Mark Cuddigan
Have a listen or read the transcript
Episode Information
This week Maggie and Hannah are joined by Mark Cuddigan, the CEO of Ella’s Kitchen, is the internationally known maker of organic baby and toddler food. Mark is a passionate advocate of business being used as a force for good and is a perfect example of how a business can be both profitable and purposeful. In part one, Mark shares when he realized that sustainability and using business as a force for good should be a priority and how Ella’s Kitchen continued to grow its market share during the pandemic.
About Mark Cuddigan:
Mark joined Ella’s Kitchen in August 2011, drawn to a company whose founding mission is to improve children’s lives through developing healthy relationships with food. This purpose permeated throughout the business and continues to be a guiding principle today.
Mark is a passionate advocate of business being used as a force for good and through his leadership at Ella’s, he exemplifies how a business can be both profitable and purposeful.
In February 2016 Ella’s Kitchen was certified as a B Corporation, becoming only the second company to do so whilst part of a PLC. The first being Ben & Jerry’s at Unilever.
Mark is a member of the B Lab board, a UK registered charity that supports certified B Corps in the UK – businesses that give equal standing to people, planet, and profit. A demonstrative example of this is that Ella’s have committed to becoming net-zero by 2030.
Read The Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome to Magnify Your Impact presented by Forbes Books. Each week our hosts, Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes talk with business leaders, powering their company success with a secret ingredient, purpose. Here's Maggie and Hannah.
Hannah Nokes (00:35):
Maggie and I are so happy to be joined this week by Mark Cuddigan, the CEO of Ella's Kitchen, the internationally known makers of organic baby and toddler food. Mark joined the company 10 years ago because he was inspired by Ella's mission to improve children's lives through developing healthy relationships with food.
Maggie Miller (00:54):
Mark is a passionate advocate of business being used as a force for good. And is a perfect example of how a business can be both profitable and purposeful. Mark, welcome to the podcast.
Mark Cuddigan (01:09):
Thank you for having me.
Maggie Miller (01:09):
Thank you.
Hannah Nokes (01:10):
Mark, good morning. We are so excited to have you as our first guest from the UK. And of course, to listen to your wonderfully distinct accent from across the pond. They say that time flies. So in August we know you celebrated your 10th anniversary at Ella's Kitchen, and we'd love for you to share some of your greatest takeaways from these years so far with Ella's Kitchen.
Mark Cuddigan (01:36):
Well, firstly, you make me sound really, really old with all the talk about anniversary in 10 years. But then unfortunately, I guess, I am quite old. That's a really, really broad question. And I could probably take up the whole podcast just answering that, what I've learned from the last 10 years at Ella's? I'm going to go with just one thing though, rather than like 10 different things.
Hannah Nokes (02:00):
Sure.
Mark Cuddigan (02:01):
I have learned that there is more to business than simply making money. That the very purpose of business cannot just be to make as much money as possible, in a public company's case, that would be for shareholders. It just doesn't make any sense at all. We expect governments to solve all the social and environmental issues that we have. And when we say governments, who do we mean? Who are these magical, mystical people that can solve all these complex issues?
Mark Cuddigan (02:33):
For example, like climate change. In the UK ... I'm obviously from the UK. In the UK's case, is it Boris Johnson? Is it the Cabinet? Is it the Conservative Party? Is it all MPs? And there's a great quote from Barack Obama, which I quote quite a lot. And he says, "We're the first generation of leaders who won't be able to look back and say, 'We didn't know.' So the only question is, what are we going to do about it?"
Mark Cuddigan (02:59):
So I would say that's the one thing that I've learned from the last 10 years is there is more to business than simply making money. And business has got to lead and can lead in this area. And I would also argue that CEOs now have a responsibility, which is outside of their direct companies.
Maggie Miller (03:18):
Mark, when you look back over these 10 years, where did the idea come from that business was about more than making money?
Mark Cuddigan (03:27):
Yeah, so there were two things I think that happened and they both happened around the same time. So I met Paul Lindley, who is the Ella's Kitchen founder. And he set Ella's Kitchen up with a mission at its heart. So you talked about it before, it's around children's health and nutrition. So there was more to the company than just making money. We were trying to positively impact, and still are, children's health in nutrition. So that was kind of the north star. So I met Paul and I was like, "Wow, this is strange. I actually just thought it was all about making money, I've got to be honest." And I've been in business all my life and we've already ascertained I'm quite old.
Mark Cuddigan (04:08):
So, there was that. And then at the same time, I read this story in a UK newspaper and it was about work that Microsoft had done in Bosnia. And I'll tell the story very quickly, but-
Maggie Miller (04:24):
Sure, sure.
Mark Cuddigan (04:24):
But if you imagine you're a refugee fleeing a war torn country. One of the first problems you face is food safety, security. Closely after that, believe it or not, is a loss of identity. And I imagine if I dropped you somewhere on the planet, you've got no identity, nothing, passport, cards, nothing at all. That loss of ID is a really, really powerful thing. And in 1999, 650,000 people left Bosnia over a long weekend, going into a camper, over a million people, fleeing the war over there.
Mark Cuddigan (04:55):
And there's a true story of three French Microsoft technicians having lunch in Paris and they were talking about this because it was in Le Monde newspaper. They were talking about this issue of the refugees not having any identification. And also of those 650,000 going into a camper of over a million, that many, many instances of families getting displaced from each other. Imagine if you've got children and you lose your children going over rocky terrain into this camp, how long before you see them again? Like- Maggie Miller (05:26):
Wow.
Mark Cuddigan (05:26):
Six months?
Maggie Miller (05:27):
Yeah.
Mark Cuddigan (05:27):
A year? You may never see them again. And they were talking about this at lunch. And one of them turned to the other two and said, "Well, so the United Nations high commission for refugees," he said, "Basically they need a program like software that's going to be been able to ... so they could track the migrants and match families up together and also give them instant identification." He was like, "Well, we're pretty good at this, aren't we?"
Mark Cuddigan (05:52):
So he went to his boss who went to his boss, it went all the way, believe it or not, to the Microsoft board in North America. Who said, "Fine, crack on, have a go. See if you can solve it." And Microsoft sent 30 technicians out to Bosnia and they solved the problem inside three months. And they came up with this ... they call it field sales kit, but it's basically a clever briefcase. Which you opened up, you could give people instant identification and then they could track people and match families up together.
Mark Cuddigan (06:19):
Now I read about this and I thought, "Wow, there's not a government on the planet that could have achieved what Microsoft achieves in that time. There probably isn't another company." And like I said before, why should we look to government to solve all of these issues? And it just really, really inspired me that a company could actually use their technical knowhow, their expertise, their creativity, whatever you like, for society's benefit. Not the whole time, but for a period. And the benefits are just huge, the UNHCR, they now use this and they have since it's conception. And it just really moved me, that story, and I just thought, "Wow." Something went off in my head and then I met Paul and I'm thinking, "Wow, there's another way. There's another way."
Hannah Nokes (07:08):
Mark, are you finding that more business leaders are starting to latch onto the idea of how they can use their products and services to make an impact? As opposed to maybe an older way of thinking, which might have been more about just philanthropic contributions, writing checks from any excess of profitability.
Mark Cuddigan (07:28):
I think so. And I think it's changing with the generation that's below me, who are coming into leadership positions, who are challenging the status quo. Millennials. I'd love to be a Millennial, I'm too old to be a Millennial. But for all the stick Millennials get about this me, me, me, I think Simon Sinek calls it this me, me, me mentality. I actually think they're going to change the world because they're demanding so much more from the companies that they work for, from the companies that they buy from.
Mark Cuddigan (07:58):
And it's really interesting, actually, during the pandemic, one of the things we did at Ella's is we asked everybody in the business to think about the three things they need to do every day to get fulfillment at work. And this is part of big drive, we talk about later around making Ella's as greater place to work as possible. And believe it or not, out of all of the people at Ella's, you could pick out two that I think pretty much every single person in the company put down. Number one is help someone else. And I don't think you can get fulfill at work if you're not helping other people. And the second one was make an impact. Pretty much every single person independently wrote those two down as their top three. So I do believe things will change, they need to change much faster than they are at the moment. I'm an optimist with these things.
Hannah Nokes (08:51):
Good. Can we talk about the pandemic for a moment? That time period has certainly threatened the baby food category because parents had more time at home and were cooking from scratch more. But Ella's Kitchen has continued to grow its market share in the UK for the 16th year in a row, that's incredible. And I read that every second of every day, baby or toddler somewhere in the world consumes an Ella's Kitchen product. Congratulations on your success during this difficult season. How has COVID 19 changed the perspective of the company going forward?
Mark Cuddigan (09:30):
I'm a big believer the company doesn't really exist. It's just a collection of ... as an entity, it doesn't really exist, does it? It's a collection of people. And I can talk about it from my perspective, I suppose. I think it's given us all this period of time for reflection, unless you were a key worker and you are on the front line. When, of course, you wouldn't have had that period of time for reflection. And for me personally, we talk about putting people, planet and profit on an equal footing. I would say that I'd now very much put people and planet ahead of profit. And I feel that if we get the people and the planet right, then the profit will follow.
Mark Cuddigan (10:14):
And I'll give you an example of this and I didn't really even think about this. So, the pandemic for me personally, and for Ella's started in absolute tragedy when my managing director died very suddenly on holiday.
Hannah Nokes (10:28):
Oh gosh.
Mark Cuddigan (10:28):
She was on holiday in America, Disneyland with her daughter and she died in her sleep and she wasn't even 50. And then two weeks later, we were in lockdown. So couldn't go to her funeral, we haven't been able to really get together as a team. So that was devastating and then we were hit with COVID and we were locked down. And the first few days of COVID were incredibly difficult for everyone and scary and over half the people at Ella's kitchen are parents. So trying to juggle homeschooling and work at the same time was incredibly difficult.
Mark Cuddigan (11:02):
So on, I think it was day two or day three of lockdown, got everybody together. And I said to them, "No matter how much work you are able to do, you will be paid in full. I want you to prioritize your children and any dependents that you have. They are the absolute priority. Work is not the priority. If you are able to do no work whatsoever, you will be paid. All you need to do is let your manager know."
Hannah Nokes (11:29):
Right.
Mark Cuddigan (11:29):
Because the stress around having to homeschool ... because in the early days, the schools weren't doing anything. Was just so intense on so many people. And we said, "For the duration of the pandemic, you'll get paid in full." So that's one of the things and it just felt like the right thing to do.
Mark Cuddigan (11:46):
And we also prioritized our charity partners. So we quickly realized that a lot of the food banks were going to run out of stock because all the food companies were supplying the supermarkets, because sales went through the roof and panic buying. And we prioritized our charity partners and gave over one million pouches away to them during the pandemic.
Maggie Miller (12:06):
Mark, we talk a lot about superpowers in our book and specifically about using superpowers to create impact as a company. How do you work with your team to empower them, to bring to life your purpose and values?
Mark Cuddigan (12:21):
Yeah, I love that, by the way, that you just mentioned superpower. Because something just came to my mind and this was just before the pandemic hit, actually. Speaking to everyone, I said, "There is a special reason why we employed you and why you work at Ella's Kitchen. And all of you have a superpower of some sort. I want you to write down and really think about your superpower and just talk to your friends, talk to your family, talk to your colleagues. But everybody, it could be passionate, could be persuasion, it could be ... whatever it is, write down your superpower." So everyone wrote down their superpower. Then I asked everybody, I said, "I want you to use your superpower to help somebody else in the business. Can be for whatever reason, just help them."
Mark Cuddigan (13:07):
And then we went a step further and we wrote everybody's superpower down on a link that everybody look at. And it was like, "If you need one of these superpowers, just go to these people." And it was hugely, hugely powerful. And-
Maggie Miller (13:20):
That's extraordinary.
Mark Cuddigan (13:21):
It's just these little things, aren't they? But just tying back to your original question. One of my biggest beliefs, strongest beliefs and things I'm most passionate about in business is, autonomy. By autonomy, I want everybody at Ella's Kitchen to have full autonomy. And when I talk about these things, I think people want two things, really, from work. And they're both based around pride. I think people want to have pride in the company that they work for and I think they want to be proud of the work that they do. And you can't be proud of the work that you do if it's not your work, if you're not actually making those decisions yourself.
Mark Cuddigan (13:59):
So it's just one of the things I'm just like super, super passionate about is ensuring that every single person at Ella's Kitchen is actively making their own decisions every single day. And there's lots we do around to make sure that it's embedded. But one of the things that I personally did three years ago, was I made a commitment to myself not to make another single decision in the company. And I said this back in the day when we used to be able to present, so it would've been ... everything's a couple of years ago now, isn't it?
Maggie Miller (14:31):
Yeah.
Mark Cuddigan (14:32):
So it would've been a couple of years ago and someone in the front row burst out laughing and I said,
"What's so funny?" And he said, "Well, what do you do all day?" And for me it seems really strange, this idea that a CEO should be making all of the decisions. I don't think a CEO should be making any of the decisions. If you're the head of marketing at Ella's Kitchen, you're in charge of marketing. I mean, I'll give you my thoughts and advice and support, but at the end of the day, you're in charge of marketing. And I want that to properly go through the whole business.
Mark Cuddigan (15:01):
And I think there's a great book by David Marquet called, Turn the Ship Around! It is one of the best business books I've ever read. And he talks about how he put autonomy through an American nuclear submarine. And he says, "If you do it properly, you will create a generation of leaders." And I think it's the main reason why when we promote, we almost always promote from within. Because people are ready to be promoted to the next level.
Hannah Nokes (15:30):
I read a quote by Simon Sinek this morning, "Leaders take the risk to trust first." And everything you're saying just resonates with that. Does that resonate for you?
Mark Cuddigan (15:43):
Yeah, Simon loves his little quotes, doesn't he? He likes putting them on LinkedIn.
Hannah Nokes (15:49):
Yes.
Mark Cuddigan (15:50):
Yeah, I think underpinning autonomy is competency and the clarity of what you're trying to achieve. But like I said before, don't make any decisions in the business. And when people have trust in you, when you properly give people trust, with the right direction, you can achieve the most incredible things.
Maggie Miller (16:13):
That's so true. Well, Mark, we have to stop right here. But coming up in the second part of our discussion with Mark Cuddigan, the CEO of Ella's Kitchen, Mark shares, what he thinks should be the overarching role of any chief executive in any company.
Mark Cuddigan (16:30):
The CEO's role and responsibility does not stop directly at their company. I think you now have a responsibility to lead and inspire other companies. So all the companies that you come into contact with, your suppliers, your partners, I think you have a responsibility to them, as well.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Magnify Your Impact, a production of Forbes Books. If you want to ignite purpose in your own company, connect with Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes at magnify-impact.com.
Part Two
Joe Pardavila:
Welcome to Magnify Your Impact, presented by ForbesBooks. Each week our hosts, Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes talk with business leaders, powering their company success with a secret ingredient, purpose. Here's Maggie and Hannah.
Hannah Nokes:
Welcome back to our conversation with Mark Cuddigan, the CEO of Ella's Kitchen, the internationally known makers of organic baby and toddler food.
Maggie Miller:
Mark, in part one you talked about how you crafted a strong sense of purpose and values and that you want Ella's Kitchen to be the greatest place to work for everybody. But how do you live out those layers of purpose and value? Do you revisit these things together as a team?
Mark Cuddigan:
Yes, we haven't changed them. So our mission is really very simply why we exist as a business. It is around children's health, nutrition. It is not around anything else. And values, I think for me personally, the best description of values are they describe how you behave internally with each other, and also externally with anybody you come into contact with. And put properly into a business, they can create this sort of family atmosphere and you reward the right behaviors, or you reward the behaviors that you perceive to be correct in a business. Nearly all businesses have values, and nearly all businesses, including ours, have the values written up on a wall, but very few actually really, really, truly live and breathe them. You could point to any scandal for the last 50 years, if you look at the emission scandal recently, the car emission scandals, if those companies were properly living their values, would those scandals have happened?
Mark Cuddigan:
If you look at Enron, the Enron scandal, and then Arthur Andersen, who shredded, was it 10 million documents in the Enron scandal? Would it surprise you if I told you that both of those companies, had their first value was integrity? Which is extraordinary that they both had the same one, but I don't think they really understood what integrity means. So it's all very well having values, but how do you actually live them? And we live and breathe them every day. Our bonus is rewarded against values. I mean, they are literally mentioned every day. So there are lots of different things you can properly do to embed values, but they have to be properly embedded, otherwise what's the point? They're almost worse. Don't have any if you're not going to live by them. And like a lot of these things, it comes from everybody. Everybody's responsible for them, it's not my responsibility. It's everybody in the company's responsibility.
Maggie Miller:
We call those in our book, "Words on a wall," and that they need to be revisited every so often. When Ella's Kitchen was acquired by the Hain Celestial Group of New York in 2013, how did you and your team make sure that your mission and your values would not be compromised?
Mark Cuddigan:
That's a good question. I think the first thing, and the most important thing, was getting the Hain Celestial team to understand why it was important and showing them the value of both our mission and our values. And it's definitely one of the things that I've been most proud of in my career. We were obviously a founder-led business before then, and Paul was part of the business. Well, he ran the business. We were bought by Hain Celestial, a big NASDAQ-listed company. And that was the biggest worry, what impact were they going to have on the company? And I would say the thing I'm most proud of is, since then, I think on every single measure, you would look at Ella's Kitchen, we've got stronger, we do more with regards to our mission, I think the values are more embedded. And actually, I would argue that rather than them changing us, we've changed them.
Maggie Miller:
Mark, what about leaders who want to bring a sense of purpose and impact into their businesses, but maybe getting pushback? What advice do you have for those leaders?
Mark Cuddigan:
I might be a bit controversial here, but I would say isn't that your role, I mean, literally? You talked about leaders, isn't that their role to lead and inspire to make an impact? And businesses should be run for all stakeholders. For shareholders, for sure, but also for all the other stakeholders. And I would ask them to think about what their nursing home moment's going to be, the end of your life, your sat in a nursing home and maybe you're 90-years-old. What are the things that you are going to be most proud of looking back at your career? What's going to mean the most to you? What is it that you will have done that will truly move you? Because I promise you it would not have been moving the share price from say 70 to 75 or to 80. It just won't have been.
Mark Cuddigan:
And I would say, a lot of us we talked about it before the pandemic, we had this opportunity and in the UK, we had the Clap For Carers and we had this community spirit and everyone was looking after themselves. And it's amazing. And it's actually in history, you look back that's what happens when crisis hit people start looking out for each other. I would say, capture that spirit and just think about, well, what, what do you want to do with your life? I would argue quite strongly, that is your job. And I would also argue that a CEO's role and responsibility does not stop directly at their company. I think you now have a responsibility to lead and inspire other companies. So all the companies that you come into contact with, your supplies, your partners, I think you have a responsibility to them as well.
Maggie Miller:
I love that. I love you mentioning the nursing home moment. My mom passed away this last weekend and we were sitting together and describing the book to someone just thinking about legacy, what do you want to be known for a hundred years from now? And, for her, it probably was her eight children surrounding her in those final moments. But I agree with you. I think you're not going to be thinking about the profit share driving up in that moment. And that's one of the biggest parts of the book is, what is your legacy and what do you want it to be?
Mark Cuddigan:
And when you look at a lot of... I'm sorry about your mom passing.
Maggie Miller:
Thank you.
Mark Cuddigan:
We need the good leaders to stand up, and really lead, because if we wait... If you look at the environmental issues and climate change that is happening now, if we wait for our governments around the world to legislate, it'll be too late. We know what we need to do, but we need the great leaders to stand up now and actually lead and inspire.
Hannah Nokes:
So in terms of how you're leading as a company in your industry or across all industries, can you talk about the B Corporation process for people who aren't familiar, what does that mean? And why was that important to you to pursue that for Ella's Kitchen?
Mark Cuddigan:
There are over 4,000 companies now around the world that have certified as a B Corp. And to certify as a B Corp, you have to pass the highest social and environmental standards. And then you have to commit to upholding these standards by changing your articles association. We have articles association in the UK. So it commits to it basically commits your company to the triple bottom line of putting people, planet and profit on an equal footing, forever. So it's a massive commitment and you then join simply incredible community of people and businesses who believe in the same thing, simply that we need to change the way we measure success in business, that's it. It has changed me, it has changed our company. I would say on any measure we're more successful now than before we certified.
Mark Cuddigan:
And for us, it hasn't stopped with certification. So there are just under 100 people at Ella's Kitchen. And I think we've got probably a million people that work in our supply chain, directly in our supply chain. And everything that I was talking about before, I think we have an opportunity and I would say responsibility to try and make those million people's lives better. And if we can persuade all of our partners to certify as B Corporations, the impact would be phenomenal. It'd be absolutely huge. And we've started doing that. So if you supply Ella's Kitchen with anything, you now have to fill out the B impact assessment, which is the assessment that you have to fill out if you want to be a B Corp. And we've had amazing success, absolutely amazing success.
Mark Cuddigan:
Our Spanish manufacturer certified last week as a B Corp it's taken them three years. They've made the most incredible changes. Their business is unrecognizable from three years ago. They do obvious things now, they harvest the rainwater from the roof. They've now got solar panels on the roof. They've changed the ethnic and gender makeup of their senior team, and also their board. They have put in a creche to enable young parents to return to work, so people will look after their kids so they can come back to work. I mean, they have transformed their whole business, and this is us influencing them to join us. And I think in two years time, over half of our suppliers will be B Corps, which is amazing.
Hannah Nokes:
So for the listener who is like, "Well, that sounds well and good, but we could never get there." Or, "Our investors would never go for that." What advice would you give them in terms of how to start and how to reap some of the rewards that you guys have seen from being so intentional about these actions?
Mark Cuddigan:
Well, I mean, the assessment itself is free and it's online. So you just go to, I think it's bcorporation.net or something like that, Google will put you in the right direction. And it's a free online assessment. You have to answer between 2 and 220 questions. And I liken it to, it's like a great lens through which look at your company and make your company better. You don't have to make any changes. You do none. But why would you not want to, when it's asking you questions? It'll ask you questions that you just simply would not have thought of. So in terms of... You don't have to take anybody with you, you could just do it yourself, but there are so many reasons. I said before, it's transformed our business. There are so many reasons to do it. There are very, very few why you shouldn't do it. And to shareholders, great companies that look after their staff, they're going to get better results. So I think it's a bit of a no brainer, to be honest.
Maggie Miller:
Alongside that I know that you guys have a pledge to act on climate change and be net zero by 2030. I was reading an interview you did. And you talked about collaboration as being key to this journey. You said, "I don't really believe in having competitors. We don't view anybody in our category as competitors. We don't treat them like competitors. We don't talk down to people," and how you've come together to try to get to this net zero goal. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Mark Cuddigan:
Yeah. We have committed to be net zero business by 2030. We've measured our entire carbon footprint, so scale one, two and three, and we've just put in science-based targets in place is how we're going to get there. It's going to be really, really difficult. So we're going to have to make some really difficult decisions. We have Meatski's, for example, what are we going to do about those? We have to reduce our carbon output by 52%. That's really difficult. And we don't make stuff ourselves. So we have manufacturers that produce our products for us. So we're going to have to go to them and persuade them. And it depends how big we are with them. And will we be able to persuade them?
Mark Cuddigan:
So we will get there, but it's going to be incredibly difficult. And then when you look at things like recycling, in UK, the recycling system is broken, and this is where we've collaborated with you would call them competitors. And you're right. I don't really see anybody as a competitor. I'm not trying to harm anyone else's business or leap frog any anyone else's business. We just concentrate on ourselves. But we're absolutely collaborating with anybody that will talk to us about how can we fix, for example, the recycling system in the UK and not just for our pouches, but for all products. And that's just the approach that we take.
Hannah Nokes:
Mark, you're a father of two girls. I have three little girls, so I can relate. What values do you hope your girls take away from the work you're doing at Ella's Kitchen and just the impact that you're leaving in the world?
Mark Cuddigan:
Well, they are 12 and 10. And my eldest, I don't know why, but she's become obsessed with money. And she's always talking about, "Well, what career can I do that's going to make the most money?" And I'm like, "No, no, this is like you're looking at the wrong way." Well, the answer to that is, "Work a bit harder, do your homework, go to bed on time. That would be a start." But I mean, it's funny when I pick them up from school sometimes, and I go on a bit of a rant about something. They look at each other and they go, "Daddy's just come straight from work. He's in work mode." So I'm kind of presenting to them.
Mark Cuddigan:
But I would like them to really understand that there is more to life than making money, that I would want them to do something, anything which gives them a purpose, makes a difference, gives them pride, and lastly, actual fulfillment. It took me quite a while to work these things out in myself. I think we all go on this journey, don't we? Obviously I've got a lot further to go as well, but it has taken me quite a long time. I'm 48 now, to really understand what makes me happy. Hopefully they'll listen to a few things that I tell them that might make them get there a little bit quicker than I did.
Maggie Miller:
Thank you for that, by the way, we're gen Xers as well. So you keep referring to yourself as older than us, but you're not. I know a danger territory here, but do I dare ask who your Premier League Football team is? That's soccer for the Americans that may be listening to the podcast.
Mark Cuddigan:
Yes, well, it's one of my four great passions in life and it's Arsenal Football Club. Since Arsené Wenger left after decades in charge, I've been kind of in deep decline and sulking rather at the moment, because we're not very good. It's not something you can change. I'm sure like American football, you have your team and you got to stick by them. But yes, it's Arsenal.
Maggie Miller:
Well, I relate to you because I'm a football club, Barcelona fan and we're in a little bit of despair ourselves. So hey, it is about building the next generation of young players. So I do relate to that. Well Mark, thank you so much for being with us today. You are an incredible leader and thank you for imparting you're wisdom with our listeners. We are just so appreciative of your time and showing people what it means to live in purpose inside your business.
Mark Cuddigan:
Well, thank you so much. I'm actually really humbled that you invited me on your podcast. So thank you very much for having me.
Maggie Miller:
You're very welcome. His name is Mark Cuddigan, the CEO of Ella's Kitchen. Find out more about his company and their mission at ellaskitchen.co.uk.
Hannah Nokes:
And that's it for another episode of Magnify Your Impact. If you enjoy the show, please make sure to take a second to subscribe so you can automatically get our new shows when they drop.
Maggie Miller:
Also, if you have a minute, we'd love if you left us a review, so more folks like you can discover the show. We'll see you next time.
Joe Pardavila:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Magnify Your Impact, a production of ForbesBooks. If you want to ignite purpose in your own company, connect with Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes at magnify-impact.com.
