It was in 1997-1998 that the former Uber COO and Manchester Grammar School alumnus Barney Harford “happened upon the internet”.
“I thought this is going to be transformational. I didn’t know quite what it was going to be, but it’s going to have massive implications,” he says.
But his route to becoming a member of senior management at the second largest tech IPO - worth £60bn - started in "traditional" management consultancy, following his degree at Cambridge University, where “I got a 2:1; I did okay”.
After applying for several management consultancy programmes, and being rejected from many, he was accepted into one firm Kalchas in London.
It wasn’t until he had a serendipitous accident while skiing that Harford was given a “ window to get round to start applying for business schools”, he says.
With consultancy, he says “you’re always pretending you what you’re talking about”, but “you’re only going to be skimming the surface”.
Speaking to students at his former school, he spoke of the importance to follow passions, interests and curiosity, rather than seeking a career path solely for the monetary benefits.
The talk was the latest in the school’s ‘Business Class’ series, which saw Harford He joined on stage by Hugh Campbell, managing director of investment banking firm GP Bullhound, and fellow alumnus of Manchester Grammar School.
Most Read
True to his philosophy to “follow your curiosity”, Harford found himself following his appetite for technology.
He says: “I knew I wanted to be in technology, and I knew I needed to be out on the west coast of America.
“If you really want something, you need to go out and get it, and put all your effort into achieving what you want.
“After I left INSEAD Business School I bought a ticket to San Francisco, and later Seattle, and just started knocking on doors until I got a job with Expedia, who at that time were part of Microsoft.”
In the eight years he was at the travel website company, he moved from production planning, an “intersection of business and tech”, to working on the public-facing role in investor relations.
He moved from director of investor relations to director of corporate development and later became president of Expedia Asia Pacific which saw him living in China, tasked with pushing out Expedia to the region.
He eventually left his role at Expedia in 2006 with a string of roles, for the likes of GlobalEnglish, LiquidPlanner, Kapow and SmartLens Analytics, over the following 10 years.
Don’t miss
In 2009, he became CEO of Orbitz Worldwide, a global online travel company, and spent six years there before Orbitz was sold to Expedia for $1.6bn in 2015.
It was in 2017 he became an advisor to the CEO of Uber, working two days a week. Three months later, he was appointed its chief operating officer.
“When I arrived, they were very focused on the short term [whereas] I like to see big numbers,” he says.
“When I started, Uber had 100m riders. My goal was to increase that to 1bn riders.
“Everyone looked at me and said ‘we can’t do that’ but I think to be an effective leader you need to point to the mountain you want to conquer, and then surround yourself with creative people who can help you achieve your goal.”
It was during his time working for Expedia where he realised the importance of product and service testing.
“You can’t know what the majority of consumers want,” he says. “You have to continuously test and test the product out.”
“This is really important in terms of technology; the idea that anybody can figure out what every consumer wants is actually not very helpful,” he says.
He asked the teams at Uber to take the number of tests they carried out from 150 to 1,500 a year.
He says: “They came back and said that would be possible, that you would have to do things completely differently, and then I said ah, now we’re talking.
“We have to do things differently, so we rebuilt the infrastructure completely.”
Harford speaks of the importance of taking risks in business.
He says: “The culture of business, particularly in the US, is to take risks, try new things, work hard and go for it.
“You’ll find that if you follow your passion, and be open to serendipity, you will become really good at what you do and that will open doors.”
However, he said it was “reluctant” to suggest going into business without going to university first.
Cambell says: "The workplace has changed dramatically, the idea that you can leave school and become an entrepreneur, is very modern and 10 or 15 years ago there wasn't that choice.
“You and I started off in quite traditional jobs for the first part of our career, management consulting, and we perhaps benefited from badges on our CV...but now there is that option to follow your own lead.”
Harford replies: “I still think that university is really important to give you that space for growing and I do think that what you learn at university is incredibly important.”