- What inspired you to join KORG, and what kept you motivated to stay for so many years?
My career in the music industry started with Yamaha where I stayed for 28 years covering various roles from retail manager of their Yamaha Pulse store in central London through to director of the Pro Music division.
I think I first came across Korg when I was still working at Yamaha Music Pulse, and I was lucky enough to visit the Frankfurt Messe in 1988 for the first time. I found myself in the Korg demo room, watching an incredible Italian demonstrator called Mikaela, who was wearing a cloak onstage and performing on the Korg M1!! The M1 sounded amazing (I could write about all the sounds as they were so inspiring) and I went straight back and convinced my boss into allowing me to get a Korg account at the Yamaha store! Enter John Steven, Korg sales manager, complete with donuts for the team, and we started selling Korg product. We would purchase 25 M1’s at a time and sell them in a week – it was amazing!
Fast forward to 2014 and my departure from Yamaha was brought about by some internal reorganisation, and I was delighted to find myself at Korg UK some weeks later. A complete contrast to what I had been used to and it’s been the extraordinary people and products that have made my ten years at Korg literally fly by.
- Can you share some of the most significant changes that you witnessed in the company and the industry during your tenure?
Like any distributor, Korg UK has needed to adapt to differing requirements from both our retail partners and our brand customers as well as to a challenging business environment. That’s meant developing more in-house capability, outsourcing our logistics and service operations to specialists and embedding a ‘customer first’ culture across the company.
I’m proud of our staff and how we’ve pivoted from a traditional B2B company to include D2C and to be service led.
- How has your leadership style evolved over the years?
The key to success, in my opinion, is to build a professional team who share the same ideology whilst still feeling comfortable to argue their point – we have a great team and I want them all to feel responsible and to take ownership of their areas of expertise.
- What trends do you foresee shaping the future of our industry in the next 5-10 years?
The UK shot itself in the foot with Brexit and this has contributed to the financial difficulties the UK faces today. It continues to be harder for both retailers and distributors to make a reasonable profit in this climate. The UK has always had a love affair with online, more so than our European neighbours and this adds to the challenges that traditional brick and mortar retailers face every day.
- What advice would you give to the next generation of leaders in MI?
Our MI industry will continue to change, but we have to cut through the noise and promote the personal power and self-esteem that comes from learning to play a musical instrument – playing at any level. Sitting at a keyboard, strumming a guitar or playing the drums is so good for the soul and we need that more than ever. We have to promote that against the instant gratification of online gaming etc!
- Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in your career?
I wish I had learnt to speak Japanese! I think my Japanese colleagues would have appreciated that and having spent 38 working for Japanese manufacturers, I find it embarrassing that I never managed to converse with them in their native language.
- What legacy do you hope to leave behind in the company?
Our Korg values, which we strive to attain and I’m also leaving a great new MD in the form or Richard Ashby!
- What are your plans and aspirations for retirement?
My daughter is just expecting her second baby, so my wife and I are going to pretty busy in supporting her. I have been running a charity called Spice – Special People on Ice www.spiceskating.org for over 20 years. We teach children and young people with additional needs to ice skate and play ice hockey. Our teams have visited the USA and Canada in the past, but I want to research whether we could invite teams from overseas to a tournament hosted in the UK in 2028.
I also enjoy flying around the south of England in my little Cessna 172 and want to fly off into the sunset!
