TAFEP Hero 2024 Nov Dec
Why Pos Malaysia's CEO believes in being the "chief energy officer"

Why Pos Malaysia's CEO believes in being the "chief energy officer"

As a leader, you have a choice to make your employees' eyes shine or make them go dim when you meet them, Charles Brewer shares. "I choose to create shining eyes as often as I can. How this manifests itself is through a lot of energy, fun, motivation, excitement, a lot of smiling, and eye contact."

If you have ever sat in a presentation by Pos Malaysia's Group Chief Executive Officer, Charles Brewer (pictured above), or had a conversation with him – whether in-person, or virtually, you would have left feeling energised, inspired, and with fresh perspectives on whatever you were discussing.

A self-declared "straightforward, Gap T-shirt-wearing CEO" who, like almost all of us, isn't afraid to say how much he dislikes Mondays; and a leader who takes pride in engaging employees on-the-ground, Charles brings all seriousness to being the 'chief energy officer' for a workforce of more than 18,000 ('Pos Wira', as they are called).

In conversation with him, Priya Sunil learns that there is a lot more that goes on behind this role as the energiser – and in the process, learns what it truly means to be an authentic, charismatic, and humble leader amidst it all. Let's dive straight into the conversation, where you'll uncover:

  • How the journey through more than 113 countries, living and working on every continent, has opened up his eyes to different cultures and experiences, lessons with which he takes on the steering wheel as Pos Malaysia undergoes transformation;
  • Why the leader finds it so important to energise every employee he crosses path with – whether in the lift, or in the corridor; 
  • Why the responsibility for happy employees does not just fall on the CPO – but starts with him, the CEO and channels down the leadership team; and more.

Q Your career has taken you across cities and continents - you even consider yourself a ‘Certified International Specialist’! Tell us about the experience – how has it shaped you as an individual, and as a leader?

Normally in conferences, I talk about myself as an ‘international man of mystery’.

I consider myself very fortunate — I'm English by birth, I grew up in the UK and fell into logistics at the age of 20 or so. DHL was the first logistics company I joined and in the interview at the time of joining, they asked me, “Why do you want to join DHL?”. I gave three answers.

First — I wanted to see the world. In those days, the internet wasn't as big and bouncy as it is today. If you wanted to see the Taj Mahal, you had to go to India. If you wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, you had to go to Paris. The only way you could really see it was through images, but it was still better in person. So, when I joined DHL - given that it operates in over 220 countries worldwide - I saw it as a great opportunity to experience life outside of the UK. I didn't really want to spend the whole of my life living in the same town, where that's your contribution to the world.

That's how the journey started.

Now, I’ve had the opportunity of visiting or working in more than 113 countries. I still have a few to go, but I always do quite well on geography tests as I've lived and worked on every continent. I'm a very lucky individual, and I don't take that for granted under any circumstances.

Bringing this back to what it means and its value; apart from simply being a fantastic experience, it has taught me so much. When you think about unconscious bias, discrimination, how to operate with different cultures, and my role today in Malaysia (which is a very colourful country from a race perspective), I think I have an appreciation for different cultures. I don't always get it right — I want to make that clear. I get it wrong as many times as I get it right. Though, minimally, I think I'm a better human because of that diversity and experiential period in my life where I've managed to experience so many different cultures and situations.

I always get asked if there are similarities. The answer is no. I'll give you an example: When I was in Africa, it takes you 15 hours to fly from Cape Town to Senegal, which was my furthest destination point. Everybody groups Africa as simply Africa, but it's massively different. If you’re talking about Southeast Asia, whilst there are a lot of similarities between Malaysia and Indonesia, they are fundamentally different countries with different behaviours. Every environment I've worked in has been fundamentally different. I think it's really helped me to appreciate that people are different, and you should value those differences.

So, long before it was really a popular subject, diversity was pretty high on my agenda.

I'll just draw one last parallel which my wife (who is Malaysian) and I talk about quite often. My children have had six different schools and have lived in six different countries. It's really fascinating to watch them. They are now a bit older – teenagers – but they don't see race in the same way as others see race. If you talk to my son – a lovely little man, who looks and behaves a lot like me – and you ask him, “Is your friend Chinese Malaysian?”, he looks at me like I'm weird, and ask me, “Why would you ask if he is Chinese Malaysian? He's just my friend. “

So to me, the value has been amazing from a work perspective — but on a much broader scale, the value as a human being and as a family, a father, has been greater still. While there are some downsides, there are many upsides.

Q You pride yourself on being a ‘charismatic, authentic, and results-focused leader’ - how are you embodying this in your day-to-day work?

I want to stress that every strength has its flip side, like a coin. There are pros and cons.

Generally, I think if you asked people to describe me, they would say ‘energised’. I'm a bit like the Energizer Bunny, if that translates well. For the most part, I have a high level of energy. The pros to this are that people typically get relatively excited to meet. The cons are, I go at an incredibly fast pace if you work with me, which can sometimes cause frustration for people.

Going back to your first question on how I grew up through the industry and what I learned from the many different people I work with — one of the things I learned many years ago as a leader is that when you meet an employee — whether they're a courier, postman, clerk or salesperson — normally those interactions, with the exception of my direct reports, are fairly short and sharp moments — whether it be in the lift, in a town hall, walking down a corridor, in a meeting, or whatever it may be.

The point is, you have a choice as a leader when you meet those individuals, whether to make their eyes shine and light up or make them go dim. I stress again that no one is perfect, but when I meet those individuals, I choose to energise them. When I meet those frontline people, I choose to create shining eyes as often as I can. How this manifests itself is through a lot of energy, fun, motivation, excitement, a lot of smiling, and eye contact. I interact; if I enter the lift (as I did this morning) and there was a young lady next to me, I have a choice. You can choose to say nothing for eight floors, or could choose to say, “Hey, how are you?”

I try to do so, and I encourage my team to view that opportunity, regardless of what function or position they work in, to try and make their day a little bit better.

If you think about it — technology is obviously coming along in leaps and bounds, and automation in the industry has changed beyond recognition but ultimately, we're still a people business. We have over 18,000 people in Pos Malaysia. They're good people, and they’re very proud to wear the Pos Malaysia badge. They want to work for somebody who's honest, humble, fun, exciting, somebody who listens. I always try to put myself in their shoes.

Another thing — as I mentioned, I started my life in this industry at the lowest level. I've worked for many different leaders, and the ones that I always had the greatest respect for, are the ones that had the greatest respect for me. If they took just a second of their day to say, “Hey, Charles, how's it going?”, it makes such a big difference as opposed to just walking past you in the corridor.

No one is perfect, but as often as you possibly can, think about it from their perspective.

I'm a relatively straightforward, GAP T-shirt-wearing CEO, but they see you as a CEO — and there's a certain expectation that comes with that. One of those expectations is “You respect who I am and have an interest in who I am.” I think that's probably the greatest way that manifests — I try really hard to make people’s day a little bit better.

Q I think that really speaks a lot about not just you as a leader, but you as a person as well.

Everybody's different. You don't have to be like me, but I know where I came from. Going back to my first interview in this industry when they asked me why I wanted to join, suffice to say that I firmly believe in my own personal values. Over my 35 odd years/37 years in the industry, I've never forgotten where I came from and who I am — what it was like when I was a courier, what it was like when I was at the lowest level, how I felt. If you try and get that balance right, particularly with those that work, and look at it through their eyes, I think it makes a difference.

Humility, authenticity — don't try and be something you're not. I see so many leaders try; if you say you are going to be a charismatic leader, or an authentic leader, it will turn into this very unbelievable caricature. Employees see through that in two seconds flat.

The key message from me is, “Be who you are”. Yes, you should moderate to the different environments, cultures, and people you work with, and the different roles you have, but never forget where you came from. Never forget the person on the other end you're talking to. You don't know what their life is like, you don't know what their circumstances are — whether they had a row with their husband or their wife in the morning, whether they're going through a divorce or financial challenges. You just don’t know.

So, if you try and remember that when you meet employees and look at it through their eyes through their eyes and do things to lift them, you're probably helping not hindering.

Q What are some lessons in life and leadership you’ve learnt early in your career, that still stick with you today?

Authenticity – in terms of leadership anyway – is so important. I know it's been a bit of a buzzword for the last few years, but I think rightly so. Authenticity is critical; being very clear on what your value system is and what's important to you. Everybody's different but honesty and trust is really important to me. Knowing what your value systems are and being prepared to stand up for it. As I described earlier, I have a particularly low tolerance for discrimination, and I've been in meetings where very senior leaders have demonstrated discriminatory behaviour.

You have a choice in those meetings. You can say nothing, and just nod, smile, and laugh at the joke - whether it be sexual discrimination, whatever discrimination - or you have a choice, which is “that goes against my value system and I'm going to say something”.

I choose, and have chosen for most of my career (sometimes to my detriment), that if something contradicts my personal value system, I'll speak up and say “I don't think that's right”.

I think having fun is also important. If we were all millionaires, we wouldn't be coming to work and would probably all be doing something completely different. So, if you've got to come to work for eight or nine hours a day five days a week., you want to try and make it a bit of fun. Keep that positive fun engagement going as much as you possibly can. To give you an example from this week on Valentine's Day — last year, because I remembered, we got all the ladies flowers. One flower for each and just went around and said, “Happy Valentine's Day!’ This year, I was so busy I forgot. (I even forgot for my wife, by the way) I was in our human resources department with our chief people officer and one of the ladies that works there said, “Hey, where are our flowers? Last year you got us flowers!” So, we rushed out and got them. It was one day late, very unlike Pos Malaysia.

Doing things to surprise people, such as buying people nasi lemak on a Monday morning, buying somebody a Starbucks coffee or a book, and putting it on their desk. You can do things on a regular basis that keep that engagement and positivity alive as much as you possibly can. This is really relevant for Pos Malaysia. We're going through an enormous transformation, and it gets tiring. There are days when you don't feel like the chief energy officer as much as you do other days.

Spinning it up on a regular basis and doing things to surprise people — I think it's the little things you do that surprise people that make a bit of a difference. If you ask most employees what they want, they’ll say salary, but that's not why people come to work. I mean, it obviously is, but what I meant is why people stay with the company is because of the culture and environment. Personally, culture is a function of my behaviour.

I encourage my team to constantly look for ways you could just make Friday a different Friday, and Monday a different Monday — who likes Mondays? Nobody likes Mondays, so make it a better day than it would be otherwise.

If you can find those moments of magic and surprise people. It can be the smallest thing you know, but I think it has a really big impact on how people feel about life.

I'll give you a good example. As I mentioned, I'm not a big fan of Mondays, I never have been. I know other people don't have a problem [with it], but I just really dislike Monday mornings. I struggle with it, and I just don't feel in the right zone on a Monday morning. So, I do things to motivate myself and get my head in the right space. If I'm in the right space, then that permeates down through the organisation. So, quite often on a Monday, together with my colleagues, my senior management team, and those that want to, we start Monday with a walk around Chinatown and grab breakfast somewhere. We just talk about stuff that is not work. Firstly, you’re doing a bit of exercise which always gets the head and body in the right frame of mind. Secondly, we just have a bit of a laugh - walking around Chinatown is beautiful, I love walking around Chinatown - and get some good food.

It just spins the week into a different starting position. If you start Monday, and your first meeting is a board meeting, it's like, '....okay.'

I think it's about trying to find ways to spin up your own day. I use music a lot — I play very loud music while driving to work on Monday morning. It just gets my head in the right place. Things like that — just trying to find ways to re-find that chief energy officer, the person that you want to be Monday through Friday. The same applies at home, by the way. My wife is fantastic — I've no idea why she married me — but everything I'm telling you in terms of what you do at work applies to what you do at home. If you walk in on a Thursday or Monday night, whatever time you get home, and you walk in looking miserable and tired because you are tired, then you're setting the tone for the evening. But if you walk in and say, “Hey guys, let's go out for dinner” or “Hey, I bought you some flowers” — something that spins it up occasionally, it just keeps everything fresh, motivated, and positive. It sets a different tone.

On a more practical level bringing it back to business, people are different

I'm a morning person, I'm good in the morning. If you want to have an engaging conversation with me, morning is good. Five o'clock in the afternoon? Not so good. I have an agreement with my assistant and my team: we don't discuss anything after three o'clock that is too brain-taxing or confrontational because it'll probably end in a bad place. We've had a tiring day, meeting after meeting. We keep the stuff that really needs a fresh discussion for early in the morning. That's when most of our heads are active, alert, and ready to go. Not for everybody, as some people are afternoon people.

But for me as an example, I never have anything too taxing on a Friday afternoon. It's pointless because my level of engagement and positivity is pretty drained by Friday afternoon so you tend to get less response. It’s a good one if you're going to go see your boss, don't go and see him at four o'clock on a Friday. Go and see him at nine o'clock on a Monday or Tuesday. Buy him breakfast. It's always a good thing to do.

[So is this interview taking place at 12pm on a Friday good for you?]

You're just in the zone. You're lucky. But yeah, as a management team, we're going through a lot of transformation. A part of that transformation is questioning our own capabilities and what we do. So, we spent several days off-site talking about how we behave because culture is a function of how we behave. There are no posters, T-shirts, or cups. Culture is a function of behaviour. We want to change the Pos Malaysia culture. We've got all sorts of bells and whistles and progress, but we spent two or three days talking about how we behave with each other.

Part of that conversation was, when is it a good time to have a conversation about things? When is it a bad time? What sort of things irritate you?

As a leadership team, and for people reading this article, be honest with yourself about what is good for you. Don't be afraid to say it. It took me quite a few years to learn this. If somebody grabs you in the corridor — which happens, as I'm sure your readers will recognise — and says, “Hey, I just want to talk about next year's salary increment”. In the corridor on a Friday afternoon at three o'clock probably isn't going to be a very successful conversation. Pick and choose when's the right time to have those conversations. That's important. Don't ping somebody via email on a Friday night saying you want to see them on Monday morning.

There are lots of little things you can do that influence the outcome of a discussion or how people feel. It's being very aware of yourself, what you do, how you behave, and what they can do to get the best out of you. It's quite an interesting experience, to be very honest.

Q Let's talk about your career in logistics. How have you seen the sector evolve from what it was in your first year there, to where it is now?

It’s kind of changed significantly. As an umbrella statement, I would say it's changed a lot but that's very easy.

There are some constants. As much as automation and technology have changed what we do and how we do it on a significant basis (think about drone delivery, autonomous delivery, AMRs, robotic AI — it's changed how we operate and behave as an organisation quite significantly) there are some things that are common and consistent. It's still a people business, no questions about that. To that point, I think the wants and needs of our people have changed significantly.

To explain that: When I joined, I started as a customer service agent but very quickly became a courier. The style of leadership back then was very autocratic. Very “I tell, you do”. Employee engagement was not even a sentence that existed.

I think the relationship between leader and employee, company and employee, is fundamentally different now. Their expectation of us as an employer, as a leader, has changed dramatically.

There are all sorts of quotable phrases around employees wanting to understand their purpose. I'm not so sure I fully subscribe to them, but at the very bare minimum, they expect a human discussion and debate. They expect their leaders to listen, they expect to have a voice, and they expect to have an opinion. That transformation from “I tell, you do” to “I have a choice” is a fundamental shift. That's not something people should be worried or scared about. I think that's healthy.

That's one thing — our employee relationship has changed massively. The same with our customers. To give you an example from when I was living in New York with my wife, and my son was born there — this is now 13 years ago. We were in the lounge, and she was sitting at the study table. She very excitedly told me that she just made her first online purchase, and it was from J.Crew CrewCuts, she loved that brand for my daughter and my son when they were babies. She very excitedly turned to me and said, “I just made my first order to get Henry some things from J Crew kids!”

I wasn't that interested if I'm honest, but I said, “That’s fantastic.” I then asked, “When will it be here?”

She went, “It'll be here in about five to 10 days.”

Take that experience through to today, people now have this on-demand expectation. When you order something now online, if you said something's going to take five or 10 days, they look at you like you're a Martian. They expect delivered within the same day, the next day, within an hour, whatever it may be. Consumers’ expectations of the services we provide in the sector have changed dramatically.

But also, if you think about the customer and the employee journey, from cradle to grave, the expectation from both our employees and customers have changed dramatically.

I'll give you a couple of other examples — when I first came into Pos Malaysia to try and attract prospective employees to come and work. When I rang people two years ago and say, “Hey, it's Charles from Pos Malaysia. I want to talk to you about a job”. They go, “Uh. No, thank you” because we had a certain perception in the marketplace. So, we set about trying to change that. But to the point, if you think about the expectation 25 or 30 years ago — you'd have an interview; it'd be unexciting. You are given an offer, a letter gets sent to your house — it's just not a very emotional experience. Now in Pos Malaysia, every employee that joins gets a box. We deliver a box of ‘happiness’ to their door because we're trying to make that whole experience. You really impact how an employee is going to perform from the moment you first talk to them, and it's not when they first start.

We try to create that cultural experience I experienced as an employee, what they're going to get from day one. So, we put a lot of effort into how we attract employees. We do a lot more now talking to schools and universities, and being very present on social media. Telling the story because employees have choices, they have choices about where they're going to work.

If no one's ever heard of Pos Malaysia, they're not going to come and work for us — or worse still, they've heard of us, but not in a very positive way. We do a lot to try and create the right narrative around that story. We focus hard on that journey, from attracting, recruiting, developing, motivating, engaging, and exiting, we've worked hard all the way through. We've done a lot and I'm very proud of what our People team has done in terms of changing the perception of Pos Malaysia in the marketplace, but we still have a lot more to do. It's the same with the customer. The customer journey with Pos Malaysia used to be very manual, on paper. You got to look at that those touchpoints, and where you can intercept and interject to try and make the experience a bit more fun and enjoyable.

It's the same for both employees and customers. You got to look at it both ways and say, “Where are my opportunities?”

There is a wonderful book written, it’s called Moments of Truth, and it's a really good book. It talks about the opportunities you have as a company or an employer to create magic moments. When you're interviewing, when you're recruiting, when they start. So, if you join Pos Malaysia and the first day you come in, you don't know where to park, you haven't got your pass or your laptop, and no one's there to greet you — those are all the standard stuff. Most companies operate that way, it's not a fundamental change.

But if you look at that journey and say, “There's an opportunity when I interview; there's an opportunity before you start to deliver the box; there's an opportunity when you start on the first day for your manager to meet you; there's an opportunity one week after you start for you to meet the CEO.” There are all those different moments where we're helping to make that journey for you something quite special, and that specialness creates longevity and loyalty. It also creates better productivity — happy employees deliver better results, it’s as simple as that. We look all the way along that journey where can we try and create moments. We’re not finished, but we're heading in the right direction.

Q Digging a little deeper into that, how are you in your role as CEO working with your chief people officer to ensure that this journey really applies across the company and every leader follows it?

First and foremost, it's a question often answered in the same way, but I'm not sure it's always true. The responsibility for happy employees is not just on the CPO — the responsibility for happy employees is on every single one of us. Every one of us has a responsibility to try and create highly-motivated and highly-engaged and safe employees. That's pillar number one — highly-motivated, highly-engaged (the keyword there is highly), and safe, both mentally and physically. It is statistically proven that if you do that, you end up getting a better result in front of your customers.

But to your question, it starts with me. My behaviour defines how the organisation operates fundamentally. We talk a fair bit about our shadow. What I mean by that is, if you ask any CEO on a call like this what's the most important asset, they'll say people. If you asked what they mean by that, they’ll say, “Well, safety and so on”.

If as a CEO, I have the poster up, but my words and action - or in our case, we call it our ‘song and dance’ - if our song and dance don't match the words, employees see through that very fast, and it falls over very quickly. Let me give you a simple example. If you go into a hotel and you check in, somewhere behind reception, it will have a placard that says something like: “We love all our customers. We have the best beds in the world. Welcome to the XYZ hotel chain.”

You check in, and it takes you 10 minutes to check in — that's a mistake already. The fact you had to queue up to check in, the dominoes have started to fall over because the words are meaningless. Secondly, you then get the keycard, which takes you forever to get; the dominoes fall over again. Third, you get the keycard, you go to the lift and go up to the eighth floor, you put the key card on the door, and it doesn't open. The dominoes fall over even faster.

You could have the best intent and the best poster going, but if the song and dance don’t match, it falls over. It doesn't mean it would fail; hotel chains and companies can be very successful even if it doesn't quite match their mission and vision statement.

But to your question, we worked hard to try and make the song and dance match the intent. Coming back to my behaviour — yesterday, I saw one of our postmen riding one of the electric bikes we just launched as part of an ESG strategy — we have 6,000 bikes and we have got a long way to go, but we just launched the first seven electric bikes. To the point, I saw one of our postmen riding one of my lovely brand-new, beautiful electric bikes, which customers and employees love. He wasn't wearing his high-vis jacket, which has the strips that reflect lights. I made a point to the head of operations and said, we need to fix that and fix it very fast.

If we say that we want to have highly motivated, highly-engaged, and safe employees, I have a choice. I can ignore that one thing I saw, or I call it out in a very respectful way. To my earlier point, if you choose the path of least resistance, the dominoes start to fall over. I'm not in that one example, but in repeated examples where you ignore processes, procedures, approaches, behaviours, or what I would call a contradiction to your strategy, and your dominoes start falling.

If there are four of us on this call, and we say we're going to get our employees to be super happy and motivated, and we're going to buy them nasi lemak on Monday morning, now, if you're the CFO, in your head, you might be thinking, “well, that's a bit expensive”. That's okay. That's not a contra-behaviour, because you're challenging whether it's the right thing to do. If I say, paint the outside of the building pink, I may think is a brilliant idea, but Serina or Ain might think it's not a very good idea. That's okay to have a contradiction in opinion. When it becomes a contra-behaviour is if you contra-behave what you say you're going to do. Your song and dance don’t match the words.

And when there is contra-behaviour in an organisation, your ability to achieve transformation or the culture you want is almost impossible. So, we work very hard to try and make sure we have that alignment on how we operate.

In terms of the CPO, Raja Ahmad is our CPO. First and foremost, we have an agreement that people’s happiness, safety, and engagement, are not his alone — it's on all of us. In fact, we all take equal responsibility. What he needs to be, is to be the champion of those correct behaviours. In fact, we were having this conversation a few days ago.

If my team was talking about salary increments, and somebody says, “Well, I just don't think it's relevant. We're not making money. I think we shouldn't do it,” but we all know in our hearts of hearts that it's the right thing to do, he needs to be the voice of our people, the voice of truth — whether it's training, reward, C&B, talent attraction, or exiting people.

He needs to be the person that sits in that room on my right-hand shoulder and says, “But that's not the right way for us to do it. There's a better way for us to do it.” Coming back to your question, we have an agreement that he needs to be that voice, whether it's to me, or my colleagues. If we deviate from what is doing the right thing by our people per our strategy, he needs to say, “Hey, guys, stop. Let's have a chat,” and make sure we get back on the path to do the right thing by our employees.”

Point number two — he has a responsibility beyond people. While all my colleagues and my senior management team have a functional responsibility, they, first and foremost, have a group responsibility. They have a responsibility for Pos Malaysia. His inputs – and that of anybody else on the senior management team – go beyond the function, and it should start with “What are we trying to do from Pos Malaysia’s perspective?”

Number three — he needs to be the expert. Whether it's an expert on labour law or unions, whatever it may be, he needs to be an expert. This means not only coming into the organisation with your expertise and experience, but staying at the forefront of what is current to HR.

My experiences are based on 37 years of working, but some of those experiences go back 37 years. He needs to be the president that says, "Look, in the modern world current-day best-in-class organisations, they're doing XYZ”. I have an expectation for all my management teams, not just the CPO, that they challenge the norm. I think many companies, and especially companies with a 200-year history like Pos Malaysia, have a predisposition to look at things through the lens of how they've always done it. I think that's a real killer for any organisation.

Q Bringing us back to the personal front: How do you keep yourself motivated, excited, and engaged when the going gets tough?

If you are the de facto chief energy officer - we jokingly seriously refer to me as being that - there is an expectation you're going to energise the organisation. Which, by the way, I think that's priority number one for most leaders — to energise your organisation and people. But like I said earlier, not every day is a good day.

One of the other things we did as a management team when we were talking about this in one of our sessions, was to recognise when perhaps one of us is not in the right place and try to lift them back into the right zone. There is the high-performance zone and there is the burnout zone. Sometimes, we drop into the burnout zone, which is when we're tired, frustrated, or things aren't going quite well — you had an argument at home, the cat got run over, or whatever it may be. Recognise when that's the case and then say, “Part of the way the team works is we recognise it and try and lift that”. The phrase we use is: who energises the energiser?

Each of us plays our part to keep everybody in the right zone and see if we're not in the right space, being honest enough to say, "I don't think you're in the right space today. Let's go for a walk.”

People go through different zones at different times of the day.

Q To end on a fun note: If you could have any superpower – without boundaries, what would it be?

I'm going to choose a couple. Selfishly, I'd love to be able to have the superpower to make myself constantly slim. I mean, I work hard on my health, but I'd love to have a superpower that kept me very healthy.

My two children are quite young, and I want to see them have children. I really hope that I have many years left to see them grow up and hopefully become the people that I think they can become. So that would be one, a very personal and selfish one — the ability to give myself great health so that I can stay around for as long as possible to see my children hopefully achieve what they want to achieve.

From a business or a more professional perspective, I think there's way too much poverty in the world; I'd love to change that. I think the distribution of wealth is something that the planet needs to really wake up to. I'd love to have a superpower to get those who've got billions and billions, and give it to those that haven't.

Think how healthy the planet will be if we can help the millions of people that don't have access to water and food on a daily basis. If I could have a superpower, I know it's not much fun, but I'd love to be able to change that.


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