Matt's Story

Matt Trobe is no stranger to running a successful business. With 5 MD roles under his belt, Matt has experienced most things that business life can throw up. But even multi-time MDs still have one or two tricks they can pick up.

Matt joined Vistage back in 2004, after seeing a flyer and thinking “that sounds interesting.” At the time, he was the MD of FormFlo, a Canadian company that creates components for the global automotive industry. He didn’t have a mentor and his boss was overseas, so he was largely left to his own devices. By his own admission “my learning was by trial and error. “

“My Vistage membership has more than paid for itself!”

His membership came with a six-month opt-out option, but on joining, he never looked back. Aside from helping with business issues, the Vistage group and especially Iain Lindsay, the group Chair, were tremendously supportive during a period of significant personal challenges.

He says, “I’m forever grateful for the way they helped Business-wise, my Vistage group has rallied round on countless occasions, but there’s one event in particular that stands out.” 

He was going through a business-critical negotiation and needed help nailing the proposal. The group helped him go through every aspect of it, even forming two teams of the best negotiators, all the while unpicking what worked and what didn’t until it was as good as it could be. When it came to the actual negotiation, “I was so much better prepared than the competition that it was a tremendous success. Consequently, we managed to get a price increase of over a million pounds. My Vistage membership has more than paid for itself!”

“One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learnt at Vistage is how to approach problems.”

"I suppose the initial attraction was having access to best practice, the 1-1 mentoring, world-class speakers and so on, but over time I’d say it’s the ability to discuss and debate and kick things around with others that have kept me ‘signed up’. 

“As the group members and guest speakers come from different backgrounds and run all sorts of non-competing companies, you get ideas you’d never have on your own, or from mixing with people simply within your company or industry sector. The calibre of the people in my group has always been very high. That diversity of opinion has been especially useful during COVID. As with many companies, Gardiner Brothers, who I work for, was hit hard in the early weeks of lockdown, but we had a distinct advantage.

“Three of our senior executive team are longstanding Vistage members, enabling us to collectively tap into a wealth of resources and support. What happened next saw us fast-track the changes we had planned for the next 3-5 years. This involved expanding our online offer, which has had a positive impact on our profits and enabled us to keep our workforce on at full pay. The business is now growing at a tremendous rate, and we hope it will be more profitable this year than last, despite having a really big knock in the early weeks of lockdown. 

“One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learnt at Vistage is how to approach problems. It’s far more effective to open a problem up to others than to come up with what you think is the best answer. I’ve found that this applies to my business, family and social life. Vistage has helped me develop so many skills, and I’d never hesitate to recommend it to another MD. If you’re curious and brave and want to make your business as successful as it can be, Vistage is probably the best place for you to start that journey.”