Cohort - Andrew Thomis

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Capital at risk. This should not be construed as investment advice.

Victoria Stevens: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Victoria Stevens and welcome to this podcast Stock Exchanges In my day job, working as a fund manager at Lion Trust, investing on behalf of our clients in UK stock market listed companies. I'm fortunate enough to cross paths with some of Britain's most. Firing entrepreneurs. It's a huge privilege to sit across the table from the people who have put their heart and soul into growing and running companies.

And in this series, I want to share that privilege with you, our listeners. Today's guest is Andy Thomas, the Chief Executive of Cohort, a defense technology group listed on London's alternative investment market. Andy started his defense career at the UK MOD, before subsequently moving into a strategy role.

At the armored vehicle manufacturer, Alvis PLC, in the late 1990s, and it was there that Andy first worked with cohort co-founder Nick Press, then the chairman and chief executive of Alvis. Fast forward a few years to [00:01:00] 2004 and Alvis was acquired by UK Defense Giant, BAE Systems. And it was that move that left Andy and Nick free to work on setting up cohort alongside co-founder Stan Carter.

The aim was to build a group of defense focused advanced technology businesses, benefiting from the agility and responsiveness of smaller subsidiary companies, while enjoying the stability and scale of a broader group umbrella. Today the cohort group comprises seven businesses catering to defense customers at home in the UK and abroad, and its array of products and services range from counter drone protection systems and naval sonar sensors through to conducting an annual training simulation of a large scale incident and military response by the UK joint forces.

It is a particularly relevant juncture to welcome Andy onto the podcast with the geopolitical backdrop, increasingly turbulent and defense budgets of countries around the world being ramped up [00:02:00] in response. Andy, thank you so much for agreeing to join me today.

Andrew Thomis: My pleasure.

Victoria Stevens: So I think we'll start where I always do, which is going right the way back to the beginning of your career and understanding a little bit about how you came to get into the industry of defense.

So did you always know you wanted to work in a defense company? What led you to that initial MOD role?

Andrew Thomis: Back in the 1980s I was very interested in technology. I was inspired by such wonderful inventions as the Sinclair ZX 81 computer amongst other things, and I decided that was the career for me.

So I, I did a degree in electrical and electronic engineering. And at that time it was very tense time geopolitically. The Berlin Woolworth. Still standing. The inner German border was very tense. And a lot of technology that was finding its way into consumer society was first developed for defense purposes rather the other way around than it is today.

For example mobile phones I. The new kind of digital cameras. All of these things were actually developed [00:03:00] originally for defense purposes and then found their way into the civil world. And it seemed to me that defense was a very interesting place to go technologically.

And as I graduated, the Ministry of Defense had just introduced a new fast stream scheme for technologists promising accelerated promotion and very interesting jobs, and taking into account the really interesting technology that was coming outta the Ministry of Defense's research establishments at the time, that was very appealing to me, and that's what brought me into it in the first place.

Victoria Stevens: That's so interesting and we'll definitely get back into how technology has advanced in your years in the career later on in the podcast. So you've covered a little bit about what it was like to get into, or what drove you into the MOD, but obviously, there's probably quite a big difference between working in that public sector role and working in the private sector where you had done after you left.

So tell us a little bit about the different challenges and opportunities that you saw comparing the two.

Andrew Thomis: My time in the Ministry of Defense was, IM immensely valuable to me and very stimulating in many ways. [00:04:00] At first, I was working on some really very interesting technology in the defense world, but I moved on into roles in project management and ultimately in the private office of the defense procurement minister.

So I learned a lot about. Technology. I learned a lot about the way that defense works and the way that technology is used. I learned a lot about UK defense policy thinking, and I also learned that I don't like working in large bureaucracies. And that's why it was in the in the mid 1990s I decided to leave and moved actually initially into capita management consultancy, which was quite an education coming from.

The public sector into a professional services organization with the pace and the imperatives that involves before moving on to Elvis, as you mentioned in your introduction, Victoria.

Victoria Stevens: Yeah, absolutely. And in Elvis, that was the first time where, if you like, the cohort group of individuals who've been behind the success of the business ever since first came together.

I think I'm right in saying that Simon your finance director now [00:05:00] also worked in a role at Elvis, it, can you tell us a bit about how you came to start working together, what the experience of that was like, but also the different challenges and benefits to working with that same group of individuals for a long period of time?

Andrew Thomis: Yes. And that's right. I was recruited by Nick Press. And joined Alvis in 19, early 1997 roughly at the same time as Simon Walter who came in as financial controller at at that point. And for me it was a great experience. The ethos of the Alvis business was very much around building a group of businesses, each of which had some real strengths and run on a pretty independent basis as well.

So we had a small headquarters team. And we looked to bring in the best management for each of those businesses and make sure that they were well motivated. And in, in turn they were very successful in what was at times a difficult market. But in times in times a very good market as well.

And over the period that we were there. We succeeded in bringing together the large [00:06:00] majority of the UK's armored vehicle businesses, as well as overseas businesses in Sweden and South Africa as well. Before the business was eventually acquired by BAE Systems in, I think it was 2004. And over that time we got to know each other very well.

We realized that we had similar instincts in business terms, I think and it was, I think it's fair to say a powerful combination, especially led by Nick, who was a great chairman and chief executive. And so after the BA Systems acquisition I was certainly thinking about what my next step would be in terms of career.

And Nick approached me and said, would I be interested in working with him on something new? Perhaps founding a new business. And I was very keen to take up that challenge and that's what resulted in this eventually getting together with Stanley, who brought his own fantastic experiences as well as the business SCS, which became the seed from which cohort grew.

Victoria Stevens: Yeah. So Stanley's business SCS was acquired into the group effectively at the time it was founded and floated [00:07:00] all at the same time. Wasn't it? So what was the vision when you set out I skimmed it in my introduction, but it'd be great to hear in your own words, Andy, what you saw as being the advantage of creating this group where the individual businesses can really thrive under that group umbrella.

Andrew Thomis: Yeah. I have to say that the vision has evolved if visions can evolve over time. But at that time it was just when kinetic which had previously been the government's defense research laboratories had been privatized and was just coming to the market and its IPO managed by Carlisle.

And so we saw that as a natural opportunity for offering competitive services to Kinetic, which was no longer. An in-house provider for government. So we saw providing defense technology based advice and services into the uk, MOD as being an area ripe for new competition. And we had the concept of putting together a multi-business group of small to medium sized.

Agile businesses [00:08:00] providing those kind of services because we felt that would be a good way of competing with a large, complex organization like Kinetic, which just wouldn't be able to move as fast. Now over time, that vision evolved for a number of reasons. One was, one was essentially the businesses that were available for us to acquire, to build the group.

And there weren't that many that were operating in, in the pure advisory services area. Another was the arrival of austerity in 2010, which resulted in the MOD cutting off a lot of its external advisory services. And a third was our. Realization that actually providing technology and products was likely to be much more scalable than simply providing services and also offered a way into a much wider market for defense exports as, as well as just domestic sales as well.

So over time that vision matured into what it is now. But throughout that. Common theme was the idea that small to medium sized businesses [00:09:00] given a good degree of operational autonomy and given the support and backing of a strong headquarters in terms of financial support and also mentoring and understanding and providing additional support that, that was needed was a very good model for operating in this marketplace.

Victoria Stevens: And how much power do you then devolve down to the. Management teams of the individual businesses. Has that evolved over the time that you've been founded? You've been established?

Andrew Thomis: Yes. Gradually we've got a fairly well honed model of delegations in terms of financial authority, in terms of decision making authority.

That essentially means that the management teams of the individual businesses are responsible for a lot of the day-to-day management. And beyond that, we have an ethos where unless there's a very good reason to we don't second guess management decisions of our teams. Instead we aim to bring in and appoint the best people that we can and give them the support that they need, and that's proved successful for us [00:10:00] by and large.

Victoria Stevens: Yeah, absolutely. And the wider group umbrella, of course, helps you to mitigate those inevitably, quite lumpy contracts that then come outta the industry, don't they? Not only do they give you an advantage when it comes to procurement because you're a group with greater scale but they also help to smooth out those large orders.

It's, defense is fantastic in a sense because you get those that very long term visibility. Often the contracts are, multi-year. Even over stretching out to over a decade in length. But of course when they come in, can be quite difficult ultimately to predict.

Andrew Thomis: Yeah that's certainly right.

The metaphor that's always been used is as a multi cylinder engine, and perhaps not all the cylinders are firing at once. Now. Now we've recently grown to seven businesses. That's stretching the metaphor a little as I've not come across a seven cylinder engine yet, but you can get the idea.

And, yeah, I think defense is very much like that. We do get large long-term contracts. Certainly over, over recent years there's been quite a number of those. But they also have a [00:11:00] certain rhythm to them with a strong start to expenditure as products are developed and go into production and then perhaps a slower tail over a period of time.

And so having multiple ones of those in different areas does help to smooth out the overall running of the business.

Victoria Stevens: Yeah, absolutely. And I mentioned in my introduction, you've referenced it a couple of times, you've now got seven businesses under the group banner. And it would take us the remainder of the time that we have today to describe in detail what each of those businesses does and their particular competitive differentiation.

But I think it would be really helpful for listeners who are unfamiliar with the group to just bring it to life a little bit by giving a few examples. I. Skimmed it again in my introduction, but give a few examples, Andy, if you don't mind, of the types of products that the group or services that the group is providing and where those individual businesses and their ability to be agile and flexible and innovative can really bring that element of.

Competitive differentiation.

Andrew Thomis: Yes, of course. One good example would be something called the the crate [00:12:00] array. Now that's Crate with a K, so a CS snake rather than a wooden box. And that does look rather like a CS snake. It's a long tube about hose pipe diameter about 50 meters long, which is pulled behind a submarine or a surface ship.

And acts as a very sensitive sensor to detect submarines. Or un unmanned underwater vessels under the surface. Now it's not an entirely new idea. These things have been around for quite a long time but on much, much larger scale, often weighing many tons and only suitable to be used on a very large vessel.

These can be pools by an unmanned vessel themselves, either on the surface or underwater, or by a very small manned naval vessels. And that brings a new, very capable anti-submarine. Capability to NAS that operate only smaller vessels or to be used with quite significant numbers because these are relatively inexpensive of unmanned vessels providing potentially area defense against the submarine threat.

I. And a way of detecting threats against [00:13:00] underwater infrastructure which is becoming increasingly important at the moment. So that's a good example of the kind of innovation that we're involved in. Another would be our satellite communications terminals for use on naval ships. And now these are produced by the business that we acquired recently, EM Solutions.

Based in Brisbane, in Australia and compared to the competition they're much, much more able to stay locked onto a satellite. Of course, satellites don't move that much, but ships certainly do on rough seas. And maintaining that high bandwidth, reliable digital, secure communication over long distances is something that we can provide that others can't.

Victoria Stevens: At the fantastic examples, Andy. Thank you. I want to just pick up very quickly there on the idea of this ownership of intellectual property and the advantage that brings to the individual businesses. We, in our investment process, when we are investing day-to-day in companies, IEP, the ownership of IP is something that we prize very highly within that investment process.

But I think that when we look at different industries. [00:14:00] The approach to protecting IP can be very different. So would you agree that yours is a business where the legal protection of intellectual property is actually, quite a challenge because of the potential for it to then be stolen by bad actors?

And is it's something which you would see as being much more of a kind of know-how type argument.

Andrew Thomis: Very much we do have a lot of intellectual property as a group. It's that innovation and those new ideas and solutions that are the lifeblood of our success and why we are successful with so many customers, both domestically and overseas, but protecting that intellectual property.

Property is primarily a matter of secrecy rather than patents or legal protections. The problem of course, with patents being that it makes public the nature of the invention. And if for example you are out at sea on a ship and you encounter a hostile ship, brandishing some similar technology to your own phoning a patent lawyer is not going to be your best method of protection.

So absolutely, you're quite right.

Victoria Stevens: [00:15:00] Interesting. Thank you. And I'll take us in a slightly different direction now if that's okay. I wanted to explore that initial decision to list the business full stop and list the business on the AIM market in particular. I suppose the first question there would be quite an open question, why did you feel as a team that having a public listing for the business was desirable?

Andrew Thomis: We had in mind certainly a buy and build strategy to create the kind of multi-business group that I've described. And to do that we clearly needed a source of finance and we were very lucky to have Nick as the prospective chairman then of the group who came with a very strong record of delivery enlisted companies and very strong contacts, not just in the defense world, but also in the city of London.

We did have options and we looked. Both at the possibility of a listing on AIM and potentially looking at private equity backing as well. But what we wanted to do was to create something meaningful and lasting which, we saw as potentially taking really quite a long time. [00:16:00] And so when we looked at the options that of a public listing with investors who had a similar long-term outlook looked to us like the best approach.

People talk about the city of London having a very short term outlook, but here we are almost 20 years later with quite a few of the same investors who came in at that IPO still very much on our books. And it has worked out well for us on that front. The benefits of AIM as we saw it, and as I, I think I, I see it now were having that long-term relationship.

With investors but also the reputational benefits that having a listing bring in terms of an expectation of professionalism, of good financial backing of sound management that are really very important to customers, particularly with a new business. You with an a. The two unknown name like cohort.

The price of that, of course that one has to pay is the the regulation, the transparency and so on that public markets require. And I think on balance over the period of time, that's been a price well [00:17:00] worth paying. Although I have to say at the time of the IPO we did feel.

At times, like a sort of goldfish in a piranha pool of of lawyers and accountants. But overall I'd say it's worked out well for us and I'm not sure it would've worked out as well with a private equity backing. That's

Victoria Stevens: really interesting. And did you ever, I suppose it harks back to what we were just talking about in terms of the challenge of making your intellectual property public, but do you ever find that there's.

An inherent challenge in the degree of transparency that's required from a publicly quoted business, given the industry that you are in.

Andrew Thomis: Yes, there, there is. We are under strict requirements of confidentiality from our customers in, in, in many cases. But it's never been impossible to square that with the requirements of transparency on markets which aren't generally focused on financial transparency.

And that's something that we can do, even if we can't say very precisely what it is we're actually doing for our customers.

Victoria Stevens: Absolutely. And one, one challenge, which I'm sure. You've [00:18:00] experienced in the past, but perhaps has shifted quite materially over the last couple of years, is this whole topic of ESG, environmental social governance factors to consider for investors.

And I think it's very interesting personally, how. The perception of what constitutes good from an ESG perspective has been fundamentally reshaped by initially Russia's invasion of u the Ukraine. We were never investors that necessarily believe one industry good, one, industry bad. There are definitely, you need to delve a lot fur lot further into the matters at hand than that.

But do have you experienced a fundamental shift in the perception of. Your business as a company operating in the defense sector as a result of that that catalyzing moment.

Andrew Thomis: Certainly we've seen a welcome and strong voice from government and elsewhere about the desirability of having a strong defense industry.

From my [00:19:00] personal perspective I think the sea change that we've seen in the market and the demand tailwinds has arisen more directly from the, otherwise very unwelcome changes in the geopolitical situation than they have from a change in perspectives. On ESG. I think there definitely has been a change in perspective on ESG and on DEI as well.

I think I think that some of the initial research by McKinsey that, suggested for example, that diversity was a cause of good business success, has been called strongly into question. And one, one doesn't have to look too far offshore to see certain other influences that are changing perspectives on these matters.

What I would say is that there have been, and there still are banks, which decline to provide services to uk. Defense businesses and at the same time are quite happy to provide services to overseas governments, which themselves are. [00:20:00] Quite cruel and repressive. And if you wanted to find an example of an unethical business, you might perhaps focus on that rather than on defense businesses.

But for the record I do think it is possible to run a business that is generating defense equipment and technology in an ethical way and with integrity. And I believe that is a highly desirable thing to do. And I believe it's very important to be able to provide defense technology and equipment that protects the UK and its allies,

Victoria Stevens: and that is supported by the government's own industrial strategy.

Defense, one of the areas that's been identified as a key kind of. Pillar for the growth agenda looking forward,

Andrew Thomis: In Indeed, which is gratifying to see. And we have a strategic defense review which I hope we'll see the light of day in the coming months, and it'll be very interesting to see the proposals that are put forward there.

But I think there's a recognition, and there was by the last government too, that defense industry is an integral part of UK defense [00:21:00] capability.

Victoria Stevens: Andy, if we move on to the broader backdrop, I know our listeners. As I am, will be inevitably unsettled by what's going on in the geopolitical backdrop.

And it's, I think it's really hard not to feel like. We're all living a bit at the precipice in terms of that geopolitical instability in multiple areas of the world. You've obviously got Russia, Ukraine, Chinese aggression has been a theme for many years. You've got the conflict in the Middle East.

It's now being, of course, compounded by a potential schism in the near century old Western Defense Alliance between the US and Europe. In your opinion, you've been working in this industry for almost four decades now. Have we ever experienced such an elevated and complex threat before?

Andrew Thomis: Since the Second World War, we've seen many moments of high tension the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. We've seen the Vietnam War, the Korean War we've [00:22:00] seen a Cuban missile crisis. We. We've seen the the rather scary able archer incident in 1983.

But we are indeed facing I think an unusually tense moment. Perhaps the best comparator to it is the period around the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the early 1980s which ultimately led to the fall of the USSR and a period of relative, at least tranquility. I'm afraid I'm not.

Quite so optimistic that history is going to repeat itself this time. And yes, we are facing a moment of great instability.

Victoria Stevens: And in terms of what that's meant for your industry, we've clearly already seen a much greater commitment on behalf of multiple countries around the world Europe most, most notably probably to a greater level of defense spending.

Do you see that? And does your board see that as a. Sustainable step change in the mentality around protecting our own nations?

Andrew Thomis: I think my perspective on this is that yes, we're [00:23:00] seeing a, we're seeing a step change. We're seeing a real acceleration in defense expenditure. Part of that is focused on the live conflict in Ukraine.

But part of that is a longer term response to what are clearly sea changes in the geopolitical situation. It's hard to predict the future but just looking at Ukraine even if the current efforts to bring about a ceasefire, I. Are successful and I sincerely hope they are. What we're going to see really over the long term is a long contested border with a buildup of forces on either side.

And that's on its own is likely to result in a long term trend for greater defense spending. In Europe, we see a similar pattern in Asia. Where Chinese investment in its own armed forces, particularly its Navy, is driving a response from neighboring countries and even quite distant countries in Asia Pacific.

So I do see this as a long-term trend. Yes, I.

Victoria Stevens: Interesting. And how good do you feel that we, as the UK are and indeed the whole of the [00:24:00] European continent at nurturing the kind of early stage investment innovation and scaling up businesses that's going to be required in order to fulfill our pledge of safety, if you like, in that unstable geopolitical environment.

Andrew Thomis: Well, historically, the UK has been fantastic at developing new, innovative and really effective defense technologies, generally just too late to have any kind of deterrent effect. Now. Can we bring about a situation where we are looking at developing those technologies in advance of having to use them in conflict ideally to deter such a conflict?

That's a question that I'm sure the Strategic Defense Review is looking hard at. I. Historically that's been something that's very difficult to achieve. The seed for it all, of course, is government funding, or at least the promise of government funding because that is what will unlock the private funding through debt and equity.

But it's historically been a very. Difficult objective to achieve for [00:25:00] all sorts of complicated bureaucratic reasons and for reasons of conflicts of objectives across government. Now perhaps the new Strategic Defense Review will find a way of cutting across that. I certainly hope so. I think it would be a very valuable thing if it could.

Victoria Stevens: And in a sense, I suppose that very instability, that very uncertainty in the backdrop potentially makes that a lot more politically palatable to be increasing budget for defense funding.

Andrew Thomis: Yeah, I think there is a much greater realization. In society, certainly in the uk where it always has been quite strong, but also beyond Europe and in places where perhaps that hasn't been the case.

That having strong defenses means a lot more than having some impressive uniforms and vehicles to run in front of the, presidential residents or the royal palace on important days. Even when the military is not being used, the fact of its capability provides very strong deterrence.

It is [00:26:00] weakness that invites conflict, not strength. In today's world, strength is important and it's something that we need to build if we want to deter future conflicts. Yeah.

Victoria Stevens: Fascinating stuff. And in terms of the role of technology, we've talked about your role at the head of a group of innovative defense technology businesses, but in terms of how the advancements in technology over your career have helped to reshape the industry and how they might play directly into that.

That capability, that, that strength that you talked about before, can you talk to us a little bit about how that technological backdrop has evolved and what as being the various opportunities and threats coming from the advances in technology as we look forward?

Andrew Thomis: That's a very big question. A as I mentioned early on in the podcast we've seen an evolution from technology being developed in the defense world and some of that leaking out into the civil world to exactly the opposite situation where the driver of [00:27:00] technology is the huge investments that are going into artificial intelligence.

Electric vehicles, social media and the internet and some of those suddenly being recognized as fitting well into the defense world, I think has always been true. That as technologies evolve, and become available human beings have had a great propensity to finding ways to use them to kill each other.

And this works of course, both ways. Particularly insurgent groups and terrorist groups have been very capable of picking up on new technologies and using those in very destructive ways. And those whose responsibility it is to defend us. Have to be able to counter those uses and also in turn find uses of technology to make them strong, where otherwise they might have weaknesses.

And one example of that would be the increasing use of un crewed. And autonomous systems. Now where in Western democracies highly trained manpower in the military is a really scarce resource. And so using those systems enables us to use the manpower that [00:28:00] we have and multiply its effectiveness.

Technologies like artificial intelligence have a lot to offer in defense. Unfortunately used by the unscrupulous because they're widely available. They also have the propensity to potentially target non-competent in, in a really unwelcome sort of way, but using artificial intelligence carefully and can also enable us to increase the effectiveness of a relatively small number of highly trained people and bring us new ways of finding very precise mechanisms to to identify and to target hostile forces. That's one good example of the way that technology is evolving in defense.

Victoria Stevens: Yeah and how advanced? We've all probably read and watched frankly, quite terrifying content in terms of the. The potential for those technologies to be used by bad actors in ways which are very destructive to humanity. But how advanced is the use of those AI driven autonomous web weapon [00:29:00] systems and autonomous systems at this point in time?

Are we still in the development phase or have we moved far beyond that and we're. We're actually, they're in the real world already. It's just a question of how effectively they can be regulated and how effectively safety protocols can be put around them to protect us.

Andrew Thomis: Autonomous weapon systems in a sense have been around really for a long time.

When the pilot of a combat aircraft fires a heat seeking missile, he doesn't have any control over it. It's autonomous in the sense that it has to seek it, its target and its software will take it there. So it's not an entirely new development in that sense.

And artificial intelligence is indeed already being used in the defense world. I can pick an example from our own technology. We use AI techniques in systems that are designed. I. To track and target drones in complex environments. For example, when they go behind partial obstructions like trees, walls, and so on, to be able to predict where they're going to come up and to be able to track them.

And similarly to be able to identify. Different types of [00:30:00] drones and to discriminate between drones and birds and other small flying objects that uses artificial intelligence, which is a very effective way of doing so compared to a man who would have to sit there 24 hours staring at it, potentially getting rather tired having to stop for lunch breaks and so on.

Yes, it's already in use. I think moving from where we are. Onto more ambitious uses. There are some limitations to that which I won't go into in great detail. But it's perhaps, anyone using chat GPT and being impressed by what a fantastic Conjuring trigger is shouldn't perhaps be taken too far down.

The line of using generative AI for defense purposes, I think that perhaps has some way to go.

Victoria Stevens: Yeah. And forgive me there, Andy, for some. Somewhat sloppy use of terminology there. I suppose I had in my mind the use of ai, not just to identify threats, but also as an offensive as an offensive weapon.

I remember listening to this, as I say frankly, terrifying lecture, where [00:31:00] they described a world in which. Characteristics of certain populations could be described to an AI driven weapon system so that those individuals could be targeted on mass, for example. So I suppose that was where I was coming from in terms of whether or not, or how indeed those dangers can be carefully contained or governments can attempt to contain them.

Andrew Thomis: Yes. It it's an interesting idea. And I think I've come across similar I ideas one point is that there isn't much that can be done by ai that couldn't be done by people with equally evil intent. So it's not a unique problem in that sense. Of course it's a scale,

At

Victoria Stevens: which it

Andrew Thomis: can be done, isn't it?

Yeah. And. It will require careful thought as to what the limits of the use of this kind of technology are. AI is certainly not the only technology that could have those kind of effects. There are certainly biological and [00:32:00] genetic techniques that are being developed that could have really quite terrifying effects.

Regulating those ensuring that we do, if we are going to use them, do so in a responsible way is important, but also being aware that others may not do that others may use them in an irresponsible and very dangerous way is, and being able to protect against that, it is equally important.

Fundamentally, though, at the end of the day, it is people that create and use weapons and not the weapons themselves. And not the technology itself. That is the evil that we need to guard against here. And we should also be ca be careful about bringing in perhaps too early and without sufficient, careful thought restrictions that might.

Prevent us developing things that could defend against that kind of threat.

Victoria Stevens: Absolutely. And of course there are substantial benefits as well. As you've outlined, you can derive much greater efficiency and cost savings if you like, from your existing estate. But also in terms of your forward looking technological development, if you [00:33:00] can automate potentially dangerous roles, that can be a real saving, to, to human safety in that sense enhance performance of existing systems that you've described. So we mustn't lose sight of the benefits of it while we're trying to protect ourselves against the threats.

Andrew Thomis: No, that's absolutely right. And of course where we're talking about cost savings here, we're not just talking about someone in the treasury thinking.

Thanks. That's great. What it means is that for a given budget, you can have much, much greater effect a much greater deterrent and defensive effect.

Victoria Stevens: Yeah, absolutely. Andy, we've covered some really wide ranging subjects there. I'd like to just delve for a moment, if I may, before we finish into your own personal background.

I think that's always a really interesting journey to go on with entrepreneurs that I speak to. I think for you in particular, you obviously work in a company, in an industry that clearly has the power to, to shape the world around you, but. And obviously for that reason has the potential to be very rewarding, but it can also surely be a world with tremendously high pressure and stress.

So it'd be great to understand a little bit about how you shutter that in your personal life, [00:34:00] how you manage to get away from it, to remain, on a even keel if you like.

Andrew Thomis: Jobs in this sector can be stressful. Jobs in the business world generally can be stressful, and they're not just stressful for me.

They affect my colleagues just as much as well. And I think it's important to set the right tone. To be able to focus on the next thing and objectives rather than dwelling unhelpfully on potential negative consequences is a good. Antidote to stress. And I think having a little bit of humor and a little bit of enjoyment in work is another important antidote to stress.

And I think hard work in itself is actually a pretty good antidote to stress. But I've got no panacea for those things. And being able having a stable family life, I think is a very important counter to a stressful job. And I'm I'm lucky enough to have that as well.

Victoria Stevens: Wise words. Indeed. So I have one final question for you today at Andy, which is, [00:35:00] what would you say if I gave you the opportunity to exchange places with any other person in any other career, just for a day, who would that be and why? What fascinates you? What, where do you perhaps wonder what life is like on the other side?

Andrew Thomis: My father was a great enthusiast for music. In fact, he was a great musician himself, and I love music myself. But I think I would have to admit that I don't have the creative spark. I would love to be somebody who could write a symphony and capture all of the complexity and detail of that symphony.

A symphony and hone it to perfection. I think if I was to have a musical career, it's more likely I would be conducting an orchestra rather than be the the be the peak of creative skill. But that would be lovely to me. I'd love to have a career in the, in, in the creative sector.

Victoria Stevens: That's fascinating.

We've had so many really interesting responses to that question. We definitely not had that one before. So thanks so much for that. And thank you very much for joining me today. They were really fascinating insights into the intricate [00:36:00] workings of the defense industry and in such an uncertain period for for the globe, what's required to step up to the challenge of keeping us all safe.

So thank you very much, Andy. And for our listeners, please do repost and subscribe via Spotify, apple, or your usual podcast provider. And as always, please remember that nothing in this podcast should be construed as investment advice or a solicitation to purchase securities in any company or investment product mentioned.

See you all next time.