In this conversation, I speak to Will Butler-Adams OBE, CEO of Brompton. Will joined the company in 2002 aged 28, when it had around 40 employees; he became Director in 2006 and took over as Managing Director in 2008. During his time, Brompton has become a global brand with over a million customers and has grown from £2million to £130 million turnover. Brompton made its Millionth bike in November 2022 and now exports 80% of its products to over 30 countries round the world.
Will is a Chartered Engineer having studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Newcastle and previously worked for Nissan and DuPont. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the City and Guilds Institute and has an honorary Doctorate from Imperial College London. He has a keen interest in education and was a founding trustee of the Inspiring the Future charity, as well as a trustee of Investors in People and Commissioner for the governments UK Commission for Education and Skills. He is a visiting lecturer at Imperial Collage on engineering, innovation, and entrepreneurship, has published a book on business and lectures globally. In 2015 he was awarded an OBE by the Queen for services to Industry.
Q: How did your journey begin with Brompton?
[Will Butler-Adams]: I was visiting London, running chemical plants in Middlesbrough, and trying to get into INSEAD to do an MBA. One day, on a bus, I bumped into a guy who, upon discovering I was an engineer, said, “I’ve got a friend who’s an engineer making bikes. He desperately needs some help. He’s somebody just like you.” And that’s what life is about. Opportunities come, sometimes very subtly, gently floating by. The typical response is, “Yeah, cheers mate,” and back to Middlesbrough you go.
But if your antenna is up — if you’re someone who listens, runs with things, and grabs hold of opportunities — they can lead somewhere. Maybe they won’t, but you want to find out. And that’s what I did. My worry was that I wouldn’t get into INSEAD because my career had been a bit boring. I’d graduated, worked for ICI — all very traditional. So I thought: maybe I won’t get into INSEAD. Maybe I should spend two years in London, do some mad entrepreneurial stuff, work for a wild inventor. I had nothing to lose. Even if it went pear-shaped, it’d still look good on my CV.
So I came back to London. What initially drew me to the company was how the bikes were being made — like something out of the 1940s. I didn’t know much about the bike, had never heard of the brand, but I knew for certain I could make the place run better and more efficiently. I’d worked for Nissan; I understood lean manufacturing, communication, planning, and project management. I knew I could add value. That was my reason for taking the job: I could make the operation better while preparing for my MBA.
But the reason I’m still there 22 years later is that this unassuming little bike — counterintuitive in its design, odd-looking, seemingly unimpressive — completely changed my life. In 18 months, I knew London better than friends who’d lived there for a decade. I knew every backstreet and canal. I was fit, had a liberated joie de vivre, and while my friends took the same tube route every day, I was pedalling to nightclubs, meeting friends, and riding to pubs and dinners. I’d turn up to nightclubs on my bike, give my girlfriend a croggy — you name it. That bike made life a joy.
Then I met our customers, and the same thing happened to them. I realized: I’m working for a company that makes people happy. You don’t leave that
Q: How do you create the deep brand advocacy Brompton has developed?
[Will Butler-Adams]: I suppose what Andrew brought when he created this was something phenomenally useful. We own so many things in our lives — I’d say 75-80% of them are things we don’t actually need. We could live without them; they’re superfluous. They might be nice, but they’re not critical and don’t truly impact our lives. But through Andrew’s design, he created something furiously useful.
Because of that, I couldn’t live in a city without my bike. Well, I could live in a city, but I’d be miserable. With my Brompton, I feel liberated. I love cities, I love exploring. There’s no claustrophobia; every trip becomes a little mini adventure. That’s the first thing — the design is functional, useful, and brilliantly thought through.
The second thing I remember is when we first went to America 20 years ago. We spent a lot of time explaining to our dealers who not to sell the bike to. Their mindset was just “sell, sell, sell.” But we told them: no, don’t sell it to people who don’t need it, because they’ll never love it. People already buy enough unnecessary stuff. This is an expensive item, and instead of pushing it on everyone, we focused on finding the people who didn’t yet realize they needed it.
There are millions of people who don’t know this bike exists — but if they did, it would change their lives. The number of people who truly don’t need it is small, but the number who would benefit from it is large. If you’re not greedy, if you don’t rush to “flog, flog, flog,” but instead take a thoughtful approach, you’ll connect with the right customer. Understand their needs, see how this bike fits into their life, and when they try it, they’ll love it.
And then it happens: you meet a random person and say, “You’ve got a Brompton?” and they respond, “I love it.” You meet another person: “I’ve got a Brompton.” “Oh, I love it.” You start noticing — everyone with this bike loves it. That curiosity grows. More people explore it.
This approach is about patience. It’s like Warren Buffett’s compound growth. We’re not in a rush. We do things well, build strong foundations through our customers and customer support. It’s not about pushing sales and moving on. It’s about looking after customers and being honest.
And that’s how you create something truly valuable.
Q: How do you keep the customer at the centre of your innovation and investment decisions?
[Will Butler-Adams]: These might seem like little things, but they’re incredibly important. We moved factory eight years ago, from Brentford near the Chiswick roundabout — right next to Brentford Football Club before it was built — to Greenford. If we had been owned by private equity and run by accountants, the factory would have moved to North Wales or Vietnam. We’d have a trendy design office somewhere in East or West London for the creative work.
But I fought hard to keep the factory and the office together. It was difficult to articulate that value in a business case. How do you quantify the culture — the fact that every time you go to get a cup of coffee, you see a full-on factory in action? Whether you work in performance marketing, planning, or IT, you don’t forget what you’re doing. You walk out to grab a tea or take a break, and there’s this Willy Wonka factory, churning out bikes.
If we lose sight of that, if we forget that everything we’ve built relies on the bike, then we lose the foundation of our business. The factory isn’t something to hide away or outsource to the cheapest option. It’s something to cherish, to be proud of. We can be trendy, we can be a brand, but it means nothing if the product that goes out the door isn’t exceptional.
Keeping the factory and office together is valuable, and our ownership structure has allowed us to do what we feel is right. Yes, we’re commercial. We have P&Ls and business plans. But layered on top of that is a genuine sense of what’s right.
Too often, businesses today are driven solely by academic numbers. But customers aren’t numbers. They’re human beings who care about storytelling and integrity. You can tell when a product is made by people who care, and you can feel it when you engage with a company that cares. That kind of value is intangible, hard to capture in a P&L — but it’s real.
Q: How have you grown (as a leader) through the Brompton journey?
[Will Butler-Adams]: It was very, very scrappy in the beginning. I was knee-deep on the shop floor, designing jigs, fixtures, tools — you name it. I even stepped in to run machines when we were short-staffed. There were 30 of us then; now we’re 800. It was a different animal.
Early in my career, during project management, I got some great advice from my mentor. I worried I was spending too much time drinking tea with the team. He told me, “That’s part of your job. Don’t dismiss it. Having a cup of tea, talking with the team, engaging, being human, and understanding them as people — that’s important.” I’ve never forgotten that.
When it comes to leadership, I vehemently disagree with programs like The Apprentice or, to a lesser extent, Dragon’s Den. They portray leadership as being a hard-nosed bastard, firing people, putting them down, and casting the entrepreneur as a genius while everyone else is a dimwit. To me, leadership is about setting ambition, inspiring your team toward a common goal, and making sure everyone understands it.
Ask anyone at Brompton, “What do you do here?” and they’ll say, “We create urban freedom for happier lives.” Freedom and happiness — that’s what we’re in business for. If everyone understands the direction and is striving toward the same goal, you’ve got alignment. Now, how do we get there? Because I can’t do it alone.
Transitioning from being knee-deep in the details to a leadership role means focusing on that common goal. If your ambition is just to make a profit, what’s in it for your staff? Profit mainly benefits shareholders — that’s not going to inspire people. We’re all here for a short time on this planet, and we want to contribute, to feel proud of what we do. We want to tell stories to our friends and family that make them say, “Hey, that’s cool.”
A common purpose that’s worthy is essential. People say, “It’s easy for you; you make bikes — that’s easy to be positive about.” But purpose exists in every field. Whether it’s water treatment, oil extraction, or running a chemical plant, you can strive to be the best. Even in a challenging industry, you can reduce impact and make things cleaner and better. That’s what I aimed for when I worked in a chemical plant.
Once you have a common purpose and believe in it — genuinely, without bullshit — the next step is figuring out how to achieve it. Lofty ambitions are great, but to get there, you need skills, experience, and knowledge that you might not have. True leadership means setting aside your ego. You have to be modest, acknowledge what you don’t know, and surround yourself with people who do have those skills. Don’t see that as a threat; embrace it.
We’ve built a culture where every new hire needs to be better than you in their area of expertise. Maybe they don’t have the same breadth of experience, but in their specific role, they’re top-notch. When you’re not afraid of that and view it as a positive, you create an environment of challenge, ambition, and shared goals. Ideas bounce around: “How do we get there?” “Let’s try this.” “Oh no, that didn’t work — what about this?”
It’s a positive process, not about making people look stupid, hiding mistakes, or backstabbing. Forget that toxic approach. I don’t sit in my own office; I wear the same uniform as the people on the shop floor. Little things matter.
Q: How do you determine where- and how- to engage politically as a business leader?
[Will Butler-Adams]: The first thing I’d say is to be very wary of going into a business that relies on government in any way, shape, or form. We sell 80% of our products around the world. If your business depends on government, that’s a shaky foundation. You want to be independent enough that you and your team succeed or fail on your own merits. If you’re too reliant on third parties you can’t control, that’s a major risk.
If my business depended on which party — Conservative or Labour — was in power, or which minister held office, I wouldn’t have it. So, when people complain about government, I get it — Brexit, for example, is a bit of a bummer. But it’s not the most important thing. My innovation, my staff, and the efficiency of my production line are all more important. Brexit is an annoyance, yes, and it’s cost us more, but it’s not make-or-break. Don’t use it as an excuse. Focus on the parts you can control, because those have a far greater impact.
That’s why I don’t take government too seriously — it’s not life or death for my business. I can be critical and tell the truth because I’m not waiting for government support. That’s my starting point.
The second point is about politicians. Regardless of who they are or which party they belong to, if they’re in power, we should want them to do a good job because they affect all of our lives. We shouldn’t hope they fail just because we don’t support their party. If they’re in power, their success is our success.
The problem is, most politicians today are professionals — career politicians. They haven’t got a clue because all they’ve ever done is politics. If we in industry don’t engage, educate, and invite them into our world to show them what we do, they’ll never understand. And then we have no chance of getting policy right. They’ll just rely on advice from civil servants who, in many cases, have also never worked in industry.
Don’t complain about policy if you’re not willing to engage and help educate politicians. They want to succeed, but they could easily lead us off a cliff, simply because they don’t know there’s a drop. We in industry have made all those starts and mistakes — it’s our responsibility to share that knowledge. And this applies not just in the UK but also in places like Singapore, New York, and Shenzhen.
At the same time, we have to remember what we do: we make bikes. In my role, I could spend breakfast, lunch, and dinner attending endless discussions, shaking hands, and talking about changing the world. But it’s a fine line. The biggest impact I can make is here, in this company, with the people who are making and contributing to our bikes.
So yes, I engage in policy because it’s important, but it’s only a small part of my role. The real work happens on the shop floor and in the heart of the business.
Q: How do you approach skills pipeline development?
[Will Butler-Adams]: I was lucky. I was invited into a charity when I must have been so young. These massive leaders of industry were involved, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. They tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Do you want to be part of it?” That’s how we created what was called the Education Employers Taskforce — something most people won’t have heard of — and then we launched Inspiring the Future.
At the time, I didn’t fully grasp what I was getting involved in. But I do know that I’ve had tremendous fortune in my life. The opportunities I’ve been given, the environment I grew up in — at home, school, and university — all played a huge role. We like to think we’re amazing, but so much of it comes down to luck. If you happen to be born in the right circumstances, unless you really mess it up, you’ll probably be fine. Life just carries you along, and most people trundle along okay. It’s actually hard to screw it up. A few friends of mine have managed to, but they’re the exception.
On the other hand, if you’re born into the wrong circumstances, it’s incredibly tough. It’s not fair. Everything is stacked against you. You can’t get seed capital, no one trusts you, and you lack the inspiration that comes from seeing what’s possible. For many, it’s about seeing someone familiar achieve something — thinking, “I thought he was a dimwit, but look what he’s done. If he can do it, so can I.”
When I was young, the more people I met, the less impressed I was by them. And the less impressed I became, the more confident I felt that I could achieve something too. There’s this myth of the incredible entrepreneur or genius leader — but breaking down that myth is empowering. You can do it. And you don’t have to start your own business to be entrepreneurial. You can work inside a large organization, shake things up, challenge the status quo, and ask, “Why are we doing it this way?”
I stumbled into this world, and the beauty of Inspiring the Future was that we targeted schools where children had little inspiration. In many cases, their parents weren’t part of the workforce, or if they were, it was in difficult, uninspiring jobs. Teachers — admirable but exhausted — were doing their best, but the sense of ambition and opportunity was so diminished.
Most of us can look back at our childhood and remember two or three people who inspired us at just the right moment. We never forget those encounters. In our busy work lives, if we can afford to give a little bit of time to visit a school and share our experience, maybe — just maybe — we’ll inspire a child to take a different path. And that small moment of inspiration could change their life.
Q: What does legacy mean to you?
[Will Butler-Adams]: I think about legacy all the time. I’m obsessed with it. It might sound extreme, but I carry a kind of guilt about being privileged. You could call it guilt, or you could call it a sense of responsibility.
When you look at planet Earth as a whole, most of us in the UK are privileged. Not just compared to others in the UK, but globally. For most people on the planet, their absolute priority is to feed themselves and their family. And you can’t fault them for that, even if it leads to negative impacts on the environment or society — they are defending their basic right to survive. You can’t dismiss or lecture them about their priorities. Survival itself is a challenge.
In the UK, by and large, we don’t face that challenge. Our concerns are more along the lines of what phone to buy, which restaurant or takeaway to go to, or which movie to see. Sometimes, it doesn’t feel like privilege because there’s always someone who has more. But in the context of the world, we are privileged, lucky, even spoilt — however you want to frame it.
The planet is in trouble. But we can’t expect people who are struggling just to survive to care about that, because they have far more immediate worries. That responsibility falls to those of us who have the capacity to do more than just look after ourselves. If we don’t contribute, if we don’t take some responsibility, who will? The small minority of us who have the luxury of time and resources must step up, because if we don’t, no one else can.
Do we really need another meal out, another Christmas jumper? Or could we use some of that privilege to protect our oceans, support a charity, plant more trees, or do something else meaningful? Whatever it may be, I believe strongly that we all have to do more than just look after ourselves.