You're listening to the Decarbonisation Dialogue,
a podcast from Salix. Welcome to Delivering on
Climate Change, our collective challenge. Welcome
to the Decarbonisation Dialogue. I am Hannah
Walker and I believe that the best way to communicate
a message is by being passionate about what you
are talking about. Welcome to Asif Ghaffar. Asif
is a born business innovator. He completed his
degree in business studies in 1992 at the University
of Bradford, and I believe continues to support
the university as a donor to the Bradford Futures
Fund, supporting students' challenges in assessing
and remaining in higher education. Following
his time at university, Azif has held many senior
roles, including Managing Director for AME Investments
and Non -Executive Director at Wandel. He is
currently the CEO of BEV, the largest electrical
vehicle charging network across Greater Manchester
and co -founder of Aduna, which develops new
infrastructure in the mobility, telecommunications
and energy sectors. So welcome to Azif. Hi. Nice
to meet you. Thank you and thank you very much
for your time today. Can we start by talking
a little bit about your career and what shapes
your vision? What motivates you? I know at university
I think you've been quoted as saying you weren't
too sure what you were going to do or where you
were going to and who you were going to become
and I know you sought internships and I think
you had a very pivotal and fundamental moment
when you had an internship with Midland Bank
which is of course now HSBC which I think you've
said changed your life. and you remained in banking
for five years but tell us in your own words
how did you get started and what motivates you?
So I think for me this the excitement is normally
led by quite interesting challenges and having
done the internship which you refer to one of
the final year projects was to focus on a company
or institution and make some sort of forward
predictions and whether I had the glass ball
to look into, but my prediction was Midland Bank
would no longer exist on its own and it would
be subsumed into a much larger international.
operations and Convenient for me in my final
year. That's what happened So I've actually submitted
my paper and then that happened and then I got
quite good high marks for that which was quite
great but in terms of Opportunities and look
at you know, all of the various roles I've done
and the areas where I focused It's always been
about building something new and trying to lean
into future development So in Amy one of the
big problems the UK has and still has today is
what you do with waste household waste, commercial
waste. So in Amy, I was part of the team who
helped build out the strategy and then build
out the business to look at how you solve that
problem, building waste facilities all the way
through to how you sort out collections at home
and so on. Actually, if I fast forward to 2015
-16, I got very interested in how technology
and the shift in energy is going to make a massive
difference to the way we move from A to B because
you know for the last 50 60 years nothing's really
evolved it's always been the same and that this
was a pivotal moment I thought and pivotal moments
and disruption creates opportunity and this creates
opportunity. And indeed when I research you and
look at your work I do read the word disruption
and disruptor quite a lot. So I know that's going
to be a bit of a theme and I'm going to come
back to that in a moment. But from your experience
across mobility and energy, what do you see as
the biggest opportunities right now for businesses
to contribute to net zero? Interestingly, I've
been trying to ban the word net zero. That's
probably a good starting point because the opportunity
of mobility isn't necessarily always linked to
net zero. It's actually linked to the future
technology and the way things are developing,
whether it's AI or whether it's autonomous vehicles
or whether it's any combination around the way
we move from A to B. So I got quite interested
in 2015 thinking autonomous vehicles are coming.
Let's get ourselves ready. This is a great business
opportunity. probably slightly too early and
then you kind of roll back a bit and go actually
if you break that down the various pieces which
could be interesting was putting telecommunications
on highways from A to B all the way through to
electric vehicle charging and each of these are
new sectors and the element of disruption is
they break the crossing boundaries so telecommunications
are traditionally in a very straight line highway
management in a straight line, car production
and the OEMs in a very straight line and what
we're finding now if you look at the car manufacturers
they've slightly lost control of this market
because they haven't got control of any of the
key points apart from the metal bashing at the
front which is producing the vehicle. That disruption
is how I perceive the opportunity and it's a
good example of how this change of technology
rather than net zero is what's driving these
massive opportunities here. And in terms of business
there's the opportunity there's the sustainability
and you've seen success and you've developed
success but sustainability and commercial success
are they in your experience of planning your
own businesses are they compatible sustainability
then and being a commercial success? I think
compatibility is done by your inner core to an
extent here. It's what you start off believing
is the right thing to be doing. So you have to
be blind to not see the damage we're doing to
our environment and the damage we're going to
leave to future generations if we don't change
the way we operate. You talk to people about
the 50s and the peace fog in London. you know
people then they brought in legislation they
brought in change in how people heated their
homes. This is just a continuation of this story.
If you set your business compass correctly and
establish some core basic principles which are
about building something which is fair we have
a you know when we set out to build the BEV one
of the first things we set out was we want to
have an employee owned business. And in that
environment, that became a core principle. By
the very nature, I always say to the team, let's
not think about the fact that it's sustainable
because we're in EV. It's what else can we do?
So when we built our four -core model, which
is our Manchester charging oasis, we thought
about the individual steps we could do to make
that actually become part of your business compass.
So planting, drainage. reuse of water, the materials
used on site, the ongoing sustainability of that
as well over the next 20 years and how we can
actually manage that and create a positive outcome
plus also involve the community. We didn't go
into that project and just ignore the neighbours,
we actually brought them in, we brought the councillors
in, we invited people to events. uh all of the
things which we weren't required to do from a
planning perspective we did because again from
a business compass sustainability and getting
people involved people are interested there's
ways of getting that kind of engagement and really
creating that business compass and setting it
right and that's really interesting that you
say that so talking about electric cars most
specifically and that kind of disruption does
it mean and the project you've just alluded to
does it mean that we are facing a future without
the I suppose the petrol stations if you like
that we're so used to seeing on on our on our
along our high straight or on the motorway I
mean it's a completely different idea of how
that looks isn't it yeah it's like it's like
asking um someone in 1900 you know where are
you going to be where are you going to be taking
this thing called a motor vehicle uh are you
going to take it to a barn to go and refuel uh
the answer was No, because there's no logic in
that going forward. So this disruption creates
a massive opportunity to create something different
and an experience which is different. So people
still think about traveling from A to B long
distances. I have to stop on a motorway services.
I watched really boring documentaries. I watched
a documentary about the first motorways and motorway
services on BBC Four. Fascinating. But actually
people, you know, go in there to have a day out
and have lunch and dinner and watch the odd car
go past on the M1. That was exciting then. But
now there's never going to be enough space and
enough power for that model to work going forward.
So what's the next model? The next model is at
every junction, we have a coffee stop or a food
stop or a shopping stop. people are able to charge
and it kind of fits in around what they're doing
on that journey at the point when they need to
go the loo or grab a coffee or change a nappy
or walk the dog and so on so there are rare times
in your life where you're able to actually create
something which is going to have a hundred year
life going forward or a 50 year life going forward
and that's where we are honestly that's where
i believe we are sitting today and that responsibility
which is why i go back to that business compass
of setting that right and thinking about it in
the right way because it's going to have an impact
not just on what we do as a business but also
guide the sector and guide this market and how
it kind of builds out in the UK and maybe elsewhere
in the world. I hear a lot from people worried
about and we will talk about obviously Greater
Manchester and the work going on there but hear
a lot of people who are worried about that buying
or acquiring an electric. vehicle because of
that lack of charging infrastructure and being
making that long journey on the motorway wherever
they might be going and worrying about will they
be able to charge and or will there be a big
queue and will it take me longer to charge and
then you started talking about hundreds of years
ago when people might sit and watch cars which
gets me thinking about which takes me into another
whole realm of transport being in the airport
and my father was saying to me, I just go to
the, sometimes I've gone to the airport arrivals
just to watch the people arrive and meet their
family and friends. So that's got me thinking
about something else altogether. But going back
to, because it is a wonderful place to be in
the arrivals at the airport. And I get it, I
completely get that. So can we talk a moment
about your work? in transport for Greater Manchester,
how you see the electric vehicle charging infrastructure
evolving to support where we're going on this
journey in Manchester. Yeah, so we started off
life in Greater Manchester. That was our first
contract working with Transport for Greater Manchester
and we actually upgraded their network. they
received central government funding so we upgraded
the network and then now we manage that and then
over time we've added extra bits on so taxi charging,
car clubs have been added on and there's been
some expansion change in the existing network
as well. The idea which and I'm not just saying
this because they were our first customer but
I love our customer in Greater Manchester because
They had a very clear idea, clear strategy and
also knew what their role was. And they were
therefore very clear to me what my role was.
And my role was you go out, you're good at building
networks, running networks and getting high performance
and getting customer engagement. And their role
was to set the policy, set the strategy and then
create space for that to actually happen and
give guidance and support. And so that whole
contract is a contract not just between us and
the public authority you've got the 10 local
authorities thrown in but for me it's with the
residents of Greater Manchester because how do
you create that change and how do you create
an environment where you know they were one of
the early adopters as a as a region I started
off looking at Greater Manchester like a country
in itself and saying we've got nearly three and
a half four million people how do you get them
engaged plus you got nearly half a million to
a million visitors coming in on a regular basis.
We talk about reducing car usage on the road.
Unfortunately, the network of public services
isn't great and it's going to take a while. So
we need that alternative. That alternative can
be something which people can really get engaged
with. We knew that the government funding had
limitations, so we then worked with Trafford
Council, Stockport Council, and we followed Noah's
Ark principle, which was we took a ward, and
we worked out a distance of where we should at
least try and get minimum number of charges in
to be a minimum, hence Noah's Ark element, but
try and see if we can put more in in that particular
location, and then work your way through all
of the borough and make sure you've got nice
spread of rapid, ultra rapid and AC charging.
So for the various dwell behavior and activity,
we had long conversations, shall we add in overstay
charges? I'm like, no, this is bonkers. This
is the stage where we really want people to get
engaged and get quite excited. So instead we
did launches. If you know the weather of Manchester,
I remember one launch in Trafford where when
I got on the train to come home, I literally
was taking water out of my shoe. It was that
wet that particular day. Well, we did launches.
We created noise. We got people engaged. We did
free charging days where people could come and
charge for free and try it out. We went and stood
in car parks and showed people how to do this.
It was really a great way of getting gave us
loads of experience, loads of understanding,
but fundamentally really turned our focus from
coming from an infrastructure space, really to
recognize this is all about customer and customer
behavior. If you get that right, we're a winner
and the regions we're in will be massive winners.
If you get that wrong, everyone's a loser and
this is not going to work. That really creates
that shift in the way we're thinking about this.
which is why now if you ask me what's my focus,
I may have come from infrastructure, but I'm
100 % want to be the number one charge point
operator in the UK from a customer perspective.
That's my real target, the goal as a business.
And when you go into the community, because you've
mentioned community a few times now and the customer,
obviously customer is key business, but you're
going into the community and a lot of those people
might not ever become customers, but what What
are you hearing from them when you've moved,
when you've been out on the ground? What do you
hear from people about this change in infrastructure
and this disruption? I have spent a lot of time
in car parks just lurking around. I make everything,
so in our team culture, it's everybody who joins,
early doors, you go to a site, you go and charge.
Some people, we film what they're doing to just
observe. what doesn't work and works. Then on
a regular basis, we have something called customer
squads, people around talking to customers. We
go to our sites, we go to our competitor sites,
but we're just trying to learn and understand.
What we really hear is changing. The conversation
number one was a very forgiving customer base.
you know if that didn't work oh why didn't that
work and lots of conversation but why it didn't
work the next wave of customers and we are getting
into early mass adoption stage now that customer
isn't forgiving because why should they be when
you buy a mobile phone and you use your mobile
phone and the apps the app doesn't work you don't
say oh it doesn't matter it's a new it's a new
sector therefore i'll be forgiving you're actually
quite angry or quite upset And to actually make
the customer experience the best, you really
got to be in the weeds with the customer and
try and solve every driver's experience and try
and get it to exceptional. Because it isn't exceptional
today. Nobody was delivering exceptional. I will
include ourselves in that. But that's our goal
here. And going back to that technology, and
it's not just the charging infrastructure, it's
not just the technology you're working with.
But people in general, we love technology, anything
that moves us forward. But there's a lot of technology
out there that doesn't work, as you say, as well
as it could. And some things they break, they
don't get fixed, or we're finding work rounds.
So is that an issue for your business on a practical
basis, or that kind of technology that doesn't
quite work? What I worry about is water tanking
on the parking space. So when a driver gets out,
you're soaked and your feet are soaked. I worry
about the signage. We've gone through every single
step of what that customer, the physical customer
journey is. and looked at what do we need to
change and how do we need to adopt that we're
now moving on to the next step which is wayfinding
so we're spending quite a bit of time talking
and discussing and agreeing what is it and talking
to customers actually asking you know what is
it you want on wayfinding whether it's wayfinding
to the site or on site we're also looking to
roll out hopefully on some sites totems we've
done the big one on Manchester charging oasis
customers love it because it just tells you something
really basic called the price. No one knows what
they're paying. And it tells you that very clearly.
And then there's a whole digital discovery piece
which we're continually testing. What we're finding
now isn't those brilliant basics aren't set.
I think we've got a nice line where we actually
are achieving. What we're now finding is things
which you haven't really thought about go wrong.
Last week we had an outage. which is a rolling
outage for eight hours, what was that down to?
Because the SIMS in the certain type of charges
had had an update from the SIMS service provider.
I didn't even think that would be a problem.
Who'd come up with that as a problem? But it
suddenly became my problem and my network. I'll
be like, what's going on here? And I'll solve
it. So we have solved it. We put in two SIMS
now in every charger. But this is the bit now
where we're kind of working our way through to
get to exceptional. For me, exceptional is a
driver goes to a charger first time, first time
they try and pay, first time to try and connect,
seamless, and actually it's so unmemorable. as
an activity that they remember the coffee or
the burger or the shopping, they don't remember
the charging. The experience of that charging.
Now there's a huge amount of lessons there for
other businesses and not just the transport business
but there's a lot of brilliant basics there that
could be applied particularly when you talk about
the customer and the customer's count and going
through that whole journey with them. What lessons
from your experience with BEV could be applied
to other sectors and Dare I mention particularly
when aiming for net zero? Well I think the first
thing is I think unfortunately whether we like
it or not people are being turned off by the
word net zero so that's why I've kind of not
really used it because You know, when I buy a
vehicle, whether I bought a vehicle 20 years
ago or a year ago, I buy it because I think I'm
going to look good in it and it's going to get
me from A to B and it gives me some happiness
for all the hard work you've done and so on and
so on. I think a lot of people, and as a by -product,
I'm buying electric because I believe in the
challenge we've got in the environment. and so
it's important that's why I'm kind of I think
there's so many other things which kind of get
you to that point before you start worrying about
the net zero piece but from a from a customer
perspective I think the and I we look at other
sectors ourselves yeah so we're looking so I
McDonald's is I've used McDonald's as an example
with my team the McDonald's experience is now
you go in you touch a screen you go to the counter,
you get your bag of food and you stuff your face
and you do that three minutes and you don't there's
no it's a very seamless process of getting and
eating the end activity there which is the quality
of the food which is hot which has been delivered
well for me that customer experience we're still
on this journey i just still i still don't think
i've been able to define 100 % sent where I want
to get to but that's not I'm not I'm not worried
about that because if you remember when a Nokia
phone came out we all got very excited by the
snake game and if we look back on it now and
think my gosh I'm so basic to where we've got
the phones to today but that but at that point
I achieved customer satisfaction and much in
the world now if I can get all the basics right
and get to that the basic first time charge experience
and as people can find my site I've got to my
snake game but I also need to have an eye on
that actually I'm going to ultimately end up
with an app at some point here as well. So it's
always looking isn't it? It's always looking
for the next the next advancement how you can
make it better for everybody and obviously when
you say you when you are buying a car you look
for obviously something that is You gonna feel
good about but obviously that also is is kinda
I suppose to our planet now I was asked this
question to guests because we've talked about
sustainability we've talked about success and
driving things forward but what sustainable look
like for you in your own lifestyle I think you
say you obviously drive an electric car but what
tell us a little bit about your own green if
you like habits and how do you maintain. a sustainable
lifestyle. Oh, I've got a big confession to make.
I don't drive a car. Uh -huh. Wow. I ride a bike,
I go on the bus, I go on the train, and I borrow
my mom's electric car. Okay. So it's quite, because
our head office is in Manchester, so when I'm
up in Manchester, I stay with my mom. Yes. So
it's gone all the way back to being 18, 19. I'm
like, Mom, can I borrow the car tomorrow? I need
to go to ABC. And if not, I hire an electric
car if I can't do that. We're quite close to
the airport. But now my Your life choices around
sustainability have to be also replicated in
your work choices here 100%. I think for me it's
about sustainability, it's also about the community
piece. The two go hand in hand because it's no
use me being an island on my own being sustainable
if we're not really able to take. Whether it's
with my working with my neighbors, I do quite
a lot of stuff on my street with the neighbors,
which is quite unusual living in London because
you normally don't know your neighbors. But in
the same in the work environment, I will go back
to the employee -owned element. The employee
-owned element wasn't, the idea was very simple.
that hopefully one day this business will be
successful and it won't be the two co -founders
who drove that, it's everybody who's done blood,
sweat, tears to get to that point and therefore
trying to create a degree of sustainability in
their lives going forward but at the same time
pushing them and giving them opportunity to be
able to grow, which is as important. But in daily
life, I kind of live a very non -preachy, basic
I'm so busy, I think probably I'm so busy with
work I can't really judge what else I'm doing.
I think that's the key is not to be too preachy
about it as many people do tell us and it's obviously
very important to you to give back because you
support Bradford, you know you support the Bradford
Futures Fund for students who might be struggling
and you've talked about a community, you've talked
about your neighbours, so that's obviously very
important for you and the way you move forward
in your own life and your career and your business.
So it is a success but making it a success as
you say for everybody, you might be leading it
but it is a success that everybody can have a
share of. That seems exceptionally valid but
But what do you think next for you? Because we've
talked about BVM for your career. What are the
next steps? I think just touching on the point
there you make, I think one of the things which
are really important to me is, and you've seen
this recently in the UK, and we've seen this
around the world, if you don't, if you just take
a very one -dimensional view of yourself, you're
going to end up with events like Brexit, and
I'm not going on either side of the shock of
those events. or the shock of other events similar
to that, which have kind of gone, oh my God,
where did that come from? A Trump coming in or
an extreme of what was normal in a very center
world, because people are not thinking in the
broader sense of taking people with you on that
journey. And that's important to me. So even
as this step, oh my God, I've got so much more
to do in this step of the business that I always
say, I'm probably the worst person to be involved
in something which is pretty normal. I get really
bored and quite annoying and even when I left
Amy I had some time out for six months as part
of the normal gardening period and so on. Day
one I looked out the window and I was like God
there's a car moved those people are going to
school. Day two intervention uh from family and
friends was just you need you're gonna go mad
you need to do something so i put on a bit like
reginald perrin was the weapon but he was now
he's put on his i put on the suit I went to go
and just have coffees and lunches and talk about
the next thing, which is kind of where this started
from. And so I spent six months just talking
to people about the next thing, about I could
do this, this looks interesting, what do you
think about this and so on. But for me, the opportunity
here is we are really at the beginning. And the
beginning is, you know, for our business, we've
been very focused on being a public charge point
operator in Great Britain. That's kind of our
model. but actually within that, to get to that
exceptional customer experience with a network
which continues to grow and a market which will
consolidate. At the beginning, which is a very
exciting place to be, so we're certainly going
to keep our eyes on you. I love that. It's so
important to take people with you. because that's
what we're hoping to achieve here too. So thank
you to Asif Gafoor today for providing such insight.
There can be no doubt that climate change is
the biggest challenge of our time. Today we must
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salixfinance .uk. Thank you once again, Asif,
for joining me today. Thank you. Thank you very
much. You've been listening to the Decarbonisation
Dialogue, a podcast from Salix. For more information
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