Interview with the Director of Low Cost Nuclear

In this conversation, Rich Deakin shares his extensive journey in the nuclear industry, discussing his career path, leadership insights, and the unique challenges faced in nuclear leadership. He emphasizes the importance of personal growth, adaptability, and the need for innovative approaches in the sector. Rich also reflects on the future of nuclear energy and the role of future leaders in navigating the evolving landscape.


Takeaways

Rich's career in nuclear spans over 35 years.
He emphasizes the importance of taking opportunities as they arise.
Leadership is about managing people and relationships, not just technical skills.
Self-reflection and adaptability are crucial for personal growth.
The nuclear sector needs to innovate in funding and business models.
Private investment is key to the future of nuclear energy.
Rich advocates for a collaborative approach in leadership.
He believes in the importance of mentorship and sharing experiences.
Future leaders must synthesize knowledge from diverse experiences.
Discipline and structure are essential for balancing work and personal life.

Creators and Guests

Guest

Rich Deakin

Director - Low Cost Nuclear

What is Nuclear Leadership Network?

The Nuclear Leadership Network was established to fill a gap in leadership development. By the time leaders hit a certain level in their path, it becomes more and more difficult to know what development steps to take to ready yourself for a shot at the top executive leadership roles in the Nuclear Industry. As you climb the ladder the number of people available to help you on your path become fewer and fewer, and your journey becomes a much more personal one. There will always be a need to collaborate with others, seek advice and guidance from those around you and take feedback from others seriously, but when you get to a certain point, you realise the more you are on your own. It’s up to you to develop yourself, through conversations, self reflection, making mistakes and being brave enough to learn from them. Not having all the answers, but being bold enough to seek the answers, is where much of that later growth in leadership occurs.

Matt Gavin (00:25)
So hello, today I'm delighted to be joined by Mr. Richard Deakin, who's a board member and trustee of the Nuclear Institute in the UK. Rich, welcome, how are you?

Rich DEAKIN (00:34)
absolutely splendid as I would say in fact pretty awesome at the moment things are going well and there's lots of interest in the sector which is always exciting times

Matt Gavin (00:43)
yeah, that's great to hear and we'll hopefully unpick a little bit of that through this interview. So thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. It's great to have you with us. Look, really interested in your insights into leadership, using some of your experiences within the nuclear industry. So to kick us off, tell us a little bit about your journey in nuclear rich.

Rich DEAKIN (01:01)
Okay, so the first thing I'll say about this, and there's a bit of career aspect to this is, to some degree it's been accidental, but it's been managed risk and opportunity. So by that, way back in the midst of time, so 35 years ago, so I've done 35 years in nuclear, which is great, and I've worked at most of the facilities in the UK, or several major facilities, and a little bit in the US, and a little bit in Japan. And in essence,

Matt Gavin (01:25)
you

Rich DEAKIN (01:27)
I've kind of never looked further than a couple of years forward, but always taken the next opportunity and said, what am I close enough to do to stretch myself a little bit, learn something? And also what can I actually do? Cause I don't want to fail, but I do want to stretch. Yeah. If that makes sense. So all that journey started way back with a degree in metallurgy materials in Sheffield. And even that was kind of accidental because I made a bit of a mess of my A levels.

Matt Gavin (01:39)
Thank

Rich DEAKIN (01:51)
and had an option to retake A levels or go and do a degree course. I went and did a degree course and I learned from my A level debacle, you can't describe it anything less than that, that I really needed to be disciplined and have rigor and be structured in what I did. I applied that very quickly into my studies in university and anyway, bottom line is I managed by hook and by crook to come out with a very good first class honours degree. So I was perceived at that time as quite technical. A couple of big...

outfits in the UK offered me a role. was offered a role in Rolls Royce Aerospace and I was offered a role as a graduate trainee into British nuclear fields at Springfields. So you might be able to tell from my accent if you're from the UK. I'm from the north of the UK. Springfields is in the north of the UK. It was far enough away from my home base to be independent of my parents, but close enough if I really needed them, I could get back on a weekend kind of stuff. So off I went to Springfields. I was put in, which is the facility in the UK that

for many, many years since the late sort of 50s, 60s has made nuclear fuel for the UK fleet and other things, nuclear civil fleet. Off I went there. I was put in a technical team. I didn't particularly enjoy that because it was a bit too much academia for me. Although I met some really good people who I've gone on to become doyens of the industry. Notably Dame Sue Ian was my first ever boss, which was great. So I learned a lot from Sue and she's maintained that relationship.

But after about 18 months I kind of knocked on the door and said I want to get closer to the action and for me the action is always operations and people and relationship stuff. I banged on my works manager's door or one of the works managers door running the oxide fuel complex so this is Enriched Oxide Plants making fuel for the AGR gas reactor fleet in the UK. And around 24, 25

I was made assistant plant manager one of the main line fuel plants, so I went straight to operations.

The UK industry at that time, is sort of, when would this be, this would be about the mid 80s, about 85, 86, was restructuring. So there was a need to reduce the cost base of nuclear fuels. So the site went through a big transformation program of changing the way it operated to become lean and mean and just in time manufacturing, which would be words that'd be familiar to many people.

And if you can't change the people, change the people. And the site leadership team at Springfields at the time picked three or four, what they consider bright young things that were willing to give it a go. I was one of those in my concept of give it a go. And they said, okay, make this a lean, meaner, better outfit. And I ran, and we rotated through the oxide plants over about four years, five years between us. And we reduced inventory. We did multi-skilling programs. We improved quality levels and productivity levels, all that kind of thing.

Brilliant training, professional manufacturing, engineering, lots of process manufacturing stuff. Awesome. And lots and lots of change management and leadership training. Because that's what it really all about. Taking a 3000 plus workforce, taking it with us on a journey where it would ultimately become a smaller workforce, but doing it in a sensible and collaborative way. Spent a lot of time with unions at that time. In a good sense of the word. Did a decent job of that.

Apparently Matt. So then I was asked to go to Sellafield. So I went up to Sellafield and ran what's called the Sellafield Mox demonstration facility. So my first venture into plutonium plants, so mixed oxide fuel plants making PWR fuel for a Swiss client at that time. And the job there was to improve the throughput. The plant did that.

then interestingly joined the main Sellafuel Mox plant as head of process engineering and qualified it, qualified with a Mox plant for its Japanese clientele and European customers. So plant qualification. So very pure sort of process control, CPC, CPKs. We understood that plant after two or three years of commissioning it to the level that we made for fuel assemblies eventually, and I'll come to that.

Matt Gavin (05:56)
you ⁓

Rich DEAKIN (06:04)
Right first time with over half a million data points on the certification pack. Right first time, build to print, no concessions. Pretty chuffed about that. So we knew how that plant worked. Yeah, unfortunately it wasn't a particularly well engineered plant from a process point of view. So it's very, very challenging from a logistics of operations. A consequence of that is there was a very rapid change in management team.

Matt Gavin (06:15)
you

Rich DEAKIN (06:28)
And I was promoted from my people, my role in qualification to be head of operations, try and get it commissioned, complete commissioning. So I went up three organisational levels. So I'm a sort of area plant manager to head of operations. And at that time, the sole deputy for the head of the business, which was awesome. And it was kind of one of these, it was a very American thing to do. We were led by an American secondy at the time who basically said, right, right guys, choose your leadership team to me.

I chose my leadership team and he said crack on make me some fuel assemblies. Long story short, 12, 18 months later by lots of people stuff, lots of very simplistic psychology of operations and things and some quite complicated stuff as well mixed in. We managed to deliver these four fuel assemblies I talked about and it's probably the best night out I've ever had. It was a hugely difficult plant to run and very, very significant in that locality up in West Cumbria at the time.

So, know, was like, wowzer, this is a great thing. So that's kind of get elevated into, so my first real break then, I left nuclear. Yeah, because around 2005ish, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority was being formed in the UK and I was being promoted potentially within the organization's potential head of the Mox business and the NDA,

Again, in fairness to them, I think wanted somebody with more external experience because they come through BNFL into Sellafield. They wanted somebody with an external view. So another guy got it. I got on like house on fire with that guy. But my summary of that was, well, you know what? You've kind of said to me, I'm good, but I'm not going to get promoted in this organization because I've not worked externally. There's a pretty easy answer to that. Yeah. So I left. Join Rolls Royce Aerospace as

Matt Gavin (07:56)
Thank

Rich DEAKIN (08:11)
general manager for what's, you might recognize this being a roles guy, shafts and services, which is in aerospace, which is rotatives, which is a very challenging operational plant. And the mission was to move an old plant from central Derby to the new campus in Symfony D. the ref, this was post 9-11 roles, we'd made the decision to refurbish their supply chain, had to move the plant. The hardest thing I've ever done, the hardest job I've ever done.

new product, new people, new culture, very, very challenging. And you spend so much time in that role, just surviving and trying to move forward in little steps that you kind of forget the rest of life. so if I'm honest, it nearly broke me. I'll just say that, right? That's a big thing here to think about for people, you know, this is where you learn not to stretch yourself too far, but do so if you can do. Right. But I learned a lot from it. and then Rolls Royce submarines.

had a need because an event which is on public record where they had a bit of an event with some material on site. I was asked because of my reputation up in Sellafield by the Ops Director at the time of Rolls Royce submarines to come back across and essentially given the role, given the role, interviewed and appointed into the role of General Manager for Core Design and Manufacturing, which makes designs, makes installs, supports.

reactor provision for the UK submarine fleet. Again, fascinating job. It's an MD really. It's the nearest thing you'll get in Rolls Royce 3D and MD to be a managing director of business. And the cause of that is because you are the agent of the licensee, so you really are. It's your own business. Very, very accountable. Very scary. And I remember sitting behind the desk going, Christ almighty.

There's a lot of people and there's a lot of problems on this site. What do do now? And I'm sure we'll talk about what I did, right? Yeah. But major, major shift. And that kind of catapulted me into a different place. Because it's very different when you're the sole accountable person, which is really what you are there. It's your leadership team. And you have to build that team and think about cultural stuff and all that stuff. So I did that. Did that for five years.

Then thought I needed a change. And this is a classic, kind of on a whim. I was asked by the engineering director of the submarines group at the time, would I be interested in going to the United States on a secondment international assignment to work for a company called New Scale, which people will have heard of in nuclear. And I went out there and it literally took us 10 minutes. Sat in his desk, in his office and went.

show me where they work then. said it's Corvallis. Well, that looks quite nice, doesn't it? It's trees and it's a university town and there's a nice river and, know, we'll talk about the deal later, but what could go wrong? International assignment, I'll do it. So it took me 10 minutes to decide. Fascinating. Startup culture, West Coast, international, working across time zones, all that good stuff. Did that for a couple of years.

Matt Gavin (10:54)
you

Thank

Rich DEAKIN (11:06)
Then Rolls

Royce chose to be competitors and re-enter the SMR market around 2016-ish, 17, which made my position in New Scale a bit untenable because that essentially made them competitors and I was one of the New Scale exec at that time, which is not really going to work, it? So I asked Rolls Royce, somebody needs to make me redundant. They opened up the redundancy package.

me especially because it wasn't generally open. Paid my contract up for a year and I went skiing on the west coast of the states with my Australian girlfriend, it was lovely. And did bit of harvesting Christmas trees in Oregon as well for a laugh with one of my mates, so that was good. Came back to the UK and was recommended to the then Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

by the head of the, well the chief executive of nuclear decommissioning authority at the time. And they kind of almost pulled my arm out of socket to go and join them as a policy official. So it took a significant drop in wage, but it is an interesting thought. It sounds very strategic, but on reflection, working in government's a really good way to get to know everything. If you are open to the conversation, you've a style that can do it. Not everybody can do that.

Matt Gavin (12:06)
you

Okay.

Rich DEAKIN (12:20)
But I'd been out of the UK for two and a half years. I came back in in that role and suddenly everybody was offering me site visits and can we talk to you? Because they think you're influential and maybe you are and maybe you're not, right? But they'll share everything and providing you are treating that in the appropriate way and building the relationships, that's really, really valuable. Yeah. So I suddenly got very well reconnected with the thing. I know this is a long answer to my career, but it is what it is. And then they said...

Matt Gavin (12:48)
Okay.

Rich DEAKIN (12:50)
And during that time around 2017, me one or two other policy officials started to think that

small nuclear reactors could be built a lot cheaper and quicker in factories than they could be built on scaffolding platforms as gigawatt projects on the coast, let's say, just intuitively. We went about testing that supposition with private investors. I became absolutely hard over convinced that private investment into small nuclear is the way to go, having done that and became connected into Citi.

people and financiers and investors and businessmen. And I think it's true to say we gave birth to the UKSMR program at that time. When I say we, me and two other individuals really fought that battle with the stakeholders. And it was a battle at times. That culminated in a first award to Rolls Royce and its associates. And in a second phase, about 18 months later, became a combined £235 million grant plus

let's say over half a billion now from Rolls Royce and its investors and form Rolls Royce SMR. I am hugely proud of that, as everybody in Rolls Royce SMR should be because we've gone from a startup, and I say we because it's kind of, I feel some ownership of it and some allegiance to it, a startup of, I don't know, 40 people at a time, which probably would have folded to a position now of well over thousand people working on the program and a really, really good option.

Matt Gavin (13:52)
Okay.

Rich DEAKIN (14:15)
for potential clients to use in their pursuit of net zero. So I mean, I'm program director currently for that. The current phase of the program is running to a close. We'll see what it takes me next. So I've been around a bit, Matt. yeah. Yeah.

Matt Gavin (14:31)
been around a bit as an understatement, I think. think,

yeah, really interesting listening to that and obviously a very varied career where, go on, it feels a little bit like you just took some opportunities as they came up, not much of a plan. I'd be interested, I think.

Rich DEAKIN (14:42)
I think that's about right,

Matt Gavin (14:43)
When you're young, you kind of think you need a plan to get to a sort of very senior position, certainly in that sort of exec level sort of position. You know, absolutely battle every day about, you know, what's my plan? What's my plan? It doesn't sound like you had one as such. You just took the opportunities as they came up, did your best and kind of, and it kind of just happened. What do you think, what do you think did click then? If it wasn't a plan, it wasn't a sort of planned route, something obviously made you stand out, made you sort of travel on that journey. What do you think that was?

Rich DEAKIN (14:49)
Yeah. Yep.

Let me work. ⁓

So I think there's a couple of things. One is a bit of advice and one is a little bit about me. So for the advice bit, I, in my career, I've spent many, on many occasions, I've been asked to mentor people about how they might get to senior leadership. And your point, they say, well, I need a planner, blah, blah, blah, blah.

My view of this for what it's worth is you try and get as if you want to be senior leader, it becomes a relationship and breadth. Yeah. So you try. So my career really what's got me to where I've got, think, or certainly one of the, one of the assets or factors of it as being this ability to do different things in different organizations and then synthesize that into credible, pragmatic ways forward and a sort of a can do attitude. Now can do is not quite brute force and ignorance. It's more subtle than that, but I think.

There's two things that click really. One is that breadth really helps. And when I talk to young graduate engineers or graduate people coming into the industry, I often say, don't get yourself tied down to any particular route because in truth you don't really know because you've not experienced much. know, did I know what I was going to do in my mid twenties? Not a clue. I knew I was all right with people. I knew I preferred operations to tech. Yeah. But I'm not technically thick either because I've got a good engineering degree. So I could blend that.

Matt Gavin (16:21)
So.

Rich DEAKIN (16:33)
But so it's be sure to be good at what you're good at, which is the people relationship stuff. Get the breadth. And then I think what's probably made me stand out, if anything else, is I've generally found ways through that quite pragmatic and a bit off the wall, if I'm honest. So an interesting question that I often get asked is, what's your favorite book?

So back in the day when I got time to read stuff, my favorite book by some distance is called Maverick by a guy called Ricardo Semler, who was inherited a business from his father in South America. And he talks about how he built it. And it's just off the wall ideas. And the point of that is not where the ideas are good, bad or indifferent. It's just thinking out the box a little. And I'll give you, if you ask me about the Mox plant, I'll give you a really good example of some of the things we did in Mox that thinks out the box.

That ability to deliver, take the people with you. I'll be honest, in my earlier career, I was a bit more brutal. There's no other word to describe it. I was a, you might even describe me as a bit of a bully at the time, right? As operations, because there's this view in operations, you've got to be hard. I don't think you have. I just think you have to be very honest, determined and consistent. Yeah. And then take the people with you. don't, you don't have to beat people up or, you know, that's not, that's not the way forward. Maybe it was when in my younger career.

ain't now. You know, I've done, I've, I've realised that in me sort of...

Hmm, probably mid thirties. Yeah. And that was really because I couldn't do that in the core designer manufacturing job, which was too big. You can't fully and go to war with 250 people. doesn't work. You're going to fail. You know what mean? They're going to get you. You're going to fail. So you've still got to find a different way to engage that audience and perform with that and make the best use of that talent you've got. You that's a bit of that.

Matt Gavin (18:14)
Hmm.

you

Interesting

you pick up on like, I guess you acknowledging yourself that you needed to just change styles, change tax as you went through your career. And that's certainly something I've experienced as well. You you can't be the same as you were when you were in your 20s, when you were in your 40s. That's just the way it is. And when you've got small teams versus large teams and more complexity, more breadth. Along that journey on your career, were there sort of signs? Did you sort of say to yourself or get feedback from others? I could...

Rich DEAKIN (18:34)
Yep. Yep.

Matt Gavin (18:56)
get pretty high here in organizations, I could get to senior level, I could get to executive level, I could lead major programs. What were their indicators? they signs? When did you really realize? Or was it a, I'll not say fluke, but certainly I guess taking the opportunities, the open doors as they presented themselves to you.

Rich DEAKIN (19:13)
So it's interesting, so we're recording this in early spring, yeah, and in spring you often do 360 feedbacks as part of your annual staff reviews, don't you? And there's this blind spot thing, so I've just done a 360 and talked about blind spots, interesting. So I think other people often see things that you're good at that you don't, right? So to answer your question, the first time I really thought I'd got a chance to do something bigger and higher and was gonna be catapulted into a different position.

was the Sellafield Mox Plant. So I was an area plant manager in fuel fabrication. So we were basically putting pellets into rods and making fuel assemblies. And the plant has been struggling for a long time. mean, it was many, it was two or three years minimum, probably five behind program. It was three or four times over its original capital budget. was not going right. was not going well by any stretch. I was in severe threat.

politically of being closed and disappointing clients all the time and and and we were We had a second head of a business who was from Westinghouse in South Carolina. I remember I got a phone call from him Well, I got a phone call from him one day and said from his PA and said This this guy would like to talk to you. I okay. I don't know. Why do you want to talk to me? I barely spoken to him, right? So off I went and

And we had a, we met over a beer in a pub and he said, uh, he said, I've been watching the way your teams perform, rich, you clearly can get them to do things and they get it. said, so I think you get it. And we talked a lot of things about how the management style of the business might need to change and what things were right. So it was a very open, honest conversation. He was asking for feedback about how he should run his organization really, which was quite, quite challenging as a.

Matt Gavin (20:54)
Okay. ⁓

Rich DEAKIN (21:05)
a guy down in the middle engine room talking to the bridge, yeah, and bypassing and comment and to be blunt, commenting on a lot of people in between and their styles and who were good and who weren't. Or who in my, my perception did things well and who could have improved. And he just closed that conversation. He said, all right. He said, keep the faith, keep all the good guys on board. Cause I know you can and see what happens.

Three months later, he calls me over to a conference room with two or three other blokes that I'd said were, and one lady who had said could be very good and would be a sensible leadership team. And he just said, right, Rich, I'm promoting you two levels from now on, you're head of operations. I want you to make me some fuel. You guys are all reporting to him and crack on. So he saw that. I didn't see that, right? He saw that for whatever reason. Now then you've got to make the best of that opportunity. And then it's a slow, deep breath and right.

What should we do now then guys? And we all sat there and looked at each other for about half an hour. Discuss, discuss. And again, being really accountable, but being very collaborative and recognizing the skills in the organization. So at that point, it wasn't just a lucky opportunity. Somebody had seen something. I picked into that.

Matt Gavin (22:00)
Thank

Rich DEAKIN (22:17)
And now I'm running a big organization with huge political ramifications for a region and all that good stuff. yeah. You know, it's just different. It's different. I'm very done. Yeah.

Matt Gavin (22:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, of

confident enough to take the opportunity, humble enough to realize that you've got a lot of learning to do on that journey as well. So the thing is...

Rich DEAKIN (22:36)
Yeah, well, one of the things

about our industry, and this relates back to something personal about me, we are absolutely, the nuclear sector is full of really, really clever people. Really clever, right? Much cleverer than me. Like, you know, I'm sitting here talking to one of you. Yeah, you would run rings around me in engineering. Let's just be honest. Yeah. But that's not the point, is it? The point is how do you use all these various skills and get them playing in the right part of the field?

to achieve what you need to achieve at the right time. And the very personal bit is, when I was 18, I had like a lot of people at my age. I had a Mark II Ford Escort, so an old Escort, and the clutch failed. And my father, we were from a mining family, so I couldn't go out and buy a new clutch and put it in a garage to get it fixed, so my dad did it on the drive. So he was an underground mechanic. Now underground mechanics, they've got a really important skill.

either can fix anything, but really importantly, he's laid on his back and he was touching the bolts underneath the car and he was by feel he was working out the size of the spanners. Now, of you can do that if you do that in the dark. And I just was blown away. I thought, you know, just that skill to be able to do that. And I'm then struggling to tell him to pick the right spanner out of the bag when he tells me the size, you know. So that's a classic facilitation if somebody is better than you because you need them, right? They've got a skill and I think that

Matt Gavin (23:45)
you

Rich DEAKIN (23:53)
I've told that story many times because it's very, very pertinent to the kind of thing what I think leadership's about, Recognizing that skill base and recognizing the various roles in it and playing your own part. Yeah. So that was kind of one of the big things for me. So the Moxplank catapult made me a very different player.

Matt Gavin (24:09)
Yeah,

pretty significant sort of turning point in career sort of space. Interesting point you just made, I'd like to just pick up on that. So sort of say facilitating the skills around you and things. Did that come quite naturally to you, do you think? Or is this something you've had to work on? Because I think certainly technical people, I find it myself probably as well on this transition, know, find that quite difficult to kind of down tools, if you will, and just admit that that's not your role anymore to solve all the problems in the world.

Rich DEAKIN (24:25)
You

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Gavin (24:38)
Do you think that's something that you had to work quite hard on or something that came quite naturally to you or a combination I think of some parts you find quite easy to pick up and other parts you had to really work on? What do think the sort of route was for yourself?

Rich DEAKIN (24:50)
So

I'll kind of say something that might surprise people because I actually work long hours and I'm never quite switched off, right? But I also think I'm kind of terminally lazy. Yeah. So for me, it comes quite naturally because I look at the people I've got and say, right, I need those to do that. I need these guys to do that, that sort of stuff. And it's basically because I can't, right? Yeah, I can't, right? Give me an Excel spreadsheet and it'll take me days, right? If somebody knows what they're doing, it might take them 20 minutes, you know?

And that's the point. Who's the best at the role to do it? And it ain't necessarily me, but I know what insight I'm trying to gain. What do need to know from a particular piece of information or some system or an individual? What are the things that really I need to know? And why do I need to know them? And then explain to them why I need to know it and then they can give me any way they want. I don't care really. So quite natural in that respect, but again, I'd...

think you really twig that when you get into a bigger place. When you're early in your career and you're in small teams, I mean, you as you're going up, you know, you're a chief engineer now, you'll be developing this because you can't do everything. You've got to know enough about what you guys are doing because ultimately you're accountable for it. Yeah, that's fine. But you can't do it because you just can't do it. You just haven't got the capacity to do it. Yeah. So it becomes almost a force. There's a forcing function as you get further up, you have to do it.

But actually, there's an element to me where I do it quite naturally anyway. Now the trick is to do it in a nice collaborative way, not to do it in a sly or coercive way. And that's the bit that you develop with a bit more experience and a bit more rounded. Yeah.

Matt Gavin (26:24)
Hmm, yeah, interesting stuff, Slight change in direction. I'm interested in your view of, I guess, leadership generally, but also nuclear leadership. And if that term resonates with you, it's something that some of our previous guests have had a view of. Obviously, you've bobbed around industries a little bit, but spent most of your time in nuclear, but, you know, had a few opportunities outside. Do you think there are unique challenges, unique opportunities, being a nuclear leader over and above, you know, a leader of

Rich DEAKIN (26:38)
Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Matt Gavin (26:50)
another sector, even if that other sector is quite sort of, know, integral, safety integral. Do think there are nuclear challenges and nuclear leadership challenges that we need to overcome?

Rich DEAKIN (26:59)
Yeah, and I think I think the challenges are well, let me describe this. I might be slightly provocative here. So the challenges to some degree are a consequence of the way that the sectors behave for a long time. Yeah. So it is a highly regulated sector and it's got itself into certain ways of working and quite rightly so it's got a great safety record in the UK and I'm hugely hugely

in admiration of our regulatory system. Yeah. So let's just have that up there as a start. So it's not that's not the issue, but

The environment we've been working in hasn't delivered what we want to deliver for the sector. And by that, we haven't rapidly, we haven't convinced people that we should be deploying nuclear at pace. We haven't found ways to fund it. We haven't found ways to bring forward capacity to do that. And here we are now with a burning platform, net zero and or industrial regeneration, two aspects to that. And we're not being delivering it fast enough. Now my view of

the challenges of nuclear. And these are the same in any sector. It's to look at the environment you're in, look at what that sector's trying to do and your business is trying to do. And I haven't got a business, but I'm a huge advocate of the sector, so I want the sector to succeed and go, okay, what is it we're not doing then? And what is it that we need to do differently? And therefore be innovative in the way you think about your business models and your stakeholders. And I don't think we are. So.

There's a prevailing paradigm in the UK nuclear, has been for a long while, that all big government, all nuclear things that are big have to be funded and supported by government. Yes, that's true to some degree, but the question is to what degree? Yeah, because we've tried to do that and we haven't got there, have we? So that clearly can't, that can't work. Now it doesn't matter whether it's true or not, it can't be true because we're not succeeding. So we have to do something different. And I think that's the real challenge for nuclear.

do things differently. And I'm talking about that at the top level about the way we structure businesses, the way we attract private finance, the way we put capital into projects, all that stuff. I have great confidence in the tech, right? I haven't seen a PWR anywhere on the face of the planet that doesn't work eventually, Or a BWR. They all work, you know? And the AMRs will work eventually because we've got people like yourself and your engineering teams.

Matt Gavin (28:59)
Okay.

Rich DEAKIN (29:18)
You are very good. You will make them work, right? The question is how to fund them, structure them, deliver them and thinking innovatively about that. And it's not, well, we need government support. Yes, we do. But what does that really mean? And how do we, how do we collaborate to do that? Not just say, well, you guys need to give us a huge program. That can't be the answer because it won't work. And as well, I would argue it won't work because there's evidence it hasn't worked, right? It just hasn't worked. You know, we haven't built in new building the UK for God knows, you know.

Well, that's 40 years, 50 years now, you know, a generation and a half. So got to do something different. So I'm very much in, how do you do things differently? And I'm quite critical of the sector for that, if I'm honest, because the sector kind of keeps saying, I go to many meetings where people go, well, government's got to do this. No, it hasn't. It might have to do some of that, but not necessarily in that way. Or if you're just going to say that, we're not going to get anywhere because we'll hit an impasse.

Matt Gavin (29:47)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Rich DEAKIN (30:12)
So I try to think a bit differently. And I think the leadership in nuclear needs to think differently. The safety stuff, I think we've got taped, right? And we can't ever take our eye off that, but we're good, yeah? We're good and we need to maintain good and we need to be chasing better all the time. But the business deployment models have to shift. SMRs are the best example I've seen of that. The industry's responded to the challenge of reducing risk profiles and costs and improving delivery.

The way we are funding it hasn't quite got there yet. Yeah. And I might argue that some of the stuff that's currently going on is still working in a slightly out of date sense in terms of what SMRs are capable of doing and the way we should be delivering them without being too provocative, too pointy about any particular outfit.

Matt Gavin (30:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

We like a bit of provocative, that's alright. I think obviously in the UK we're fully aware of the launch of Great British nuclear and if not now when I guess is the message I keep sending. This feels like the time where we are going to springboard this industry into the limelight again. And guess globally that's the same message as well with some of the things coming out of the EU but obviously what's happening over in Canada.

Rich DEAKIN (31:14)
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, number of global organizations that

talk to me and people that are interested in getting my insights and thoughts on a global level is ridiculous. The global market for this is massive, right? We will do nuclear new build. When I say we, the Western hemisphere, yeah? And it's a mute point, the various relations in the geopolitical sense at the moment.

But the Western Hemisphere will do significant amounts of nuclear new build. There's no doubt. The only real question is how fast we do it. It's not whether we do it, it's how much and how fast. And who gets the most benefit out of doing it.

Matt Gavin (31:53)
Yeah.

I guess our leaders are going to all, our listeners are all going to be sort of future leaders that are going to play a big part in that. ⁓ Obviously, sort of be careful what you wish for. That will bring other challenges and other issues. So what do you think some of the big challenges of this renaissance, I hear that word thrown around a fair bit, this nuclear renaissance is going to bring four leaders, four future senior leaders for people to step up and solve some of those global problems. What do you think the big things are going to be?

Rich DEAKIN (32:00)
Mmm. Yep.

you

So let's just start with funding. So funding has to come predominantly from private investors and there's plenty of private investors out there want to engage and are nervous and want to understand it. So funding clearly and that's education and also application of financing models in different ways. There is no need to find a new financing model for nuclear new build.

there is a need to consider the various things that are available to us and spread them across the life cycle in a way that's a bit more intelligent or at least blended. I'll say blended because there's lots of intelligence in this stuff. So funding, citing, there's a few red herrings floating around on sighting at the moment. My view for what it's worth is that the sighting policy that will come out and it'll be published at some point, EN7 in the UK.

will be perfectly adequate and is actually being put in place to enable nuclear new build to accelerate. But it's actually there to enable private developers to stand up and essentially come forward with their own projects. Fine. So that takes you to the next challenge. Have we got private developers? And how do we help them come forward quicker? Because the ability to hold a license, which is ultimately the badge for a private developer.

Matt Gavin (33:27)
you

Rich DEAKIN (33:35)
and be capable of pulling the entities together to build. The ability to get to a consent to construct and have a program that makes sense is quite a challenging thing to do. So I think a real challenge for the next, and it's live now, now and for the next five to 10 years will be accelerating developer capability and the ability to do new build and doing that in different ways. Regulation, I'm okay with, yeah.

I think there's a few holy grails that are bit myths that aren't really that necessary at the moment. We'll get there when we get there, i.e. international legislation and, you know, good luck with that kind of stuff. ⁓ I don't think it's really the bottleneck at the moment. So funding, developer capability, supply chain. The challenge there is the supply chain needs to believe the opportunity is about to emerge. What I generally hear from the supply chain is...

Matt Gavin (34:09)
you

Rich DEAKIN (34:28)
Well, give us the order and we'll invest in it. Yeah, but this thing's going to be massive. You know, it's like have a bit of vision guys. Think about you can share the risk profile, invest in the kit and get yourself a market leading position. Some of the SMR tech vendors have done that, you know, some have done it with government support. The US vendors have had very significant government support. Rolls Royce has done it with government support, slightly of lower magnitude, but got there mainly because it's engineering capabilities, I think. Yeah.

So there's that, know, how do you get that leading position before the order comes and take that leap? So there's a bit of that. Skills, I think is a complete red herring, right? To be provocative, skills for build will come when we start putting projects together. And I haven't met any industrial body I know yet where I said, if, right, say we want to build a power station somewhere, pick any location, it's going to take us somewhere between five and years.

Matt Gavin (35:11)
you

Rich DEAKIN (35:24)
Can you put together a workforce to do it? The answer is yes. And they'll work with the local service providers and the skills and the colleges to put the people together. And then you get, but what if the project doesn't happen? Well, okay, there'll be more, but I want you to have all these young folk coming out of universities that'll go and fill the boots in other sectors or move. You know, I don't believe in, we've almost talked skills into a problem that there's an issue, but there's an obvious route to solve it. I start doing stuff.

and we've kind of created an industry to talk about skills. I'm like, okay. So I'm a little bit, now that doesn't mean that people aren't trying to do good things. They are, but you know, don't just talk about it, do some stuff. You know, and to be fair, people are doing stuff, but I'm not quite, I don't see skills as a big challenge, if I'm honest. It'd be nice, this way might be a really nice problem to have, it?

Matt Gavin (36:14)
Yeah, I just did.

Yeah, we're too busy to do it, to find some more people. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, the industry's completely got so much work, it can't, don't know what to do with, that'd be great. Yeah. Bring it back to sort of your career and that sort of leadership position and you talk skills there, which I think is certainly a personal key thing, you always want to be building, developing skills.

Rich DEAKIN (36:19)
We're too busy. We're too busy. Yeah. Okay.

I've had a worse problems in my career when I've had to go the other way and make people redundant. That's a much bigger issue, right? Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

Matt Gavin (36:43)
As you grow into more senior roles, the pressure comes on, accountability goes through the roof. How have you maintained self-development? How have you continued to learn, continued to be hungry, continued to want it at the same level as you did when you were younger? see a lot of straight out university people that want to be CEO tomorrow. But as family hits and life gets in the way and you get to those really senior positions, how do you continue to develop and learn?

Rich DEAKIN (37:05)
Yeah. ⁓

Matt Gavin (37:09)
stretch yourself, broaden, I think you use the word broaden yourself even further.

Rich DEAKIN (37:13)
Yeah, well for me, when I've looked at opportunities which have come along, I've generally assessed them against a couple of really simple things. A, can I do it? Yes. B, will I learn something? Yes. And C, a really focused question. If I do this job for two to three years, what will I on my CV that's different? And if you don't ask that question before you go into the job, you're probably going to do the wrong job. And even if you're doing the right job,

you're kind of not focused on the broadening at the right time, you kind of get there and you missed it, if that makes sense. Because you get overtaken by events, you start firefighting on the day-to-day stuff in the job and you miss the point really. ⁓ So in my current role, what did I want out of it? Well, I wanted to learn about how big grant funded programs are run. I wanted to have the opportunity to...

Matt Gavin (37:51)
you

Rich DEAKIN (38:05)
tour engaged with lots of supply chain entities and understand what they could do and sort of get my head around the UK capability. I wanted to be in a position where I was seen as a credible spokesperson for the industry. Well, a consequence of doing this job, I think, is I got elected to the board of the NI, Nuclear Institute. But I thought about all those things before I did it. So that's the first bit, I guess, think about it before you do it. The second point I would make is...

The longest job I've ever done was the Rolls Royce Submarine's General Manager of Core Design and Manufacturing for five years. And at the end of it, I knew I needed to move on because I wasn't learning anything new. And even worse than that, I was kind of becoming blind to potential faults in my own organization. And you've got to be honest about that and say, right, I want to do something different every now and again to keep myself hungry and learning stuff. And I'm in that place now. I'll do something different, whatever it is. Yeah.

because I've been doing this role about four, four and a half years. Yeah. And when, when you're ending a natural phase where Rolls Royce SMI will go onwards to whatever it goes on to do, but innovate UK won't, won't be its prime funder and prime investor. so yeah. So now my question is back to those things. What will I learn? What can I do? You know? Yeah. And how can it balance my family life and aspirations as well? Cause there's nothing more important than that. I you can't operate if you.

if you can't switch out. You've got to able to switch out. And to do that, you've got to a domestic environment or friends or colleagues or whatever. Yeah. You've got to find a way to do that.

Matt Gavin (39:34)
Hmm.

Yeah, that sort of balancing of life and work as you mentioned there, Rish, it's something we all battle with, right? We all try our best. We all want to do our best at work, but obviously do our best at home as well. Do you think that gets, do you think you become more aware of that as you sort of get into more senior positions? Do you think it equips you for those kind of, I need to be fully on here and I can be fully off here in this stage of my life? Does it help you compartmentalize and do you use those strategies to help, I guess, with your personal stress, your personal

Rich DEAKIN (39:51)
Yeah, cool.

Yeah, I...

Matt Gavin (40:09)
Well being.

Rich DEAKIN (40:09)
Yeah... A couple of personal insights here. So I work in very structured time patterns. And don't mean I work nine to five, right? That's not what I do, because I live on my own, but I've got a long-term partner that I've been in a relationship with for many years, and it's a very serious relationship. But we don't live together, right? Fine. Now, because I live on my own, but this could be equally to someone who's married or got family or young kids.

I can work strange hours. I am, I'm a nightmare for my team because I'll work on a Sunday morning. So I've got the gym on a Sunday morning, have a coffee, chit chat about the football with my mates. And then I'll come back to my office environment, my home office, and I'll work for two or three hours. But that just aligns and sorts out everything I need to do for the next week. Yeah.

Yeah, so just kind of resets me on a regular basis. So if you go training or you do a gym, there's a need to reset before you do the next exercise. And the exercise for me comes in weeks or months. The job exercise is a week or a month. What do I want to do in the next month? What do I want to do by the end of next week? And then at the really micro level, I organize my time. I start work on a half hour or an hour. Yeah. So we started recording this at

on the hour, right? Because that's where the thing was, I'll share with you, I'd just been in the gym, I'd done an hour in the gym, had a sauna, had a coffee, and give myself time to come back for the hour. Yeah.

Or it could equally start on a half hour, but I don't, I don't blur the time down. I'll compartmentalize downtime with work time, if that makes sense. And I do it in half hour slots. I'm pretty good at that. I mean, my, girlfriend is like, she's just amazed because she knows all of you. I was just saying, Oh, I've got, I've got to start at sort of nine o'clock or I'll start at eight or whatever, you know? So the times aren't scheduled particularly, other than obviously I make me commitments. Um, but I'll start. this morning I was awake quite early.

I had a cup of coffee, did a little bit of social media, doom scrolling, and thought, right, I'll start at eight o'clock. So eight till 10.30 on it, right? Switch off, a couple of hours in the gym, come back, and I've now got calls till whatever, with breaks till about 6.30 tonight. So compartmentalize your time and have those little strategies. I mean, that sounds like pretty basic stuff, but it's quite a discipline to do it.

Matt Gavin (42:10)
you

.

Rich DEAKIN (42:35)
And I carry two phones as well. So I have a bat phone, private, yep. And I have a work phone, work, yep. Monday to Friday, I will carry the work phone. Saturday, Sunday, nope. It's in the office on charge, but the really important first line guys that might need to get me if something really happened have my private number, but we all respect it and we don't.

Matt Gavin (42:37)
you

Rich DEAKIN (43:00)
use it very often and vice versa. Yeah. So people, got to respect their downtime. They respect mine and the way we work. Yeah. It's pretty, yeah.

Matt Gavin (43:09)
Yeah, just

a mature attitude to set those boundaries. think, yeah, think certainly as I've gone through my career that I've got that wrong, I've got that right at times and wrong at other times. And it's a constant sort of balancing act on how you get that right. But yeah, really cool insight.

Rich DEAKIN (43:19)
you do? Yeah.

Yeah, and all I'd say is there's

no right and wrong. It's just you got to work out what's good for you. But the only way you work it out is reflect it and be honest about when you've not got it right. You know, I went through a divorce in my mid thirties. I clearly didn't get something right there, right? Yeah. And I reflected on it. You know, I went through a very poor set of A levels. And I reflected on that. thought, why is that? And the truth of the matter is I went to a six form college where the school environment shifted between 16 and

17, 18, yeah, it shifted. I wasn't mature enough at that time to be disciplined enough to do the studies I needed to do. And then I came out with a pretty poor set of A-level results, I oh bloody hell, why was that? Went away and thought about it whilst playing golf and having that nice long summer break and thought, you know what, I should have just done this. So Mondays to Fridays were for work, Wednesday afternoon at university was for sports.

Matt Gavin (44:02)
you

Rich DEAKIN (44:19)
know lab day was Thursday morning, just get into the routines and you just breeze through it, you make it routine and it becomes just part of a process really. Discipline and rigor, not hard it's just discipline.

Matt Gavin (44:29)
Yeah,

discipline, yeah. It's interesting and obviously you're sort of reflecting there on quite early life and I guess also on your current status where that discipline is still a really important factor to make sure that you can be effective. And I think it's nice to hear that, that these really successful sort of executive leadership people are human at the end of the day and do need to still balance that because I think when you're younger, certainly you look and you think they're superhuman, they can manage.

Rich DEAKIN (44:52)
Yeah.

Matt Gavin (44:58)
more than anybody else and actually that's a nice insight to hear and I'm sure our listeners will enjoy hearing that.

Rich DEAKIN (45:04)
I mean it's stuff you talk about stretching and learning I I get asked to speak at lots of things right and it's a privilege to be asked to speak at something because somebody thinks you might have something interesting to say and you've got to be able to deliver it right well there are a couple of challenging things aren't they? you've got to something interesting to say and B you've got to able to deliver it so I when I get asked to do a speech or stand up and say doing after dinner or speak a keynote I start preparing for that about a month out

So I'll just put a couple of hours aside one Sunday morning and say, right, what are the sorts of things I need to know about and what might people find interesting? And then I'll go and do a little bit of research and I'll try and find a few key facts or I'll, you know, just little insights and then I'll weave it into anecdotal stories. So recently, not that long ago, which is a source of huge amusement to me, I got asked to do a keynote at a conference on the use of digital and AI in nuclear. Wowzer, right? Wowzer, what do I know about that? Here's a man that doesn't know what a G-Prom is, right?

Matt Gavin (45:48)
you

Rich DEAKIN (45:57)
Or is it G-PROMs, who knows? So I get asked to do this, right? And my first thing's right, stay away from the tech. So I did this speech about the history of transformative technologies,

Matt Gavin (45:59)
Okay.

Rich DEAKIN (46:06)
because in my view, AR will be one, right? And birth rates and death rates and the internal combustion engine and lifts, right? And birth rates and death rates and how mortality shifted and what happened over about the last 150 years when the key inventions.

and how they are multi-purpose texts that move things on. Now I started thinking about that a month ago. I what can I do that's interesting? Yeah. And I stood up and spoke for half an hour without notes because I rehearsed it and practiced it. Now it won't work perfect. It doesn't have to be because it's not genuine if it's work perfect. But I learnt a lot. I challenged myself, put myself out there. But I also thought about it, you know, because it's a privilege to be asked to do that stuff, isn't it? And you want to be asked back, you know. I know everybody bored rigid in the audience. Oh, Christ, you know.

You want to come back, you want to be seen as sensible and entertaining and of something good to say.

Matt Gavin (46:56)
Yeah, that's really interesting. I'll just ask you a few more before we finish, Rich, if that's all right. One, a little bit you touched on there around, I guess you've honed your softer skills, know, presentational styles and delivery. Like you say, you've got to be able to deliver it. You've got to something interesting to say and you've got to be able to deliver it. I certainly find that in leadership, something I work on just consistently around, it doesn't matter what I'm saying, if people don't believe it or buy into it, you know, on how I've delivered it, then, you know, that won't be heard.

Rich DEAKIN (46:59)
You're right.

Yep.

Matt Gavin (47:23)
How important is that? And how much have you worked on that? You seem, you're a charismatic person. Does that come naturally or is that something that you've worked on?

Rich DEAKIN (47:29)
Thank you. Thank

you for that.

think the style is probably natural because I'm quite open. Yeah. Quite actually quite insecure. So a lot of when you see people that you think communicate easily, it's because they're trying to demonstrate they can. So there's a self reflection there about not quite being that secure in yourself and always wanting to demonstrate you're good at something. Yeah. So there's a little bit of that. So I won't say it's natural, but it's there. I think the thing I have worked on is tailoring to my audience and essentially being shorter.

Yeah, so, and this is a really insight. I mean, this is just something that engineers have to think about, right? Typically engineers, because they're very talented and they've got lots of deep insight. Make the answer shorter. And then you've got to get to a place where people trust that you know what you're talking about. And then you've just to be able to give them the answer in a way they understand. Yeah, so that's a really, for me, I've worked a lot on being shorter and sharper and deliver. So I speak to ministers occasionally, I speak to politicians, I'll sit in...

committees and stuff. And you've just got to be aware of a way you can get it across in a lot shorter, more succinct way, because they're not engineers, they're not science based. They don't really know the sector, you know, some are very well briefed. So I'm I'm not decrying that, but it's how do get the message across really quick? And what are the, what are the two or three things you want to say? Yeah. So I, I used to train gun dogs, right? As an aside psychology.

Matt Gavin (48:56)
you

Rich DEAKIN (48:57)
If you ever want to see something that's really

engaged and really switched on to what it's doing as a job, watch a Labrador Retriever on a pheasant shoot, right? They can only count to seven. Yeah. So if something that switched on and that engaged is capable of working out where seven birds are as they come out the sky, right?

Most people I know aren't that engaged. Make sure you never give more than 3 to 5 messages.

because they're just not that engaged and you've got to then find a way to engage it, but that's different. Yeah. So I'm, I'm a huge, huge kind of shorten the message. Think about the audience. Yeah.

Matt Gavin (49:27)
Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, brilliant. Thanks for that. We'll finish on this one. Thanks so much for your time. If you had one key piece of advice to give to a aspiring leader, someone who wants to get to senior positions, senior positions of influence, what would that one piece of advice be?

Rich DEAKIN (49:49)
think in our sector there are two routes, yeah? And I think fairly early on, choose which route you're good at. And the two routes are either deep technical understanding of a subject matter, which will elevate you to a very influential position, yeah? So taking it out of engineering, there's some really, really clever people that work in the regulatory system, understand the regulations left, right and center, right? But they're, or you manage people and you take resources and people with you and you move organizations. So do you want to be a people manager?

Or do you want to be a technical manager? And the answer is, and how do you blend that to make make sense of it? Yeah, now I'm lucky because I've done a bit of engineering. I've got a decent engineering degree. I understand engineering enough, but fundamentally, I'm an operations people kind of person, right? I think, yeah. So my my key piece of advice is think about those two things and decide. And then the second is

Just get yourself as many different experiences as you can because ultimately influential people need to be able to synthesize ideas based on experience and knowledge. And experience and knowledge comes from listening and engaging and doing different things.

Matt Gavin (51:00)
Brilliant, great advice. Rich, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining me and we'll see you next time. Thank you very much.

Rich DEAKIN (51:07)
Yeah, thank you.

Matt Gavin (51:09)
So a great conversation there with Rich Deakin sharing his extensive journey in the nuclear industry and his varied career, discussing his career path, leadership insights and the unique challenges faced in nuclear leadership. He emphasized the importance of personal growth, adaptability and the need for innovative approaches in the sector. He also reflected on the future of nuclear energy and the role that future leaders would play, which gave us all a great insight into what we need to do to become those future leaders.

I hope you enjoy this episode of the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast. Please subscribe to all the channels and follow us for more great content.