Building Great Teams the "People-First" Way | Mark Plueckthun

In this episode of The Quest for Success Podcast we sit down with Mark Plueckthun, Managing Director of Allied Metals, for a candid and insightful conversation on what it truly means to succeed in business and life.
Mark shares his personal story, from his early upbringing and formative experiences to building a successful career rooted in leadership, mentorship, and relationship management. He offers practical advice on building strong teams, cultivating authentic leadership, and navigating the challenges of the metals industry in an era increasingly shaped by sustainability and innovation.

This episode dives deep into the principles that have guided Mark’s leadership philosophy, including the value of persistence in sales, the importance of cultural diversity in the workplace, and the need to balance professional ambition with personal fulfilment.

Whether you’re a young professional, aspiring entrepreneur, or seasoned executive, this conversation delivers meaningful insights on success, growth, and what it takes to lead with purpose.

Key Topics Covered:
 - Defining success through a people-first lens
 - Lessons from mentorship and early influences
 - Building team culture and hiring for attitude
 - Leadership traits that make an impact
 - Relationship-driven business practices
 - Challenges and opportunities in the metals industry
 - Sustainability and innovation in manufacturing
 - Work-life balance and values in leadership
 - Advice for the next generation

Connect with Mark Plueckthun:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-plueckthun/

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Transcript

Dylan Pathirana (00:22.552)
All right. Welcome back to the quest for success podcast. And thanks so much for tuning in once again today on the show, we have another one of the, the Harvard crew. And we're really looking forward to this conversation today on the show. have Mark Pluckton, who is the MD at allied metals over in Europe. Yeah. So I had the privilege of studying with Mark in a Harvard OPM program and Mark is someone very easy to approach and.

We used to talk a lot of things and we also used to do morning runs and he's very fit and athlete. And it's nice to have him on our chat and we'd like to understand his story and share that with our audience. Thank you Mark for joining us.

Mark (01:22.39)
Thank you guys for having me. It's a pleasure to speak with both of you about my journey so far.

Dylan Pathirana (01:29.368)
So Mark, this conversation is all about success. So we need to start there and I need to understand for you, what does success actually mean?

Mark (01:40.012)
For me, success is mostly centered around people that I'm dealing with and it's about being able to understand everybody's needs and requirements in order to have a happy and safe environment for everybody because in my opinion, that makes for a good possibility to create

whatever efficiency you want to create and whether that's personal, that's business wise, I think the more you understand about the people around you, the more successful you will be.

Dylan Pathirana (02:22.701)
spoken like a true leader. I suppose for us to kind of understand how you've gotten to where you are today, we need to understand a little bit about your, your history and your context. So can you take us through your kind of early life, your upbringing and how you think it's shaped who you've become.

Mark (02:40.59)
yeah, sure. I'm coming from a just regular mid-income family here in Germany, a dad working, mom stayed at home, helping me and my older brother growing up with a lot of love and attention. And I was brought up in a way that everybody around you can be nice and friendly as long as you're friendly towards them.

And that environment shaped me a lot, especially during my younger years. And although my dad was traveling also a lot for work, it never really bothered either my brother or myself, because we knew that whenever he's around, we would spend wonderful time together. In hindsight, that's obviously more obvious than when you're a kid, but as a kid, was just always good.

to be in a safe environment. And that's what I was.

Dylan Pathirana (03:42.189)
And what was it that your father did for work?

Mark (03:44.397)
He was in the steel industry as well, working as a sales director for many years. actually at some point when I started my career, I was his assistant for three years and then I took over his last job before he retired, which was a wonderful time for all of us together.

Dylan Pathirana (04:07.661)
And do think you, you were always, or I suppose, did you always want to get into the metals industry as a kid?

Mark (04:14.154)
No, never. Yeah, so as a kid, honestly, I wanted to become the Pope. Because back then, when I saw the Pope on television, I loved how all the people cheered him whenever he got somewhere. And again, it was always this wonderful, happy atmosphere and friendly atmosphere.

Dylan Pathirana (04:17.655)
So what is it that you wanted to do when you were a kid?

Dylan Pathirana (04:25.889)
No!

Mark (04:43.402)
whenever he showed up somewhere, it was always very positive. And that's what I enjoyed about my picture of the Pope around the world.

Dylan Pathirana (04:55.053)
So you wanted to have a happy life. That's pretty much what you... So what's your childhood like happy memories and how's your like schooling and you know whatever you've done like before for the education?

Mark (04:59.276)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mark (05:14.624)
Yeah, when I grew up going to what the Americans would call middle school, which in Germany is one school from grade five to 13, I started joining a swimming club inspired by my older brother. And he took me there and said, hey, Mark, maybe that's something for you. And that shaped me very much throughout my teenage years and into my early

20s. It was being part of a team, being more or less successful in doing what I did and also learning that, hey, even if you're not as successful in the sports that you are doing, well, it doesn't matter because it's all about the friendship that you find there. And that was the most important thing for me right from the beginning. School itself was

a more or less easy journey. I had my friends around both from school and from my swimming club. whenever we went on vacation with the family, it was a happy time. And so I have, I had an easy upbringing, I would say.

Dylan Pathirana (06:33.047)
Yeah. And then what was your kind of transition once you, once you left school, how did you kind of slowly start to get into the industry?

Mark (06:40.076)
When I left school and I did a, at that time, mandatory social year, that was an interesting time. I helped elderly people still living at home, getting the grocery shopping, cleaning their houses, these kind of things. And it humbled me to some extent. But when I started university,

at the age of, I think it was 2021. I was a little bit cocky and bold and a little bit arrogant. So I thought, well, you can work 20 to 40 hours a week. And I had a job later on at a very small steel trading company, which also brought me later on into my first job after university. And it was a three man show and they had no clue about admin and they needed someone to really do

the admin stuff and that's what I did and I loved it. But I spent way too much time at that company, like 40 hours a week and I didn't do much for university and at some point after five years, I got expelled from university. And that really hit me hard emotionally because I was like, well, you're way too smart to drop out or to be expelled from university.

And it turned out, no, you're not too smart. There are people way smarter than you and you not doing enough for your exercises for university was not smart at all. And you should have done it differently. So that meant for me that I couldn't join any German university for that same class anymore. And it made me, I was doing economics.

Dylan Pathirana (08:32.683)
What were you doing, Mark?

Mark (08:37.1)
And I had to figure out what are you going to do next? And as I said, it was really hitting me hard and I didn't know what to do because for me, it was a clear path. That was what I wanted to do all my life after I skipped the Pope stuff. And I had to start from scratch again at a new university. And then I studied business administration.

And that was probably the best thing that happened to me, found a good bunch of people that helped me through and that I still am very close friends with. And after three years, I was done with university. So that was what showed me you can manage anything if you just do it the right way.

Dylan Pathirana (09:31.293)
You almost needed that humbling experience as a bit of a wake up call.

Mark (09:34.831)
Yes, I did. And in hindsight, was one of the best things that happened to me, but it also teached me, well, whenever you fall down, it's just a question of how you stand up again.

Dylan Pathirana (09:47.661)
And how important do you think it was surrounding yourself with the right people? Because you mentioned there that kind of business administration cohort were the people who you've formed really strong bonds with.

Mark (09:58.541)
It was very important to me, as I said early on, the right people are very important to me, around me, and that was as much true for my university time as it is for anything else in my life. So, yeah, was a good bunch of people with which you could have a lot of fun, but when it was down to preparing for exams...

It was down to preparing for exams. So they were very serious about that too.

Dylan Pathirana (10:30.038)
Yeah.

then where did you go from there? So you finished this, this course and where to next.

Mark (10:36.916)
Yeah, when I graduated, I worked for, I think the past, the last year of that time, I worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers in text consulting, as student job intern, these kind of things, which was good for me because my master was in text consulting. But at the same time, it turned out, as I mentioned,

My dad wanted to go into retirement. He worked for a mid-sized company, 300 people. And he had talked to the owner of the company. Hey guys, I want to fade out at some point over the next three years, reducing my working hours from five days to three days. And during that time, we can grow the next generation becoming the sales director at the company. And they had looked into...

various resumes and each one of them was discarded. And at some point it was, it turned out that at the same timeline when they wanted to start hiring someone, I am going to finish university. And I had worked for the, in the same industry at least during my first university time for some years. so the owner of the company actually knew that I was working in that area. And he said, well,

How about I look at your son and my dad was like, I don't know if that's going to work out. Because we had a very close relationship, but that close relationship was based on everybody has his own freedom. And we're not, we wouldn't never spend too much time with each other. And I mean, working with your dad can be challenging at times and therefore, yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (12:15.457)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (12:25.548)
Trust me, I know.

Mark (12:28.492)
And so after that conversation with the owner of company, my dad came and called me, which he never do on the way home because I had my own apartment. And he was like, hey, if you're at home, I would like to stop by. And I was like, what is that all about? And he said, well, I just had this conversation and I don't know if you and I would get along if we work together.

But the one thing that I don't want is for us, our personal relationship to be challenged by us working together. And we both agreed immediately. If that would ever happen, we would stop working together. And then I would look for something else. But it turns out I got the job after speaking with the owner of the company. was at that time 70 plus years and he was starting mentoring me.

through my time together with my dad. And that shaped me very much because he was a...

Yeah, like you would call it a French Monsieur. He was really like grand and he had a sphere that surrounded him. Whenever he got into a room, everybody was respecting him very much. And I learned so much from him. It was wonderful. And it was a very close relationship, always at a professional level.

but still very close. And after three years working with my dad, which was the best time we've ever had together, believe it or not, because we spent so much time together, it was very good. And then after three years, I took over his position as a sales director for another, I guess it was four years. And then I was approached by

Mark (14:31.444)
a headhunter about more international business. And that was the thing that, the only thing that bothered me at my position as sales director was being restricted mostly to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, because they had a separate subsidiary that was responsible for the international sales.

Dylan Pathirana (14:56.3)
So would you consider your dad and dad's boss who kind of recruit you as your mentor? So you had any other mentors throughout your journey?

Mark (15:10.1)
No, they were very important, both of them to me. Obviously my dad on a very personal level and when we visited customers, I learned a lot from him on how to build networks, how to become friends with everybody on a, at an honest level. So if you like people, you will find something nice in almost everybody. And you just have to look at the...

bright side of everybody's personality. But then the older guy, he was

very open towards me being so much younger than himself, having different perspectives on many levels and still discussing good and bad from each perspective and then together making a decision. And that was teaching me a lot about leadership and how I would want to be perceived myself at some point in my life.

Dylan Pathirana (16:13.311)
And do you think working with your dad in a professional setting had a long lasting impact on your personal relationship as well?

Mark (16:21.376)
Yes, of course, because we got to know each other in a way that we didn't know each other before. And that, and in a good way. So as it worked out very well, I think over the three years we worked together, we had one incident where we were like, that's bullshit and slamming doors in the office. And everybody was like, who, what's going to happen now? But that was once in three years and everything else was very, very.

relaxed and easy and open-minded from both sides. And you both have to accept, well, he was my boss at that time, so I have to accept if he makes a different decision than I would have made, but that was fine. And the further he got to his retirement, the more he pushed me to make my own decisions and being able to push these through as well.

Dylan Pathirana (17:14.215)
You mentioned before that one of the things that you took away from your dad was, you know, how to build strong networks and be a great networker. Can you share some of the, you know, maybe core tips or tricks that you learned from him in that on how to be a great networker?

Mark (17:29.772)
Yes, first of all, think being authentic is the highest priority. Be yourself in whatever you do. And if you don't like the person sitting on the other side of the table, don't play and act like you're his best friend. It's not going to work out. You should still be respectful and friendly, of course, but don't act too much.

and then be empathetic about the people around you and try to understand what motivates them. Being open-minded, listening more than speaking. And that was what he teached me.

Dylan Pathirana (18:19.133)
And then so you transitioned in away from this first company into this international organization. What was that leap like?

Mark (18:24.801)
Mm-hmm.

Mark (18:28.396)
It was the first few months coming from a very conservative, mid-sized German company to start working for an American company that's shaped in a completely different structure and managed in a completely different way. That was very challenging. And over the first six months, I was thinking about resigning numerous times.

because it was so different initially. the overall setup that I had been at my first job was very solid and well thought out and everybody knew their jobs and what to do. And with a new company, was really like, it was a mess. The people that worked there didn't like each other. They tried to...

kind of cheat on each other with the material that was on stock. And it was a very nasty atmosphere, really. The moment I entered, it was miserable in many ways. It was a small team, but nobody trusted each other around Europe in the different offices. And it was very bad. And I was like, how on earth is that possible? And that was so different from my way of thinking and what I wanted.

And there's just some things that you can change because the people want change. And that means you have to change the people that work with you. And that's what happened over time and shaped a different team and the team structure. And that helped me and it helped the company in growing and becoming a solid rock in Europe, in the industry.

Dylan Pathirana (20:27.133)
Is this this allied metals?

Mark (20:29.642)
Yes it is.

Dylan Pathirana (20:31.497)
And so I want to go to that kind of point on culture, because I know Allied Metals puts a big emphasis on team. They say the best method of overcoming obstacles is the team method. And so I want to understand how, a leader in an organization, how do you cultivate a strong team?

Mark (20:53.908)
Well, the first thing is having an open door policy and listening to everybody's thoughts and concerns. Next important thing for me is to make everybody become responsible for their own work and for their own decisions. And if somebody would come to my office with a question and they didn't think about how they would answer that question,

I would send them out the door again and ask them to come back once they have their own answer, at least to that question. And obviously there are some situations where somebody feels overwhelmed with the question or a situation and they say, I have absolutely no clue on how to approach this. Fair enough. But in other ways, I was like, okay, how would you solve this if I wouldn't be available right now? And doing this over years and years enabled both my team and myself to

know how each other feels and thinks about certain aspects of the business. And it enabled me and especially my team to understand what is my reasoning about my decision making process. So if they would say, okay, I would offer the price at 100 euros. And I said, well, I would offer it at 500, let's say. That gap needs to be explained and you need to coach everybody to understand what's your reasoning.

and maybe my reasoning is wrong, then we have to end up making the offer at 100. But that's a learning process that takes years to develop mutual trust to talk openly about these things.

Dylan Pathirana (22:34.921)
Yeah. So talking about culture, you know, recruiting, getting the right people in the right seats. It's such an important thing. And when you're looking at people in terms of, mean, generic question, would you hire skills or attitude? Like, you know, I wanted to know how important the ability to have relationship in business. And when you're hiring people,

looking at that relationship skills. Is that something you're looking at when you're hiring people or depends on the job I guess.

Mark (23:14.573)
90 % of my priorities would be the person itself. If the person isn't a good fit for the team, I would never recommend hiring a person. Because it can be so disruptive and that's the least thing that you want in any team, the last thing that you want in any team. And it wouldn't be good for that person either.

because they wouldn't feel welcome, they wouldn't feel at home. And if they don't feel comfortable at where they are, they can't be at their best. And that's what you want. You want people to thrive in the environment that they work in. So I think that having the right personality for the specific team is of the highest importance. and the basic skills obviously, yes, they are important too.

Dylan Pathirana (24:08.139)
But but yeah

Mark (24:14.669)
But most of it can be taught, coached, mentored over a certain period of time.

Dylan Pathirana (24:23.637)
So someone more coachable than bringing a lot of experience and skills is important to you when it's hiring.

Mark (24:32.535)
Well, if you would give me someone who is a perfect fit from a personality perspective and has the skills already, I'd that. Yeah, okay. But most of the time, that's the holy grail that you don't find in today's world. And therefore you have to go for either or, and I would prefer choosing the right person than having the person with the right skills.

Dylan Pathirana (24:40.939)
Perfect. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (24:59.787)
So you talk, mean, I know knowing you good enough, I guess you're very much, as you mentioned, a relationship guy. You know, I know you spending a lot of time talking to people, really understanding their background and you're giving a lot of time to other people. But in conversation, if you feel like, you know, this is actually not adding any value to you, right?

I'm talking about business conversation, know, every day that we go through many business conversation, sometimes, you know, we just talking to someone, absolutely no value. But how do you manage that kind of a conversation?

Mark (25:44.973)
as I said earlier, I, I'm trying not to act and be authentic. If I come into a situation like that, I would make that conversation come to an end very, very soon. And if I have to be a little bit brutal about it and say, Hey guys, I don't have time anymore for this.

Yes, sometimes that has to happen as well. But I think if it doesn't give you any additional information and if a meeting is lasting way longer than it has to be, cut it short. Make it short and simple and that's what it's supposed to be.

Dylan Pathirana (26:34.347)
Yeah. And you've had a lot of experience in different levels of organizations. And I want to understand, you know, throughout that time, you would have experienced a lot of different leaders. And I want to know from your perspective, what separates a good leader from a great leader.

Mark (26:57.311)
great leader is trying to be always ahead of the market, the people around him, the competition, and is also...

so much down to us and down to every level of the organization and the industry that he understands, he or she understands every part of it. So for a CEO, not to know how the ERP system works is a no-go. A great leader has to understand every step of it, every process. And you have to step down from your office, go to the shop floor, speak with the people.

and make them tell you what they're doing and what the problems are. You have to listen to what's going on in your company, in the market and in the industry.

Dylan Pathirana (27:59.008)
And how important do you think, you know, that being hands-on is in terms of, yes, you need to understand the systems, but also in doing so, you earn the respect and the trust of the people on the floor actually doing those things.

Mark (28:14.093)
It comes together with each other, It's very closely linked. The moment you show a real interest in what the people are doing, people will show you more respect and over time, they will understand better who you are and how you approach them. I mean, with my first job, my first couple of weeks, we're just on the shop floor, working.

day and night shifts with the people in the production. And whenever I was able to go in afterwards, I got more information and details than I would have if I wouldn't have done that part of my job or not my journey there.

Dylan Pathirana (29:03.627)
I want to go back to your history, like your early days. You wanted to become a pope, but then your dad worked in the metal industry and you worked part-time metal and now over the years you've been working in metal. That's not like... There must be some relationship to metal, right?

Mark (29:29.421)
Honestly, think it's all fate. At some point, I wouldn't call it coincidence because I don't believe in coincidences, but I think it just turned out the way it was supposed to be. And I am happy that it turned out this way because it was a wonderful journey so far. And I'm looking for the next 20 plus years on how it all will shape out.

Dylan Pathirana (29:35.967)
Okay.

Mark (30:01.207)
There were so many variables that brought me into this kind of industry that I wouldn't have expected.

to show up in my life at some point, but you never know.

Dylan Pathirana (30:14.76)
Yeah. Did you ever think about, know, your, skills are very transferable. Do you ever think about going into a different industry?

Mark (30:23.755)
I don't think that my skills are so much industry related as business related, I would say. And therefore I think that many of my skills could be transferred into many, many other industries as well. And obviously growing up for 20 plus years in a B2B environment makes it much easier for me to adapt into a B2B business. Absolutely.

But being empathetic probably also enables me to work in a B2C industry or in service industry, for example. I think that if you're a good leader, you can lead in almost any industry. Unfortunately, you are missing the industry related experience.

Dylan Pathirana (31:17.641)
And you had a lot of sales experience and you know, for a lot of our listeners trying to learn something, what do you think is one of the biggest lessons that you could share about sales?

Mark (31:31.636)
Never give up. If someone blocks you off, be persistent in a kind and respectful way. Never give up. Find ways in and if it's important for you and your business, it will come along. Sometimes it just takes time. And maybe it also means that the person on the other side has to change.

And you might have to wait 10 years for that.

At some point in time, the world will turn around for you.

Dylan Pathirana (32:04.362)
Mm.

Dylan Pathirana (32:08.714)
So again, I want to go back to align the same question what Dylan asked, how important relationships in business.

Mark (32:22.104)
200%. Unless you work for an online only company, I mean, that's obviously different. But even then you need relationships with programmers or software developers, for example. But I think having the right relation, the good relationships with the right people enables you to not having to be the smartest in all aspects, but having the right people.

to ask the right questions to. And especially in my industry, and I'm not a metallurgist nor am I an engineer, many a times I was sitting in rooms with much smarter people than I am. And especially with magnet designers and physicists, and I was like, okay, a guy was...

five PhDs before his name on the business card. I should never be approaching these kinds of people with them feeling, hey, he knows everything. So I enter the room saying, hey guys, you know exactly what you're talking about. I'm just here to help and learn and then having some ideas on how to improve your business, how to make it better. And then.

nine out of 10 times people would be more open to speaking with me because I make them believe and because it's true and it's authentic that I want to learn what they're doing and understand what they're doing. And most of the time they start, okay, how much do you want me to tone down the way of speaking with you? And I say, talk to me as if I'm a dummy, best way of getting started. And that's how I learn important things.

Dylan Pathirana (34:15.818)
So that's with the internal people. How do you create your network or building relationship with external people?

Mark (34:24.235)
I was talking about X10.

Dylan Pathirana (34:26.568)
Okay, all right, so, yeah.

Mark (34:27.649)
So if I go into a customer's meeting and you have the purchasing person and then you have the metallurgist, the engineers, I go in very humble. I'm like, tell me what you're doing, tell me what your problem is, explain it to me in very simple terms and make me understand how I can help and support you guys.

Dylan Pathirana (34:55.946)
So creating that value for them, right? So that's important part of relationship, creating value. Do you use any external networking or what other? I you run a global, I mean, you're doing global sales. How do you build your relationship? How do you expand your network?

Mark (35:04.141)
It is.

Mark (35:21.357)
It turns out that whether in your private life or in your business life, you will find the right people at the right time. You have to be open for it and you have to look for it. For example, at some point I started looking into expanding our business into Turkey. And I was given a year by the owner of the company saying, okay,

If you show to me that we can be successful there and making some good turnover, that's okay. And the first guy that I found was as a representative for us, he was a good guy. And I'm still in touch with him, but he wasn't the right guy for making business, doing business together. And while I was traveling across Turkey, one of the potential customers had invited one of his friends.

and said, well, I want you guys to meet because I think that you could go along quite well together. And it turns out that, well, he became our representative still is today and we are very close friends and he's like my Turkish brother today.

It's finding the right people and whether you call it luck or fate doesn't really matter. I believe it does happen.

Dylan Pathirana (36:50.962)
It's almost network effect as well, because, you know, by putting yourself out there to the first person, you got access to his network. And so, you know, you have that exponential growth of networks just by putting yourself out there showing up.

Mark (37:03.437)
Exactly. If you work in any kind of international business, you have to be out on the front meeting any kind of business partners, whether it's suppliers, it's tech consultants, meet them in person, go out, understand how the people think, how they work and listen to what they say.

Dylan Pathirana (37:28.766)
So I want to kind of take a different turn because I know Allied has a long standing reputation for quality for decades. I want to understand, know, as the company grows, how do you still maintain that standard of quality?

Mark (37:49.355)
by never letting down your diligence about the quality. And that's...

ingrained into everybody that works for Allied Metals, the quality is never to let down. Because some of the material that we handle and that we bring into the market goes into serious applications like jet engines, for example, and the quality has to be top notch every single day. There is no letting down ever.

And you have to put in place double and triple checks for critical applications and critical material in order to make sure that you're not missing something. And if that requires five people to look at documents or at material, have five people look at the documents.

It also takes the right people to understand that a superficial glance at certain things isn't good enough. It doesn't work in our industry.

Dylan Pathirana (39:05.126)
Are you able to share a Mark, or some kind of example of like, know, in your industry, one of the challenges that you kind of overcome or one of the key challenges that you've gone through over the years?

Mark (39:28.264)
Well, you see over the years certain cycles obviously in the industry, global markets, which is challenging by itself. There's also the current challenge of finding young and educated people that really want to dive into an industry like ours and become successful by being

respectful and humble and learn things and not saying, okay, I have finished my university degree and now I'm the star. That's definitely a challenge. But if you want me to name one specific thing, it was the restart of our Asian business in 2019. That was...

Definitely a challenge and I wasn't responsible for Japan and Asia before. I was made responsible and I love that part of my job as well. But that was restarting from zero after having lost a significant share of our business and finding new partners by not knowing the country, not knowing anybody and...

going out and finding the right people to represent Allied Metals in that market and turning the ship around. with COVID coming up in 2020, not being able to go to Japan, which is one of the main markets for Allied Metals, it was very challenging to build relationships, obviously. And it took a lot of time to

Dylan Pathirana (41:05.289)
You

Mark (41:22.016)
digest what had happened before in getting to that position of Allied metals in Asia and starting to understand how best to turn this around. Which we did finally, but that was a lot of thinking about how best to approach the topics.

Dylan Pathirana (41:45.801)
Did you find that cultural diversity is also challenging to manage?

Mark (41:55.593)
I love it. I thrive on it because it's different people every day. It's different challenges every day. And my gosh, it's the best part of my job. Being surrounded by so many different cultures, people, and having to juggle all the cultural balls at the same time, that's the best part of my job. I love it. And it's not for everybody. I understand that.

That's okay, but for me, it's the best part. Being out in the market, talking to different people and understanding, being challenged, how you can create value for them and yourself.

Dylan Pathirana (42:43.689)
And I know that the market's taken a bit of a shift, especially in recent years, towards a strong push towards sustainability. And I want to know, you know, being in the metals industry, which has been for a long time, a very polluting industry, how have you kind of taken that sustainability shift towards sustainability on board?

Mark (43:06.857)
It's a major challenge for all industries, but obviously steel industry is very heavily involved and it takes a lot of money to change a steel mill from being CO2 pollutant to being CO2 clean, carbon emission clean. And there is various approaches to that.

First of all, you have to be aware of what the levels of pollution are. And that's not an easy trick to perform because the various ways of reporting that are difficult to see through from different countries, different regions. But it could also be related to an individual company and the major steel mills, obviously.

very large companies and they have specialists in showing the details and everybody has a hidden agenda when they approach these kind of topics. And then it's a very political question as well. It's more dominant in Europe than it is in the United States, for example, or in many countries in Asia. And I think that's totally understandable.

have to make sure that your people as a country are employed and have food on their table, then it's a different question than whether the GDP per capita in Germany is at 40,000 or at 50,000. Therefore, that's something to look at as well. And we as a company have started early on to approach that topic to be aware of what's going on in the market.

and to also feel out and talk with our customers and suppliers of how to be prepared for these kind of changes in the future.

Dylan Pathirana (45:13.417)
And are there any particular trends that you see for the industry, especially kind of in that sustainability route?

Mark (45:23.708)
I see a trend that the political discussions are way ahead of the industry and that the industry doesn't have the funds to make the changes that would be required for the political agendas. And we're talking about billions of investments in an industry that's

not making that much money. It's not an Nvidia, it's not an Apple that makes gazillions of dollars every year that can invest into certain changes. It's an industry that's hard pushed for being profitable at all. And therefore they don't have the funds to make these changes.

Dylan Pathirana (46:19.473)
you know, obviously not us not being in the industry. How innovative is the industry? Are you seeing like a lot of change and innovation?

Mark (46:28.78)
Yes, certainly. If you take a look at what a steel mill looks like today and what it looked like today, when I was first time visiting a steel mill in 1995, one of my internship programs, look at it today and it's a different world. It's entirely different. All these, the PSA that you have to wear, there are clear...

passes where you can only walk at, see digitalized screens everywhere you go and where there used to be 20 people on the shop floor. Now it's maybe two to three being good and bad, but yes, lots of investments have already taken place and innovations have been pushed forward. Also from a material perspective, if you take a look at

what kind of materials can be produced today. If you take a look at vacuum induction melters, for example, and the alloys they are making today and the quality they are making today, that's insane, truly. And then you take a look at the development also of space explorations and what kind of alloys they need. And the industry that has followed these requirements

That's amazing.

Dylan Pathirana (47:59.476)
So Mark, when you're working in an international business, you probably have to do a lot of traveling and meet people. And how do you balance your work and personal life when you have that kind of situation?

Mark (48:18.06)
It's challenging. Yes. And it can be challenging on a daily basis. And I am honored to have a wonderful wife, a wonderful daughter. And my daughter is growing up with me not being at home a lot of time and still trying to have the bond isn't always easy.

There is good and bad times where it's easier or worse. The good times is when I'm just around the corner staying overnight and back home the next day. And maybe they're also a little bit glad that dad's out for a night and the girls can do whatever they want to do at night. But it can also be challenging if there's something, if your daughter is sick when she's little and you're in...

in the United States, for example, a couple of time zones away, then it's very difficult. And the only way for us as a family to approach this was right from the beginning to be very open about how everybody feels about it, trying to communicate openly about it and be honest with each other what's good and what's bad, and then try to accommodate that as best into the work schedule.

Everybody understands that there's a certain requirement for traveling in my position and that's accepted. But for example, I would never ever travel on the birthday of my daughter or my wife if I can avoid it. And it's more important for my daughter, my wife would be okay and I have been away actually on her birthday to be honest. But that was asking her first if she's okay with it.

Dylan Pathirana (50:15.74)
Yep.

Mark (50:15.924)
I wouldn't want to miss my daughter's birthday for anything in the world as long as she wants me to be there. When she's 24, like your son is, right? And you would say, hey Dylan, I might not be at home for your birthday. And he would probably say, that's okay, dad. You'll come two days later. We'll have dinner together and that's fine.

Dylan Pathirana (50:23.496)
You

Dylan Pathirana (50:30.567)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (50:35.762)
Yeah. I want to know, cause you mentioned that you weren't extremely close with your father growing up. I want to know, is there anything you're trying to do differently to, you know, father your daughter?

Mark (50:49.196)
When you grow up as a teenager, you feel like your parents are doing horrible things to you, right? So often, and you feel like you have the worst parents in the world. The older you get, you realize maybe it wasn't all that bad. And then you become a father yourself or a parent yourself, and you feel like maybe there's many things that I'm going to adopt from the way my parents did it.

And I think I am much closer in raising my daughter in a very similar way than I would have thought I am going to do. But it's, it's probably similar for my wife. What we try to do is raising our daughter is using common sense. And that we, we never read a book about how to raise your kids. We never did anything like that in preparation. We just.

Dylan Pathirana (51:44.584)
Yeah.

Mark (51:48.758)
try to do it along the way and try to do it how we feel it's best for everybody. And so far, I think we're doing okay.

Dylan Pathirana (52:00.456)
So managing a relationship with your family, do you think that's different to managing a relationship with your colleagues at work or any similarities?

Mark (52:10.208)
No, no, I think it's the way how you treat people, how you approach people. And again, being authentic and that's as important at work as it is at home, in my opinion. And being open about your emotions, good and bad should also happen at work. And I'm not talking about crying in my office. No, that's not what I'm talking about.

If people know you're having a bad day, there's nothing wrong with it, as long as you still treat people around you in a respectful way. And I think that's possible and I think that should be happening in same way at home or at work.

Dylan Pathirana (52:56.924)
And are there any particular or key values that you're trying to impart on your daughter?

Mark (53:03.71)
Yes, of course. Be respectful, be open-minded, make your own decisions. Don't get influenced too much by external factors. And always try to double-check on any information that you're getting and be humble about your relationships and be grateful for the wonderful life you're having and for being happy.

Dylan Pathirana (53:33.106)
That's fantastic. Yeah. And I suppose, you know, we have a fair few young listeners who are up and coming and aspiring people as a very experienced business leader yourself. Do you have any lessons that you can share to, you know, the next generation?

Mark (53:55.371)
Yeah, it's a lot about using common sense. by saying that, mean, it's whatever you do, being in an employment situation, make the same decisions in that situation as if it would be your own company. And sometimes it means you need to spend more money

then at first seems reasonable, there could be a very good reason behind that long term. And so you do it. But if a certain excess doesn't make any sense for the company you work with, don't do it. And if you wouldn't do it in your own company, and if you would feel very upset if your employees would do it, don't do it either. And I think...

By looking at both sides, always trying to do that, think especially young people can have a better understanding of what's going on around them in their world and in their environment. Whether it's a personal environment or it's their work environment.

Dylan Pathirana (55:08.904)
Great advice. Yeah. So Mark, what's next for you?

Mark (55:15.468)
I don't know what's next for me. I am open-minded to what's next for me. First of all, it's very important to still keep on raising my daughter to become a good person and a good woman when she's becoming an adult. And then remaining in a happy relationship with my wife is first and foremost

highly important and then remaining happy with whatever I'm doing next. It doesn't matter what I'm doing as long as it's a good fit. And I am on a good path, it seems right now in finding a good outlet for my energy over the next 10 plus years.

Dylan Pathirana (56:10.002)
Great to hear. I suppose, Mark, looking back on your journey, do you feel successful? Given that your definition was a lot about, you know, people and making, making strong relationships.

Mark (56:22.39)
That's a good question, Dylan. Being who I am, would say it's never good enough. So I have to get better and better and better at doing what I do. Feeling grateful for the journey I've had so far. And my guess is I am grateful because it felt right. And if it felt right, it probably was kind of successful.

in my own definition.

Dylan Pathirana (56:54.28)
Well, Mark, it's been a fantastic conversation and we could definitely talk for a lot longer. But throughout our conversation, I've been trying to jot down the core traits, which I think have been crucial to your, your, what I would call a successful life. And I'd like to share them with you. the first one is you're very much people driven. throughout this whole conversation, there was a lot about people, teamwork, culture, leadership.

And I think, you know, that comes to you as a person, you're very much driven by people and relationships and really building strong relationships and connections with people. And I think that's a wonderful trait to have, and especially in business. The second one is you're very much a hands-on leader. And that's something that I respect a lot. And even in my time in industry is the leaders that I respect the most are the ones who are always happy to.

get their hands dirty and understand the nitty gritty. And I think that's potentially one of the reasons why you have risen as a leader. Next one, another core part is having humility to not know something. And you mentioned that in our discussion, going into discussions with customers and people who are very smart, you have the humility to say, hey,

I don't know a lot about this topic. Please, you can be the one to educate me. And having that humility, it's not an easy thing to do all the time, but it definitely sets the tone for a conversation and helps build trust and respect in those relationships. And then finally, the last one is authenticity. It's definitely something which you hold in such high regard, but you are definitely embody that characteristic.

You don't try and be someone else. You know what you want and who you are and you live life that way. And Mark, knowing you, I mean, good enough, I guess, you know, I don't really know you very well, but over the past three years, we had the opportunity to spend some time. You're always giving unconditional time to anyone like, you know, you're very willing to listen and really understand their background.

Dylan Pathirana (59:20.924)
coming from different backgrounds, you're very keen to understand, you know, and very generous with your time. So that's, I think that's a really great skill that you have and very, I guess it's very rare these days, you know, that kind of way of giving other people time because we are always in a rush to do stuff, you know, and I think that really contribute to your success as well.

And Mark, it's an amazing discussion and thank you so much for being authentic and being open and having this discussion with us. And we really enjoyed it.

Mark (01:00:02.528)
Thank you both very much. It was a pleasure to dig into this and to think about the questions that you posed and feel into myself about all of this. I am in a happy place and my family and friends got me to where I am today. I think that's for everybody to consider as being a very important part of our lives.

Dylan Pathirana (01:00:30.888)
Absolutely. Mark, thank you so much. And for our listeners, if you've gotten something out of today's episode, it would be a massive favor. If you could like comment and subscribe, it's absolutely free to do. And it helps us out a lot. And you can see all of our inspiring content over on our website, the quest for success podcast.com. And with that, we'll catch you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening.

Mark (01:00:56.374)
Thank you guys.