPhone or scrawl them on the family calendar. The days of whipping out your Filofax to pop in a date with your pal may be on the slide – I hardly take a handbag anywhere now anyhow so where would I put it? But Filofax has caught up and some, a feat that is not easily achieved without a powerhouse behind it – this is where Graham comes in.
‘I began as Girl Friday’
Graham cut her teeth at Waddie & Co in 1990, a manufacturing stationers and printers. It was ironically the year Tim Berners-Lee created the first web server and the foundation for the World Wide Web was formed. She began in payroll which seamlessly morphed into an HR role. The business was at the time one of the biggest commercial printers in Scotland. “I was in my late 20s and while I was there, I did my CIPD qualification on day release.”
Graham became the HR Advisor, working for the HR Manager at Head Office. The business had around 450 employees at the time working across Edinburgh and West Lothian. “I did a lot of project work and the due diligence work that came with that was a fantastic experience. The HR Manager then retired, and I, took over,” she recalls.
In 2003, Graham got a call from Charles Letts & Company. “They wanted me to work for them – at first I thought it should be like going from the frying pan into the fire!” With print Unions and industry experience, Graham, however, was the ideal fit and she admits that it didn’t feel like much of a change because it was more of a location swap as the job was very similar to what she had been doing.
“Working with the Unions was challenging. I was originally met with comments like, ‘What is she doing here, do we need to watch our language?’ I just carried on and thought to myself that all I could do was to try my best.”
I compete with Team GB. It teaches you discipline and helps with your mental health. When you’ve constantly got that goal to strive for, it builds resilience. Understanding and dealing with failure can teach you how to achieve success because you may have many failures before you get a medal
Susan Graham | Managing Director, Filofax, Letts & Blueline Group (FLB)
I ask Graham how she dealt with the culture including, use of bad language and behaviour with the Unions, employees and sometimes managers, in a very male dominated industry, “I would call them on it even though I was quite young. I was told it was 'industrial language' - I told them there was no such thing and I treated people the same whatever their gender and hoped they would do the same with me.” The role modelling was consistent from Graham she also took the canny move to conduct a series of one-to-ones in which she communicated her expectations. “We broke down the gender barriers and did that with initiatives including ‘bring your child to work day.’ When it came down to it – the bravado wasn’t really there, lots of them didn’t have those beliefs and didn’t really want to behave in that way,” yet it was an expectation to behave in a certain way due to the generational culture.
“I remember asking them to fill in an employee survey and when I first started they threw it on my desk and said, ‘We (all employees) are not filling that in,’ so I thought well what I’ll do is we’ll fill them in together when we have our one-to-ones and they did,” explains Graham. “I also reminded union reps that firstly they were an employee and secondly a part of the Union. We were working for the same company!”
She remarks, “I know that I changed the culture in that organisation.” The business had been in Dalkeith since 1964 and in the Letts family for seven generations until it was sold in 1997 and went into private ownership.
