EIE12 Keynote Speaker - Sir Jackie Stewart

As I highlighted in my last post it was Engage Invest Exploit ’12 at the University of Edinburgh last week. EIE aims to put promising Scottish tech companies in front of potential investors. The event is a typical affair with exhibitors, pitches and speakers and this year they had an utterly awesome keynote speaker – Sir Jackie Stewart.

You might be wondering why a man famous for driving a car round in circles was the ideal speaker at an event for entrepreneurs and investors but Sir Jackie has achieved so much out with his amazing motorsport career. Having dyslexia and whilst at school being labelled as “thick” (to this day he still can’t recite the alphabet) hasn’t stopped Jackie from achieving in all walks of life.

One of the biggest things to take away from the talk was Jackie’s story of breaking his nose, surprisingly it wasn’t through crashing in a glamourous location such as Monaco or Monza but instead it was just off the high street in Dumbarton. Whilst at school and being classed as “thick” Jackie fell in with the wrong crowd who one day set about him resulting in the broken nose. It dawned on him he was hanging around with “crows”, which are vermin and are shot. The lesson Jackie shared was:

“Hang out with the crows and you may get shot, hang with eagles and you will soar”

Surround yourself with the best and you will be better for it. Being perhaps a tad modest Sir Jackie said the mechanics, engineers and designers in the team at Tyrell were better at their jobs than he ever was at his. He achieved his 3 Formula One World Drivers’ Championship titles thanks to surrounding himself with the best, a lesson I feel is highly relevant to startups.

Jackie spoke of his attention to detail being a key factor in his success. Before his days in motorsport Sir Jackie was a champion shooter, in this sport there were no second chances. If you missed a shot the best you could score was 99/100, not good enough. This attention to detail stayed with Jackie through his career in motorsport into his business career and is noted by him as being one of the keys to his success. He paraphrased the old proverb look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves; in business at first the scale of the task at hand is huge but by focusing on the details the larger picture will take care of itself.

Integrity and Care – photo by @MurrayBuchanan

Another thing to take from the talk was Sir Jackie’s motto – “Integrity and Care”. Jackie has represented some of the largest organisations in the world – Ford, Rolex and RBS to name a few – and in all cases Jackie acted with integrity and care. This has let to long lasting relationships such as the one with Ford that lasted for exactly, to the day, 40 years.

For me, as a massive fan of F1 fan, it was fantastic to be in the audience but aside from the amazing motorsport career Sir Jackie is a fantastic businessman, patriotic Scot and international icon. Not bad for a guy classed as ‘thick’, wouldn’t you agree?