Learning to lead: Transforming a legacy business

Clare Elford went into the family business when her father became ill two decades ago. “I had no intention of joining, but wanted to spend some time with him,” she says.

The business, once called Bristol Office Machines, comprised three divisions: airline retail software, IT support and services, and Clue, a software provider dedicated to fighting fraud, but then in decline.

Elford spent the best part of a decade with her brother Tom building up the airline retail unit before it was sold to a Canadian competitor, where she continued to work for three-and-a-half years.

“It was a really great experience for both of us, having been thrown in at the deep end in terms of the family business, but then becoming part of a much larger organisation,” Elford recalls.

As her children were growing up, Elford tired of her hectic travelling schedule and joined Clue to, as she says, “figure out what to do with it”.

“It had a rich heritage with the police, but we hadn’t really been investing in the products, or in sales and marketing,” she says. “However, we saw an opportunity to put in all the learning we’d had for the past 15 years.”

The siblings invested some money from the sale of the airline retail business into Clue. At the time it was doing around £400,000 in annual revenue, employed five people and was focused on counter-corruption and policing.

Elford saw an opportunity to re-platform and move to supplying organisations that were managing intelligence and investigations beyond police forces.

In the second year after Elford joined, the business brought on clients including Sellafield Ltd, the RSPCA and the International Test Integrity Agency.

Her siblings – Tom is chief commercial officer – then spent six years growing the business organically. By 2020, the Financial Conduct Authority and Oxfam were customers.

Now with more than 80 staff at its headquarters in Bristol, Clue enjoys £7m annual recurring revenue and has won backing from Frog Capital and angel investors in a Series A funding.

How it started

“We used to call ourselves ‘Gloucester airport’ in the early days. It’s a very small airport. Tom was flying to Ireland and went to check in and the lady said: ‘Hi, I’ll take your tickets please, would you like to go through this door?’ Then he went through the door to security and she went round the back and there she was again, and this continued through the airport. That was how we worked.

“I was CEO, but I was doing everything: onboarding customers, project managing. My journey has been in removing the various hats I’ve worn over the years. With the Series A, that was a big leap because my main priority was to hire the executive team, to bring on some real heavyweight people, with the money.”

Perspective

“I’ve got a very clear view of where we need to go. I just absolutely know what we need to do for our market and the customers, just absolute clarity.”

Style

“My ideal scenario is I’m pointing everyone in one direction, and I’ve got a team of people that can do the hack because I’m not really an implementer. As soon as I’ve figured out something, I like to move on to the next thing. It’s never plain sailing, because one minute something’s working well and the next minute it isn’t, and you’ve got to jump back into that Gloucester airport mode.

“I’ve never really liked hierarchy, I prefer collaboration to get people to buy in, it’s much more powerful. We’re quite purpose led. It’s very powerful when you get people to buy into that mission, you empower them.”

Finding help

“I’ve always been in a very male-dominated environment, but I’ve never had a problem with that. From a peer point of view, I belong to Boardwave, a community started by Phill Robinson, formerly of Salesforce, and it’s brilliant. It’s for the European software community: investors and CEOs. I haven’t necessarily felt the need to network only with female peers but now I’m involved, I really appreciate the female founders and female CEOs group.”

Who I admire

“I do have an amazing exec team. Some founders find it tricky to get good people and then feel like they’re better than you. I’m totally the opposite. I love dealing with people who are older than me and have a lot more experience in their positions. Even though I’m a leader and I’ve got a clear view of where we’re going, I learn loads from them. I think we’re really punching above our weight with the executives.”

You can read other Learning to Lead stories with Romi Savova, co-founder and CEO of PensionBee here and Sam Smith, NED, author and champion of UK entrepreneurship, here.