Kate Middleton: Every great female entrepreneur I know is not afraid to take on difficult and “un-sexy” opportunities.
Earlier this year, Kate Middleton obtained VC backing to acquire Censeo Engineering.
It wasn’t just a huge business risk, it was a personal one — having spent much of 2015 recovering from a major seizure, after being diagnosed with a rare brain disorder called Dystonia
She’d discovered Censeo after taking a GM role with a struggling ASX-listed company in January, and finding the Censeo subsidiary was profitable it its own right and worth salvaging.
With VP capital, she re-privatised Censeo from the parent company, and became the first female CEO in Australia to not only lead, but own a well-established structural engineering firm providing Insurance Assessments and Reports to major clients.
We put some questions to Middleton in the lead up to the Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards, in which she’s a finalist in the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year category.
She shares how she jumped from GM to business owner, why she was willing to take such a big risk, her plans for the company and how she became a serious advocate for flexible work.
Tell us about how the opportunity to acquire this business came up?
Originally I came from an Investment and Insurance background. In 2014 I launched a successful online career development and resume writing company Career Oracle with a goal to help get more diverse talent into top jobs. By late 2015 Career Oracle was operating well without me, so I had a real thirst to get back into the corporate world and apply my entrepreneurial mindset in a big business context.
The opportunity came earlier this year when I was approached to be interim Executive General Manager for a struggling ASX listed company. I was charged with overseeing the recovery, run-off or sale of a group of five companies within the Technology and Insurance space. Through the course of providing impartial advice to the European Investor and Non-Executive Board, I identified that one of the subsidiary companies, Censeo Engineering, had been in market for 10+ years and was profitable in its own right and worth salvaging. Long story short, I successfully gained VC backing, re-privatised a portion of the ASX listed company and became the first female CEO in Australia to not only lead, but own a well-established structural engineering firm that provides insurance assessments and fast turn-around engineering reports to major clients including RACV, CGU, Coles, CHU, Budget Direct, NSW government and Youi.
It’s a massive leap to go from being the GM and acquiring and then running part of that organisation. An even bigger leap to do it within a few months! What gave you the courage to take the plunge?
Entering into an unstable operating environment takes grit and a real risk appetite.
I saw an amazing amount of upside in exploring the opportunity with Censeo. For the same reason I started Career Oracle; deciding to take on the risk of Censeo, for me, was all about the opportunity to agitate and positively disrupt a very stayed, male dominated market and have an influence around how construction, loss adjusting and engineering providers can, and should, do business. I saw a rare opportunity to change a bricks and mortar business by completely re-shaping our structure; we have now moved from a 10-year-old legacy system and instead now completely leverage cloud-based technology, work remotely, make kindness and positive communication a cornerstone of the way we do business, and in doing so are demonstrating that women, and people from all backgrounds, can and should succeed in both heavy industry & financial services.
On a personal note, 2015 really tested my resolve and made me braver than ever. In June last year I had a massive seizure at my office and ended up in the Neurological Ward of St Andrews Hospital for a month. I was diagnosed with a rare brain disorder called Dystonia, which in my case gives me temporary stroke like symptoms. I had months of physio and had to learn how to walk again, talk again, hold a spoon. I had to completely re-shape the way I live and work around my episodes, which thankfully, now only occur once every few weeks. The doctors told me to scale back and even sell or leave Career Oracle. Instead I decided that I was not going to check myself out just because I have some physical limitations. I decided I was going to head back into corporate, be honest about my disease and become a case study in how flexibility and diversity can work at an executive level…and I have!
How big is you team, and what are you plans for growing it in the coming months?
I have seven in-house staff and a sub-contractor network of 150+ across the country. Our plans for growth are three fold. We have achieved goal one which was to decrease our operating costs by over 40% without engineering job cuts; this has been achieved through de-centralisation and leveraging technology to streamline our entire process.
Secondly, I am planning on appointing two new in-house engineers (seeking great graduates) to build up our pipeline of internal talent and succession planning. Over the past four months we have gone from two major clients to over 10 so our focus will be on ensuring we are fully servicing those accounts and becoming a valuable extension to their claims process. I also recently identified that one of our biggest external supplier costs is actually a fairly simple trade task that my team can be cross skilled in; we will not only save approx. $250K a year, but we can also issue that service as an additional revenue stream through our existing clients which is exciting. Beyond 2018 – expansion into New Zealand and possibly Asia will be on the cards. I am also heading to Harvard next week to study Strategic Leadership then travelling to New York and London where I will catch up with colleagues from major US and European insurers to learn how they manage supplier models. I have no doubt that will also lead to some new ideas for expansion.
What do you think makes an ‘entrepreneurial woman’?
Someone who is daring enough to act on their vision and ideas and takes risks that produce tangible economic and social outcomes. Every great female entrepreneur I know is not afraid to take on difficult and “un-sexy” opportunities. Actualisation is also a really key element of being a female entrepreneur- you have to actualise technology platforms, actualise scale, actualise profit, actualise market share, actualise social impact. Measure it, talk about it and pass on the knowledge. Fully commit to being big, learn from mistakes along the way and understand that “success”, particularly financial success, is not a dirty word, it is a business and global economic imperative.
You’re the first woman to head up an organisation of this kind. What kind of advantage does being a woman bring to the role?
For me, my people and client-centred approach to business has resulted in significant financial upside for the company.
Being a woman I have been able to communicate and execute a vision for Censeo that is unlike anything our competitors are offering to our major Insurance and Government clients. My team are beyond excited to be part of something more than just writing engineers reports; we are trying to re-shape how engineers and loss adjustors operate by becoming an employer of choice, embracing technology, making kindness a cornerstone of our skill-base and reaching for diversity and agitation. Our new and existing clients love my vision too, in fact we have achieved a minimum increase of 27% and up to 43% growth in EBIT month on month since June; the numbers speak for themselves.
