Helena Mansell-Stopher: Welcome to Intent impact a Products of Change podcast where we explore the people turning sustainability from aspiration into action. Throughout this series we've spoken to leaders who are reshaping the future of our industry but one thing has become increasingly clear. Real change happens when businesses come together to solve the problems, challenge one another and build new ways of working. Yes, over the last six years, the brand and licensing industry has been on one of the most significant transformational journeys in its history. What once felt like niche sustainability conversation has become central to how businesses design, source, manufacture and grow. This podcast is all about capturing that journey, honestly, openly and from the people who have helped shape it within our POC community. We'll be looking back at what's worked and what hasn't and the decisions that have defined this moment. And just as importantly, we're going to be looking forward to the next five years and what it's going to take to build an industry that is fit for the future. For those that don't know, I'm Helena Mansell-Stopher and I'm the founder here at Products to Change. But before we get started, I'd like to say a big thank you to the Worldly team for supporting this podcast series. For those that don't know, Worldly are a leading sustainability and supply chain intelligence platform for the consumer goods industry, trusted by a network of more than, yes, 40,000 companies. Worldly turns verified environmental and social primary data into insights and action addressing carbon, water, chemicals and labour across complex global supply chains. Leveraging industry recognised standards such as Cascale's Higg Index, Worldly translates this raw data into actionable intelligence to help brands, retailers, licences and manufacturers reduce their risk. And what's really exciting is as they're part of our POC community, they're offering all of our members a three month complimentary trial of their platform, but it's pretty cool. So if you remember, please do get in touch. Okay, so the opening is now done. I'm really excited to introduce everybody to our phenomenal guest today. Somebody who's really been leading innovation in her company from the top. And as she would say, just getting it done. Wendy, I'm so happy to have you part of our PC podcast today. Welcome.

Wendy Mather: Thanks. I'm very excited to be here.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: For those that don't know, Wendy is the CEO of an amazing company called RDP Creative. And Wendy, for those that don't know who you are, could you explain a little bit about what you do at RDP before we even get into the nitty gritty of our conversation?

Wendy Mather: RDP we specialise in promotional and bespoke retail in the family entertainment space. So I think this is also what drives our sustainability because of the family and the children of the future and knowing what we're doing for that, it would be it's really conscious for our business and how we grow going forward.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: And make sure that we're protecting businesses ⁓ and the people for many, many years to come.

Wendy Mather: Exactly, exactly.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: And Wendy, you've been a, I know that when we spent time together over a drink or over lunch, you've told me your phenomenal story really of how you worked at RDP for many years and then you ended up buying the company. How does that come about?

Wendy Mather: Well, ⁓ it's a a short, long process, everything. I'm at RDP coming up twenty years this year. It's a large part of my life. ⁓ and I started at the bottom as the entry level person and was in London for 10 years and then relocated to the US. and I worked very closely with our previous CEO, Richard, through the years. and then One day there was we had a conversation, and I was like, I want to do this, and he wanted to do something else. And I said, Well, can you just sell me the company? And he said, Okay, it was as simple as that. but yes, then I spent the next year and a few months getting the money together and figuring out what I was going to do. But in one sense, it was great because when you work in a business and you see everything as the business has evolved, like I joined the company in 2006, and it was in its infancy, six years in. So I saw it really grow and develop. And I could see the things that I loved, and I could see the things that I would love to develop more myself. It was my business. and then basically once I bought it, it took there's a big story on how I bought it and where did I get all the money and it

Helena Mansell-Stopher: Well, did you then? Are you happy to disclose that or not?

Wendy Mather: I mean it's all public knowledge from I did another one about being a CEO of podcast years ago and it's in there, but it was like I'm not, I don't come from an extremely rich family. I don't have a massive bank account. ⁓ but I lucky that I have a husband that supports me and kind of allows me to do whatever I want to do. So when I told him I wanted to sell our home and use that money to buy the business, and I did have savings in the bank and My dad gave me a bit of money and the previous CEO lent me some money. And then my favorite one though is my last 250,000 that I was short. ⁓ I always tell this story because no one believes that this could actually happen. I rang this friend of mine and I was raging, going, ⁓ my god, where does anyone get money in America? And she was like, ⁓ I'll just give it to you. And I was like, No, it's $250,000. And she's like, Yeah, yeah, easy. And if you saw these people, they're just regular, nice people that we'd met on holidays for many years, and we were friendly with them. And when I said to her, where did they get money to set their business? She said they bought the bank. Like, as you do, just buy a bank if you need some money. And I know, and it does really make you think that you don't know who you meet, where you meet, and how much of a massive impact they've had on my story and my journey.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: Amazing.

Wendy Mather: And it's so nice to meet with them. We still go on vacation and to talk about how their business has grown and what they've got into. They're a hardware ⁓ family run business in Washington State. But even the granddad goes on holidays and he set it all up first day with like a corner shop and grew it and grew it. And I just love hearing people's stories like that where you kind of start at the bottom and work your way up. And especially now in the business, if anyone has any questions, are They want to do something or they try and tell me something's impossible and I'm like, Absolutely not. I did that before or I did this or I did that. You can't kind of hoodwink me anymore. So in that sense of being CEO, it's great.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: Yeah, especially coming up through the business and how phenomenal actually to just be having that conversation with your boss and you'd like, yeah, if I run the business, I'd do this and then him flat. Okay, then and then you then you'll then challenge you raise capital. And that's phenomenal, Wendy, I did not know that was your story. I knew that you bought the business, but I didn't know how it all happened.

Wendy Mather: But it's fascinating that I do keep in the back of my little notebook here. I went out one day when I was just buying it and I had like random pieces of paper. I sat in a restaurant on my own and wrote out what I wanted to do with every department. And I still have it and I knock them off as I go through all the changes that I wanted to make. And like some things are huge, some things are smaller, easier changes. So the easy ones I was able to do immediately and the bigger ones. Have taken me time. Like I've just launched this week ⁓ a new program for communication across the business, which was purposely built for me. And it's amazing that I've had that opportunity and how I can grow the business to the next level. I don't want to do anything too quick and I've really took time to think about what changes are going to have the most impact and how we can grow naturally as opposed to and picking the customers that we want to work with too. I think that's really important that you're on the same path together and that it's more of a partnership as opposed to a business transaction.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: Yeah, I love that. you've still got that. So those papers that you've literally are showing me and if anybody is looking at this as a video rather than listening to the videos. So they've literally been in your notebook all those years.

Wendy Mather: In my notebook, still at the back and I still go in and I go, Okay, this is great. I've really done because when you sit there and you go, What do I want to do? You're kind of writing what you think the story could be in ten, twenty years. And as you tick things, like I have a coach and every year we set out what's my crystal ball for the year. Yeah. Like there's been a few years he's gone, Wendy, you're being too easy on yourself. You've achieved that in three months, not twelve, or you know, some things could have taken me a bit longer. But I was like, I'll Commit to something that I'm going to commit to and set myself realistic targets as opposed to unachievable. And I think we've done that with the sustainability journey too. I'm not coming in going, I'm going to change the world tomorrow. I'm really looking at things as a business, going, what can have the biggest impact and what can we do straight away and how it's going to affect the business and the customers and The journey, the story, the everything about it. I j I like things to be I'm more of a storyteller, so I need to have something that you can really translate and discuss with people and how it actually is in layman's terms as opposed to sometimes I go to things and I'm like, I'm not a scientist, I don't understand what they're talking about.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: think that's the biggest problem with sustainability is that most of the language in the world of sustainability has come from the scientific world. So we need to change the rhetoric. We need to change the conversation, as you said, storytelling. And I guess, Wendy, learning more about your origin story has now made me even understand even more why you've gone on this journey within sustainability. And I guess why you've been able to gather the success that you've gathered as a company because It's your choice. You've said we're just going to do this and we'll make this happen. So let's let's rewind a little bit to 2019 when you started on this journey. Kind of what was it an aha moment or a conversation with a partner or you know what made you or was it part of your list that you'd written years ago? You know, what kind of got you on the journey in the first place?

Wendy Mather: ⁓ it was definitely started with a partner, Lego, but actually when I think back to even before the twenty nineteen, so I didn't own the business in twenty nineteen, but Lego was always kind of like my baby. ⁓ I s I really tried to get in there for many years and I was told no. And then so when I got it, it felt like wow, I really hard work for this. Yeah. And I remember sitting, we were at a partner conference once, and I was sitting at a table with a lovely lady Sina. I think you've interviewed her before here.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: She was on our first podcast. ⁓

Wendy Mather: She's amazing. And I love that she had a design background and basically everyone had had their tables and everyone knew everyone. And there was Cena, myself, and Sebastian, our creative director, at one table in the middle of it. She'll remember this is a little castle. And we're sitting there talking and she was really adamant about how and this was I don't even think she was in a sustainability role even then at that stage, but she was designed and the clo the all that side of L E L. And we were saying that how impactful design has on your business. And if you bring it into the design phase, everything is easy after that. And it was so true. We have always put design at the center of the business. When I took it over, actually, the only thing I changed, I kept the name, and everyone was like, Why didn't you change the name? And I was like, 'cause I've it taken me long enough to learn how to say RDP in an English accent, because Irish people say or DP. And I the only thing I changed was making sure that the word creative was as big as the letters RDP, because I do feel that is our key thing. Like you can go to someone else and get a logo slapped on a boring product that'll end up in landfill, or you will come to us. We mightn't charge you the cheapest price. We definitely don't charge the cheapest price, but was real thought put into the product, and that's more where we're Sitting ourselves that creativity is the key to our business and it is the core focus of everything. So when it came to the sustainability side, it was very easy because creativity is the number one thing. And I worked so closely with our creative director and the way that Cena talked about it. So when we did move into really focusing on sustainability and it being something key for me, the aha moment was. I spoke to Lego and they had mentioned they wanted us to get rid of single youth plastic by I don't know, t twenty something, let's say.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: 2025 actually.

Wendy Mather: Something insane. Like, why do we need six years to do this? Everything we make is made for someone. So we don't produce products and keep them somewhere. There might be the odd sp samples that are around, but we only manufacture what people ask us for. So we have order windows for our customers and they say they want to place an order. We say, Okay, great, order between A and B, and then we produce that exact amount of items. So it could be 18,372. We will only make that amount of products. We don't make more. So everything is made for the customers. So I said, okay, Lego said, do it by this time. And I said, well, we'll do it by tomorrow. We'll start tomorrow. No design is going into the business that will have single-use plastic in it without some thought around. So we did this was for a Lego. So no Lego product from tomorrow, which was great because I managed the account. No one was allowed to do anything unless they had my approval. So I didn't need to get approval from anyone else to say I wanted to do this. So we did it. And then all the data was collected and checked and verified by Lego. And it turned out that we had saved 10 tons of plastic just from Lego in just in one year. And I was like, holy shit. Sorry the language. That's an obscene amount. Like I think I sat around for a couple of days just googling images of what 10 tons would be.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: Yeah.

Wendy Mather: And it really makes you like feel sick, like if you're looking at that amount of plastic for one customer who at the time wouldn't have even been that large proportion of our business. And I was like, This is frightening. Why would anyone not do this? Like it made no impact to anything. We're just going to have to do it across the board. So I went to Richard and I said, Look, Richard, this is a massive difference of what it's done to Lego. I feel we should do this for everyone. So we started doing that and we kind of reduced it down for certain customers were I was told there was pushback. turns out there wasn't. Just some salespeople were afraid to tell their customer what they were doing. Wow. And I was told, ⁓ this customer won't do it. And I remember going up, I suddenly was in this account then when I bought the business. And I went to this customer and I said, ⁓ I really want to do this. Can you explain why you don't want to do it? And she was like, What are you talking about? Like Why would we not do that? And I was like, okay, you're on my boss too. Great. Get a ticket, sit down. And we've had everyone. There are certain, we can never say that we're a hundred percent no single-use plastic. There have been occasions, legal reasons, like food, certain things before. But then when it came to something like we do a popcorn boy for theme parks around all different Legolands, and that would have been food and that ⁓ food crate.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: Yeah.

Wendy Mather: And we couldn't have single-use plastic. So I was Well, we better find a solution to our head of compliance. Because I was like, failure's not an option here. We cannot put this in plastic. So he went off and looked at it, reviewed it, went to different people. And it was great because I had the time while I was developing the product for him to develop some packaging. And he found it. So it's like a paper food grade packaging that goes on the popcorn boy to protect him when he's out before he gets to the consumer. Yeah, it is amazing. And It's so many people think they need this and you don't need it. Like w why put the plastic on it or like even when it comes to some cups that we've done, we just say just wash the cup. Who wouldn't wash a cup that they buy anyway, even if it's in a plastic thing?

Helena Mansell-Stopher: And so, I guess, mean, removing plastic, number one is amazing. Number two, there's got to be a cost reduction in the business to do that as well. There's got to be money that you're saving by doing that.

Wendy Mather: Yeah, well, certain things when we came out with it first, everyone was like, Well, that's gonna cost you more money because you can't just remove packaging, you can on some customers, but if you're selling a product, it has to look aesthetically pleasing. So there had to be some form of packaging. So we had card packaging and sometimes the card at the start, people were trying to say it was gonna cost. I was like, absolutely no. So we did push back and it it didn't affect our costs at all. So you really

Helena Mansell-Stopher: can get it the same.

Wendy Mather: Yeah, same cost in the end. There was a few ones that were like, this is a tiny bit, but I wasn't gonna tell, like I wanted to take that hit for ourselves to prove that actually this is better in the long run. And the more we do it and the more other people do it, there can't be a cost to this. So there wasn't. And then we started looking at like, yes, there was a single-use plastic, but then it was looking at how much you could freight things. So this was an interesting way of looking at things like. We were doing some cups and they were all individually packed or individually boxed in there and it was only fitting in a small amount. I think it was like 36. And then we needed to reduce the phrase. So then we changed the design so they would pack into each other. And there was elements of that, like someone said you had to sing you had to pack them in plastic because if you stacked them, the logo might scratch. And I was like, absolute lies. This is ridiculous. I'm not putting them in plastic for this. So I went off and I figured out how much plastic will be, multiplied it all up, knew what the full container was. And I sell like a lot of these containers of these cups. So I knew this was terrible. This was definitely backpedaling. So what I did was I got a carton of them stacked without the plastic, and I air freighted it to America to show the customer. This arrived airfraight. I like if anyone sees a career, they kick them around the place. It's not like sea where it's nice and calm and on a pallet. There is way more damage that would happen on air freight. And they arrived at maybe it was one a little bit, tiny bit of a scratch, but they were like, well, that actually adds to the appeal of it. So we'll accept that. And they reduced their freight costs, they reduced their carbon footprint, they reduced everything, and everyone was a winner. So some people just think about one element of sustainability as opposed to, well, how can you do on the freight? How can you do this? How can you do the other thing? And That's been a massive change for us as well. Moving more goods via a sea freight. And how do you tell customers to plan more in advance? Some can't. And yes, there's always going to be someone that says, I want something by tomorrow. But realistically, I was talking to a a new customer the other day about it. And he said, Yeah, people come in and they say, ⁓ I want this, but I want it by next week. And he goes, And then you get something rubbish. Whereas he said, if they gave us time to develop and plan, yeah. We could do something much better. And I was like, yeah, and reduce all your freight as well, because A, we'll have time to product develop, but how can we package things and how can we ship things that way that would reduce things down? So it's not just the product, it's holistically what can you do? And looking down, and that's what I like being the CEO, that I have to step back and kind of take a helicopter view on how that will affect the business in other areas.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: and try and find that breathing space within the business to enable those better decisions to be made, guess, because everybody's moving at a million miles an hour. Everybody's always super busy. And it's really interesting that the assumptions of something people would rather just to assume something can't be done and say, it can't be done just to make it easier, which is crazy, isn't it? When you look at, when you challenge, when you challenge the team back, actually, when you look at the work that you're doing with Lego, the reduction of packaging, reduction of freight cost. mean these are all reduction of cost, simplification, reduction of carbon. It's all quite fascinating when you start looking under the hood of it. It's all good for business and good for the environment. And then the other element that you're talking about then that's how you take all of that great learning and then you've rolled that out throughout the rest of the supplies that you work with haven't you? So it's kind of, I think you challenge them sometimes don't you? Just actually as a ⁓ business, this is what we want. So rather than it just being what the supplier wants of you, there's so many partners that we talk to and they say, well, we could do that if the supplier asks. And I think, I think it's really important for you to have that as a core directive is your business is whether the supplier wants this or not. We're just not going to do that because it's not the right thing to do.

Wendy Mather: Do you want to be in business? Like the way that I look at it is if my name is on that product, which most of the cases it has to be, my name is there and it's in plastic. So I don't you know what I mean, whether they're paying the bill or not, it's not the right thing to do. And there have been occasions in the past where I'd given someone a waiver for the first time and I said, Okay, I'll allow you the first time, but this is not gonna happen again. And there was a particular customer came back and they said, ⁓ Repeat order we wanted like this. And I said, Well, I'm not willing to do that again. You're gonna have to find someone else to buy the product off. Like, I don't live a really fancy lifestyle that I need lots of money. Like, I want to be in business with people who want to be in business with me and see my vision. I don't want to just bow down to them because they want that plastic for whatever reason. It's it's not cool. And therefore, no, it's not you unless you're giving me a logical reason and there's something. Whether it be the law, whether it be something, we can always find a solution. Like our we can we're looking at so many different ways. Like there's another guy, Dan at Lego, and he's been amazed. Like I came to him one day and I was like, ⁓ we do these really high-end keychains and they come in an EVA foam in the box. And I was like, What am I gonna do? So he came up with one idea and just like and it's the way that we work so amazingly well with people that I love.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: It's

Wendy Mather: A partnership where I give you an idea, you come back and we bounce ideas off each other. There's no right, there's no wrong. Give me something, let me play with it, and then I'll come back with another option. And I always use the word, let me be your guinea pig, because the way that our business is, I'm not, I don't have a board to answer to. I am just my own self. So I can play with ideas and I can change ways in my business if I think it's gonna move the meter a bit. Like Give me something to play with, like give me a challenge and we'll see if we can do it and make things more sustainable or look at different options with things. And in the long run, it'll be the right thing to do. I don't want to race in and you don't really see me screaming about things that I do because you know, you don't want to sit there and kind of go, ⁓ I'm just doing this because it's today's whim. I want to kind of do things that I feel will have a massive impact and look at something, get the data. And I'm again it goes back to this whole Lego relationship. I'm I cannot tell you how lucky I am that how they work with me and how they use their team to help and support me do better. And at the long run, yes it's their products that are coming out like this, but I don't think I'd be in the place that I am without that help, advice, and just challenges of things. So I in 20, what year we now 26, maybe 24, 23, 24. I was lucky enough to be part of a special team within their sustainability where they get different partners and we become, let's say, little guinea pigs and they testing out stuff and we have to give them different data. So we started looking at plastics and we had to give them all the the amount of plastics that we used in every product for them. And then their team went away and analysed it and came back and then did a whole presentation back to us showing us how. Our plastic was affecting things and where they could offer suggestions on changes, which I was like, I'm really happy with this. but what freaked me out was, and this is again so great that I can just make decisions myself instantly, like to show me something. And if it's like, I'll just do that tomorrow. And I went into the meeting and Mark was showing me this presentation. It was like, okay, by using virgin palestr, you're using 3.96 ⁓ kgs of co two but if you get rid of the virgin and move it to arpes you could reduce it down to a hundred and or one point three six and i was like whoa that's that's ridiculous it ⁓ there's no difference in my world and price wise between polyester and arpet like it's

Helena Mansell-Stopher: Is there no difference? People moan about that. They're like, it costs more money to do an RPet rather than a virgin polyester. Because I'm just like, why would you choose the virgin polyester when you can reduce the impact by...

Wendy Mather: Lies. I had one customer years ago. They weren't on my journey, let's say they were a different, they were a partner of someone else. So they just came to the party for a one-time only deal, right? So sometimes you obviously don't have the real relationship with someone like that. Yeah. And they came in and they said they wanted just the cheapest price. And I said, Well, the RPET was, I think it was 10 cents more. And I went into the thinking, you know what, I think I might take the hit on this one myself, like because I just in good conscience, I don't want them. And everyone said they wouldn't have changed and they didn't care about things, they only cared about the price. And when I told them, they were like, Yeah, actually we will do that. And they paid the extra 10 cents for it. And that was many years ago. Like, that's the only time I've seen a big price difference. In normal circumstances, no one would even notice the difference in price. The only thing that you'll notice is the difference in the MOQ, like minimum order quantity for those that don't know. You can't just go and buy five hundred of something or a thousand. And anyway, from a sustainability perspective, I don't want to do that because to set things up and do things for what? Making five hundred it's pointless. Make something with normal minimums, like a three thousand is our minimum across the board on Most of our items, unless it's a high-end, different, limited thing. There's certain cases that it wouldn't be. But when we looked at that change, it was, what did he say? It was 65.7% decrease in carbon. Wow. I literally walked out of this meeting and I was like, whoa, this is changing immediately. So we stopped it straight away for Lego that year. We tested it out to see that it wasn't because. You know, it it is really good to have Lego as the partner because you are able to say, if there was an increase in price, it's your requirement to me to do this. So therefore I have to explain if there's an increase in price. Absolutely none. I remember someone in Lego email, there's no way there can't be an increase in price. I was like, There isn't. Look, because I thought I literally said to one guy, I'm gonna need you to back me up when it comes to sales, because there will be Certain things there'll have to be a price increase. And there wasn't in anything. So we did it with Lego for the year. And then this year I decided to bring it in across the whole entire company. So as of the end of Q1 this year, no one's allowed to source a product using virgin polyester unless they come to me for a legitimate reason. There's some reason things like laws, let's say you cannot make a plush. In America, that is made from recycled material and plush is mainly manufactured from polyester. There is BioFluff that I know that you work with. So there is that as an alternative, but we are we all plush is basically made from polyester. And we can do it for ⁓ the rest of the world, but in America you cannot. So therefore, in that there's an exception that we have to look at and work through as we go and develop products. But it hasn't made a difference to anything. So we've changed no sourcing now. So I would hope that by 2027 it shouldn't appear in our products across the board. So I'll hopefully the next time we meet, I'll have a good story on how much we've changed on that because we do have to document all the plastics that we do use now and we send over reports and stuff. So it should be very visible for us to be able to see what difference it's made. But if this was just one year to Lego and it was that amount, I was like, whoa, you can't in good conscience continue to do that. Like, why would you do that anyway? Like, it just makes no sense to me that if you gave a person RPED and polyester, I don't think you'd know the difference. I mean, I to be honest, I don't really like polyester anyway, and it's I wouldn't put it in my kids' clothing or anything like that. So it is just plastic. And there's so many people that know how bad it is for you. So let's just try and eliminate it where we can or reduce it or use recycled ones where it actually has to be and use alternative materials in other cases. With this, the odd case it'll come up. Like something came up the other day making a wicker basket or something, and the lining was polyester. And it was like, ⁓ no, we need to use ARPET. And then the factory came back and tried to say the minimum order quantity was way too high. And I was like, Well, that's not gonna be the case. And I said, just Go and get me a smaller batch of material and I'll explain to the customer that yes, on shelf these might look slightly different because you may have stock from your previous run because it's a retail product as opposed to a promotional product. Are you willing to accept this slight change? No one's gonna argue with me.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: It's but so do you think because do think people use sustainability as a value add? So you could have turned around to the Lego team and said, yeah, you said it's going to cost more money. does. Like you could, like you could have, you know, maybe some companies would have, would have kind of misled the truth a little bit. Or do you think because you've pushed back on your supply base and you're saying, look, I can get this elsewhere. We're doing, and they know that you're on that journey to think that they then don't. inflate the price for you because there's so many companies that we talked about, well, we can't do it. We can't get it past retail. Nobody will pay the extra margin. And we know that the material could be 50, 60, if not more, percents of the impact of the product that's being produced.

Wendy Mather: I have not, I don't I don't know where this is coming from. I personally haven't had it. But also I am very, very transparent in everything that I do. So a lot of the time before we went into this, actually, we did have to give over a document on what's materials cost, like what is the cost of different plastics and different stuff, let's say when it came to the polyester. So we know how much we're the the material raw materials are being bought for. So we really do understand the whole supply chain because you have to know and you have to know where things are coming from. And so we did have that data to share. So in that sense, you can't really go, well, here's the cost, but now I'm going to suddenly tell you it costs more. I don't think it does, but I also don't think if you don't want to do it, you won't do it. And if you do want to do it, you will. You know what I mean? If you say you will, you will. And if you say you won't, you won't, it's the same principle. You can either decide you want to do it or you can decide that you don't need to. And I think that the media and all different stuff that's going on lately, it's kind of a bit annoying that certain individuals are making people backpedal a bit. And it's like, well, maybe if you didn't make such outlandish promises first day, you wouldn't have to backpedal because it was all bravado and like, yeah, I'm gonna do all of this. And well, you didn't do it, so maybe. speak less about your massive impact that you're gonna ch make and do your due diligence and then like the way that we have worked on things that we look, we see what can we do, and then we say we're going to change because we've already done our homework. We're not coming out making bold statements and then realizing we can't do it. And then it's just embarrassing to have to backpedal on things.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: You're just getting on and doing it. You're just doing it and then talk about it when it's done and it's fact and you've done it.

Wendy Mather: Yeah, and like we do a lot of other things that we wouldn't talk about, like our fund any funding that we get from HSBC only comes from green companies. So we do that on the side in the background. And when I was talking to my bank manager there and had said what journey we were on, they were ⁓ do you know that HSVC offer this? This is what we require from you from a paperwork side of things to ensure that you're the right type of customer for it and what reports we have to give them in order to be included. So There are other ways and different angles the companies can come at it, but if you don't put it as your core part of your business and it doesn't feed down from the top, then how are people gonna think that if the leader doesn't say it, then I don't think it makes change in the business.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: I totally agree. Because even if you think of, ⁓ you know, the amount of carbon that you've saved and money that you've saved on not air freighting on just, you know, on just shipping and actually the team that's out there talking to the clients, not having that window where they have to ⁓ choose what they want. So you can not have to air freight it. think if you wouldn't have put those processes in place, ⁓ then people across the business are making all these little decisions all the time that just ladder up into all of this impact. think if they know they've got to come to you, like there's a for approval to do some of that stuff, then they're going to think twice about whether they want to do that or not, or whether actually they prioritise working with their clients in a different way.

Wendy Mather: Yeah, and this there's so many different ways to do things too. And in today's world, with what technology is available to us, like, yeah, there could be words out there for different plastics that you don't know or different things. Like, where in the world you don't have to go to the library anymore and like look things up. There is the internet, there's AI, there's you could literally say, How can I change this? I want to reduce this, or like something came up recently that I wanted to reduce the packaging on something and this ⁓ colleague of mine came up and she was like, ⁓ Wendy, the the freight's gone up because of the way that it's packed and blah blah blah and I Okay, well what do you want in there? Right? How many do you need to fit in the box to be able to sell this? And she told me and I was like, Okay, hold on a second. I literally went on. I know that you people say IA is bad for the planet, but depends

Helena Mansell-Stopher: There's some better than others, but come on, tell us the story.

Wendy Mather: In and I said, Okay, I have this and I want to put it into I want to fit 200 pieces, I think is what she wanted in a carton. How can I reduce the product to get this to work? It was so amazing. It literally came back with everything. So I went down then to Sebastian, our creative director, and I said, Hi, right, we need you to fix this. We need you to reduce the product and how we're going to fit this amount into the carton to be able to reduce the freight, to be able to reduce everything. He's like, well, that's easy. No problems. Boom, boom, boom. Fix the design. And we were able to get that down. But if you're not having the conversation, you're just being told, well, it's just that, and you just have to put that in there, you're not questioning anything. And as I said, it's it is very easy for me to kind of say, because I'm only developing the product for you to sell for that. So I can go back and go, We made this slight change to it for X, Y, or Z reason. Are you how are you feeling with that? But There's even other elements of things. Like I go to China every year and visit the different factories that we use. And I think that there's a lot of stigma and people saying, ⁓ China's so terrible. And I'm like, when was the last time you went and saw factories there and the changes they are making, which are actually all funded by the government, give them subsidies? Like I always show a a funny story to people about visiting this ⁓ amazing bag factory that we use. They don't tell you anything because they don't think they don't see sustainability as a s like a story in their thing. They think people are just interested in the price and the product and that's it. And I was saying to him, ⁓ about sustainability, and that I'm gonna have to start getting his energy consumption from him to start reporting. So let's say factory is excise, I am this proportion of him, and of that proportion, how much is my energy there? Because I then have to report that back. Yeah. And he was like, Yeah, well we have our solar and I was like, What where's that? And he's like, ⁓ up on the roof. And I was like, What? Now, to be fair, stupidly, I'd tie heels on what I was doing in a factory in China with heels, I'll never know. Don't worry, I I never went in after that. And there was a ladder, and I anyway, I sent Sebastian up the ladder because I wasn't allowed with my heels on, health and safety and all that. But he went up on the whole entire roof of this factory in China at solar pounds. I'm like, Why are you not telling me that? Like that's a really important part of The story of what you can do. And then he said to me, ⁓ you're interested in that. I'll show you something else. And I was like, like, maybe you should tell me all these. And it was like the cutoffs of a bag and like the extra stuff that was left. They trimmed that. And then that just got shoved into a machine. Literally, I have really cool videos of it. And that became more pellets to make more bags again. Now, in hindsight, I was like, I said to him, ⁓ that's great. But actually. Maybe if you told me the width of the bag and then we just designed the bag to be the width of the material that you're buying in, we wouldn't have any waste. So maybe let's look at that. But if you're not having these conversations and not telling someone how you want things to go or where you are going as a business, and if you give them enough business, then they want to make the changes for you or they want to suggest new things to you. Some of them don't even I I remember one factory I was using. When I started asking about the print and different stuff and I ⁓ we only use vegetable based inks. And you didn't think that I should know that. Like, can you start telling me these things? And when you go and visit them, I see, okay, where's your waste for that? How are you recycling that? What are you doing with that? And there's not many CEOs are walking around like because I have obviously multiple factories. It's not like I just sell one product so I can go and visit one. I travel the length and breadth of China. every year to visit different factories. I just love how things are made though. It's really fascinating. Yeah. I want to know how is this done and what can you do here or because also when I go to sell something to someone, if I don't know how the product is made, I can't tell them how to reduce the cost. Or I can't explain why the cost is that or why is the lead time that because if I'm not seeing it myself, then I don't know how it's made. Then therefore

Helena Mansell-Stopher: Fascinating.

Wendy Mather: I don't know how to reduce it or how we can change it. But I I literally I would recommend anyone going to chat. It's so fascinating, so amazing and how much they're putting into this and different robotic they're bringing into factories again to reduce waste and how they're recycling different materials and doing different things is ⁓ it's amazing and it's just amazing to work with different partners to talk about things. Like I was talking to a new person the other day and it was like their customer would know the feel of their product. They know what the character is or the everything. And it was like, how can we use that waste to make something else? And I was like, ⁓ I wanted to do that with something before. And it was like, how do I get product back? And I do think within the products change community there's so much opportunity for that with like you have the amazing company that bring back the toys and how can we all partner together to do something with that? And have something collectively together, I just think is you have to have a good story to go along with it because then people really understand it. Whereas if you're just talking scientific words again it just it'll go over my head.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: And it goes over most people's heads. I think you've hit the nail on the head there, Wendy, with people need to go out to the factories more. People need to communicate with the factory. So it's not just a one way street, like you've said, what is the price of this? ⁓ it's that, you know, they need to be asking more questions, but not necessarily to be the burden to the factory, but actually to innovate with the factory. And then the factory then innovates with their supply chain. Then it goes on and on and on. And then suddenly you've got all these amazing solutions that come back up. And also, I just love that you were able to sit down with the team and then whether you use they are not, it doesn't matter, it's helped you. And then you're able to take that to the design team. think there's so many companies that kind of work in their silos. And I think to have that connective tissue between the departments is really important, more important than just a sustainability team that sit there. Not it's just a sustainability team. I work with so many amazing sustainability teams. But we need this conversation to be knitted through every single apartment to make that progress.

Wendy Mather: And how you can do and do you know what there's certain things you'll see? Certain like you think when you're removing, let's say, plastic and you're going to paper or different stuff. There's some faults you'll see. Like I've seen it with some of my products, like packaging might, you know, the first time there might be issues with it, but you kind of go, Okay, I'm really sorry that wasn't the best solution for that. Okay, how can we improve on that? What can we do better the next time? And like It's it's just that conversation. If you're not having the conversation, you're not doing anything. And like in September I'm going to visit the Lego team again and look with their sustainability team. I just said, look, I'd love your thoughts on all our product range to go, what could you do better? Give me some tips, give me some let's just sit down and throw it all on the table and look at it, analyze it and kind of even if we come away with two things that we could look at and change and learn a better way of doing things or another option, then isn't that better for everyone than kind of saying, because I am not an expert on this. Like I have to Google what half these words are or whatever. Like, you know, there's a thousand words for plastic. It's plastic. Well there's different forms of it or different this, or there's a different impact to this. Well, how bad is that for the planet and how bad is that one? Which plastic should we use better? And it's so much learning for me. Because this isn't my forte. Ask my chemistry teacher. I definitely was playing around with the Bunsen burner and not paying attention to the book. So

Helena Mansell-Stopher: think that's amazing thinking about the Lego team and actually about the PSE communities that you don't need to have a technical expert embedded into the team across everything because obviously they wouldn't be busy all the time. But you can lean on other people's expertise to help your business. I think it's amazing that partnership that you've got there. And we've all leant on the Lego team over the last six years as we've been on this journey as an industry. So Wendy, most people will probably say, well, how's their business doing? How is business doing since you've focused on this?

Wendy Mather: Amazing going so it's like, and that's what cracks me up the most. There's always like, ⁓ you can't do this, or you this costs more, or this and whatever. And you're like, I don't think so. I mean, no, it's all public knowledge. Our business is going from strength to strength. I am so thankful every day for the amazing partners that I do work with, and it is fully across the board. And I think that I want to work with them because. they want to work with us too and how we grow together and how we can push back and look at different materials and different stuff. So I want to work with people that I like too. I mean, like who wants to get up and go to work and

Helena Mansell-Stopher: too sure for it not to be fun.

Wendy Mather: Do you know what I mean? Like, and I am the luckiest person in what I do every day. Like I had to go to a careers conversation recently at my son's school, and there was all these amazing people in there, and these boys were coming up to me. And I was thinking, ⁓ you know, their parents probably expect them to be, I don't know, top lawyer or whatever, blah blah blah. And they're over talking to me. And it was just like I was the coolest, funniest person I felt in the room. Because it was like they'd come up and they'd be like, ⁓ my god, I was like, What's your favorite video game or what's your favorite movie? And they'd tell me, and I'd be like, Boom, we made this for this, what's your favorite this? Boom, we did this. Like, and do you know, like everything, like just even Star Wars stuff, like the amazing emails I receive from people about the products and how much they love them and the nostalgia around stuff, and it's just I'm really just so lucky. That the people I choose to work with are so amazing and so much fun. And like I went to Vegas there a few months back and I hadn't been in a few years. I kind of tried to avoid it a bit. And I was walking around, I was like, we literally work in the best industry. Who would have this much fun? Like my friends always say, It's like you're in school, Wendy, you're having so much fun. Like, and this is your actual job. Like

Helena Mansell-Stopher: But also, and that's why I love our industry. And that's why I think the brand licensing industry has this amazing opportunity just to things differently. Because I think the thing that people forget in our industry, because everybody's on the churn, is that consumers connect to a product because they love the brand. So if you can bring the brand to life in that, through that product in a really unique way. There's no reason why you wouldn't have the best selling product because like you said with the messages that you got from customers, rather than just like a logo slap and a 10 grand energy, just like, oh my gosh, actually, let's light the fire of the fan through the products that and let's make it as sustainable as we possibly can. I mean, that's true innovation and excitement for our industry. That's what industry should be really focusing on, isn't it?

Wendy Mather: So true. And like when you have those people together in the room, and I think it really goes back to it, might have been more than even 10-15 years ago, probably 15, I don't know, when my the years just go by. And I remember working on something called The Amazing Adventures of Gumball. It was coming out new. Someone will probably tell me what year it was, and they didn't want to say it's 20 years ago. I don't know. It was a long time ago, anyway. And I was young and New in the business or whatever. And I we went to this meeting. It was my first time really having a voice in the meeting with the customer. And we presented ideas and an amazing, I think his name was Ben Beattie, was the designer at the time. And there was another guy in the room, and they said, ⁓ well, but could you do this? And I was like, We could. What about and I was like, I've never even heard that we could do so. Like, I didn't know we were able to do that. And we came back and we change the design up. And to this day it's still one of my favorite collections of items we did because it was if you've ever seen the show, it's just ma everything about it was mad. But we were trying to make s this really cool, fun idea and then sometimes making some what were meant to be seen as boring adult products. So some products were being given away at like a trade fair. So they had to look subtle and boring on the outside, but really there was fun in the inside and like The notebook had like hidden things inside it or like knots and crosses of your board in a meeting, put out into a paper plane and stuff. And just just the way of working together really excites me. And I I don't like to just go to a meeting, go, Well, this is what we're presenting, and the first thing to go, yes or no. I love that there's a real relationship with someone on how can you make things better, how can you do things different. Have you thought about that? Have you done this? And

Helena Mansell-Stopher: It was.

Wendy Mather: Bringing that fun adventure to life and seeing other people's side of things because they know the brand more than I'll ever know their brand. They're in there living and breathing it every day, and they know the characters, they know what that character like. I was talking to someone the other day, and he was like, They wanted to do something and it was some bear character. And he goes, But that bear wouldn't do that. And they were like, Well, how do you the bear wouldn't do it? Because I know the bear. Like I was like, that's hilarious.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: But by knowing that you get such an authentic experience and I think we all love product, you know, we do and so rather than, you know, product being damned as this real negative horrible thing, how about we just try to make it differently so we can still have that amazing emotional connection. ⁓ Wendy, we're running out of time. Two more questions and then I'll let you go about your busy day. So what's next for you for RDP? know there's loads that you've been doing that we haven't even spoken about with your CDP reporting and look at the carbon impact of your business. You've been invested in AI to really build efficiencies into the team. What's next for you? What's next on your list that you haven't got to yet?

Wendy Mather: ⁓ I think my systems change is gonna make a massive impact to the business and the efficiencies in that and how it communicates across the business. I think that if you don't know what like it's impossible for me to know what's happening in every single angle of every day within the business. But I think now with systems and processes, and like, yes, we've been around twenty six years this year, but it's like In order for us to get to the next level, we have to be able to see what the right arm is doing and the left arm is doing in every angle of it, and feeding that in together and being more collaborative as a team. And we're able to do that with this amazing new system that's been built for us. ⁓ Excello. It was actually built by my coach. So he's a tech guy, started off as a lawyer and then moved into tech, sold his business to Uber Eats. And then thought he was going to sit back, retire, and enjoy the good life. And then he met me. And I would like tell him every week about ⁓ this or that. And he was like, ⁓ I'd like an AI coaching platform. And I was like, That's terrible. Like, why would why would someone want to talk to an AI person that's I think that's a bit weird? I want to talk to a human being. And then it kind of elevated to being forget the AI video, because that actually soaks up way too much energy. And so forget the video, we just have the words with the coach, but it then evolved from what are you doing as a business? So every single day people log on to the system, they say what they're doing, what their priorities are, and it can see what you're doing in your region, what I'm doing in my region, and how we can communicate together. So it'd be like, ⁓ that's really interesting. Did you know that Helena's doing this? And that was what she so you should maybe chat to her about what she's doing in her part of the business. And it understands all languages too. So the Chinese people can speak in their language, the French, the Spanish, everyone can speak in whatever their home languages is to the computer, and yet I can still see everything. And it really brings back actually, I used it, you'd be interested to hear, I used it to talk to my AI person is called Daniel. And I told him yesterday that I was, ⁓ I'm going to this podcast today. And I was saying, ⁓ look, how about this? And as you know my business, Daniel, so well. ⁓ what do you think? How do I discuss these different topics? And Daniel, because he's got a great personality, literally came back and went, just don't make it boring because so many people are bored by like big technical terms and things, and just be yourself and bring the RDP personality to it to make it an enjoyable conversation. And this is how you should word your big changes that you've been making so it becomes more user. Friendly that people actually want to listen to this and learn from you and ask questions. And it is very interesting. Like when you do like this is usually only my second podcast, but I did a podcast a few years ago about business and becoming CEO and how I rewarded the team. I had the most amazing conversation with some random man afterwards because I'd given my email address and he emailed and said, ⁓ could he have a chat? And I was like, Yeah, and I set up a Teams call with him on the Friday. We had such a laugh and he was such a nice guy. And It was just like his business was in the infancy and he wanted to know how to reward people to get everyone on the bus. And I think if you do that as a business and you make sure that everyone is rewarded as the business grows and as they take on board our core ideation for the business and what actually stands true. And like you can in our ⁓ AI platform, you can put down, ⁓ I want to give this person a love heart for taking on part of the core values of the business. So this person did this really cool new sustainability thing. You can give a love heart and then tick. Is it for sustainability? Is it for integrity? Is it for transparency? And our core values are really interwoven into the business from all the way up down. And I give newsletters every week to the team and that all appears in there too so they can refer back to it and where we're going and what we're doing as a business. And I'm very transparent with everyone across and what we're doing. with my team and with my customers and with everyone. I think if you're hiding something, it's pointless.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: Yeah, I agree. think there'll be lots of people, Wendy, that are probably going to want to know how they can get that platform in their business as well. ⁓

Wendy Mather: Hold on, let me have it first. I'm the guinea pig at the gates.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: And then if we were to look, if I kind of ask you a question of in five years time, so we're five years in future and we're sat down having a nice glass of wine, what would you like to have seen happen in the next five years within our industry when it comes to sustainability? What would be the one thing you're just like, yeah, we did that, we all nailed it.

Wendy Mather: I think more coming together actually. I am a very fond person of sharing information. I do think sustainability is great in that sense. It's not like the rest of the world. There's no hiding behind something. If I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna share with you, and vice versa, and we're gonna share it around the world. Like this is a great idea. You should do this, you should do this. Hey, I came up with this new packaging thing or this new other thing, and how can we share the data? I think that's amazing. I do feel that. With AI is just so insane, and how the speed of it and to change our future. I think we need to look at how we can use it for the good and how we can train things up to be able to say, give me real stuff that's going to make a difference. So, like before I would have had to search for the data on a product or anything like this, I'm not gonna have that anymore because the system reads the different systems. So it'll understand the bill of materials, it'll understand this, it'll understand the impact of that, and you're going to be able to say to it. So, like at the moment, I can go in and go, Okay, I want to buy this product or I want to develop this product. What do you think I should do? I've got this much budget, I want paper-based items for a QSR, or I want ⁓ this kind of an item for a different market. What do you suggest I do? Knowing the information that we have and ⁓ What different materials do you suggest I can use? Because it has all of that knowledge. Like everything before you're just sitting in your brain, now it's taken all our history, all our knowledge, all our purchase orders, everything is all in there. Every test report, everything, the information is there. And this is just like mind-blowing already. And if you think about the speed of when technology came in and Google and all that first day. Wow, where is AI going to take us in the next 10 years that the more information we'll be able to share, it's just gonna be it's going to move the meter so fast.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: And I'm really hopeful that, you most people get stuck in the everyday. And I know, know, some AI is horrible and there are people campaigning. And I think if we're going to have data centers, we need to have them run on renewable energy and we need to have, you know, be taken ⁓ from local water, the need to benefit local community. But I must say that in the world of sustainability and product development and progress, most teams at the minute are kind of caught up with reporting. as actually we really need those teams to be innovative and be designing differently. And I'm hopeful that AI will help us with that, not to take jobs away, but actually to help elevate what we do.

Wendy Mather: And speed, look at the speed you're gonna get that data than before you're sitting around analyzing it, but also the way that someone like me can use it, asking questions, like give it to me in wendy terms. So like the AI tool knows yeah, and it understands my personalities. You do a personality test too, so it knows that I only want top-line stuff. Don't give me fine detail. My CFO, yeah, he wants all the detail. Give him a novel to read. But for me, it's like give me the quick. Top line stuff, what difference is it going to make? Okay, great. So when I ask questions, it gives me very sharp, short answers. This is what it's going to do. This is the layman's term of it. So that I can understand because I don't want to go into a meeting and discuss sustainability or this or that or the other thing. If I don't actually understand it myself and I become a bit like, ⁓ this is this is too much for my head to get around. So I need it to be simplified. And how it can take that and say, You could change this in your business. And I think the more information I'm going to be able to give it, the more. And there are ways to reduce things sound. Like it, it scans things at a certain level. So it doesn't use as much data as going right into the weeds of everything. So it gives me top line things for me to then have a conversation with you. I can go and get the bottom if I want to, but that's not my business. I want to be able to Yeah. Get a top thing. Okay, please have a discussion about this. Great. And then you're meeting with people and seeing where. you have different issues or problems in your business on a day to day basis and how you can get better and that's what it's doing. It understands who the business is and where we want to go and gives advice on this is where you should be focusing. And then you make commitments to it too. So what am I going to commit to as a business owner this quarter? Great. That's put down as an OKR within the system and how we can develop, which is just amazing.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: so much time and having to get back to stuff. ⁓ Wendy, I think you're from...

Wendy Mather: School gaze, no problems every day.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: You're phenomenal. think your journey even to get to phase two of RDP Creative with you at the helm is amazing. I think your story and wanting to build a business that's fit for the future and partnering with people to enable you to do that and really build up the team's capacity is phenomenal. You got awarded our POC award last year at the conference in partnership with the UN's STDs, which I was so proud to give you because you're just amazing. And just thank you for your partnership at POC. It's such an honor to have you part of our community and I'm really looking forward to being able to hit that 2030 goal together.

Wendy Mather: Yes, me too. And I love working with you guys. You're so easy to reach out to and ask questions within the community of things that I don't understand. And like, hey Helena, what the hell is this? Like, give me some real words for it and explain it in simple terms so that we can all get together. And I just love like when we go to the events every November of your big conference, I'd even like more of these events that we can just meet with people and network together and share ideas and share innovation because I I d I don't want to hold anything back. I want to be able to tell people what we do and how we do it. And so that we can all be on this journey together at a faster pace. If you share knowledge, it's don't r waste your time. If you know someone else knows it, then share it and let's go.

Helena Mansell-Stopher: I agree. Maybe we need to have a, let's have a separate conversation. Let's see what we can do in spring next year. More to come. Thank you so much, Wendy. Have an amazing day and we hope everybody listened, loved listening to your story and hopefully they can come and find you on LinkedIn or email you.

Wendy Mather: Yes. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Helen. I really appreciate you and the whole team and everyone. So speak soon. Have a great rest of your day. Bye.