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- [00:00]
A
I find with a lot of teams when you arrive is they've already had great ideas but some reason they've not been able to execute that. So it's kind of how do I unlock that, how do I help them to execute on these great ideas? This is David Turner. He's the CTO quietly transforming Virgin Active into one of the most data driven wellness brands in the world. Before this, he helped lead the UK's national digital response during COVID Now he's focused on solving one of the hardest problems in business. How do you build products people actually use and stick with virginactive. The mission really is to actually help people to stay healthy, to stay fit. It's mentally strong. Certainly something that gets me out of bed on the morning.
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B
You were part of NHS, did you join during the COVID I did. What's the first three months like?
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A
A. It was, it was 247 working. There was no Saturday and Sunday day off. It was constantly working around the clock.
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B
There is a graduate right now graduating from the university and they want to have the career that you had. What is your advice then? I have. So David is very good to see you.
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A
Good to see you.
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B
Thanks a lot for coming.
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A
Thank you.
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B
I'm incredibly excited to do this discussion together like before, before coming into the. For the episode we started speaking about improving the UK's engineering and so on. Like if, if, if the government is watching or if, if, if someone from a position of power is watching. What is your advice for the UK for the improvement of engineering? You have spent so many years into this area, so what would you advise people? Where should they invest? Where should they spend their time?
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A
Sure, yeah. I mean it's a great question because it's key to a lot of things that we're trying to do for the future. For me, engineering, software engineering, the mechanical engineering, me coming from the software engineering background, I think we've always tried in the UK to try and mirror what you see in San Francisco is Silicon Valley. But I think the real key is to try and find niche, but then try to get the talent from the universities, bring them in, invest in the talent early, stay relevant to industry, to the company's organizations as well.
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B
Where does this stem from? Why the industry imitation from Silicon Valley?
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A
I think it's just seen as being, you know, from a software engineering perspective, it's always been kind of cool, hip to look at what's going on over there and they seem to be working particularly at Pace Agile and let's be honest, most large tech organizations kind of have their roots there. So he's trying to kind of mimic that success in some respects. But I think that kind of has gone and it's now more about looking at the kind of niche areas. You know, obviously with AI there's lots of areas down in the AI space that you could look to kind of become more niche. But also feeding that into to universities because get the talent early, the curious minds, people working on things that are relevant. I think a lot of universities still are very academic and focus on kind of textbook. I think it's much more useful to get them engaged. Things like hackathons with organizations get them actually trying to solve real world problems early as part of the degree course rather than waiting till they actually finish the course and then throw into the kind of. The kind of real world of commerce. So that would be one thing I think as well, investment. It does need a large amount of capital investment and I think the kind of government needs to kind of recognize that it doesn't come for free. And usually that will be the citizens and organizations that will have to kind of stump up the funds to do it. I also like kind of twists around encouraging more women into technology. I think that's been a focus in this country certainly for the last couple of years and it's great to see that and I think we're starting to see the fruits of that and along with that continue as well. My daughter, she's a mechanical engineer and she's recently started with Mercedes Petronas AMG F1 team. It's great. And again that's a great example and actually explore. I mean I've been a F1 fan myself, but not really gone down to the depths now my daughter's in it, so I get a little bit more interested now and it's great to see the investment there. In the Midlands, they're based in Barackley. Audi I think are going to open a campus in Bicester and all that kind of area there you've got McLaren and there's a huge investment.
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B
I think this has been happening for many years. Right. Do we know where this stems from?
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A
Well, I think motorsport in the uk, not at scale, not like large automotive, but like motorsport is always UK has always kind of led the way there in engineering and I think it's continuing and I think universities play a part there in kind of making sure we've got the right talent coming out who can actually take part and actually have relevant skills, hit the ground running. But it's always been and we've got great you know, we've got Silverstone F1, which I think has grown in strength. I remember going to see Michael Schumacher race there and I think at one point they would talk about canning Silverstone as a kind of venue. I think there's been huge investment there and it's, I think this year, I think over the weekend is like 400,000 people attended. So it's the biggest sporting event in the UK and you know, so some people, it's a car racing or a track, but this I get fascinated by. By the data. Yeah. And the techniques. It's not just about the driver. I mean the drivers tenths of milliseconds separate them, but it's about the strategies, the tire changing, the engineering behind it.
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B
You know, on that I think there is a big parallel with exercising because there is so many of the cycling brands that actually using a lot of the data measurement from Formula one and they shutting them down and they make them like, what's the tire pressure, what's the speed of the vehicle and so on, and they miniaturize the technology, moving them to cyclists and then cyclists know a lot more information. So from, from a data perspective, how do you see, like, what do you see the measuring in, in F1? What's what and what do they do with that information?
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A
Well, I mean I'm personally I'm, I'm a fan rather than an expert in this area, but I know that a lot of the telemetry data is, no matter where the race is, flows back to the locations in the UK and you have the teams there all kind of focusing on stations, adjusting, making adjustments to try and you know, squeeze out those tens of milliseconds to, to kind of get.
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B
So this is during, during the, during
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A
the race, it's real time data. So in my mind it's kind of bit like NASA and on a launch mission it's kind of that you've got a big operational center with screens, every other kind of workstation working on that little area and, and just fine tuning, fine tuning just to find that tenth of a second saving, which can mean the difference between in these days it could be first and fifth place potentially. So it's very interesting. But as a technologist, for me, near real time data has been something I've been fascinated about for a long time as CTO for William Hill and sports betting. The number of sports betting markets we had and the adjustments we had to make in real time for pricing meant that we had to almost invent some of the technologies to get the Kind of scale, energy and rapid space.
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B
There is this crazy, crazy segue maybe, but would you ever think like there is this, there is this mention in sports and health that at a certain point content, like health data is going to become content. And there is many brands that they would display, for example, the heart rate on the screen or they would display the, like the velocity and the speed and everything on the screen. So these things become content. Speaking about betting, would you ever imagine the two merging?
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A
Yes. Having worked in the betting industry for a number of years, I think the answer to that is yes. I think it's quite surprising what people will actually bet on. And I think the data is kind of really critical here and to kind of create new markets and on opportunities. I don't bet myself, but I respect the technology that goes behind the scenes here. But it has, you know, great applications in other industry because it is probably at the cutting edge of what I would call real time data ingestion.
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B
I mean, so from a practical sense, how do you see that happening? What would people better, like maybe like if the, the heart rate was higher or.
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A
Well, as well, I mean, I think it's probably obvious, but heart rates would go higher. I would say there'll be kind of mini markets in various different sports. I mean, a good example which probably is played out right now is like smart balls. So you can see the velocity, the speed, direction, distance. So those things could probably potentially create markets, betting opportunities, who kicked the ball the furthest, that kind of market. I'm sure people like that kind of thing. I mean, usually it's obviously final scores and who won the race, but people kind of get bored. They want to kind of have something tangible, real in between. So I'm sure data will play a big part in creating those opportunities.
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B
I see you today, you led a number of companies, but how did you get into technology in the first place?
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A
Yes. Yeah, good question.
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B
What was your inspiration?
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A
So going back a few years, I think I'd have to kind of credit my parents for this one. Just buying me a computer, probably age of seven. Oh, wow. Yeah, so. So for me it was age 7. Got a Commodore 64, which I think, you know, probably cost quite a bit of money at the time, and it just fascinated me, but the ability to actually start to write code. So I bought a few books and wrote a few games and then just diversified from that.
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B
So what games do you remember?
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A
Oh, well, really basic stuff like little. Trying to emulate a bit the Atari games with a little Pong. Yeah, that like kind of thing, then try to explore graphics and do like, probably like a kind of a spaceship lambda kind of program. So I really enjoyed it because you've got an appreciation. I like the idea of being able to type something in and then see a result and just keep going, iterating like that, improving. So that kind of got me into it and it stuck with me. And I'd always had a, you know, tried to get latest computer, had a kind of network of friends similar to myself who like that, like coding and then university. I kind of took a different path. I did economics partly to do, I think with the fact that computer science at the time was a bit out there and still a bit of an unknown. I really wish I had done computer science, but I did economics, I got through it and. And then I went on to do a. A master's in computer science, having kind of realized that was the way forward. But I did my master's whilst I was working at hsbc. So how I actually pivoted into computing was I got a graduate scheme role and the organization were really good in that. They allowed me to go and work with the IT department and I started there in 1997 and Java had just come on the scene and I was really lucky that they invested in me going to some microsystems to do the Java certifications. And so we're going way back, way back. But Java was just taking off then I think it was James Gosling who'd invented it was called Oak, I think and then it came Java. So I was really early adopter of that technology, object oriented programming and kind of helped me a lot excite my career early on. And I then went to work for HSBC and became chief programmer architect at hsbc and they allowed me to do the masters because I felt like I needed to just right or wrong there and do the computer science degree. So yeah, that's how I got into it.
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B
If you look backwards, like you had so many leadership positions in so many great organizations, if you would look backwards, would you imagine that this would happen?
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A
No, definitely not. I think what I've realized and what I've taught myself as I've got older, I probably wasn't the most confident person at university and probably just followed the mainstream. But I think as I've got older, wiser and perhaps probably able to take a few more risks, I've kind of just realized just say, you know, just try everything at least once, have a go, you never know and just you learn, you adapt. And I think for me it's always been just take a few risks, have a go and. And see where it takes you. And I think that's the way I've been accelerating and up my kind of career ladder from being a junior Java programmer to Chief Technology Officer. But it's all relevant and also to stay curious, not to stay kind of looking at your areas, look at other departments, look at other people, what they're, why they're doing it. Just try and grow that way as well. Trying to improve the kind of breadth of knowledge of how departments are run, how it is run, how it fulfills the needs of the business, rather than just kind of locked down on a keyboard. So that. That was something. I was never the best programmer. I thought I was, but I wasn't really. But. But what I had is kind of curiosity and a willingness to try and deliver value for the business rather than just churning out code.
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B
So if you. I believe you were part of NHS and you led NHS technology, did you join during the COVID period? I did.
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A
So I went through the recruitment process prior to Covid, so at this point I'm going through. I didn't know. Nobody knew that Covid would land.
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B
It would be awesome to hear. What's the first three months like?
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A
Crazy. So, yes. So I joined just as we went into our first lockdown in 2020, so.
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B
So that's the first month you joined?
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A
Absolutely, yeah. The first month, yeah. So. So the induction kind of got ripped up and put in the bin. It was like, right, let's hit the ground running. So it was fascinating, unforgettable. So I started by working with a very, very small team to deploy the digital service for the home testing kits, lateral flow test kits that we were all able to order.
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B
So this was the delivery of the.
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A
That's right.
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B
So tracking and delivery.
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A
That's correct. So we built a service through the NHS and Amazon did the fulfillment and the kind of warehousing alongside the Royal Mail. And I worked with a very, very small team, team of like five or six of us, and we went from nothing to a full digital service in
- [15:16]
B
three weeks, which was for millions of people.
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A
Right, Correct. So. Oh, wow. Yeah. So day one, it had to deliver, it had to scale. We used a lot of serverless technology to ensure that we could scale on demand. And, yeah, it was challenging.
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B
Can we dig a bit into this? Like what the technology look like?
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A
Right. Well, we used AWS and we used a lot of lambda functions and stitching it all together. We used a lot of calls of API, backend calls into Amazon, I think we brought it down at one point, Amazon, we were hitting them so many API calls, we had to rate limit that. That's how mad it was, people wanting to get the tests. But it was. What was most notable was a. It was. It was 24, seven working. There was no Saturday and Sunday day off. It was constantly working around the clock. Yeah, you know, we're up at like 2 o' clock in the morning, finishing 10 o', clock, having four hours sleep and then going at it again. And the team were amazing and really resilient because we all thought, you know, at this time there was no vaccine. This was like a way to help protect people. So the cost.
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B
Did you have to hire these people or did you.
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A
No, we had them already. So we worked with a lot of consultancy firms, but this team was kind of homegrown, so we got them in from the various departments within NHS and Consult. There's a few consultants in there as well. But they were a fantastic team. I mean, we just gelled day one. I mean, it was. It was the purpose, the cause was phenomenal. Everybody kind of aligned on that immediately and we just. As a team.
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B
It was a five people team covering the whole of the UK for all of the testing.
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A
Yeah, it was a phenomenal. Yeah. And I think I remember we're working at such pace that on day one, when we actually opened the service, I think for the first 13 minutes there was a glitch and it got in the press, actually. And the problem was is we'd been testing it and testing and testing it and we'd forgotten to open the firewall up on the service. So we were just sat in there going, what have we done wrong? What have we done wrong? Oh, yeah, actually, yeah, that's what we've done wrong. And so for 13 minutes people were pressing, trying to get the test and then all of a sudden it worked. And. Yeah, but it got into the news, that one.
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B
I mean, it is somehow good distribution. If it gets to the news as well on the other side is like disengineering. Right. Any deployment that you do is going to have something. It's never perfect.
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A
Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think the thing we learned as well as we're opening that every day after the service being open, we were constantly looking at the data, the volumes of traffic, the latency to look at how we could improve, and it was a constant improvement piece after.
- [18:01]
B
How many orders do we speak per
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A
day now on the lateral flow tests? Yeah, I mean, I believe. I mean, we ran out so we actually ran out of tests. That was how fast. So on day one, I think opened at 8:13. In the end, I think by 8:45, they'd run out of all the tests. That was it. They'd gone. So. Yeah. So the volume of.
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B
And that was in the millions of
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A
tests or not at that stage? No, no, no. Because they were just being developed.
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B
Oh, yeah. So at the time it was. They were developed, manufactured and the tests were much less than you could.
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A
Yeah. But then obviously the other one was the booking service for actually going to book a vaccine when it came out, and those requests were in the millions for sure. So the booking.
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B
So which. Which. Which of these products did you work on?
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A
So I worked. So after the home test, I then went to work on the contact tracing app, which was, again, a really intense time.
- [19:01]
B
Again, there was a backlash on this one, was it?
- [19:03]
A
There was backlash. So in the spirit of what was trying to be done there, there was no vaccination at this stage. So all we were trying to do was protect people, keep them kind of locked down when they needed to be locked down, but also allow them some freedom of mobility to try and protect.
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B
Just a parenthesis there, David, like these, These demands for the apps and so on, do they come from the government and they say, here's what we want.
- [19:28]
A
That's right, yeah. So it started out as. There was a. An app in Singapore that starts to look at being able to use Bluetooth technology to try and capture if someone had been encountering somebody who had exposure to Covid and then for. Notify them and lock them down. So there was a pattern. And then the Oxford University, the epidemiological team at Oxford had a kind of case study on this. So a lot of what we were building was based on studies from Oxford University's team. So the challenge. The challenge with it as a technologist was how the hell do you get Bluetooth technology to be able to measure? It doesn't work.
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B
It's 20 meters, maybe.
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A
Exactly. It was never invented for that. So working with some very, very clever people from some very interesting backgrounds indeed, some military, we started to look at algorithms to look at how we could accurately measure. And bear in mind, Bluetooth works differently on all devices. And with Android particularly, you've got a big plethora of different types of. So a lot of testing was involved because we wanted to try and get it right in terms of being able to accurately predict and measure if you'd had a. So if I hide the phone now and I'm Talking to you, if I put it in the back pocket, suddenly the distance measured could jump back 10ft. My ops, I haven't moved. So we had to try and do a lot of testing like that to try and get the accuracy better, to give people confidence that, you know, when we have said lockdown that you lock down, there's a lot of tuning involved. And yes, I think it did get a little bit of press around sometimes. It was a little bit sensitive to people locking down. But the, the one thing I would do take away from it was the, the report that the BBC news put out which said that it probably saved thousands of lives in the end. And I think that's the key, but I take away is that we were doing it for the right reasons, that we wanted to try and protect people, keep them safe, but also give them freedoms back of mobility. So it was done with that spirit and, and always with the, with the intention of keeping it private as well and protecting people with privacy and security. So we worked closely with National Cyber Security center to make sure we open source the code. That was important as well, so people could see what the code was doing. And we work with people, you know, communities, open source communities to make sure that they were happy and satisfied.
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B
So for that, how many people were involved?
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A
That was quite a big team.
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B
Okay, so there's a bigger team.
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A
It's a big team, yeah. Yes, it's a big team because there's a lot of testing and a lot of code development. I mean it was from the roots of this. And we worked with Apple and Google because in the end we had to work with the new APIs, the exposure notification API which they developed on the operating system.
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B
Oh yes, I remember because we had
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A
a problem before that with being able to kind of work with the Apple devices. It was quite a chatty app, as you can imagine, pinging Bluetooth connections. So we used to lose the Apple devices and therefore we kind of work with Apple and Google and they developed an API which helped to kind of measure the distances as well. But some of our team members helped to tune that to make it even better. So it was good to see a good working between the big tech companies and the internal teams. Yeah, yeah.
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B
So those were the two products you worked or did you work in other products? Yeah.
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A
So after that then the good news was a vaccine was in sight. So then work with the vaccination team on the tech and data element. And I think the challenge there was, and this is probably something that people don't appreciate with the National Health Services. We were trying to get data to kind of be integrated so that we could have a really good real time view of the vaccination data, the status, who's been vaccinated, who hasn't.
- [23:27]
B
So that's, that's, that's figuring out who is vaccinated.
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A
Exactly, yeah. Or if they've had one vaccine or if they had the booster vaccine, which one did they have? Have they had a flu jab before? To look at their eligibility and so forth. So a lot of that data exists, but it exists in kind of silos between different systems, GP systems, private systems. So it was trying to bring all that data together to get a complete view, a picture of the current status and make sure people got the right vaccine at the right time. So that was challenging.
- [23:58]
B
And yeah, so I was in the UK at the time and I remember using these. And then when I went back to my country, Cyprus, for I don't remember how long I've been there, but they did the same. But it was on cards, so it was physical. Yeah, because you didn't have anyone to build.
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A
Yeah, stamping a card. I mean, to be fair, everybody was given a card as well, to stamp card. But what was interesting is I don't remember the COVID Travel Pass that we. Everybody was issued.
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B
Yes.
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A
I think it was actually first trialed at the Silverstone Grand Prix, which was the big first gathering of, you know,150,000 people plus and giving them again the freedom to go to the event. So people had to prove with the COVID Travel Pass that they'd been vaccinated. So it needed to be digital because obviously you, you can probably fake a card and stamp. So that's where the data came in to allow people to go to that event with the COVID Travel Pass to show that they've been vaccinated.
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B
And at what point did you start learning about Virgin or thinking about joining Virgin?
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A
So I think for me, I've known about Virgin all my life, which I've always followed Richard Branson's adventures. So I know the brand really well, Virgin Records. But I think for me it was trying to continue the, the journey of health, preventative health in another setting. And with Virgin, Virgin Active, the, the mission really is to actually help people to stay healthy, to stay fit. It's mentally strong. So, so the, it was a good story. It's. It's certainly something that gets me out of bed on the morning. So I started to kind of look to move out of the public sector into back into private sector once kind of things have settled down with the pandemic and Virgin was just kind of clicked and, you know.
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B
But David, how does this work? You worked as CTO before. Like, do people approach you? Do you approach people? Like you're more known at the time?
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A
So a lot of the time LinkedIn for me is that it's kind of building up your network. LinkedIn, you always have kind of headhunters asking questions around. Are you interested in this and that? So I tend to be somebody who stays curious regarding opportunities. And as I said before, I don't always say no. I like to be curious and just to see what will come of something. So with the Virgin, when I was approached and applied for the role and went through the process, so, yeah, that's how it came about. So it was through LinkedIn contact.
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B
Interesting. You mentioned building a network on LinkedIn. What's. What's the secret there?
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A
Well, I think for me the big boost came working NHS and working on a contact tracing app. So I think having a story having been authentic, having a story posting regularly, but also looking at the community and, and feedback and comments from other people as well, supporting the community, supporting people around you. I think it's having the story being authentic, having a purpose that resonates with. With people. And I quite like LinkedIn because I think it's quite a supportive community of people. I'm not. I'm not big on. On X or Twitter. I think it can get a little bit toxic.
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B
Yeah. You know, I find that
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A
there is
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B
all this Talk about against LinkedIn and in favor of X and so on. It's just that LinkedIn works like, no matter. Like no matter how people write and so on. I think it works like I posted the other day, usually I post once every month or every two months about, about terror we're hiding and so on. And then, yeah, these type of posts get hundreds of thousands of impressions. Then it gets like, for that, like the last post I've done, we got like 600 applications. I was like, this works. Yes, this works. It is what it is. Whereas with X, if you do this similar thing, very different audience. Definitely. Yes. And very different logic. I think, like, X is more of a. Like there is one outlier out of many, whereas LinkedIn is a bit more consistent. Every post you do is going to be kind of similar. The audience is. It's very niche, very specific.
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A
Yeah, Yeah. I think people go on LinkedIn to try and raise their profile, but also to be curious and find out what else is out there for them. And I like to see stories of people who are growing, either they found a new company, they've got promotion, they're doing something new, there's lots of great stories out there and I like to kind of support those as well. So I do find it quite a supportive community of people. Like minded people, definitely.
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B
What's the, what's the first three months looking like? When you join version and when you join us as it, what do you do?
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A
Yeah, it's so. Yes. So I think first thing you do is you've got to get familiar with the business. You've got to get out there and talk to people, understand the business. So.
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B
And ideally who do you want to speak to?
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A
Oh, so not always technical people. Definitely not. It's kind of more out in the business. So going out to the clubs, seeing, talking to members, talking to the club staff about the frictions, the problems. So you know, where can technology I'm looking always for where can technology make a difference? How can it remove a friction, a problem? So it's out there talking and observing, listening. A lot of it is listening and just formulating a plan really obviously talking technology as well. Talking to teams is important because what I find with a lot of teams when you arrive is they've already had great ideas but some reason they've not been able to execute that. So it's kind of how do I unlock that, how do I help them to execute on these great ideas? Sometimes it's just about validating them with the business, spending a bit more time making it relevant to the business, proving to the business as value because there's investment, but what's the actual return going to look like? So it's just a little bit more polishing that up but having authentic stories going out there and talking to members, understanding their pain points, what they'd like to see more of, less of how we can improve and bringing those stories back onto the, into the board and actually playing that back is really important. So, so that's what it's about. I mean the first three months is just get out there talking to people, just absorb as much as you can, listen, observe, sit back and just take it all in.
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B
What, what products have you worked on since?
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A
Yeah, so I think we've urging active that the key challenge was digitization. So the industry maybe generally, but it was all about bricks and mortar. I mean you go to a club, health club, a wellness club, so a physical location and what we wanted to do was start to try and digitize the journey and the journey starts way before you even think you walk through the doors of the club. So it's, how can we bring that to life? How can we connect? How can personalize that? So the channel that we're going to use is the app. So firstly we had to kind of get a global app. What I found quite remarkable with Virgin Active was each territory was different, it had different app. Usually it was white labeled, it wasn't our own. So we brought that together to create our own global app, which is just a channel by which we could then push all of these great ideas quickly. So the first year and a half was just rolling out this app, this platform to enable that to happen. Also in conjunction was data. So we've got lots of data, but it was all siloed, it was all sat. Siloed, being useful to nobody.
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B
So what do we, when we say data, what kind of data?
- [31:49]
A
So data on, for example, members when they visit a club, the activity they have to scan into a club so that, that's recorded on a system. So we know when people come. When they don't come, we can start to build a pattern. So you can see when people drop off, then you can start, you know, you need to kind of react to that and re engage them. But that wasn't.
- [32:07]
B
So what's the pattern on this one? Like, is it that when a person goes from four visits per week to three visits per week, or how does this work?
- [32:14]
A
Yeah, exactly that. So you've got a highly engaged member there coming four times a week and all of a sudden something happens. They come down to three, maybe two, maybe one visit a week. And you've got to respond quickly to that because ultimately what's happening there is something's happened. Maybe they've, they've made a complaint in the club, maybe their favorite instructor is no longer doing a class, maybe they don't like the music, maybe they can't get into a class because it's full, maybe the showers are cold. But, but something's happened to that member and it's really important to kind of figure out what it is and re engage them quickly because the longest.
- [32:48]
B
When we say quickly, what does it mean? How, like how fast does this happen?
- [32:52]
A
Well, ideally as quickly as possible. I mean, you can get a natural dip because they go on holiday or they working away from home. That, that's. But if it continues for more than two to three weeks, then you start to think, right, is there something else? So, you know, there's a human touch to this as well, whereby you just nudge in the clubs to say go and have a conversation, give them a call, re engage them. And we have a rewards program as well. So we, we actually reward members for coming to the club and doing visits and workouts. So there's an element of being able to re engage them through the rewards loyalty program which is important, but I think you've got to try and do it as quickly as possible. If you leave it months and months effectively, you've got now is a disengaged member who's likely to leave because they get no value anymore. So it's just important to have all the kind of data available to understand what's happened. Exactly. And how can we kind of make that better for that member.
- [33:49]
B
So you're saying in a way that the technology behind the gym is intelligence in the individual, is building the person, understanding that person and then ensuring that there is a reduction in churn and they're happy when they use the services.
- [34:06]
A
Absolutely, yeah. So I think what's obvious is when people join a gym, a health club, wellness club, you've got a number of different Personas but you have people who are highly engaged who just know exactly what to do and they just get on with it. And they don't necessarily need much interaction but there are a lot of people who are quite intimidated by that environment. It's quite scary. You can see people working out who know what they're doing. You're not quite so sure about equipment, you know, you feel quite self conscious sometimes those people need nurturing, they need to be supported early on in that kind of journey. So again the technology, it's about personalization, it's about understanding, well, what are your goals and needs? Why are you here in the first place? Why paying for this membership? What do you want to see happen? And then trying to understand the behavior when they come to club, what classes we've got available, if they've got wearables, connecting the wearables to make sure that we can engage there. So for example, on the morning if you wake up and you ordering your whoop, your Apple health device, your Apple watch tells you you've had poor sleep, you've got a low recovery score, maybe don't go to that HIIT class tonight, maybe go to low intensity yoga class, you know, try something different because the data saying perhaps that's not the best for you and people get demotivated if they go and have a poor experience. So trying to understand people and trying it in near real time to help them understand right what should I do today? What's the best thing for me? So we're not, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel here. We're not trying to be an aura or a whoop. And all I try to do is use that data to then give them the best experience in our clubs, making sure we're connecting to the right classes, the right recovery, the right facilities in the club. And if they've got a personal trainer as well, making sure the personal trainer's got the information so they can tailor that class, that, that, that program to their needs on that day, rather than being a month, a year before things change. So we're trying to be personal intelligent and adaptive with what we're doing with the technology.
- [36:12]
B
So, David, if, if all of the work was finalized today for, for all of the gyms, how would the gym look like?
- [36:24]
A
Yeah, it'd be busier, that's for sure. I think what you'd find is a very seamless experience. So frictions being removed. We have gates and people have to use. We have various. Some people have to still swipe a card, some people use the nf, the fid. So we want to build that into more the smartphone that people carry around with them. So you tap in. When you tap in, that data then flows into the system. Let's say I go in and I'm on my third visit this week. Last week I only went once. This week on my third visit that might send a notification to a member of the club staff who then come and welcomes you and says, hey, David, high five. Great to see you. Keep this up. Really good. I see you're going to get you booked into a cycle studio class today. That's great. Really keen to hear about how that goes and that kind of personal greeting which flows throughout the kind of journey in the club. And. And then again as you leave, just a little nudge digitally that says, you know, well done, keep this up. You know, I'm giving you some stats just to kind of encourage you to show that there's improvement there. I think that's one thing. The other thing is we use a lot of the, the body composition devices in the clubs as well. They're not as used as they could be. And inversion active, they are available freely for all members.
- [37:48]
B
That's interesting. What percentage are we speaking about? Like how many people use them?
- [37:52]
A
So I think at the moment less than 20% of our members use them frequently. You might get a curious person who. But they're a little bit. There's a Bit of friction here. So sometimes you have to create a separate account, which I think is a big no. So what we're looking to do is you can go with your mobile phone, with the Virgin app, you can scan in, so it is nothing to interaction with the screen. You can just scan in through an inbuilt scanner. Now it's paired with you, it knows who you are, you stand on there, you get the results, the results go back and then it starts to compare historically your results and starts to give you some nudges. So a good example would be muscle mass. So muscle mass is a good indicator of. Am I improving? I've been doing that strength and conditioning class for the last four weeks. Has it made a difference? Well, actually, yes, it has, but then it starts to nudge you and say, well, actually, you know, you need to be looking at maybe lifting a heavy weight here. Now you've gone beyond that, so maybe start to look at improving or try some new exercises which might just stimulate, you know, muscle growth as well. So those kind of things just to help people feel that not doing the same thing time and time again. Visceral fat levels as well, that's also in there as well. So, you know, how can I reduce my visceral fat? That's key for longevity.
- [39:05]
B
Yeah, so, so, so it's basically a correlation of if, if the person improves, they. They see that they're doing better and they're going to be staying in the gym for much longer. And being able to track these goals is. Is the ultimate.
- [39:21]
A
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. It's. I mean, everybody's got different motivations why they're there, but it's trying to show the value, actually. You know, you're improving, you're hitting goals, but adapting as well. Because as you grow, as you improve, you want to be stimulated, you want to be challenged with more things. So it's. It's almost like having a virtual pt, just constantly nudging you, recommending things for you. So a good example is booking a class. There's a friction there in terms of I have to go onto a timetable, how I have to plan. Right, I'm going to the club, but this time, what's available? Am I on a waitlist? Am I not on a wait list? What I'd like to see happen with personalization is I actually know when you're going to go to the club, so I'm actually going to. And I actually know what your goals and needs are and I know from the wearable what kind of class is going to be suited to you. So rather than you having to make the decision, you know, a smart agent can then just surface. Actually, these three classes here on the Friday 5:30 are really going to be great for you this week. Just press here to book rather than you having to kind of go through all that thinking yourself. So. Yeah, yeah.
- [40:29]
B
So the we that report a while ago about vitality and they mentioned the. Which I found very interesting that they mentioned the. The amount of dollars they make for every dollar of rewards they, they give. So vitality is this insurer that provides you rewards so you train more. And they mentioned that for every dollar that they give back as Rewards, they get 2.$5 back as less claims, which I find super interesting.
- [41:12]
A
Amazing.
- [41:13]
B
And I spoke with so many gym leaders lately and you're doing rewards. You've like Virgin has been doing rewards for a lot of time. It works in insurance. Does it work in this case?
- [41:29]
A
I suppose with insurance that they're paying out on ill health. So their motivation is helping people stay fit and healthy reduces claims. So there's definitely a positive coloration there. I think with the rewards we're looking at trying to help people get value from membership, which ultimately would translate to obviously reduce journey member members leaving the club. So in that respect, yeah, it does, it does work. It does help engage people.
- [41:58]
B
So as in if, if technologists in gyms hear you right now, like is your suggestion, you should be creating rewards with rewards?
- [42:07]
A
I think it's part of it. I think as well, it depends what kind of rewards. So we've got a great kind of nutritional offer in our clubs. So typically our reward would consist of maybe getting a smoothie, protein smoothie. So something that's going to help make relevant to your kind of journey. I think it's one element. I also think the personalization is the big piece as well. Though rewards where the relevant, but the personalization piece, it has to be accompanied by that as well. So. And I think with rewards you can get very personal as well. So rather than just being, you know, generic, you've come three times a week. Hey, high five. Go and grab a smoothie. It's okay. Actually David, you yourself, you know, you've actually improved on a particular measure that maybe, maybe my target, you know, maybe for me it was I wanted to lose 1% body fat and I wanted to do that over the course of a month and I had a program and at the end of that I achieved that rewarding for that kind of goal as well. So it's a bit more intelligent and more tailored to you as an individual. I think that's definitely something because it certainly engages people more. And the reward doesn't always have to be a smoothie or a physical thing. It could just be a badge of honor that then gets communicated around the club, around your community. I love Strava and I really like what they do there. And I think sometimes just getting the kudos, getting the high fives from people is good enough for me to do it again. So. And I think, you know, a lot of people motivated by that as well. But the community about seeing, you know, seeing that what you've done has been acknowledged by that community.
- [43:44]
B
I have this perspective on gyms, that. They are somehow reverse insurers. It is the people that care about their health. They go to the gym.
- [44:02]
A
That's correct.
- [44:03]
B
And I think currently there needs to be a lot of improvement in that, in a sense. First of all, yes, it's about personalization. If you have all of the information of someone, for example, let's say that a user goes to the gym and they go less times to the gym. If there is no intelligence, it doesn't necessarily mean that they train less. It might be a marathon runner or they're preparing for a triathlon event. Exactly. Outside of the gym, you could spot this if you see their wearable data, for example, or if you see their nutrition information and so on. And telling them their own thing is going to be more demotivating. So as in looking at one is really understanding customer from how does this person sleep, how do they eat, how do they train? Outside of the gym as much as inside of the gym is one thing. So building a real honest understanding of that individual.
- [45:03]
A
Definitely.
- [45:05]
B
And it's also the other aspect, which is if these people are joining the gym, that they care about their help, but their health. I'm just always wondering, why are all of these innovations like function for blood testing, for example, or the thriver here, or why is Neumann, or why is Strava? Why are all of these innovations not created from the gyms themselves? Which is always a question I have in my mind. You already have the clients. They're the ones that are the potential biggest adopters of these things.
- [45:45]
A
Yeah, that's true. So I think, I mean, I think you're. I think there's definitely something around. The types of members that we have are super engaged anyway, and they're going to do the right thing. It's. How do you bring in people who aren't engaged, who perhaps you look at preventative health, you Mentioned like, For example, in NHS, type 2 diabetes is probably one of the biggest costs to National Health Service and it can be prevented with kind of lifestyle changes, one of them being more active, staying healthy, eating better. So it's trying to encourage those kind of people into the system. I was talking to the CTO for NHS last week, came into the office, we did a bit of a kind of workshop with them and we were both saying that it would be great if, for example, with the nhs, you mentioned vitality healthcare, where they recognize that by rewarding people to doing the right things, they actually save money, because actually then less claims. But the same applies with the nhs. So in my mind, wouldn't be great if the NHS actually starts to recognise actually helping people by giving them maybe gym membership, because at the end of the day it's going to help them, prevent them going into the NHS system, which is going to reduce numbers, reduce costs ultimately. And I'd be interested to see, you know, do the NHS think like that, think like a vitality health insurance, that actually the prevention is better than the cure and investing in those. I mean, it doesn't always. I mean, gyms are one area that you can go to this. My park runs are really popular as well, and they're free. So it's not just about, but it's about creating that community and recognizing that people are all different and their needs are different at different times. And, you know, the thing about going to a health club is you've got people there who know what they're doing, are trained to help you and, and even runners. I mean, this. I used to run and I made a big mistake here. Training for 10k is just running, running, running until I got injured. It's like, why? What we're doing wrong, I want to realize was I was running too much and actually what I need to do was more strength and conditioning, help to, you know, build the muscles. Stretching, how important? Stretching, particularly as you get older. So for me it was about understanding that. But I actually started to hit the gym to actually supplement my running and actually, as a result, I was able to run faster and longer than before and, and actually by just doing three runs a week, but then doing strength and conditioning, I was able to achieve much better results than running five, six times a week.
- [48:21]
B
So the other thing is, every time I go to a gym, there is all of these equipment that they measure your data, your data remain there. And I wanted to ask you, what's your opinion of this? What's going to happen? Is this going to be that there is going to be integration between everything or is this going to be one device that actually measures all the information and provides you with all of the information so that the devices are going to stop counting, measuring.
- [48:57]
A
Yeah, I mean, like if we go
- [48:59]
B
five years into the future.
- [49:00]
A
Yeah, five years. I think it'll still be lots of devices, but then the integration will be key because you've got such unique devices, devices that accurately, accurately. And the accurate is the key bit for me. Like VO2 Max, things like that. You can't get that. Some devices will attempt to do a VO2 max measurement but, you know, a maximal test is by far the most accurate. But not everybody wants to put a big mask on and run on a treadmill. So. But I think there are devices that do suboptimal that are quite accurate. So I think. I think what we'll see is people have all got their favorites and maybe you. I mean, at the moment I'm wearing two different wearables and recording information. One's good at certain things, one's good at another set of things. I don't think there'll be one single device that does it all. Not in the next five years for sure. So I think the key bit is the integration is getting those data sources in and building that picture. I think that's going to be the key bit.
- [49:57]
B
Thoughts about AgentIQ AI?
- [50:01]
A
Gosh, yeah. I think AgentIC AI is something that everybody needs to pay attention to. I think it's phenomenal. I would say I've been to a number of conferences this year on which actually are cloud conferences, and all they talked about was agentic AI and the capability that they're enabling through cloud. I would say in many respects I've been to technology conferences before where things are overhyped and actually say this time I think it's actually underhyped. I think the next two to three years will be phenomenal. And I think organizations have got to look at processes where they can automate now agentic AI can do that. I know developers, software engineers will probably push back a bit. I mean, I know, for example, Goldman Sachs recently have employed agentic AI coder. And that's got a little bit of probably backlash. But again, it's like you've got to embrace it, it's going to happen. So it's better to get on the bandwagon early, be an early adopter, try it, understand it, how can it complement what you've already got? I think everybody needs to take note of AI and play with AI. It's not just for technologists as well. I like the idea of simple low code, no code environments where you can build agents and play with agents. It's got a lot of opportunity, but I can see where there's a lot of nervousness because it will displace people from jobs. Companies will look to save money. An agent that can work 24, 7 doesn't need a lunch break is quite appealing, but it's got to be done responsibly and accurately as well. I mean there's a lot around the training of the models, where the data is coming from and making sure it's accurate.
- [51:50]
B
There is all of the time. This talk about AGI, do you think it's happening soon?
- [51:56]
A
Not soon, but I think not soon, but I have seen some very interesting stuff with robotics coupled with AI, large language models and yeah, it's quite exciting times with that. But I don't think it's anytime soon. I'm not close enough to certainly the prototyping and AGI and some of the companies that are probably doing a lot of Secret Squirrel stuff with it. But my view is not yet. But I think agentic AI, certainly the next two, three years will be huge.
- [52:30]
B
If you could adopt AIs right now internally in Virgin and those things would be finished right now, what would it
- [52:41]
A
look like with AI? Yeah, I think for me the start would be helping customer services teams and it's probably the. And I don't mean chatbots, I'm not, I'm not mean chatbots. I mean an agentic AI looking at members contacts through customer services channels, through the app feedback channels, feedback loops and responding to that in near real time. Again, I talk about that member who becomes disengaged maybe because they complained about something that might be in a work queue, somebody for somebody and they might get around to it in 24 hours. It might take longer. But if we could respond quicker with the kind of right kind of engagement and outcomes and make sure that that member gets re engaged, we learn from that and we keep training. That's quite an easy I think win for us. And I don't mean replacing customer services agents here because they've got a hell of a job to do and we're quite a lean team. So it's just trying to augment what they already do, support them in that, helping them service the right data. I think as well in the sales pipelines as well with leads is helping to kind of look at lead scoring agents to kind of work behind the scenes, to look at Who's a high probability of signing up? How should we sign them up? Tailoring the packages for that particular individual as well, but working in near real time to do that. I think that's, that's a big win as well. I think chatbots, you know, dumb chat bots aren't agentic AI. Yeah. And, you know, so I think it's got to be careful with what is actually real AI versus what looks like AI.
- [54:21]
B
If there is a graduate right now graduating from the university and they want to have the career that you had or that you have, what is your advice to them?
- [54:36]
A
So are they at university or just graduated?
- [54:39]
B
They just graduated, just graduated.
- [54:41]
A
So I mean, firstly, I'll give my daughter the same advice is, is you've got to embrace failure firstly. So you, there's, there's going to be lots of job opportunities hopefully, and you're gonna have to apply for a lot of jobs. You might not get the first one that comes along. So I think I was quite lucky when I was at university that it was almost a given having a degree that you walk into a job and that kind of happened for me, that
- [55:07]
B
was the case, actually.
- [55:08]
A
Yeah, it was, it was, it was the case. I mean, not everybody went to university and it was still probably not the norm when I was, I mean, I'm getting on a bit now, so. Yeah, yeah. So for me it was, it was a given you went to university and that was enough to differentiate you. And as a result, companies came knocking on the door and you got a job. You know, the companies actually come to university, did actually come in the third year. I'm sure it happens at certain universities, but not all today. But you know, there's a lot of, lot of people graduating from university and so therefore there's more applicants per job. So first thing is, there is you got to embrace failure. But, you know, don't be afraid to apply for jobs. And, and even if it's not the job you think that you want, I still say go for it because you'll learn something anyway. And you never know. You never know. So that's my first bit of advice is apply for the jobs, embrace the fail, Learn from each encounter, even if it's just not getting through the first stage with your cv. Right. Go back and remodel that cv, tailor it for that job description, make sure it's tailored, pick out the points, the salient points that looking for. Don't just hand over a generic cv, tailor it for that particular job. So spend a bit, you know, spend half an hour, just pulling out and making it relevant because that's the first thing. I mean, who knows, they might be using AI to filter the. The CVs. Right. So do that and then just prepare well for the interview. Make sure you know the company, do a bit of wider reading, spend some time, invest in it, don't just rock up, you know, try and understand the kind of questions they're going to be looking for. Know the company background, look keen, look curious. That for me is the first bit. And then when you've actually landed that job, it's like, look around you, make. No, make. Increase your network of friends of people who are, and I call them friends because I spend most of my time with people at work. Right. So you've got to get on with them, but appreciate their job, function, what they're doing, the problems that they're encountering and start to embrace that and learn. So don't just do your job, try and look at a wider, you know, the wider organization, whatever else is doing. And why? Because I think that really helps accelerate you, is understanding how companies operate and work. I think that's my advice and I think as well is just don't be afraid to have a go at things. Definitely don't hold back.
- [57:27]
B
Yeah. And for the last question, if you, if you go 50 years into the future and you see backwards, what does the maybe health system look like and what does the gym experience look like?
- [57:43]
A
Wow. 50 years from now, I think the way things are going, I think it'll be fully connected and this is where privacy absolutely needs to be playing a part here, because it's almost like you've got a digital twin. So I talk a bit about motorsport, Formula one, I mean, the cars, they test the vehicles digitally first before they physically build because it's more cost effective. And I think with healthcare, with DNA genome, you're going to get a digital twin that will be constant and with the wearable data and that will have evolved in 50 years time, it'd be phenomenal how much data you'll be getting will be constantly looking and it'll be all about preventative, it'll all be about nudging and making sure that you don't go down that path. I mean, it could be really phenomenal if it's done properly and for the right reasons as well, which should be to prevent some health, poor health outcomes. I mean, the advancements in cancer screening and the ability to catch that early. I hope in 50 years time that will evolve phenomenally to the point that we'll be taking preventive steps before it even comes up in a test, for example.
- [59:03]
B
So.
- [59:03]
A
But I think there's also the mental health bit. So even if you're staying healthy, there's the stress of day to day. You know, the digital bit does create a stress, a burden on people. So how do we help people still stay in tune with nature, doing, you know, just doing a walk, going, get some fresh air. Those are things that are so important to people. So it's trying to build that into the workplace as well. So making sure companies adapt to giving people time and space for their well being. But, yeah, it'll be a connected world for sure. I think we'll probably all have digital twins.
- [59:37]
B
Incredible.
- [59:38]
A
Yeah.
- [59:39]
B
David, thank you so much.
- [59:40]
A
Thank you. Thank you.