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EY CFO Outlook: Mergers and transformation, with Ken Bowles, Smurfit Kappa
In the EY CFO Outlook podcast, Ken Bowles of Smurfit Kappa Group discusses the company's recent merger announcement and how he’s happy to be almost 30 years with the organisation.
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Next year, Ken Bowles will celebrate 30 years with the Smurfit Kappa Group. He started with the paper and packaging firm in June 1994 – the Monday after Ray Houghton had scored that famous goal against Italy in the World Cup in the Giant’s Stadium in New York.
Over the last three decades, the company has grown and evolved to become one of the world’s leading players in the sector. The announcement of a merger with U.S. firm WestRock looks set to see them expand even further. For Bowles, who describes Smurfit Kappa as ‘a small family of 47,000 people’ it’s an exciting time with that headcount expected to double when the merger closes next year.
In this episode of the EY CFO Podcast, Ken Bowles chats about his career journey from his first role as an Assistant Controller for Abrakebabra to his longstanding working relationship with Tony Smurfit. He discusses how sustainability is central to Smurfit Kappa– recycling 7 million tonnes of post-consumer waste so now the same box is reused 25 times – and why he feels companies have a responsibility to drive inclusivity by looking beyond postcodes and universities to source talent.
For your convenience, a full text transcript of this podcast is also available.
George Deegan: Welcome to the EY CFO Outlook Podcast. In this series, we feature some of Ireland's finance function leaders, sharing interesting perspectives on a range of topics, from driving growth in their business to leading major finance transformation. I'm George Deegan, a partner and sponsor of our CFO Agenda programme here at EY. In this podcast, we welcome Ken Bowles, CFO of Smurfit Kappa, up until recently, one of the world's biggest packaging companies. Now, following a merger with US rival WestRock, Smurfit WestRock will be the biggest company in its field. Jonathan, over to you.
Jonathan Healy: George, thank you very much. Ken Bowles of Smurfit Kappa, how are you?Ken Bowles: Slightly tired.
Jonathan Healy: I'd imagine you would be. We have to get to that first before we get to talk about you. It was the creation of the biggest company in the sector with the title Smurfit WestRock. How long has that been in gestation? What does it mean?
Ken Bowles: It's been a, I suppose, a four-year courtship and eight-month kind of more intense courtship. WestRock is a fantastic company. We sort of remind each other of each other in that sense in the marketplace, commercially, innovatively, journey wise. And look, it's like everything, we have a beautiful franchise in Smurfit Kappa. We could continue on as Smurfit Kappa forever. But myself, Tony, the management team, that was never going to be the summit of our ambitions. So, when the opportunity to kind of merge with Westrock came around, it was just too good to ignore. I mean, the chance to be as a, you know, as a small Irish company that began in Rathmines in 1934 to become the global player in sustainable packaging - Europe, North America, and Latin America – it was just too good an opportunity to miss. And I suppose look it, if our history tells us anything, we every now and again we do big transformational acquisitions and I'm kind of hoping this is the last one because this one's really tired me out.
Jonathan Healy: Never say never. Just in terms of revenue from when you joined to where you are now, just on your journey alone, how has it changed.
Ken Bowles: Without taking credit for the growth...
Jonathan Healy: Others were involved.
Ken Bowles: Absolutely. Back in 94, I think when I joined, revenue was about 2 billion and EBITDA was about 235 million. Last year for Smurfit Kappa, I think we had revenues of about 12 billion and EBITDA of 2.4 billion. Smurfit Westrock will be 34 billion of revenues and 5.5 billion of EBITDA. So small change.
Jonathan Healy: Ever so slightly, but an incredible journey for an Irish company to be on, when you think about it. We'll get to you joining in just a minute and the beginning of your Smurfit journey. Tell us about your background. When did you decide accountancy is for me?
Ken Bowles: I'm not sure. I'm not sure any accountant ever decides it for them, I think it's put upon them because they can't do anything else. I suppose in school I probably felt I had an aptitude for maths in a certain way. I liked numbers. I could kind of connect them, you know, not in a kind of John Nash Beautiful Mind kind of way, but it sort of you could see stuff. And so, I enjoyed accounting in Moyle Park College where I went to school. And Johnny Roebuck was a great teacher. So, I suppose from there it was kind of either chemistry or accounting. And, and ultimately when it came down to it, you know, more stable career maybe in accounting than chemistry at that point. So it went that way, and I went to the College of Commerce in Rathmines and did CMA.
Jonathan Healy: There's less chance of blowing something up in accountancy than chemistry (Ken: you’d be surprised!) But when you were working to support yourself in college, because you were saying that you had to take on work, what did you do, and did it teach you anything?
Ken Bowles: Absolutely. I mean, in my last year at college, it was my first job as well at the same time, I was the assistant controller in Abrakebabra. And because the College of Commerce was in Rathmines and the head office of Abrakebabra was around the corner, so above the shop itself. So that was, I mean that's the first time you sort of learn that you’ve got to kind of juggle everything. But I was never going to be in a situation where I could have just gone through college without working. That was never going to be the case. And even when I left college, I didn't necessarily have a job afterwards. When I left Abra I did a number of things, including at one point packing curtain poles in a factory while waiting for a job. So, I mean, listen, work has never been the issue. I like to keep active, but eventually I kind of found my way into…into the organisation I am now.
Jonathan Healy: And you joined Smurfit, I think, in 1994. How do you remember specifically the year that you joined, other than the fact it's on your CV?
Ken Bowles: Absolutely. My mother reminds me every year, she always texts me on my anniversary. I think she's always happy I got a stable job in the end. Quite simply, on the 18th of June, as most people remember, Ray Houghton scored a goal in Giant Stadium in New York in the World Cup that year. So, on the Monday morning, still, to my amazement, I turned up sober in Clonskeagh to start my first day of my journey in Smurfit, what was then Jefferson Smurfit Group.
Jonathan Healy: Did you have a choice at that point? And was the world your oyster?
Ken Bowles: It wasn't, but I did have two competing offers. And if you remember back in the mid 90s, tech and computers was everything. And I suppose the segway was I'd been in Abrakebabra for a while. I moved down the food chain to Carton Brothers, which was Manor Farm chickens and Tropicana Orange juice, was there for a few months. And then I started you know, at that point in your career, you're looking for more experience, do something else. And so, two roles came up. One in Jefferson Smurfit Group as a Treasury accountant, as it was, and Gateway 2000, which was a computer company which most people won't have heard of because it's gone a long time.
Jonathan Healy: It was big at the time.
Ken Bowles: It was big at the time. I remember the reception they had kind of, you know, cow pattern floor mats everywhere. It was very kind of exotic. I did both interviews. I went home. A courier came to the door of my house, which was very different for those days, with a contract from Gateway 2000 to sign. And I still to this day don't know why I didn't, but I kind of went, actually, you know what I'm going to hold out for the other one. And then I went for it. I hadn't even been offered the job in Jefferson Smurfit group, but I went for a third interview and my boss at the time, John Mitchell, who became my boss, said to me: ‘You know what? It really came down to you and a fella who'd been on Know Your Sport. So, you just about squeaked through.’ That was it.
Jonathan Healy: You had no celebrity claim to fame at that point? (Ken: No, I didn't!) Numbers are, they're straightforward. You can see them. You can trust them. You can work with them. When you worked in those different jobs in your early career, working in Abrakebabra, then working with chickens, then working with boxes, effectively. What did you take from that? What did young Ken learn in those early days that still stands to you today?
Ken Bowles: It’s…it’s ultimately numbers are fine, they become a story and that that kind of progresses as you go through because they're only the starting point. But ultimately, and I think it goes back to very early days, it really all is about people, right? So, no matter what you do and we're an organisation now of about 47,000 people, and with WestRock about 100,000 people, but ultimately, it can only ever be about people. And I think if you lose that connection through numbers or story or whatever it might be, if you forget the people within that, you lose your way fairly quickly. You know, it's you're not an island, you are part of a team. And the reality is you've got to bring everybody with you. But that doesn't mean burning them along the way or trampling on them. But the numbers are only the output. People are the input.
Jonathan Healy: We'll come back to that in a little while. When you were taken into Smurfit and given the opportunity to grow, because it was an opportunity, how did you manage the fact that the company was growing quite fast when you were there? And a lot of responsibility was given on the shoulders of a man who probably wished that The Question of Sport guy might have gotten in?
Ken Bowles: Ah…at times. But the brilliant thing about Jefferson Smurfit Group or Smurfit Kappa or will be Smurfit WestRock - the last time we'll put the three together - we’ll just call it Smurfit from now on for time. It's never been a place where, you know, opportunity lacked. If you were willing to put yourself out there, willing to be the kind of person who stood up, it was given to you. Youth was never an issue. Age was never an issue. The assumption was, you know, you were hired because you've got a skill level and because we like you here, so off you go. So, like when I talk about that first job, when I walked in as treasury accountant, I think within a week we'd started working on the acquisition of Cellulose du Pin. At the time, we didn't actually have a formalised cash flow in place. And because I worked in treasury someone said, well, you go off and design a cash flow. And I did. I've no idea if it was right or wrong, but still the one we use today as it happens. So, it may still be right or wrong, but it became the basis of how we look at cash flows in the group. So that was that was sort of how it happened. And the same thing in 2002 with the go private, you know, we were brought into a room and, you know, this is what's going to happen, Madison Dearborn will take us out, we'll go private and, you know, we need people to go to London and do the due diligence. And so, my boss at the time, Ian, said, ‘we'd like it to be you’. And I said, ‘well, why me?’ And he said, ‘well, you're numerate, literate, and you can say no.’ And you're dispensable because you're still single, right? So, you're okay to go! And that's been the pattern of all the roles. I mean, when you look at my career, it’s either a kind of a list of well-structured role to role, to role, to role, or it's really hard to hit a moving target. So, you know, just keep moving around and getting experience.
Jonathan Healy: Good and all as that young man was, dispensable and all as he may have been, he would have made mistakes along the way. And those mistakes probably weighed very heavily on your shoulders at the time. But how is it that you stayed? How is it that you learn from them? How is it that you're now sitting opposite me as the CFO?
Ken Bowles: Yeah, well, in Carton Brothers I deleted the entire general ledger system.
Jonathan Healy: Okay, that's not good.
Ken Bowles: That's not good. No. So that led to me sitting down and reposting invoices over a two-day period to get it back up and running. So, you know, so you're never the fully formed figure ever and mistakes always happen. I think. I think, you know, you're formed in the fire of the bad stuff. You're never formed in the fire of the successes because they're really simple. It's when…it's when the times are tough that you kind of really find out, well, actually, what am I made of here and how you…how you react to it, how you come back from it, how you grow from it. Because I suppose as you get more senior, the mistakes are more visible because, you know, as a junior you're probably in a team of 20. You make a mistake; it gets covered up by somebody else or fixed and you move on. And but I think it's resilience and its sort of, you know, it's a kind of a skill set that sort of you begin to see lacking in people coming up. You know that idea that you're allowed to make mistakes, you know, you are allowed to make mistakes and you can come back from them, that idea of not making a mistake is very dangerous because it stops people being either ambitious or out there. But I have to say, the general ledger one was a bad one. Um.
Jonathan Healy: I can still see you cringing. Ever so slightly.
Ken Bowles: In my defence, it was a Dos menu. I went back one root directory too far; it could happen to anybody. And in Smurfit Kappa, we also make mistakes, you know. But I think it's about do you have a supportive team around you and, and do you have a supportive leader in that sense?
Jonathan Healy: And I was going to ask you, you've worked with a lot of leaders over the years, Tony Smurfit now is your boss and has just led that merger with WestRock. What makes a good leader? Of those that you've worked with, and there's been a few, what stands out for you as being the key thing that says, I will follow that person into the fire?
Ken Bowles: Absolutely. It's a great question and it changes from leader to leader. And sometimes it's about a point in time or where the organisation is at. You know, if I look back to the CFO roles and myself and my predecessor probably do our job in very different ways. We're close friends. But Ian would say, I'm a wartime general. That's what I like. I'm a different kind of CFO. In Tony and indeed in Gary, in Tony's dad, Michael, who I had the pleasure of working for as well, in those CEOs, and Paddy Wright, it's really people. I think myself and Tony work quite well, he might have a different perspective on it, but I think we work quite well because it's someone once described us as the best double act in packaging. Um, you know, Tony's an incredibly personable person. When he walks into a factory, the place lights up and he lights up the people. And it's very obvious. I'm, I'm a functioning introvert at most, but, and so we work well together and we balance each other out a bit. But it really is I mean, it's, you know, Tony, did an interview on CNBC a while ago and he talked about it and what the impact that has in an organisation here need to talk about them in those kinds of terms is important. And it's one of those things, I've always described as Smurfit Kappa as a small family of 47,000 people. And that that sounds kind of silly, but when you've been around nearly 30 years like I have, we sort of know each other. A lot of us have grown up together and I'm not atypical. So, it becomes like a family. I spent more time in the group than not in the group in that sense.
Jonathan Healy: And that in some ways might be a challenge because there's a possibility that you may end up, Well, I'm a little insulated here. I've forgotten what life is like outside of the family, and some might see that as an inhibitor. You don't?
Ken Bowles: I don't, because but you've got to seek the outside, like in a sense you've got to make sure that you're, you know, you can't be. It's not quite institutionalised, but I probably would have got out of prison for two murders at this stage. But it's a wonderful place to be. The idea that you're not getting the experience presupposes that the place has stayed the same and it hasn't. The Smurfit Kappa I joined back in ‘94 is a fundamentally different place than the one I'm in now, for many, many reasons. But we've managed to kind of to keep the thread of the soul of the place all the way through. And that's because you've got to work hard at that. Culture can be lost in a heartbeat, and we've changed a lot over the years. But I suppose, look, I keep in touch with people on the outside and I enjoy sitting down with people and kind of, you know, just hearing about their experiences and what they're doing. I'm very conscious sometimes that I have been a long time in the same company. And at times along that journey you kind of go, maybe I should do something else or go somewhere else. And then at every point in time something else has come up for me to do, including when I lived overseas and came back and all those little things, you know, kind of just put you back on the path. No, no, no. You're in the right place here, this is the right place for you.
Jonathan Healy: People along the way took a punt on you. They put faith in you. And how has that resulted in you being a leader that you've seen the opportunities that were presented to you? The young lad who came in from Abrakebabra with a qualification in his back pocket, who had deleted the entire ledger, that didn't come up in interview, I'm presuming, but how has that formed you as a leader?
Ken Bowles: And the first I think the first non-chartered accountant to be hired by the Smurfit group in Dublin. And which is interesting because I'm CMA, my predecessor was CMA, and Gary was ACCA so clearly, we're doing okay in the CFO stakes. But it's I think it's the same thing, right. So, I see my role as CFO as kind of on one level it's spinning plates. You got to keep everything going and keep it all moving because there's a lot of moving parts. But, you know, I work with a lot of incredibly skilled people and my role is to give them the guardrails to operate within. I'm not there to do their job because that's their job. Nobody ever did my job coming up. They have all the latitude they need, but they know exactly where I am. And because we talk a lot and spend a lot of time together, they know where the line is, too. So, whether it's whether it's Irene, who's the Group Controller or Ken, who's the Head of Tax or Emer, who's the Group Treasurer or Garrett, Head of Sustainability, or Kieran in IR, there's a little voice in their head goes that, okay, now I need to talk to Ken. So, you've got to give people latitude to grow and a constant kind of checking in and kind of making sure they're okay and then, what are you doing there? That doesn't work for me. And to be fair, that's exactly what Tony does with me. You know, Tony, Tony understands, balance sheets, that's your thing. I'm not going to interfere with that. We have quite an open, quite flat structure. You know, it's not hierarchical. I'm still the 23-year-old who joined, to some people, still that eejit at the Christmas party, all those things are still there but that really works in the context of of where we are. I mean, sometimes it kind of plays against you, and I think of one person looking for career advice and he said to me, ‘well, if someone like you can can get to where you are, I should be okay.’ And well, it doesn't really work like that, there's a bit of hard work involved.
Jonathan Healy: Not sure if that was a compliment. We’ll take it as one.
Ken Bowles: Well, he's not in the organisation anymore, so I'm not sure how well that went. But it's guardrails, understanding the lines, but giving people their head because people, you know, and some people take that and they're the ones who succeed.
Jonathan Healy: You're 48,000 staff and you're not only the CFO, you're also the gender lead. It would have been easy to give that to someone else. Why did you take it on?
Ken Bowles: I have three sisters who would kill me if I didn't, and my wife equally would, I suppose look, there's a there's a kind of there's a simple answer, which is gender is quite an important board topic and we have external targets on it. And the bigger answer is actually, you know, it's part of the inequity you see in large industrial organisations. And listen, you know, being honest about it was Smurfit Kappa, a place where I'd want my sister, my mother, my wife to work 25 years ago? No, you know, no toilets on the floor. You know, maybe not as clean and pristine as they are now. So, it's about, gender is part of it, but it's about building an organisation that's wrapped around inclusivity at its heart, diversity at its heart, but also putting the infrastructure around to do that. So, you know, the factory today, whether it's because of automation or something else, are fundamentally easier places for either gender to work or any gender to work, probably more correctly way to put it. So I take it quite personally and we have a couple of programs we started internally around what we call Rise, which are taking very young female leaders throughout the organisation and just giving them that first step, and not they're not kind of white collar, they're white, blue, it doesn't matter the kind of country you're in, it's just about the step.
Jonathan Healy: When you are dealing in so many different countries, you're coming in with a good moral purpose there as gender lead, is it harder to do it in other countries than here? Can you communicate what you want to communicate to all the different languages and all the different people?
Ken Bowles: You can because you're not trying to, you're not trying to culturally change what people are or where they live. You're trying to blend the culture. Equally we could be silly trying to impose an Irish culture throughout the organisation. That's not going to work. What works is the kind of the blend of the heart and soul of what we have here with the countries we operate in. But you keep the message simple. Like the reality is if you make a message complex, it gets lost on everybody. And it's about making sure it's really simple. It's no different. You know what? It's no different, Jonathan, from the stock market or anything else. It's…people grab on to simple messages and kind of go with it. If you make it complex, they'll just switch off.
Jonathan Healy: You're going to have a hundred thousand people at the end of this merger. So therefore, you've an even bigger challenge when it comes to integration. And I don't know what WestRock's policies are, and perhaps you're only finding out what they are now as well. But when you're trying to build that culture, are you going to hit blocks from time to time?
Ken Bowles: You've got to fight hard for, you really do have to, I mean, it wasn't an easy journey necessarily within Smurfit either. You know, there was…there was blocks along the way. There were countries where you might get more resistance than others. And indeed, at times, even in the head office, you know, just fighting for what's right here. But you sort of have to stand back and think about the kind of organisation that you want to be and actually the kind of person you want to be, right. So, I have still got to go home and look at my kids and Elaine and the eyes and say, I did good today and I'm happy with how I went. And that's real in a sense, you know? So, you could easily go, okay, that's not going to work and move away. Or do you know what…and maybe it's just a slight pig-headedness in me, it’s no, no, we'll just bulldoze through this thing for the right answer. And sometimes that's accommodation and sometimes it's compromise. And sometimes it's just saying, actually, no, we're not doing it that way. This is how it's going to happen. And you can either come with us or find somewhere else.
Jonathan Healy: The problem for most employers is that the talent landscape is challenging right now to try and find the best people to come in, to convince them that your business is better than another business. If you imagine a young Ken Bowles picking between Smurfit Kappa as it was at the time, or Jefferson Smurfit and Gateway 2000, there are, you know, 20-year-olds, 21-year-olds, making that very decision today. So, does that form the basis of your policies when it comes to diversity, inclusion, gender?
Ken Bowles: Yes. And I think it's important to sort of realise too, that the young Ken Bowles probably was, you know, not necessarily the heartland of where CFOs come from. Like I was born in Ballyfermot, grew up in Clondalkin. So not many FTSE 100 CFOs are of that kind of background and landscape. But I was I was lucky in many, many ways that like, as you say, people took a punt on me. But I think it sort of informs my thinking around everything, which is we can sometimes kind of badge ourselves into where we think talent comes from, you know, certain postcodes, certain universities, certain colleges. It's just incorrect. And, you know, we need to be better at broadening out the talent agenda to make sure that talent exists everywhere. You know, I grew up with many, many talented people who probably didn't get the chance or opportunity I did for many, many reasons. And, you know, I'm sort of half determined to make sure that that doesn't happen again. And I know there's people like me around Dublin doing exactly the same thing. I can think of someone who I consider a close friend who in exactly the same thing in one of the big four accounting firms who's just been made managing partner and he has exactly the same mindset as me, which is, you know, we either change this game or all we do is end up in a in a kind of a silo of the same people all the time. And it's even things like, you watch in this country and like a lot of time in Austria, Germany with our people, where engineering is seen as a real valuable skill set. And sometimes you take those kinds of skills and sort of devalue them slightly against the university education. We got to get better at just recognising talent, promoting it and sort of bringing it through. Robin Williams had a great quote, which is, you know, it's not about picking people up when they fall down. It's making sure they don't fall down in the first place. And we kind of saw a lot of that during covid where, you know, particularly in home schooling in less advantaged areas than, you know, others, where kids didn't have a laptop to go to school. And I worry about that generation coming through and the impact on them from just a social perspective, but a mental health perspective, where is their chance to shine if they've kind of been isolated from all of these opportunities for years? So, it's about a lot of the stuff we do through our foundations or personally is kind of can we get to those communities, and can we find talent and bring it through? Because you're right, the talent landscape is hard. It's hot globally, and we see ourselves as a good employer. You know, it's a sustainable organisation. It feeds right in the heartland of what people want. How can we bring that talent through? I think it's a responsibility as much as anything else.
Jonathan Healy: You talked about sustainability, big change in your time there for how we approached your industry. You use a precious commodity, trees, in what you do and amongst other things that you do. How do you go about ensuring that the legacy of the company, when you hand it over, whenever you hand it over to the next generation, is a good one?
Ken Bowles: I think the world has suddenly woken up to packaging actually being sustainable. I think it's more or less the other way around. We've always been sustainable. I think the reality is if I go back to the mid 90s when I started, we were lobbying to stop waste packaging being burned rather than recycled in the European Union. So, so thankfully those battles are won. But I think the simple way is, look, we plant more trees than we take up at a simple level. But remember, what we do is we take 7 million tonnes of post-consumer waste. So, all the stuff that arrives at your door from Amazon and other providers and we recycle that, now we see the same box 25 times.
Jonathan Healy: 25 times.
Ken Bowles: 25 times, which, you know, it used to be 9, used to be 10, used to be 15.
Jonathan Healy: That's better than tap water in London.
Ken Bowles: Absolutely. And better for your health as well. But we have a life cycle now that says, you know, ultimately, we take post-consumer waste, we make packaging dreams out of it and if you give it back to us, we can do that 25 times. So, in a world where, you know, people think about recyclability, renewability and biodegradability, the reality is our product will return to nature with no impact. And we're certain of the impact when we take it from nature and give it back, which is, you know, net zero impact, which is the big difference with other industries where we, you know, we know the challenge for plastic, and we know the challenge for other industries. So, what we try to do as an organisation is find our place within that conversation that says, actually, we can't replace everything. You know, plastic has a place but where it doesn't have a place or can be replaced, and if fibre-based packaging, that's not just paper but moulded pulp and things like that, it should take its place because it's better for the environment. And that's sort of the battle we have with Europe at the moment too, around the packaging and packaging waste regulations and their desire to reuse packaging. But it's part of the conversation because reusing packaging means creating more plastic crates with more CO2, more CO2 through cleaning and supply chain. So, it's sometimes through the noise of, yes, we take up trees and that's one part of it, but we do plant more. But also, you know, what actually is the CO2 output from the net position of plastic versus paper and paper ultimately, and it always sort of goes back to it. paper degrades quicker than a leaf on the ground. And so, our product will have a net zero impact on the environment overall. And so, the legacy is if you think about, legacy is a heavy word, but our purpose in Smurfit Kappa is to create, protect and care. And fundamentally, that's the environment at the heart of it.
Jonathan Healy: 29 years in, 30 years next year. And at what point will you say, I've done it now, I've ticked all the boxes. I can say that I have ridden this horse to the end of the road.
Ken Bowles: I don't know, and I'll pardon the pun on 'tick all the boxes'. I don't know because I'm never entirely sure I've got there. Like, you know, I suppose it's…there's always a small level of imposter syndrome in me, which is, you know, at some point I think Tony's going to walk in and say, okay, you've had your time, we found you out, now off you go. So, I think there's a there's a kind of an inherent drive to kind of keep going and that can only happen with the support of many people around, not least, you know, Elaine and Jack and Adam. So, I don't know, I'm 52, but I feel 25 or even younger most days. But I look at my parents and my dad is 83, 84. My mother is 78. They're young in their mind. So, I you know, I'll keep going as long as long as Tony and the board actually, and the people around me will have me…then I'll stay. I think I always think about a very simple way, which is, you know, there's a driveway in Clonskeagh, and the morning I go up that driveway and I'm not feeling it or I don't feel like I can do something for the people around me, then I'll go and do something else because they deserve a leader who's going to be there for them, not somebody who's going to tread water and just kind of do it. And I suppose that that's sort of it. I'm not sure if I left Smurfit Kappa, I'm not sure who'd have me at this stage. I'm massively institutionalised. But, you know, it's a funny place. Yes, I've been in there 30 years, but every day feels like a new day because of the amount of change you try and get through. And look, it sounds silly, but it's a place I love and with people I love.
Jonathan Healy: Rapid fire round time, if we can. No tricky questions, but just to get a little sense...
Ken Bowles: I've had a lot from investors and banks over the last week, so I'd appreciate no tricky questions!
Jonathan Healy: These will be easier, much easier, I can assure you. Are you Apple or Android?
Ken Bowles: Apple.
Jonathan Healy: Books or e-reader.
Ken Bowles: Oh, books.
Jonathan Healy: Cash or contactless?
Ken Bowles: About 50/50.
Jonathan Healy: Really? You still use cash?
Ken Bowles: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Jonathan Healy: Soccer or rugby?
Ken Bowles: Play soccer, watch rugby, but cycling above all else.
Jonathan Healy: Cycling above all else. What's the best advice you would give your 18-year-old self?
Ken Bowles: Would you ever relax? Really, you know, sort of...
Jonathan Healy: You're only 25 in your own mind, probably still take that advice.
Ken Bowles: And it's probably still the advice I give my 52-year-old self and probably also to my 18-year-old self. I'd say, you know what? What other people think of you is none of your business. You know, be yourself.
Jonathan Healy: If you were not a CFO, what do you think you would be doing?
Ken Bowles: I'd be running a small, independent record shop, refusing to sell records to people who didn't deserve them, like John Cusack and Jack Black in High Fidelity. So, I think that's where I'd end up.
Jonathan Healy: It's a noble living.
Ken Bowles: Absolutely. I still walk into Spindizzy and I'm really jealous of the guys behind the counter.
Jonathan Healy: And finally, when you retire, because it will happen one day Ken, what legacy do you think you will have left?
Ken Bowles: Oh, legacy is a heavy word. I'd leave legacy to other people. I think I'd like people to think about, you know, that I listened to them, I heard them, supported them. I was there for them and that we had a bit of a laugh along the way.
Jonathan Healy: You've had eight months of putting together this super deal resulting in a 34 billion revenue company. Is it going to get easier from now on, do you think?
Ken Bowles: No, it gets more exciting, I think, between now and actual closing is - actual closing will be next June when we go for the shareholder vote and everything else. And then the fun really starts. I think the fun really starts with trying to put together two very successful large organisations and create one culture, one team globally. So no, not expecting any easier time soon. Still expecting a lot of late nights, a lot of early mornings, but actually that's the exciting piece.
Jonathan Healy: It strikes me as a terrifying job. You look like you're going to enjoy it.
Ken Bowles: Oh, I'm like an iceberg, right. It all happens beneath the surface. My life is really simple, and I keep it really simple. And my wife, Elaine, if I ever get to a place where I get stressed, we just go for a walk. I talk, she listens and that's it.
Jonathan Healy: Ken Bowles, CFO of Smurfit WestRock, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. Thanks, Jonathan. And that is it for this episode of the CFO podcast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you on the next one.
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