2.127 Scaling Without Losing Your People Focus: Culture, Compliance & AI in Action

In this episode, Karen Kirton is joined by Julian Fenwick, CEO of GRC Solutions, to explore how a business can grow across borders without losing its people-first values. 

Julian shares: 

• How GRC Solutions scaled across Australia and into Asia while maintaining a strong internal culture 
• The practical ways they’re using AI to improve productivity and job satisfaction 
• Why compliance training doesn't have to be boring—and how good design and trust can make it impactful 
• How they’ve built a legal and research graduate program that fuels both learning and recruitment 
• The lessons learned from leading hybrid teams and mentoring in remote-first settings 
• What international expansion really takes (hint: patience and local investment!) 

This episode is full of practical advice for leaders navigating growth, complexity, and cultural nuance. Whether you’re expanding globally or managing a growing team, Julian’s insights will help you stay focused on what matters most—your people. 

Make sure to subscribe to stay updated with new releases on Mondays!
 
Visit https://www.amplifyhr.com.au/ for more insights and resources.  

Connect with Julian: 

grc-solutions.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/julian-fenwick-415848/

Get our free eBook packed with practical strategies to attract, engage, and retain top talent. Perfect for business owners and leaders focused on building a thriving team. Download it at amplifyhr.com.au/downloadable/find-grow-keep

Transcript

Karen Kirton    
Welcome to episode 127. And today I'm joined by Julian Fenwick, who's the CEO of GRC Solutions.
And they're a compliance training company. So we're going to talk about how to scale internationally while investing in people and innovation. Welcome, Julian. 

Julian Fenwick   0:49
Thanks, Karen. Great to be here. 

Karen Kirton   0:51
I'm so excited to to have you here and even though we're going to talk about people, innovation and and your business journey, I was at a session this morning with some business owners and we got talking about compliance and just the amount.
Of compliance and what feels like red tape that is around for business owners. So I'm sure we'll we'll talk about that as well and how your business can can help us out there. But I guess to to start off, you know you've grown the business across multiple cities in Australia and into Asia. So what's your biggest learning In managing people, managing cultures across regions. 

Julian Fenwick   1:27 
Yeah. Look for us. We work in in specific sectors. So as you say, everyone's regulated these days. Everyone needs to share with their staff what the the guardrails are for business and we need to empower people with the knowledge and and skills that they need to to look after that business. 

Julian Fenwick   1:48
And grow the business and look after each other and look after their clients. And in some industries it's a ticket to play. In others it's just really good corporate governance. For us, we've always aspired to be at the premium end of our market. 

Julian Fenwick   2:05 
What we want to produce is really good quality training that takes the pain out of it for our clients. We know that it's not necessarily something everyone wants to do, so we want to make sure it's effective compliance training and that's not only making it effective for the end user. 
Who needs to learn these things and and understand the you know what? What they need to understand in their business, but also for, you know, minimising the amount of employee time that's spent on these things. And that takes a lot of discussion and working with our clients and building up trust and building up relationships. 

Julian Fenwick   2:40 
And so the philosophy that we've always started with is that the culture that we build internally is one that gets reflected externally. And by that I mean that we have to have a collaborative culture amongst ourselves. We are all from different backgrounds professionally, age wise, gender, you know, the whole gamut. 
We are the real mixed bag of an organisation. We have, lawyers. We have graphic designers, we have salespeople, we have tech people, and we all come from all different parts of the world. And so it's really important for us to have those clear lines of communication. 
And clear values and beliefs and behaviours that enable us to to work very quickly and closely with each other and to understand that, you know, if we have to say something that's, you know, a bit abrupt to someone that they'll get why it's not necessarily personal, it is about doing the right thing for the client.

Julian Fenwick   3:38
In the long run, and so that is sort of stood us in in really good stead as we grow the business, you know we we started as a very, very small team and have have grown organically. You know it's not a high growth, you know VC funded you know we're going to go from five people to 5000 and you know to. 

Karen Kirton   3:57
Thank you. 

Julian Fenwick   3:57
Weeks it is about building out a very slow, but I suppose solid base for the business that then we can add people to as we grow. 

Karen Kirton   4:09
Yeah, but how many people do you have at the moment? 

Julian Fenwick   4:12
We're now at 45 S. 

Karen Kirton   4:14
OK. So it's a pretty good sized business, so. 

Julian Fenwick   4:16
Yeah, it's getting there. It's getting there, yeah. 

Karen Kirton   4:19
Yeah.
And so I know like prior to this episode when I was looking at your business and we were discussing what we might talk about today, there was a mention of AI increasing your productivity and job satisfaction in your team. So I wonder if you could give us an example of how you've implemented AI in the business and how?
You don't lose that that human element when you do that. 

Julian Fenwick   4:43 
Yeah, that it's really interesting and and the job satisfaction piece is something that probably got me over the line with AI  alot faster than perhaps others I was talking to some colleagues who also have a small business in the regulatory compliance area. 

Julian Fenwick   4:59 
And they said that, you know, they're software engineers were using AI for coding and what it meant was that they could do trial and error a lot faster. So instead of something taking three weeks, it would take three hours. And so by the end of the day, your your feeling of achievement is a lot higher. 

Julian Fenwick   5:19 
Because you're able to get through the workload a lot faster, but also test it and come back to it and then build on it. And So what they were telling me was around the job satisfaction pace and then, you know, I spoke to our tech development team and said this is what we're hearing. Let's go and have a talk to them. And we heard from from their team. 

Julian Fenwick   5:39 
And we've had the same response. So where we actually get high levels of productivity and people working on the things that actually challenge them. So they're not doing the grunt work, they're not necessarily, you know, going over the same tasks day after day, they're able to build on that. And then that human element. 

Julian Fenwick   5:59
It is actually the checking to see everything. Everything's right, you know? For for us it is that piece of, you know, you've got to be the one who is verifying all of this, because otherwise there could be mistakes. Now all of us have seen, you know, very poor marketing copy that is, you know, straight out ChatGPT. 
And in our industry, that just doesn't pass. You know we're dealing with legal and regulatory compliance. If we don't get it right, then there could be huge risks for our clients. And so from a content development point of view, I think it's a great starting point. 

Karen Kirton   6:20 
Yes. 

 
Julian Fenwick   6:38
It's not necessarily, you know, gonna get rid of the human beings in in the place. Because otherwise, who's gonna make sure it's correct and with, you know, you hear the horror stories, right? They're. 

Karen Kirton   6:42 
Yes, we can leave them ourselves if we want to play with chat GPT all day. 

Julian Fenwick   6:53 
Yeah, exactly. Exactly so. So for us, it's about enhancing the ability of the team to do their job, but still respecting that they have that subject matter expertise. It could enhance the way we design content. 

Julian Fenwick   7:09
So training content these days, there's an expectation of being video based and so using AI to generate videos is fantastic. Using AI when we need to redo a script for a video, it's so quick. 

Julian Fenwick   7:25 
You know, we're not actually having to go and shoot the video, flip the sound, do the editing, it can all be done in a matter of hours, and then, you know, you're deploying these days on the mobile phones. If we think about, you know, what's now called the deskless worker, which is a new one for me. But I I think it's really interesting because. 

Julian Fenwick   7:45 
It actually does describe the people working in pubs and clubs, the people who are working, you know, for outdoor workers in local government. We do a lot in the education sector. So we've got, you know, teachers, staff, volunteers, how are they absorbing information?

Julian Fenwick   8:02
And yeah, can we make that a better experience for them? And so the AI really does help us with that. And then the data analytics up the back gives us the the verification to say, yes, this has been absorbed properly and that these people do understand it and we've reduced the amount of hours of mandatory training that they need to. 

Julian Fenwick   8:21
Do so. Yeah, using clever tech is not only good for us internally, but it's also really good externally. 

Karen Kirton   8:30
Yeah. And one of the challenges that you found, because I know talking to some businesses, you know, not everyone in their team is, is that excited about AI or there's just this feeling of overwhelm? Like, where do we even start from? So did you experience any of those sorts of challenges or people generally? Yeah. 

Julian Fenwick   8:47 
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you, you get different champions and it's always surprising who it comes from. That's what I found is that, you know, I thought our legal team would be the most resistant. And actual fact, you know, some of them are are the most, you know, forward thinking about it. 

Julian Fenwick   9:05 
You know from the tech side, there's obviously that's a concern around, well, how do we protect this? How do we put, you know, put those guardrails in place, where is our IP? Is that being protected? You know, we don't want people using public facing ChatGPT. 

Julian Fenwick   9:22
With corporate information, so you know, we've got to be very cautious about that. But I also think if you don't provide that space for people to use the tools, they will be using other tools and and and we've just got to accept that. That's the truth, right. 

Karen Kirton   9:24
Yeah, absolutely. And I was talking to someone about this because when I entered the workforce was before the Internet, which I know for some people listening what might just blow your mind. But there was a time. And I remember when we were first given access to the Internet at work and it was really locked down. 

Julian Fenwick   9:51.
Yeah. 

Karen Kirton   10:02
And websites and you're nodding. So you probably had the same experience and some people get e-mail and some people weren't allowed to get it. And there was just this whole. And it feels very much like that to me, which is really a bit silly because you're right, everyone's using it anyway. So it's just, how do we actually use it in a way that  Works for the business and we have those appropriate guardrails and and training in place and and really make the most of this tool, yeah. 

Julian Fenwick   10:26
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And and thinking about it from, you know, an ethical point of view as well and you know, understand that people within the business will be in a different part of their journey with it. What are they going to use it for? How is it going to enhance them? You know, are they apprehensive about it or are they really keen on it? You know, I I think we've got to understand that, you know. 

Julian Fenwick   10:48
People will need some training and and sometimes I just wanna sit and chat. It's not necessarily training. It's like, you know, I don't wanna feel like an idiot in front of everyone else. So can I just get someone on one and and that's really important as well. But there are, you know. 

Karen Kirton   10:50
Yeah, sometimes even just chatting with the AI, you can learn, right? Yeah, it'll train you. 

Julian Fenwick   11:07
You can talk to your bot. Yeah, I think that's very true. 

Karen Kirton   11:12
Very good. And I know that you have a strong graduate programme in legal and research. So what have you learned about developing early career talent? Because this is something that, you know, can come off a lot with business owners as as well as, you know, graduates and. And how do we do this properly? 

Julian Fenwick   11:28 
Yeah. So we've been really lucky I, you know, to call it a graduate programme is probably over egging it a little bit in that, you know, we've always taken in UNI students who are studying law, law, journalism, law, commerce, those sort of areas. 
And given them work as they progress through their degree and they scale up in the quiet times and scale down when there's exams on and and all of that. And it's been fabulous. It's just been the best experience for all of us. We we really love having. I think we have a have three at the moment. 

Julian Fenwick   12:06
And they work so well together, and I think it is partially that we're giving them an experience of, you know, corporate that isn't overly threatening it is, you know manageable, it's able to be done, but it's also within their sphere of interest.
And there's senior people that they can learn from, but they're not necessarily looking to us to give them the whole of corporate experience and every bit of job satisfaction because, you know, in the back of their minds, they're going to go on and be a lawyer someday or something like that. Now some have stayed for years and years and years, and that's been wonderful. 

Julian Fenwick   12:40
Others come through and transition and go to work. You know, for for one of the major law firms or something like that. And we love that too. They also self replace. So from a recruitment point of view, the first question we ask when someone's moving on is, do you know anyone else who might might like to do this job and that's fantastic. 

Julian Fenwick   13:00
Because they bring people in who will be informed by their friends as to what their work life is like. What's expected of you, and we've just really enjoyed that process. And now that we're getting more scale, we want to bring that into other areas of the business. 

Julian Fenwick   13:19
Can we do that in our graphic design team? Can we do it in our software development team? How do you do it in a sales and marketing way? Because every small business will tell you how hard it is to find good sales people and it's always a question of like, do you get someone really experienced who doesn't know your industry or? 

Karen Kirton   13:32
Yes. 

Julian Fenwick   13:39
Do you get someone really young who needs to be taught and well, the personality traits and you know, there's all sorts of questions around that. But I think that it's part of our obligation as as business owners who've had good careers to make opportunities for the next generation coming through. 

Julian Fenwick   13:58 
You know, we need taxpayers to pay for our retirement, right? So, you know, and some of us are getting closer, so we hope, you know, one day. But you know what I mean? It's like, how, how do we give them those corporate opportunities if? 

Julian Fenwick   14:13
If you know there isn't some sort of programme to bring grads in. 

Karen Kirton   14:18
It's all that chicken and egg, isn't it? Like when you're a graduate because people want experience, but you can't get the experience. So yeah, it's a great way for you to actually trial people as well and to say, OK, you know, are they going to work well in the business? And and I love that. Then they can be advocates for you and sell you through to other people as well. 

Julian Fenwick   14:23
Yeah.
Didn't. 

Karen Kirton   14:37
Also save you on some recruitment fees. 

Julian Fenwick   14:39
We we have a network of people who've come through, you know, and and it sits on their LinkedIn profile and they're out there working in in other jobs and things like that. And it's really wonderful. And they all sort of remain friendly with the business. It's really, you know, they're part of that family. 

Karen Kirton   14:43
Yeah.
Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, part of that is, is mentorship really, you know, you talked about how, you know, they could, they'd be paired up essentially with some other members of staff. But what about when you're working hybrid or remote? Like, what's working for you at the moment? How do you generally work as a team? 

Julian Fenwick   15:06 
Oh. 
Yeah, that's. I think one of the biggest challenges of Business Today, right, because if everyone's working from home, there are more linear relationships when it's coming to mentoring, that individual will be talking to their boss all day, but isn't talking to the person who would have been sitting next to them in the office. 

Julian Fenwick   15:31
And it's that out of sight, out of mind thing. And if you know if that sort of, you know, you know, chatting to each other over a coffee in the kitchen, asking someone a dumb question that you would never ask your boss if that sort of thing isn't available because people are are isolated, then we've got a real challenge. 

Julian Fenwick   15:51
So we're conscious of it and you know we we've all through COVID we, you know had huge programmes to reach out to people, even to our clients. We we built a whole lot of training around working from home and you know gave that away for free and had I think 30,000 people. 

Karen Kirton   15:59
Yeah. Wow. 

Julian Fenwick   16:08
Go through, you know 15 minute modules on, you know, mental health while working from home. Ergonomics while working from home. And it's just a great way to keep in contact. And I think we learned some lessons there too around you can't just have that one-on-one relationship and it can't always be about the tasks that we're dealing with today. 

Karen Kirton   16:12
Yeah.
 
Julian Fenwick   16:28
Sometimes you just need to have a nothing conversation and you might as well have everyone in the room and you know that whole idea that, oh, we're going to cut out as many irrelevant meetings as possible. Sometimes you don't know whether they're going to be relevant or or irrelevant until they're done. 

Karen Kirton   16:31
Yep.
OK.
 
Julian Fenwick   16:45
And sometimes they are just checking in on people saying hello to people thinking about, you know, well, that person is in the Perth office by themselves. Has anyone reached out to that person in the last two days? And I don't think that's any different to working in head office. 

Julian Fenwick   17:00
Is, you know, we we now have contact days in the office. I think it's Monday, Wednesday and and Thursday. I'm always here, you know when I'm not travelling for work. Other people are are more likely to be in on a Friday and so on. 

Julian Fenwick   17:15
But there is that trying to get that collegiality back where that whole sort of idea that you know, I might not be your boss or I might, you know, just have a different opinion on something or can I call you in because I want your advice on this and it's just really quick and really easy. But you do, you do need to make a concerted effort, right? 

Julian Fenwick   17:35
And you need to trust that the individuals who who aren't present are are doing their job and you know they're participating as best they can. 

Karen Kirton   17:35
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think, you know your point about the, you know, the the meetings that are wasted is a good one because I were talking to Maya Paleka, who, you know does a lot of work in this space around how to best work in hybrid ways. And she said, we need to see coffee meetings as work meetings and, you know, and I agree. 

Julian Fenwick   18:00
Oh. 

Karen Kirton   18:02
Because it is those just, you know, having a casual chat that often brings up things that you would never get otherwise. And as much as tech is awesome and you know, you get all those little apps that could have random coffees through teams and whatever. It's not the same. 

Julian Fenwick   18:13
Hello.
No, no, it's it's too rigid, isn't it? And you know the the the stand up 15 minute meeting with a really strict agenda. That's great. You know from a software development point of view that's really great and that's how we need to work. But equally we need to have that sort of human interaction. 

Julian Fenwick   18:34
You know, checking in with people. Are they OK? You know, I always think that if you're communicating electronically and you get a snarky e-mail from somebody, there's a chance that that'll escalate, you know, you you get offended, you're responding kind, and it just escalates, right, because you've got no context. 

Julian Fenwick   18:54 
You didn't walk into the office and say that that person you know was looking a bit down or you didn't hear from another colleague that that individual was having a bad day. Something went wrong at home. It's just very transactional. And I think once we actually have that context, then we're all a bit more forgiving. 

And we can say, OK, well, that's inappropriate to send me that e-mail. I'll drop in on their office and make sure they're OK, you know, and you. Yeah. So I think we've got to work out how to do that. And it's an evolution. I don't think anyone's got the answer. Small business. Big business. No one seems to have the answer, you know, even the governments are still debating this. 

 
Karen Kirton   19:22 
Yeah. 
Yes, makes good headlines, doesn't it? And you know, I don't know. For your business, you've expanded into to Asia. So how does that add into complexity, cultural challenges, communication. What about what have been the pros and cons in doing that? 

 
Julian Fenwick   19:53 
Yeah. So our philosophy was to sort of follow our clients into Asia. So a lot of Australian businesses are doing, doing work up in Singapore and Hong Kong. And yeah, we really like that that market. 

 Julian Fenwick   20:10 
But I think there's there's always lessons to be learned. You know, I think Australia is really, really well placed. I'd say that Australians are, you know, experienced in a multicultural environment. We work in a multicultural environment. We know how to behave ourselves in foreign cultures. 

 Julian Fenwick   20:29 
And I think we also know what we don't know if that makes sense. You know that. Oh, I'm a bit out of my depth here. What I think Australians probably need to remember is that international expansion takes time. Asia takes time. 

 Julian Fenwick   20:46 
I know Telstra and ANZ, if you look at their case studies, they would say exactly the same thing, but small business often looks at that and says, oh, they're big business. Of course that would take time, but it's the same for small business. You need to be thinking about how to build the relationships, how to build trust, how to understand those particular markets. 

 Julian Fenwick   21:06 
And where do you have a competitive advantage and where do you perhaps misunderstand things? I know for us in Singapore, we've been there eight years, I think now and that was a real learning curve. 
But it's great fun. That's the other side of it. You know, we're not in business just to slave ourselves everyday, going up to Singapore and being exposed to different businesses, different cultures, different foods. It's wonderful. It's a really lovely experience and you know, to be able to actually do business with people and build relationships up there, I think is. 

 
Julian Fenwick   21:41
Is really valuable as well. One lesson I learned early on I was in Kuala Lumpur and I met the the CEO of the Institute of Bankers up there, who was senior Guy and. 

Julian Fenwick   21:57
I've got a meeting with him with my colleague who was selling for us out of Singapore and he listened to us, listened to the whole pitch, love what we did. But then he said, yeah, he said now, Julian, I'm not going to do any business with you until you open an office in Malaysia and employment.
Malaysian people and I thought, yeah, fair enough. You know, thanks for being upfront and honest, but that's what was important to him. And you know, I I I just really appreciated that sort of candour because then you go, OK, well, that's what's important here is actually about, you know, how we're not just someone Coming in to sell a product. 

Julian Fenwick   22:39
We need to have tenure. We need to have trust. We need to work with locals. And so if you start to learn those things, it becomes, you know, a lot, lot easier. It's never that easy. 

Karen Kirton   22:41
Yeah. No. So you know, in, in your experience, if you give one piece of advice to a business leader trying to future proof you know their business or their workforce, what would it be? 

Julian Fenwick   23:06
Future proof up in Asia, or more generally, yeah. Well, I think in Asia it is an investment, right? So I think you know, recruit local but also. 

Karen Kirton   23:09
Yeah, in generally, yeah. Could be either. Could be both. 

Julian Fenwick   23:21 
You know, have it have the funds there to bring people to Australia, connect people to head office. There's nothing worse than people being isolated and and going off on their own tangent. I think that's a two way St. 

Julian Fenwick   23:37 
As far as you know, building up capability within your organisation, it's not something a leader can do by themselves. You need to have a good team around you and you need to listen to that team and you need to have different skills in that team. And you know in our senior leadership team, it's of seven of us. 

And we will debate things and and people do come at things from different points of view, and sometimes you've just got to say, well, that's actually a better idea than mine. Let's go with it and and and to know when to sort of pull back. I think is really important. 

Julian Fenwick   24:13
I do a lot of public speaking, so for me it's easy to dominate a conversation and so sometimes you've got to pull back from that and say no, you know, sit back and listen. 

Karen Kirton   24:20
Yeah.
No, I really like that advice because I think that as much as people can say, Oh yeah, I gotta have my team involved. That really just means I'm gonna tell them what I'm thinking. 

Julian Fenwick   24:35
Yeah.
Yep. 

Karen Kirton   24:39
So that idea of actually, you know, being quite intentional to say, OK, no, we all need to have different opinions and and checking that that we're not all just agreeing in every meeting because if everyone's agreeing in every meeting then you know we've also probably got an issue here. So and and just finally if there was one thing that you wish you knew when you started your business. 

Julian Fenwick   24:52
Hmm. 

Karen Kirton   24:59
Business about leading people that you didn't know or that surprised you. What would that be if you could go back in time and give yourself some advice? 

Julian Fenwick   25:09 
Yeah. 
I suppose the lessons I've learned are around that you can't be everything for everyone. There are people who are going to come through your business and play a really valuable part in that business and be really fantastic. You know, to work with. But there'll come a time where they're particularly in small business. There just isn't. 

Julian Fenwick   25:32 
That growth opportunity for them and so it needs to be, you need to get to that before it becomes confrontational. You know my initial career was in hospitality and they're very much pyramid structures. There's only so many management roles. 

Julian Fenwick   25:49 
And you might have a big organisation, 150 people I had at one point. But there's only a certain amount of management roles. So when that person gets to that position where their next job is in management and we don't have one, you've got to say, well, how do we help you? What what is it that you need to do? 

Julian Fenwick   26:05 
Rather than getting to a position of either poor performance, conflict and all of those things that drain us as business managers, because it it takes an inordinate amount of time for to manage that sort of side of people management rather than the, you know, the positive side. 

Julian Fenwick   26:23
You know, I think sometimes it's like 5060% of your time is spent on that one individual who's not happy, as opposed to how do we grow with the people who are really good for the business. 

Karen Kirton   26:27
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Thank you. Now if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do that? 

Julian Fenwick   26:42
Yeah, sure. So my LinkedIn profile is there, Julian Fennick and obviously through our website and yeah, happy to talk to people. I'm often at conferences, so by all means come up and say hello. 

Karen Kirton   26:54
Excellent. And we'll put the links to those in our show notes as well. So thanks so much for for joining me. It's been a really interesting conversation. I really enjoyed it today and hopefully everyone listening has has got one thing that you can take out of today's episode as well. And if you've received value.
I'd love it if you could leave a rating or review Apple Podcast or Spotify so someone else can also find the episodes to help with their business. Any final thoughts from you, Julian? 

Julian Fenwick   27:24
No, thank you for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you and I hope that people get some value out of it. 

Karen Kirton   27:27 
Sure. 
Excellent. Thank you so much. Episodes are released on Mondays. click the subscribe button and you'll be notified of when it's available. If you have any questions, comments or ideas of future episodes, head on over to amplifyhr.com.au or connect with me on LinkedIn and we can start a conversation.