SmartPA

More than a decade on, and following plenty of challenges along the way that sometimes made taking a different tack seem more than appealing, that belief is still central to how he thinks about leadership, growth and what comes next.

Q: SmartPA has grown enormously over the years. How do you stop a business from losing sight of why it started?

Andrew: I think you've got to keep coming back to your belief system because businesses evolve - that's inevitable. New people come in, new leaders come in, new ideas come in, and I'd actually worry if they didn't because that's how businesses grow, but the belief system has to stay the same.

Sarra and I started SmartPA because we'd both seen exactly the same thing throughout our careers. We'd watched women leave work to have children, try to come back and either struggle to get back in or come back on a much lower salary. We'd seen people in the PA and admin space not always being treated particularly well, and we just felt there had to be a better way.

People talk about ESG and CSR now, but the truth is we founded the business on that thinking before those labels really became fashionable. It wasn't a box-ticking exercise, we were genuinely trying to solve a problem we'd both seen first-hand. It's probably one of the strongest parts of who we are.

Q: You've said SmartPA is "the polar opposite" of a traditional franchise. What makes you say that?

Andrew: Because I think most people hear "franchise" and immediately picture these big organisations where everything feels quite aggressive - lots of fees, lots of pressure, lots of competition. That was never what we wanted.

We've always seen SmartPA as an ecosystem, and I think that's one of the things that's quite unusual about the model. We train our partners, we give them the tools and the technology, we provide the ongoing support, and then we actually buy their services back.

So it's not just about giving somebody a franchise and saying, "Off you go." We're building an ecosystem where everybody has a role to play and where the partner has the support and infrastructure behind them to build their own business.

There are practical differences too. We charge differently, we support differently and we've always tried to keep the model as accessible as we can.

But for me, that's almost secondary. The real difference is that many of the people who join us haven't run businesses before. They're not necessarily looking for someone to sell them a franchise - they're looking for somebody to help them believe they can build something of their own.

And that's where the ecosystem really matters. We're not just selling them a business; we're giving them the training, the tools, the technology and the support to make that business work, and then we're also creating the opportunity for them to deliver services back into the wider SmartPA network.

That's quite a different model, and I think it's one of the reasons we've been able to build such a strong community around the business.

Q: After all these years, what still drives you?

Andrew: It's seeing people's confidence change - that's probably the simplest way of putting it.

I've watched people come into SmartPA from completely different backgrounds and, over time, become people who are running successful businesses that they genuinely never thought they'd be capable of running.

Some wanted more flexibility. Some wanted a different future for themselves and their families. Some simply wanted somebody to believe in them while they figured it out. Those are the things that drive me.

Of course, we're building a commercial business and we have targets and forecasts like everybody else, I'm not pretending we don't, but if you asked me what I remember most over the years, it's rarely the numbers. It's usually the people.

Q: COVID was a defining moment for so many businesses. How did that period shape SmartPA?

Andrew: I think it taught us a lot about the importance of being able to adapt. COVID obviously changed the way businesses operated almost overnight, and we had to respond to that and rethink how we did things.

Without a doubt, it was an incredibly challenging period and we really had to dig deep. But it also gave us an opportunity to step back and look at the business differently. What do we keep? What do we change? Where do we need to evolve?

The important thing for me was that, while the way we delivered things had to change, the belief system didn't. We were still trying to create opportunities and help people into meaningful work; we just had to think differently about how we could do that.

I think that's probably been one of our strengths as a business. We've been prepared to move with the times without losing sight of who we are.

And that's still relevant now with things like AI and The Marketplace. You can't just keep doing things because that's how you've always done them. You've got to evolve, but you've got to make sure you're evolving for the right reasons.

Q: That willingness to evolve now includes AI. How do you see technology fitting into the future?

Andrew: I'm actually quite excited by it because I don't see AI as replacing people - I think it helps people do what they're already good at, better.

We've always tried to think ahead, not using technology for technology's sake, but using it to make our original mission bigger. One thing I'm really excited about seeing come to fruition is what we're calling The Marketplace. Believe it or not, that's been on our vision board for years because we kept seeing the same thing happening - we'd have something like 1,700 or 1,800 people applying every month who wanted to be part of SmartPA in some way, but not everybody is ready or able to become a franchisee immediately.

So the question became, how do we create another route? How do we give more people access to training, support and opportunities without losing what makes SmartPA special? And I think we might have found the answer which I will be excited to reveal more about in due course.

Q: You're a male founder in what has become a very female-led business. What's that been like to watch?

Andrew: I'm actually really proud of it. One of the things I've loved watching is women supporting women because I think that's become one of the strongest parts of our culture now.

People like our Executive Chair, Mags and our Chief Commercial Officer, Jo have really stepped on the accelerator with that. They've created communities where people encourage each other, share experiences and help each other grow, and I think that's incredibly powerful.

People sometimes ask me what it's like being a male founder in that environment.

For me, that's exactly the point. The business hasn't drifted away from those original values. If anything, it's become more true to them as it's grown.

Q: When people look back at SmartPA years from now, what do you hope they remember?

Andrew: I hope they remember that we stayed true to our roots. Businesses have to evolve. Markets change. Technology changes. You have to keep moving because standing still isn't really an option.

But I hope people remember that we never stopped putting people at the centre of what we were building.

If somebody looks back and says SmartPA gave them the confidence to build something they didn't think was possible, then I'd say that's a pretty good legacy to leave behind.