Interbrew UK's MD is just where he wants to be in his career. Tim Palmer sets out to discover how he got there Stewart Gilliland is a happy man. And so he should be. By skill, judgement and a slice of good luck he is further up his career path than he ever envisaged and he is doing a job he loves. He is managing director of Interbrew UK, with a place on the western European board of its Belgian parent company. As such he is one of the beneficiaries of behind-the-scenes corporate manoeuvrings which led to his highly respected predecessor, Miles Templeman, relinquishing his role of md and becoming an external consultant. Interbrew acquired the Whitbread brewing business in May last year and immediately renamed it Interbrew UK. When it took another bite of the UK beer business by paying £2.3bn for Bass Brewers it announced that Bass chief executive Ian Napier, rather than Templeman, would lead the combined UK operation. Templeman stayed on until March before stepping down. Gilliland was then appointed to the md's role. Napier never did take up the enlarged role planned for him, thanks to the intervention of former secretary of state for trade and industry Stephen Byers and the Competition Commission. They said the Bass acquisition was anti-competitive and demanded it should be sold. It now looks as if the Bass and Whitbread empires will never join forces, even though a judicial review has called into question the Competition Commission's decision- making process in reaching their verdict on the takeover. Napier has since left Bass and his successor Jerry Fowden ­ appointed last month ­ has to be content with the role of executive vice president at Interbrew on top of his role of chief executive at Bass. All of which leaves Gilliland just where he wants to be, heading up one of the most aggressive and successful brewing businesses in the UK. With the backing of its powerful parent company it has continued to steamroller Stella Artois lager into a pre-eminent position in the UK take home market. It is the biggest alcoholic drinks brand in the off-trade by volume and value and is the fourth biggest grocery brand behind Coca-Cola, Walkers Crisps and Nescafé. Its rates of growth have easily outpaced the static take home beer market. In 1998 the brand was worth £198m and grew in value by 31%. By the end of 1999 it was worth £244m (+22%) and last year it grew by 23% to £300m. And this has been achieved through a period of turmoil. In the latter half of the 1990s there was constant speculation about the future of the UK brewing industry and Whitbread went from a business committed to keeping the family name in brewing to one that was looking in other directions. Gilliland says: "Towards the end it was clear that Whitbread Take Home's future was outside Whitbread plc, whose future was very much about retailing. We were the bastard of the family and it was increasingly difficult to get investment, increasingly the plc was less interested in us, but we continued to make good contributions." His progress to this point had been classically simple. He joined the Whitbread Take Home sales force from Pedigree in 1984 and every two years he climbed a rung on the ladder until he became sales and marketing director in 1998. His background is in sales and he has developed his marketing expertise but he doesn't see his current role as dependent on either. "I am a leader. That was my job even as sales and marketing director. A leader is someone who can set a vision, put some parameters in place and communicate it so that people can play their part." Gilliland, 44, has also led by example and earned considerable respect from competitors and suppliers across the industry. And they all expect Interbrew UK to take a leading role in the development of the sector. The ground breaking work on Stella has been much admired. He puts this down to the team he has in place and claims his role is making them work together. "All too often the marketing and sales teams are separated because they do not talk the same kind of language. Here, they work together on shared objectives." This he sees as critical to the business because, with the exception of the supply chain, the marketing and sales teams are the biggest part of the business in terms of employees. He has understood the mantra of allowing individuals to develop to their best of their abilities and not be stifled by the fear of failure. "I encourage innovation and creativity and there will be mistakes on the way. As long as we get six or seven out of 10 right, that's OK. "The key is that people own up to their mistakes and try not to hide them. We have an organisation that allows for that ­ there is no blame culture here." This attitude recently forced Gilliland himself to admit he was wrong. The team came up with the concept of selling Stella branded chiller cabinets for £90 through Asda. Gilliland thought it was a "dopey idea", but they sold like hot cakes. "I had to eat humble pie," he says. This is all part of the image he projects of a company with a modern management style which has done away with dress codes and has an "open door" policy for the senior team. This also incorporates a hands on approach and Gilliland is expending considerable effort ensuring he knows what is happening in every aspect of the company. "I spend a lot of time at the coal face. People know that I know what is going on." His aim is to let people get on with the job without interference and this is the same attitude the Belgian company has towards its new UK subsidiary. "We have a parent which is genuinely interested in brewing. They stand by being a local brewer and they do not interfere. They leave local management to deliver." This is a system which has clearly worked for the company internationally. In less than 10 years it has gone from 19th in the world brewing league to second and it wants to be the world number one. And the importance of the UK to this aim is not to be underestimated. Within its western European zone the UK is the second biggest profit contributor behind Belgium, where Interbrew controls 55% of the market. Despite this, the UK employees faced uncertain prospects for the second half of last year. Until the government stepped in, they knew they would have to fight for their jobs if Bass and Whitbread were amalgamated. "Last year we put in our best performance at a time when nobody knew if they had a job. It would have been so easy for us to have lost a lot of people. We didn't." Although Gilliland points out that Interbrew UK is not a one brand company, and has a full portfolio which includes Heineken and Boddingtons and development brands from Belgium, he cannot steer away from the importance of Stella. It is under threat from me-too products, price deflation, premium packaged spirits and out of stocks and he must come up with innovative solutions. "We must put a lot more focus in making beer more relevant to what people want and think innovatively about how to make it easier for consumers to buy beer," he says. The company's research has led to the creation of the largest range of different packs for any one brand, guidance on shelf layouts, a hero merchandising scheme for Spar stores and meal deal links with Asda. But Gilliland's biggest bugbear with the multiples is out of stocks. "This debate is about every Thursday and Friday, not only Christmas. There are still decisions being made in the retail world without any thought to the impact they will have further down the line." But for a man whose career path has moved relentlessly upwards, is this new role and all its challenges enough? Gilliland says: "This represents a good opportunity as well as a lot of uncertainty, but I am quite happy to face that for the foreseeable future. I have exceeded my own career expectations and I would like to be around for a while to coordinate the development of the business. "Running the UK operation is good and it will do me fine. But I am part of the western European board and more of my time will be spent elsewhere in the world." {{PROFILE }}