There’s something we’re learning from doing The Third Half. The job title is never the interesting part.
In this shorter clip from our conversation with Ismail Amla, we step away from AI, consulting, and global transformation, and instead talk about what actually shaped him.
A BBC Micro bought by a father working in the cotton mills.
A spectacular dot-com failure that could have ended a career but instead forged resilience.
A decision to move his whole family from Bolton to New York — not because it was easy, but because change shouldn’t just be something you manage professionally. It should be something you live.
What comes through is not the executive persona, but the person.
The humour.
The warmth.
The quiet seriousness about responsibility.
Ismail talks about stewardship — leadership as something bigger than quarterly performance. He speaks about trust not as a tactic, but as a value. And perhaps most tellingly, he laughs when reflecting on moments that, at the time, probably didn’t feel funny at all.
That’s what we’re really exploring in these conversations.
Not the strategy slides.
Not the predictions.
But the lived experience — the scars, the family influences, the risks taken, the values that settle over time.
Because in the end, leadership isn’t shaped in boardrooms.
It’s shaped long before that.
🎧 Watch the short clip below.