Summary
Evan Davis sits down with Richard Walker the Executive Chairman of Iceland foods a company founded by his father. Richard started at Iceland Foods in 2012 from the bottom up working as a shelf stacker at the start.
A qualified chartered surveyor he is an entrepreneur in his own right having set-up a property business, Bywater Properties, of which he is still chairman.
A fan of physical challenges he’s climbed Everest and was running his first London Marathon this year when he collapsed less than two miles from the finish line and says ice saved his life.
Evan asks about the key personal and business-related decisions that got him to where he is today.
A Long Form Audio Production for BBC Radio 4.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.9 | Hello, welcome to the decisions that made me a leader. |
| 0:12.3 | It's our spin-off series from the bottom line team, a series of business interviews. |
| 0:17.3 | I'm talking to entrepreneurs focusing on the decisions, key decisions that got them to |
| 0:22.8 | where they are today. I'm Evan Davis and with me today is Richard Walker, Executive Chairman |
| 0:28.7 | of Iceland Foods. He's the son of Malcolm Walker, the original founder of Iceland, so come |
| 0:35.1 | from an entrepreneurial family. Richard started at the company in |
| 0:39.3 | 2012, from the bottom up in fact, working as a shelf stacker at the start. But he does have an |
| 0:45.8 | entrepreneurial career in his own right. He qualified as a chartered surveyor and set up a property |
| 0:51.2 | business in Poland and has set up one in the UK too, |
| 0:55.0 | buy water properties of which she is still chairman to this day. |
| 0:59.0 | Richard, welcome. |
| 1:01.0 | Now, we start these conversations with a recent decision. |
| 1:04.0 | We always start at the end. |
| 1:06.0 | And there is a particular decision that I just have to talk to you about. |
| 1:09.0 | It actually made the national |
| 1:11.0 | papers, which is the decisions around your political career, because you wanted to be a |
| 1:17.0 | conservative candidate. I did. And the decision I want to focus on is you saying, actually, |
| 1:21.6 | I don't want to be a conservative candidate. Or did the conservatives say, we don't want you to be a |
| 1:26.5 | candidate? It's absolutely correct. They didn't want me. And I did think that given my background and experience |
| 1:32.6 | and enthusiasm, they would welcome me with open arms. But it wasn't meant to be. And it was a very |
| 1:39.4 | strange alternative planet, which I'm certainly not used to. In business, things are straightforward |
... |
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