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Andrew Thomas

Courage, Passion & Integrity

By InnerVoice

August 17^th, 2018

I chose IWC

I inherited my first IWC watch when I was 15, from my grandfather, which was the iconic Mark XI pilot’s watch. Since I was at University until I was 27, I didn’t really have time to explore my Haute Horlogerie passion, but once I did, I was blown away by watches. As a chemist, and drug hunter, I focus exclusively on discovering and developing new medicines, so my whole scientific world operates with precision at the atomic and molecular level. Mechanical watchmaking is the next level up, the micro level, and when I started to realise all the different variations you can have in such a small surface area it made this precision engineering fascinating. I, therefore, started to study watchmaking as an amateur hobby and then became an IWC collector.

I chose IWC because of the breadth of the brand offerings; their excellence in engineering, as well as their corporate sustainability and charity projects. And, of course, the beauty of these luxury timepieces dazzled me too. I started to become so learned about some of their vintage models from the 1960-70’s that I wrote articles about them, and IWC were kind enough to publish those articles. The company gave me privileged access to the official archives so that I could answer questions that collectors were puzzled by. I would go to Schaffhausen in my spare time and do research. This made my bond and friendship with the company so much stronger. Through cycling, I became close friends with the former CEO of IWC, and I became an informal ambassador for the brand. There was tremendous trust between us, and I started being invited in to see models that were still in the concept stage, to get input from a collector on whether certain things make sense. An ultimate tribute was when in 2015, the CEO invited me to design my own watch (with valuable input from other collectors and the design team at IWC). It was commissioned and produced in a limited edition of 27 pieces (my lucky number), which is really wonderful.

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

I underestimated Cycling

I played national amateur level football in both Scotland and Switzerland, so I’m really a footballer who bought a bike. I badly hurt my hip in a charity football game in Zurich, it required three surgical procedures to get back on track, but that’s what set me on the path I’m on now. I was 39 years young and still playing at a high level, and I’d been a captain for every team I’d played in since I was a kid. I was a lead-by-example captain, and I didn’t feel like I was able to do that anymore. I was laying in my hospital bed after the last of the three operations, and I spontaneously signed up for the Laureus Charity London to Paris ride, which was to raise money for a great cause. I called a friend who owns a bike shop and said "you better get a bike for me," and that was how it happened. The operation was in August, and in September I did the bike ride.

To be honest, I struggled like hell to be able to get ready for the ride. I thought to myself “it’s just cycling, it’s turning the pedals and then you go up the hill.” Oh boy, I underestimated it. I tried to ride a small hill about 15 km from my house, and I simply couldn’t make it. I thought I would die after 10 km. Two days later I got to 12 km, and on the third attempt, I got to the top of the hill, which gave me a great sense of accomplishment. My learning was to not think about the theory of something, just do it. It's a journey, and sometimes you can complete your journey in one leap, but it's okay if it takes five or six steps to get there. It took me three steps to get on the top of that hill, but even if took me ten steps I know for sure still I would have done it through tenacity. For the Laureus Charity ride, the goals for my journey were clear: I will arrive in Paris, and I’m going to arrive safely. Little did I know that the ride would include about 50 people, including 7-time Grand Tour winner Miguel Indurain and former English cricket captain Michael Vaughan. But, I did it, and I raised about 25,000 pounds from friends who didn’t believe me when I came to them, on crutches, and said I was going to ride from London to Paris.

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

I trust my inner Voice

I use my inner voices in three ways; I call them my three I’s: Intelligence, Instinct, and Intuition. When I have a goal ahead of me, I trust my inner voice - if it’s something that I'm familiar with I only use intelligence, if it’s something I'm not familiar with I use my intuition, and if it's something in between I have to use my instinct. That’s the top layer, and then there’s three E’s which link to the I’s: Education, Experience and Expertise. For example: when I embark on the journey to design and discover a new medicine, I don’t need to panic, I go to my Expertise and Intelligence and say: “Okay, I know nothing about this particular topic, so I need to surround myself with experts for a few days.” I used to go to the library, but now I’m senior enough that I get to bring the experts to me. It’s activating these E’s, and I’s at the right time in the right way that makes me the leader I am today.

The thing to remember is it’s not one inner voice. If you think it’s one voice you will fail, because in a single moment your only option is motivation or demotivation - you can do it or you can’t. For me, it’s much more complex, but the skill is to keep it simple; dissecting it into six elements and activating one at a time is a pattern that works very well for me. It’s like playing the piano; if you hit six keys at the same time what do you hear? Noise. But if you activate each one of the six keys in the right order, you hear beautiful music. I think that’s sometimes the problem leading to too many iterative starts and stops and losing confidence; people are just digitising their brains - black and white, 1 and 0, right or wrong - which is not a recipe for getting the most out of themselves.

Andrew Thomas

Sport for good

I am about to take on one of my biggest challenges to date.

The TorTour UltraCycling event, starting and finishing in the hometown of IWC - Schaffhausen, Switzerland. I will complete the 1000km journey alongside my teammates in support of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation.

For 12 years now IWC has created a special edition piece in support of Laureus, the 2018 version is the "Pilot’s Watch Mark XVIII Edition “Laureus Sport for Good Foundation”

The sporty feel of the watch is achieved through a light yet deceptively strong black ceramic case (41mm diameter), which is the perfect setting for the intense midnight blue dial. The blackened hands and the red tip of the second hand personifies the sportiness of this fashionable timepiece. A soft-iron inner case ensures protection against magnetism, while the precision engineering is truly befitting for a pilot’s watch. The case is rounded off with a titanium case back with a beautiful engraving of an original drawing, selected by public vote, by talented 11-year-old Ana Claudia from Brazil on the theme “Time to be healthy”.

To me the foundation and the work they do really shows that sport can change the world.

Brilliant mentors

I have been lucky to have some incredibly brilliant mentors, like Bill Burns, a Scottish leader who was the Pharma CEO at my former company. He brought and taught the core values to our company that I still use as my compass today. They are: courage, passion and integrity.

To use cycling analogies, courage is where I try to get the balance of speed, endurance and safety. Being courageous to go all the way to 100% and not stop at 95. It’s the courage to go and ride with stronger riders and see where I am at. Passion is about sharing our hobbies and our learnings with people so that our passion can be converted into dedication. When you have a busy life you have to prioritise and need to say no to things - like a business meeting because you’re out for a ride - but if you’ve shared your passion, people understand. Integrity comes through, as an example, when the peloton comes together, and there’s an organic lead group, and even though you’re complete strangers, you know everyone should spend time in the front. The only thing that speaks to your integrity in that circumstance is doing your 15 seconds in the wind so everyone else can catch your slipstream.

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

“I've had the pleasure to ride with Fabian Cancellara. He’s taught me a lot about finesse and the technical details of descending, as well as preparation and recovery. The small things. But he also teaches me about safety and how to stay safe on the bike. Fabian is probably my safety coach and my recovery coach.”

Andrew Thomas

Switzerland is world class

I’ve been on career transition the last six months, which allowed me to free my life of corporate responsibilities and focus my energies on ensuring that what I do next has a game-changing impact on the area that I work in. Spending 19 years in the corporate world, I feel confident that everything that I did will have a medical impact for many decades to come, so I feel excited to start a new chapter. I’ve also been able to do things spontaneously, like fly to New York as a Valentine’s gift for my partner. I just had to make sure it was okay for me to bring my bike.

My next venture will aim to allow Swiss entrepreneurs to be some of the most successful in the world. The intellectual capital in Switzerland is world-class, but over the last number of years, the speed of bringing innovation to revenue generation could be more dynamic. We have a few unique elements to our business model that will shape us differently from the rest of the innovative companies in the world. The good news for me is that I will mainly be based in Zurich, which is a 90 km commute, so I’ll be rather local. In the past, I spent a lot of time in airports, planes and hotels - spending the majority of my time in my own bed is a luxury I am looking forward to very much. That part of my time is going to be freed up significantly so I can re-invest it, not just for work, but for other endeavours as well. I want to be a very competent amateur endurance cyclist with a side effect that everything that we are doing in endurance is helping to raise money for the Laureus Charity foundations, focusing on giving kids a good start in life.

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

I ride when i'm free

For the last 6 or 7 years, about 95% of my kilometres have been done alone. Part of that is by choice, and part of it is because of my long working hours. I was on a plane, or in a different country, or with my football team, so I couldn’t organise to ride with others. I’d just ride when I was free; sometimes it was 3 am, sometimes it was 10 pm. Whatever time of day it was, I’d use it to get out of the office and think about big decisions, big topics that were on the table that I had to be accountable for. My assistant was a great support and she would tell people “you can call Andrew, he’s on his mobile office,” which just meant I was on my bike thinking about work. When people called I'd answer the phone, but I had one rule: the last third of my journey was just for me. I’d do my 90 kilometres or whatever it was, and the last 30 would be phone-free.

I also cycle frequently in groups, which not only gives me the same (if not more) satisfaction but also rings an extra 3, 4, 5 percent out of my own ability. When I’m in groups, I observe a lot, and I try to be a quick learner. In the groups I’m riding with now, we have a mix of incredibly talented, strong riders, and people that I can help. I like that balance - learn from the strong riders, pass it on to the newcomers. It’s funny what sticks with you when you’re learning. Someone once told me that I “pedal like I’m wearing high-heels,” which meant that my heel was too high and my toes were too pointed. Another one was, “Andrew, what music are you listening to today?” I shrugged. “Then why are you dancing on the pedals?” They have these clever phrases that let you figure it out for yourself - get your core straight, keep your body straight, put your heel down.

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas

In control of my own destiny

My partner is from the south-west, French-speaking part of Switzerland, which is a place where I feel very much at home. Every time you turn a corner you have a postcard picture of the most beautiful scenery. It's steep, it's long, it's the snow, the sunshine, it's warm and cold, but it is just beautiful. The Nufenenpass is about a 17 km climb, and I guess the average gradient is about 9%. It starts really steep - the first kilometre or so is at 12% and then drops down to 10% which makes you feel that it's flat. That's what I like about Nufenenpass, it gives you this shock at the beginning, and then you have a form of easy early achievement. I’m not a racer, I’m a rider, so I always try to keep in mind that these small achievements are worthy. I don’t want to overlook that today I have done something I haven’t done before; I’ve improved my performance, or I’m learning how to better balance pushing and pulling the pedals on a climb. That’s the special part of cycling.

Every time I go up Nufenenpass, it feels like it's the first time. The way that the mountains wake up from winter is different every year. Sometimes I hear the marmots whistling and singing at very low altitude, and sometimes they’re still at very high altitude. Feeling safe and being at ease in your surroundings allows you to be able to ride without concentrating on the pedalling part. After that, it keeps going up and up and up and up. You feel alive; you feel free.

When I’m there, I feel that I'm in control of my destiny.

Andrew Thomas

Footnotes

Words by Andrew Thomas, Photos courtesy of Andrew Thomas, Edited by Cody Royle, Published by Travis McKenzie, Copyright NTSQ Sports Group Inc., Presented by IWC Schaffhausen

FootNotes

Words by Andrew Thomas, Photos courtesy of Andrew Thomas, Edited by Cody Royle, Published by Travis McKenzie, Copyright NTSQ Sports Group Inc., Presented by IWC Schaffhausen

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