Dear Customer,

Don't we live in choppy times! Business leaders have been saying this over and again over many years, but from my perspective, I support four very different businesses, and they are each having to adapt to new realities. 

One of these is a $20bn+ global food ingredient business dealing with unprecedented volatility in commodity pricing of cocoa and coffee. This even made it into the Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey's statement on risks to inflation, alongside more frequent crop impacts of climate change.

Another one is a luxury retirement living business that needs a well-functioning housing market in London, which is being impacted by the exit of non-doms and the lack of confidence in the general economy. In short, why move house when so much is uncertain?

The third one is a social entertainment business that feels first-hand the increased costs of employing staff with increased minimum wage and higher National Insurance contributions, together with a more cautious consumer and business audience that have cut down on social entertaining. 

The fourth one is Form3, where the balance of risk has changed from only chasing innovation and growth to delivering sustainable, profitable performance, as proof that innovation is working and growth remains ahead. 

With all these shifts in very different businesses, it's good to see a common response from leaders: let's refocus on what we are good at, and put energy into creating a healthy culture to be the best version of ourselves.

I have been pleased to see equity analysts focus on the theme of culture too. Let me share some brief excerpts I have enjoyed. 

Over the years, we’ve come to believe that culture is one of the most important—yet least understood—drivers of long-term value. It separates the great companies from the merely good ones.

Culture can grow a firm’s competitive advantage, provide a compass when faced with a difficult decision, and help avoid disruption. At the same time, it’s extremely hard to pin down, and even more difficult to quantify.

How is it that two companies - in the same industry, with the same business model - produce dramatically different results? As we dug deeper into the differences, we kept coming back to culture.

In living Form3’s journey, we’ve realised that nurturing and strengthening our culture is the single most important thing we do. At first blush, that may sound strange - of course culture is  important - but the lesson we’ve learned is that building a great portfolio needs a healthy, vibrant, cultural underpinning.

Why? Because a healthy culture enlivens and invigorates great people, and great portfolios are built by teams of gifted, bright, motivated people. Prioritising culture is thus foundational to everything else, like delivering great products, service, competitive advantage, or all of the above.

It was good to chat to Mike Walters recently about my observations and support the work he is doing now at Form3. Reshaping the organisation has been hard but now we focus on what's ahead with optimism and with renewed focus on the culture that makes us different, makes us special.

Mike captures this as 'integrity, trust, curiosity'. These are not the words you find written on walls or on the website, but the fundamental values that each of the colleagues at Form3 exhibits to contribute to our healthy culture.

What Form3 does, transforming and operating payment infrastructures, is of vital importance, integrity must be without question. It is a company that has been remote working since foundation. It is an employee network built on trust. Innovation comes from curiosity, supercharged by learning days and even celebrating hobbies at work!

So celebrating is good! It signals to everyone that what we do together is worthwhile, is valued. We are proud to have won many industry awards recently. This included Form3 picking up Best Payments-as-a-Service Solution for Banks & FIs at the Fintech Futures Paytech Awards 2025, PayTech Company of the Year at the Fintech Awards London 2025, and the 2025 Celent Model Bank Award with Nationwide & Accenture. You can read more about these awards in the last article in this quarter’s newsletter.

Thanks for taking the time to read my column – I hope you can enjoy some late summer sunshine.