Businessman for whom the pitch is actually the product

George Mullan has just stepped off the plane in Bogota, Colombia. He has flown down from Kansas City to fire an employee involved in a $17 million (€15.6 million) fraud. Little does he know, his company’s HR department in the country has tipped off the employee in question.

“Waiting at the airport for me was the individual and two very large gentlemen. I was effectively forced in the back of a jeep where I spent the next hour and a half lying through my teeth, saying I hadn’t flown down to fire him.

“Thankfully I got away from the heavies. I fired the guy the next morning but was scared for my life after.”

Mullan was working for American Home Products (which later changed its name to Wyeth) at the time, involved in a turnaround operation of the company's South American business.

He says it was one of the most exciting times of his life, albeit dangerous at times.

“I would walk into meetings in Venezuela and nearly everyone in the room would have Kalashnikovs on them.”

While his business life now involves designing, constructing and maintaining pitches for some of the most prestigious sporting events in the world, including the World Cup, the Champions League and the Six Nations Championship, there is still a lot of risk involved.

His company – SIS Group – has constructed sports surfaces in some challenging markets including Iraq, Angola, Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia.

“We did a big project in Basra three years ago. It was tough – there were some pretty hairy times. We had to have our own security and would have guns in the car always.”

The project was a $4.2 million deal to build six sports fields at the Basra Sports City complex in for the 2013 Gulf Cup of Nations.

He laughs, recalling once getting through an American security checkpoint at the airport, with a car full of guns.

“My security guard told me to wrap the guns in towels. I had one gun wrapped in a towel next to me in the side pocket of the door. I was very nervous. When we got to the checkpoint they walked around the car with detection equipment for guns and bombs.”

After being flagged through the checkpoint successfully, Mullan asked his minder how they had bypassed the very best of American security technology.

“He said ‘yes it is the best American technology, but they didn’t train the Iraqis how to use it’.”

Born and raised in Sligo, Mullan obtained a degree in history from Trinity College Dublin “because it was the easiest course to do”, before going on to complete an MBA at the University of Bradford.

He then joined American Cynamid as a medical rep, which he says gave him a good grounding for business.

“Lots of people from the MBA class went to work in corporate finance in London. I went to work in sales for a pharma company. My family were involved in the cattle trade so I had a background in sales.

“When you have to sit in a surgery for five hours just to get five minutes with a doctor, you learn how to build good relationships.”

Mullan worked his way up to the position of sales manager and then became managing director of the company’s UK operations, before being transferred to the US.

He had only been in the US six months when Cyanamid was acquired by American Home Products in a $9.7 billion hostile takeover. The company went from a head office of 2,000 people to 150 people in the space of two months.

“It was my first introduction to the US system of hiring and firing. A security guard would go up to people in the morning, tap them on the shoulder and they’d be out. I was put on a 24-hour contract, meaning I could be gone with just one day’s notice. It was ruthless.”

American Home Products gave him the job of selling a European-based animal health business which it owned. He had 12 months to do so.

Unimpressive meeting

“We sold the business to Hoffmann-LaRoche for $100 million. Part of the deal was that I would have to join the company. I remember meeting the directors for dinner in Basel in Switzerland. They all sat around the table in order of seniority and I thought there is no way I want to work with them.”

Luckily his boss in American Home Products said he had another job for him – in South America – which is how he ended up in Bogota to fire the employee.

“I had to turn around the South American business. It was losing $15 million a year. We had eight offices and six factories. Within two months, we had four offices and two factories. I also got rid of all the MDs.

“I discovered we had products and companies competing against each other.”

The turnaround was successful and the company made a profit of $5 million in the first year. In the second year, it won an award for the fastest-growing division of American Home Products and by the third year it was pulling in profits of $55 million.

After three years looking after the South American business, Mullan was transferred to Amsterdam, charged with turning around another company. It was here that he came across SIS.

“My PA in Amsterdam told me about it. Her husband founded SIS. They were going into administration. The week I went to visit them Manchester United and Juventus had called them and they didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Slashed salary

Mullan took a 98 per cent pay cut, going from a seven-figure remuneration package to a salary of just €15,000 a year. He took a 45 per cent stake in SIS Group, acquiring the remaining 55 per cent within three years.

“It was losing about €100,000 a year. There were no private jets anymore which was a disappointment and no limos.

“It was a different kind of turnaround as I was using my own money. You can make mistakes with other people’s money.”

The company did the pitches for Manchester United and Juventus, but the game changer came when it won the contract to build 14 pitches for the 2010 African Nations Cup in Angola, the second largest football tournament in the world.

After 27 years of civil war, little infrastructure and shortages in materials, it was an enormous challenge for SIS. The company had to develop new designs, new construction methods and build self-sufficient teams in four locations in a country twice the size of France.

“I spent nine months in Angola. We had to think completely outside the box. There were no roads, no water tanks, no irrigation systems. We went through hell but we did it.

Dead bodies

“I realised what poverty was in Angola. I would see dead bodies at the side of the road. People were paid wages of just $2.50. I increased their salaries to $10. I was hauled into the mayor’s office and told I couldn’t do that.”

On the back of the Africa Cup contract, SIS landed a $14 million deal laying out gardens, plants and recreation areas for the government-backed Luanda Bay project, which involved the reclamation of land.

The company made history in 2013 when Saracens becomes the first professional rugby team in England to play a premiership match on an artificial pitch. SIS had installed the pitch.

It is now the largest supplier of synthetic grass pitches in Ireland, having supplied pitches to over 50 venues, with projects such as Sligo Rovers, Clones in Co Monaghan and Newbridge College.

Strategy of risk

He believes the company’s risk-taking gives it an advantage over its multinational competitors. SIS has a reputation for delivering innovative solutions, whether it is removing and installing a new stadium pitch in 17 hours so Ajax can play three hours later, or building a grass pitch on top of a synthetic pitch for the European Women’s Championships in Sweden in 2013.

It has since started hybrid pitches, which are a combination of real and synthetic grass.

“We have just invested over €1 million in a machine designed from scratch. The machine injects fibres into real grass. You can play double the amount of games and the pitch doesn’t end up wrecked.”

The company is on track to deliver profits of €5.2 million this year, on revenues of €47 million. Last year it made a profit of €4.1 million and had revenues totalling €38.1 million.

The company’s client list may include world-renowned soccer teams such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Spartak Moscow, Manchester United and Juventus, but Mullan says mistakes have been made along the way.

“When we acquired our factory in the UK, we supplied our largest customer with a product that failed in over 40 of their pitches.

"I could have come up with a million excuses, but I ended up admitting to the customer I had screwed up. We replaced all the pitches. It cost us £450,000. Seven years later, they are now our second biggest customer." CV Name: George Mullan Position: Chief executive of SIS Group Age: 53 Family: Married with one son and one daughter. Lives: Sligo Something that might surprise readers: The company has never had any debt or borrowings. Its headquarters are Mullan's house in Sligo as he hates offices. Something that readers would expect: The company has won the contract to lay the pitch for the 2018 World Cup final pitch in Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.