meet the finalists

autumn 22 meet the finalists

For nearly two decades, the Forum have been celebrating entrepreneurs who have stood out from the crowd. Each year, we are inundated with high calibre entries, and this year is no exception. Discover below the 10 finalists fighting it out for the 2022 Emerging Talent, Entrepreneur of the Year and Scale-up Entrepreneur of the Year awards.

Emerging Talent An entrepreneur who is building a business of outstanding potential which has been trading for six years or less.

Chloë Clover Wander Films

What does your business do? Wander Films is a video production/marketing company known for creating next-level visual content for brands to #beatthescroll™. Our team of 17 works with brands all over the world to create social media videos, graphics, motion graphics, content strategy and consultation. Wander is also in paid development for a TV documentary.

What was the spark that inspired you to found the business? Wander started when myself and co-founder Lou were travelling around Australia and noticed brands were posting salesy content rather than posting what the audience wanted to engage with. We bought a camera and laptop and spent 14 months creating videos in Australia and South East Asia before coming home to grow Wander.

What does 2023 look like for you and your company? We’ll secure our further TV commissions, grow our team and increase turnover by 50%. I’ll continue my mission to retain, train and inspire young talent in the North East as well as developing exciting new brands under the Wander umbrella.

Richard Shell The Doxford Group

What does your business do? The Doxford Group is a fast-growing luxury hospitality business located in the heart of Northumberland, currently comprising of two beautiful venues and a new hotel due to be completed by early 2023. Each offer exceptional experiences, weddings and private events as well as luxury accommodation.

What was the spark that inspired you to found the business? After excelling in my graduate career in banking, I went on to pursue my entrepreneurial drive and create the business that I am known for today. I understood the industry a little having worked at a local hotel, but I started researching in more detail and found a gap in the market - the lack of barn venues to cater for the growing desire for a more rustic and romantic wedding.

What does 2023 look like for you and your company? The further development of the Charlton Hall Estate is well and truly underway with the construction of a new 15-bedroom hotel, bar and restaurant due to be completed in early 2023. We are also in the final planning stages for the development of a new orangery and bridal boutique at Doxford Barns.

Kimberley Cattin WBCo.

What does your business do? West Barn Co. (WBCo.) creates high quality and innovative brow and skincare products that focus on enhancing natural beauty and empowering individuality so that when our customers use our products, they feel beautiful, confident and most like themselves.

What was the spark that inspired you to found the business? As a professional makeup artist, I saw a gap in the market for a niche product that didn't exist. When I got feedback from other professionals in the industry on how much they loved our product, it seemed like a no brainer. I have always been entrepreneurial so it was in my nature to make something of it.

What does 2023 look like for you and your company? My focus is to continue to provide a safe, happy, thriving environment and culture for all the staff at WBCo. Next year brings new opportunities for travel - expansion into the USA as well as building relationships with new retailers. Not forgetting all of the new products we are going to be releasing - it is a year of cementing who we are in this industry and expanding into exciting new territory.

13

Scale-up Entrepreneur of the Year An entrepreneur who is leading a scaling company achieving 20%+ annualised growth in either turnover, profit or employee numbers for any (but ideally all) of the past three years.

Tim Ward OPPORTUNI

What does your business do? At OPPORTUNI, we specialise in making public sector contracts accessible for all businesses. We are rebuilding the procurement ecosystem and levelling the playing field. Helping companies at scale find, win, and deliver government contracts through smart tech solutions.

Rob Mathieson ION

What does your business do? ION provides financial technology, infrastructure and transformation services to PE-backed and midmarket businesses. It has industry expertise across pharma, education, telecoms and professional services. Tell us your ambitions to scale? We have hugely ambitious growth plans. Everything we do is about the impact and supporting as many businesses as possible. We will continue with multi-million pound investment transforming the industry and growing our business capabilities as quickly as we can on a global scale.

What does the future hold? It is our overall company mission to redirect 5% of government spending to great SME businesses across the UK, USA and EU. Totalling £225 billion each year going to local economies, supporting the growth of great local businesses and investing in local people. We are one year into a five-year plan to achieve this.

Tell us your ambitions to scale? ION’s ambition is to become the world leader in provisioning and implementing financial infrastructure. This is done by partnering with the industries best products, having the most skilled and capable consultants, whilst demonstrating accounting knowledge and financial leadership well beyond any other business in the market.

What does the future hold? There are 36,000 UK mid-market businesses that need to significantly improve their financial infrastructure, and as a business we aim to become the primary service provider. This means scaling of technology, people and geographic expansion. Tell us your ambitions to scale? We believe our specialist products are required globally - they can save lives and we want to provide them to as many facilities as possible to improve as many lives in a positive way. In the next five years, we would like to see the company grow by a further 300%.

What does the future hold? We will continue to improve and expand our range of products to help us reach further, while creating opportunities for people in our region. We want to build our own campus-style HQ, allowing us to create an environment where our people love coming to work and can improve their lives too.

Tell us your ambitions to scale? We have grown quickly in recent years and we want to continue that growth. We want to ensure we are giving back to the communities in which we operate, help contribute to the economic success of those communities and provide opportunity. The larger we grow and the further we can spread, the more of an impact we can have.

What does the future hold? The ultimate goal and purpose of The SDDE Smith Group is to push boundaries to create better places to live, to work and stay. We plan to continue to grow the group portfolio of brands organically, but we are also now actively in the process of acquiring businesses that further complement our real estate service offering.

James Hill Polar NE

What does your business do? Polar design, manufacture and install specialist windows and our main sector is now mental health care. We supply safe and secure windows which allow users control of their own environment, giving them independence, whilst protecting them from harm.

Dale Smith The SDDE Smith Group

What does your business do? The SDDE Smith Group provides services to property investors. We own a portfolio of real-estate related services including a construction firm, an interior design business, a legal conveyancing company and ongoing property management businesses.

autumn 22 meet the finalists

Entrepreneur of the Year An experienced entrepreneur who has shown incredible resilience and strength to lead their business to outstanding success through innovation, teamwork and leadership skills.

Steven Rawlingson Samuel Knight International

What does your business do? Samuel Knight Group consists of Samuel Knight Energy, Climate-Tech, Projects and Rail - all offering STEM project and recruitment solutions throughout UK, Europe, USA, the Middle East and APAC regions. With projected annual sales of £30m for 2022, Samuel Knight have worked on projects in over 48 different countries, providing solutions into the renewable energy, climate-tech and sustainable transportation sectors. Collectively, the management team has 40 years industry experience employing over 100 specialist consultants who are all subject matter experts and thought leaders.

What is your biggest business achievement? Launching and breaking the USA, achieving $10m in revenue in only eight months of trading.

What next? Samuel Knight is fast becoming one of the world’s leading specialised renewable STEM focused service providers after recently adding technology and science to complement our engineering and manufacturing service offering. We want to continue growing at a rate of 50% year-on-year and become recognised as the best green company to work for globally.

Mike O’Brien Opencast

Charlie Hoult

What does your business do? Opencast is a highly skilled and fast-growing technology consultancy. Our team of specialists work at the heart of government, global finance and growth enterprise, providing a range of digital consultancy and services.

What is your biggest business achievement? Really difficult question! It has to be creating Opencast from scratch with a business partner ten years ago. I left a successful career in consulting in investment banking technology and we set out to prove that you could 'do the right thing' and be nice to people in the technology consulting sector. I'm immensely proud that we've attracted a wonderful team of people who get our vision and will end this year with over 400 in our team.

What next? To continue on our growth path (we will be a FTSE 250 company of the future), which allow us to offer more interesting work for our existing team and provide a really different working experience for new people who will join. A bigger company will allow us to take on even more challenging projects for our growing client base and show what user focused technology is really capable of. What does your business do? I’m a business builder, motivator, people person, deal driver. I’ve grown my own firms, used my experience to help others grow, managed the finance and growth, plus handled the exit strategies. Much of my experience is in service businesses: marketing, recruitment, software development. But, I’m also MD of the family property business which has pivoted into funky workspace.

What is your biggest business achievement? I’ve helped many people on their own career journeys - whether as intern or spin-out. This creates livelihoods and jobs, which means taxes for society and choice for individuals to achieve their goals. I don’t count, but suspect former colleagues, as entrepreneurs, now employ 500 people in their businesses. And tax revenues will be in the millions. In a small way, this all makes the world a better place.

What next? I always have a growth mindset. So, I start almost every day with a ‘Christmas stocking at the bottom of my bed’ feeling. There’s politics and saving the world (mostly from stupid politicians), there’s a cosmetics business with my dermatologist wife, there’s expanding Hyhubs to Chamonix, Ibiza and Cape Town and there’s a finance and investment business. I’ve got four boys, perhaps we could set up like the Rothschilds and send a son to each continent to create a bank?