BQ Yorkshire Issue 22

www.bq-magazine.co.uk

ISSUE TWENTY TWO: AUTUMN 2014

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Bomb disposal expert and F1 engineer join forces YORKSHIRE BARN AND BRED Software invented in a village outhouse goes global BRAVE NEW WORLD How ‘intelligent cities’ will transform our lives SECRETARY TO BOSS From humble beginnings to business guru ISSUE TWENTY TWO: AUTUMN 2014: YORKSHIRE EDITION

BURNING DESIRE

The entrepreneur on a mission to save lives with his revolutionary new fuel BUSINESS NEWS: COMMERCE: FASHION: INTERVIEWS: MOTORS: EVENTS

YORKSHIRE EDITION

BQ Breakfast - daily insight, news and analysis to help grow your business. Register free at www.bq-magazine.co.uk Business Quarter Magazine

£2.95

WELCOME

BUSINESS QUARTER: AUTUMN 14: ISSUE TWENTY TWO Welcome to the latest edition of BQ, which we hope finds you with batteries charged and ready to get stuck into the final quarter of 2014.

We’ve all been keen observers of events in Scotland and now, with the decision made, politics as we know it is on course for rapid change in the months ahead.

But change is what entrepreneurs thrive on and those firms able to turn the new landscape to their advantage will prosper most.

It’s been a bumper year for many Yorkshire entrepreneurs, with order books brimming and no shortage of demand – although talent and growth funding remain hard to come by.

There’s still much business to be done before the year is out, however, and we’ve got plenty of inspiration to fire you through the darker months ahead.

If proof were needed that Yorkshire is a world class place to do business, it comes this quarter in the form of Anaplan.

The business, which started life in a barn near York, has rapidly grown into a darling of Silicon Valley. But, with its pockets lined with US$100m in investment, it’s come back to its roots to build its engine room in its home county. Find out the hows and whys behind the deal in our interview with founder Michael Gould.

In business, early stage entrepreneurs are often told, you have to have a niche. Try telling that to Mike Maddock and Dan Fleetcroft and their ultra-diversified Sheffield company.

Golf drivers, supercars, bicycles and fighter jets are all in a day’s work for the high performance engineering business. We report on their journey from bomb disposals and F1 to the cusp of global success in business.

Also in this issue, meet the emerging entrepreneur behind a pioneering camping

fuel that has the MOD, humanitarian organisations and retailers knocking on his door.

Meanwhile, our Business Lunch this quarter features Linda Pollard, a seasoned entrepreneur turned boardroom champion who now sits at the helm of one of the region’s biggest NHS bodies.

She opens the book on getting into the NHS supply chain, why public and private sectors are inseparable and the why many UK boards need to broaden their thinking.

Speaking of inspirational female leaders, Julie Kenny’s path from secretary to Business Woman of the Year 2014 is a tale of true determination and entrepreneurial guile. We catch up with the boss of electronic security equipment firm Pyronix to find out how she built her empire and what the future holds.

Chris Clarke of HB Projects shares an equally inspiring story of how he cleared his bank account to buy a collapsed business for £1,200, which is now worth tens of millions of pounds.

Read on for this and much more – including a delve into the future of smart cities and what opportunities they’ll bring to Yorkshire businesses.

CONTACTS ROOM501 LTD Christopher March Managing Director e: chris@room501.co.uk Bryan Hoare Director e: bryan@room501.co.uk EDITORIAL Andrew Mernin Editor e: andrewm@room501.co.uk DESIGN & PRODUCTION room501 e: studio@room501.co.uk PHOTOGRAPHY KG Photography e: info@kgphotography.co.uk Chris Auld e: chris@chrisauldphotography.com SALES Hellen Murray Business development manager e: hellen@room501.co.uk t: 0191 426 6182 / 07551 173 428

Andrew Mernin, editor, BQ Yorkshire room501 Publishing Ltd, Spectrum 6, Spectrum Business Park, Seaham, SR7 7TT www.room501.co.uk

THE LIFE AND SOUL OF BUSINESS

room501 was formed from a partnership of directors who, combined, have many years of experience in contract publishing, print, marketing, sales and advertising and distribution. We are a passionate, dedicated company that strives to help you to meet your overall business needs and requirements.

All contents copyright © 2014 room501 Ltd. All rights reserved.

While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility can be accepted for inaccuracies, howsoever caused. No liability can be accepted for illustrations, photographs, artwork or advertising materials while in transmission or with the publisher or their agents. All information is correct at time of going to print, September 2014. room501 Publishing Ltd is part of BE Group, the UK’s market leading business improvement specialists. www.be-group.co.uk

Associate Sponsors

A law firm which offers more In life and in businessYORKSHIRE EDITION

Expect More www.clarionsolicitors.com

03

7053_20x175_Clarion_BQ_Magazine_AW01.indd 1

BQ Magazine is published quarterly by room501 Ltd. 06/06/2014 15:00

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

CONTE BUSINESS QUARTER: AUTUMN 14 BARN AND BRED IN YORKSHIRE

Features

44 GROWING TRUST Linda Pollard’s journey from fashion entrepreneur to healthcare champion

20 BURNING DESIRE Entrepreneur on a mission to save lives with revolutionary gel fuel

28 BRAVE NEW WORLD How ‘intelligent cities’ could transform the way we live our lives in Yorkshire

34 BARN AND BRED Software invented in a Yorkshire village outhouse is going global

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

50 LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Bomb disposal expert and F1 engineer combine to form a winning team

72 BUSINESS CHAMPION Julie Kenny went from being a secretary to an award-winning business leader

76 THE £40M BOSS He just wanted a “proper job” – but now Chris Clarke runs a business empire

04

34 GROWING TRUST IN HEALTHCARE

44

TENTS YORKSHIRE EDITION

38 COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

STILL LIVING LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

Behind the region’s biggest deals

56 WINE Accountant Daniel Sowden samples some planet-friendly, hippie-chic wine

Regulars

58 MOTORING Solicitor Roger Hutton tests a Jaguar XJ – with some precious cargo on board

50

64 FASHION 06 ON THE RECORD How recent events north of the border could shape Yorkshire’s futurre

10 NEWS Who’s doing what, when, where and why across Yorkshire

Josh Sims traces the roots of a look that captivated jazz fans

68 EQUIPMENT Car designer Martin Smith carved a career out of his boyhood dream

80 BIT OF A CHAT With BQ’s backroom boy Frank Tock

18 AS I SEE IT Matt Osbourne, of Armstrong Watson, on what “added value” really means

FROM SECRETARY TO BUSINESS GURU

82 EVENTS Key business events for your diary

05

72 BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

ON THE RECORD

AUTUMN 14

>> You can have a say on the region’s future Events north of the border have brought the prospect of Yorkshire having more national influence into sharper focus In the week before the Scottish independence vote two of Yorkshire’s biggest councils restated their desire for greater powers to be given to the region’s cities. Their calls came as part of a published report which said devolving powers and decision making to cities such as Sheffield and Leeds would allow the UK to compete better on the global stage.

For those cities, the report said, skills and a brighter job market would be among the rewards of their enhanced powers.

The report, by commercial property group GVA, highlighted the untapped potential of England’s ‘core cities’ outside London.

It is believed these cities could create a million extra jobs and £44bn more economic output if they were delivered the conditions needed to fulfil their potential.

Sheffield City Council leader Julie Dore said: “The key to enabling cities to achieve this is giving them the financial tools they need to unlock their potential. We must move away from a situation where central government directly controls how the vast majority of public money is spent in our cities, limiting the ability of places to make the decisions that matter for their economy. Cities are better placed to understand the needs of local businesses and what their city needs to grow.”

Her Leeds City Council counterpart, Keith Wakefield, reiterated that: “Fulfilling our economic potential will rely upon us having the essential skills our labour market needs.

Only by freeing local areas to establish their own provision will we get a more responsive skills and employment system that will allow us to achieve that ambition. Doing so will be good for jobs and good for businesses.”

With regions outside London accounting for just 27% of England’s economic output, there is clearly a long way to go before any national rebalancing is achieved.

But the desire to do so extends beyond council and business leaders, says the EEF, the industry trade body.

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

Looking ahead: Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has launched the Northern Futures Project

It reports that over six in ten consumers (63%) want to see Britain enjoying a better-balanced economy, where growth is sustainable and the economy is growing across different sectors.

They also want to see Britain making more (59%), exporting more (64%) and competing more effectively with other countries (58%).

The EEF’s regional director Andy Tuscher says: “Net trade is still weak, investment is below pre-recession levels and, while manufacturing has gained ground, more can be done to create the right conditions for manufacturers and wider industry to thrive and grow.”

Better linking up of northern cities dominates the list of practical solutions to the imbalance.

The One North proposition was launched in August through an alliance of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield. It is also backed by other key cities, including Hull, Bradford, Wakefield and York.

It calls for £15bn of investment over the next five years, centred around a high speed rail line, HS3, running between Liverpool and Leeds and possibly on to the east coast. It also suggests boosting the region’s road capacity.

The plan aims to help the north become a destination of choice for investors, connecting

06

businesses with workers and workers with jobs, higher levels of productivity and competition. Its creators also say it will support the economic benefits of HS2.

With the plan detailing infrastructure investment up to 2030, however, business leaders have years to wait before its benefits are felt. In the meantime, your opinions are sought by Government through its Northern Futures scheme. It urges businesses, as well as the general public, to provide feedback on how a vibrant northern hub can be fostered. “The reality is that our great cities like Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow and Leeds aren’t just competing with each other for investment,” said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at a recent event in Yorkshire. “They’ve also got to stand up against other global cities like Frankfurt, Sao Paulo, Madrid and Shanghai. “We need to think about how we can exploit the local powers we’ve created to accelerate economic growth across the North.

That’s why I’ve launched our Northern Futures Project.” n See http://northernfutures.dialogue-app. com to tell the Government what you really think should happen in these parts.

Success is not achieved by chance; it’s the result of people working together.

Expect More

www.clarionsolicitors.com

7069_Clarion_Advertising_development_AW01.indd 1

06/06/2014 15:01

ON THE RECORD >> Spa town recognised as entrepreneurial hothouse The UK’s economic decision makers looking for the perfect conditions to encourage more business start-ups would do well to set their satnavs for Harrogate. For the town has been officially recognised as Yorkshire’s most entrepreneurial place. It was ranked 16th out of 150 towns and cities in terms of its business creation rate, with six new businesses per 10,000 people being started, compared with 0.8 nationally.

Harrogate was ranked higher than anywhere else in Yorkshire in the study carried out by accountancy networking group UHY Hacker Young.

Perhaps there’s entrepreneurial magic in the town’s famous spring water. Or, more likely, the boss of the local chamber’s assessment has the answer: “The very high standard of education in the local area is a good foundation for encouraging the business leaders of the future, whether they choose to go on to university or enter work straight from sixth form,” says Brian Dunsby. “This creates a very positive atmosphere for new businesses and local parents often encourage younger generations to look at entrepreneurship as a viable option for their careers – not just something to turn to if they are out of work.

“When people set up a new business, they often find Harrogate is an ideal place to succeed in their ambitions.”

The very high standard of education in the local area is a good foundation for encouraging the business leaders of the future BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

AUTUMN 14

New developments promise to bring more opportunities flowing up the Humber

>> Winds of change in Hull The centrepiece of Hull’s resurgence has been approved by planners, marking the latest chapter in the town’s bumper year. With the afterglow of being named 2017 City of Culture still burning brightly, plans have now been approved for a major development on which big economic hopes are pinned. The £310m wind turbine factory, blueprinted for the banks of the Humber, has been given the green light by council officials.

The Green Port Hull development backed by Siemens and the Association of British Ports (ABP) will see a new wind turbine production and installation facility come into operation by 2018 to service the fast expanding North Sea offshore wind industry. The project covers new turbine construction, assembly and service facilities at Hull’s Alexandra Dock and a new rotor blade manufacturing facility in nearby Paull, which together would create 1,000 new jobs. Hull City and East Riding Councils have jointly established a £26m fund to equip local people with the skills needed at Green Port Hull and support businesses to take advantage of supply chain opportunities. Hull was recently highlighted as a wages blackspot by think tank Centre for Cities and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, with 33% of workers earning less than £17,300.

It’s hoped skills training and better paid jobs that come with Green Port Hull will help address this shortfall.

A further boost could also come to the town’s job market, with the council aiming to bring a £17m cruise ship terminal to the Humber. The authority has reportedly agreed to spend £380,000 on initial studies for the project. “It’s not a time to be faint-hearted – this is a time to invest in the city for the future,” said council leader Steve Brady.

It’s not a time to be faint-hearted – this is a time to invest in the city for the future

08

The University of Law, the UK’s leading law school, has arrived in Leeds

• A range of law courses for undergraduates, postgraduates and qualified lawyers • Strong, established links with law firms – reflected in our course design • A unique practice-based learning that is focused on maximising employability prospects • Training from qualified lawyers

Find out more: law.ac.uk/leedsopening

The University of Law

*Based on known destinations, 98% of our full-time LPC graduates who graduated summer 2013 had secured employment within 9 months of graduation *

Courses available • Professional law degrees • Graduate Diploma in Law • Legal Practice Course • Training for trainee solicitors and qualified lawyers

NEWS

AUTUMN 14 The

New £7.5m fund will help entrepreneurs, employment outlook improving, survey says, scheme makes it easier for SMEs to take on apprentices, Ilkley firm grabs slice of £42m university library contract >> Grant leads to 30 jobs Telecoms firm aql is using a £548,000 local enterprise partnership-backed grant to create around 30 jobs in Leeds.

Adam Beaumont, chief executive of aql – which lists 35 FTSE 100 companies among its customers – believes Leeds is an ideal location to provide back-up to failure of London systems.

He said the project would be delivered over the “medium term” and that the construction of new data centres by the company would continue. The latest of these is set to create more than 30 jobs in Leeds on the back of a £548,000 grant from Leeds City Region LEP’s Business Growth Programme, which is supported by the Government’s Regional Growth Fund.

>> Training to be the best A new programme is aiming to give managers and supervisors within small businesses the same leadership skills which are embraced by some of the UK’s largest corporations. Halifax-based management training company Aspire has launched Stepping into Management, an open programme, which will work with managers within SMEs to empower them to drive business growth.

Trevor Wheatly, managing director of Aspire, said: “Traditionally, we’re appointed by a business to design and deliver training workshops with the aim of improving the skills and capability of the workforce to improve business performance in areas such as customer service, process improvement, coaching and performance management, and

Andrew Mill, finance director; Mark Woodward, commercial director; Steve Milner, managing director

>> Renewables firm strengthens board with new appointment Wetherby-based farm-scale renewables specialist Earthmill has appointed Andy Mill to its board as finance director. Mr Mill, originally from Edinburgh, is a former PwC accountant and has spent the last five years as a finance director and financial consultant to firms including Lexia Solutions and Andrew Page. He will take over the financial management of £12m Earthmill from commercial director Mark Woodward.

“The business has grown by more than 50 per cent over the past two years, and we needed to strengthen the board with a dedicated finance director to enable us to plan for the fundraising and further growth that is on the horizon,” said Mr Woodward.

so we work with delegates to meet this need.

However, through our open programmes from our office in Halifax, SMEs and other business professionals can have access to the same toplevel training we deliver to large organisations across the UK.”

>> Confidence in decline Confidence among North of England businesses fell for the second consecutive quarter in Q3 2014, a study shows.

The latest ICAEW / Grant Thornton UK Business Confidence Monitor (BCM) has found that confidence in the region has fallen to +28.3. This is the second consecutive quarter and while still comfortably in positive territory now stands below the level seen a year ago in Q3 2013. Companies in the north have seen sales volumes rising by 4.0% this quarter. In addition, businesses in northern England have recorded year-on-year increases in research and development budgets of 3.1%.

Slow Broadband..? Get a Superfast £3000 grant!

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

10

AUTUMN 14

NEWS

>> Freight firm on the move A Selby couple have relocated their global freight forwarding business to Market Weighton Business Centre and appointed new directors as they expand to drive their renewables division.

Gary and Liz Boden founded Derwent Shipping & Logistics in 2010 to provide specialist transportation and logistics for abnormal loads worldwide and have enjoyed year-on-year growth that has fuelled the appointment of Bubwith couple, Julian and Sarah Frazier, to the board.

Julian said: “Siemens is making massive investment in this region and we plan to build on the increased local focus and growth in renewable energy.”

I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!

>> Law firm expands National law firm Mills & Reeve is set to move into a new larger Yorkshire HQ as it looks to increase its share of the region’s legal market.

The group has taken 6,500 sq ft in 1 City Square after agreeing a ten year lease. The move, which is scheduled to take place on 22 December, will see the firm double its existing space.

The move comes as the firm looks to capitalise on recent growth.

Since its formation in 2008, turnover has grown year-on-year with fee income up 21% in the last 12 months.

The firm recently announced a number of senior lateral hires in the areas of corporate, commercial, employment, construction and commercial disputes in a move that will increase the number of partners from four to between ten and 15 in the Leeds office.

Philip Way, who heads up the Leeds office, said: “The new office reflects Mills & Reeve’s growth over recent years and ambitions to expand further in the city.

“We looked at a number of different properties and felt that 1 City Square, which is an iconic building in an excellent location, fitted our requirements perfectly and we look forward to moving to our own premises in December.”

>> Bridging the funding gap A new £7.5m fund to help entrepreneurs plug cash flow problems has been launched in Yorkshire. TFG Capital has been set up by the former Reward Capital and Aldermore financier James Mortimore.

Via offices in Leeds and Doncaster the funding vehicle expects the majority of its transactions to be for loans to northern SMEs for amounts between £50,000 and £3m over terms up to two years.

Mortimore said: “Over the last ten years I have seen an increasing number of good businesses with great potential that needed to borrow to grow or to exploit a particular opportunity, and which proved unable to secure funding simply because they didn’t fit the profile prescribed by existing lenders.

“Not only was it frustrating for the businesses that couldn’t access funding from their own banks or ABLs, it was also a missed opportunity for the lender as the proposition often presented a good solid business deal for everyone, and that is the gap we are looking to bridge.”

11

It has been suggested that time was first measured over 6,000 years ago by viewing the moon, and the importance of time has featured in our lives ever since. It has significant importance, having economic value “time is money” as well as personal value, due to the awareness of the lack of time we all seem to have “where has today gone”.

Since the introduction of our own strategic process ‘the lack of time’ has featured as the biggest common denominator as to why business owners and managers cannot develop their businesses, or support their teams. “I don’t have time to think when I’m this busy” is a usual phrase and another phenomenon has started to emerge as owners are raising the bar on how many hours of time they are putting into the business - almost as a badge of honour. Call me old fashioned but if two business owners with similar profit returns stood in front of me today and one said “I’m putting 90 hours a week into my business, I don’t have time to think” and the other said “I’m putting 45 hours a week into my business, what do you want me to think about?” - I know which business will be successful with their business development and longer term growth plans. Another approach to time from some business owners is how many days per week they are choosing to work with and on their business. When your team; systems, process and costs are well managed, it enables your own business more free time to think and plan further ideas and ventures. Is time for you to look at your time as a valuable investment and not just the measurement of a day?

0113 2211300 dave.clarkson@armstrongwatson.co.uk www.armstrongwatson.co.uk/blue

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

NEWS

AUTUMN 14

>> Grant gets MOJO working to expand A £500m bank fund for Yorkshire SMEs has backed expanding Leeds bar operator MOJO, with a £700,000 package which could help it quadruple in size. Cocktail bar group MOJO, which operates bars in Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool, now plans to extend its network to a minimum of 10 bars over the next eight years. It is targeting its first bar in London in the next 12 months and plans to open a further two venues in the capital before branching out to other major UK cities. The finance was provided by HSBC’s South Yorkshire Commercial Centre in a deal managed by senior commercial manager Chris Alsop. The funding has been allocated from HSBC’s £500m fund specifically for Yorkshire SMEs, which is available for companies with a turnover of up to £30m.

>> Outlook improving The region’s employment outlook continued to rise in the last three quarters, data shows, with firms in Hull and Sheffield experiencing particularly strong demand for talent. Yorkshire and Humberside’s employment outlook stood at +10% at the end of the third quarter.

Going into the fourth quarter, hiring intentions in the region were four points above the national average, with positivity being felt across the region in sectors as diverse as warehousing and healthcare.

The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey is based on responses from 2,102 UK employers and is used as a key economic statistic by the Bank of England and the Government.

“Confidence has picked up across the region’s jobs market going into the fourth quarter, with Hull in particular showing signs of increased positivity. Hull’s status as City of Culture 2017 appears to have given its jobs market a noticeable boost, impacting both temporary and permanent roles,” said Amanda White, operations manager at Manpower.

“Sheffield too is showing strong demand, especially in healthcare, and in warehousing as the logistics sector gears up for the busiest time of year for ecommerce.”

>> Tenants go high-speed Leeds property group Creative Space Management is the latest business to provide high-speed internet connectivity to its tenants via the Superconnected Leeds Bradford programme.

Under the scheme, which launched in February, Creative Space Management has secured £30,000 of grant funding to enable ten of its technology and media tenants in Holbeck Urban Village to connect to high speed internet services, and has further applications in the pipeline.

>> Rapid expansion revealed Yorkshire’s private sector saw one of its fastest expansions of business activity since December 1999 in August.

This was supported by sharp new order growth and rising employment, while accelerating inflationary pressures saw more firms pass on their cost burdens to their customers. The headline Lloyds Bank Yorkshire & Humber Business Activity Index – a seasonally adjusted index that measures the combined output of the region’s manufacturing and service sectors – registered at 60.8 in August, up from 58.4 in

July and the highest since December 1999.

The rise in activity was stronger than the UK average for only the second time in thirteen months. New orders picked up at the fastest rate in nine months. Anecdotal evidence suggested that fuller order books were in part a result of improvements in the wider domestic economy.

Employment in Yorkshire & Humber rose for the fifteenth successive month in August, with around one-quarter of panellists noting a rise in comparison to the previous month. Firms cited strong turnover growth and business development as the key drivers behind the latest increase in payroll numbers.

>> Firm has new premises Pallet distributor ADD Express has expanded its West Yorkshire HQ with the addition of a 22,400 sq ft plant.

The firm has signed a lease on a new warehouse at the Lowfields Industrial Estate in Elland. The site is opposite ADD’s present 30,000 sq ft facility at Lowfields.

Knight Frank completed the deal on behalf of asset managers Citivale, based in Leeds, and TIAA Henderson Real Estate.

Up to £3,000 available to small and medium-size businesses to upgrade your broadband connection.

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

12

AUTUMN 14

>> Getech lands major deal Geoscience firm Getech has won its largest ever single contract – a £3.1m deal with the Angolan National Oil Company, which manages oil and gas exploration in the African republic. Leeds-based Getech provides data, studies and services to the oil, gas and mining exploration sectors. This new proprietary services contract will be undertaken by the company’s commissions division. The aim of the project is to generate structural and related interpretations for the geological basins of Angola. The work involves gravity and magnetic data interpretation, structural mapping, plate modelling, depositional modelling, palaeogeographic reconstruction and palaeodrainage analysis.

>> Start-ups reach milestone Over 2,000 firms have so far been launched in West Yorkshire by entrepreneurial jobseekers looking to realise their business dreams in the last three years, on the back of the New Enterprise Allowance. The Government scheme partners jobseekers with a mentor to draw up a business plan then gives them financial support to help them through the early months of their company. West Yorkshire businesses launched range from legal practices to heating engineers, web developers to personal trainers.

The 2,000th start-up is a gardening and maintenance firm in Wakefield set up by a mechanic made redundant after 17 years in the same company.

>> Apprentice help for SMEs Organisers of a scheme which aims to make it easier for SMEs to recruit apprentices have stepped up their efforts to get more Yorkshire firms involved.

One thousand SMEs have now signed up to take on an apprentice through the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Apprenticeship Hub Programme. It provides free and independent advice to SMEs who want to find out about the steps involved in recruiting an apprentice.

Now, more SMEs are being urged to sign up to

NEWS

the scheme. A new website has been launched to showcase the opportunities to employers as well as parents and young people across the region. www.apprenticeship-hubs.co.uk.

>> Firm’s investment boost A Huddersfield firm specialising in soil investigation has secured a £250,000 investment from Finance Yorkshire. Rogers Geotechnical Services (RGS) provides site investigation solutions and consultancy services to the construction, property development and insurance industries.

The equity linked investment will enable the company to update its fleet of vehicles and invest in a new drilling rig as well as refurbish its soils laboratory at its Barncliffe Business Park premises. RGS is a familyrun firm with 15 employees and this year celebrates its 10th anniversary.

>> Building a bigger group Brickability, one of the UK’s largest brick merchants to the construction industry, has acquired Leeds-based rival Bricklink for an undisclosed sum. The enlarged group will have annual turnover in excess of £45m and employ more than 45 staff. Bricklink will remain as a trading company within the Brickability group of companies to allow continuity of trade with all existing suppliers and customers.

The group said it would now be able to offer a more complete and diverse range of products to its customer base and benefit from economies of scale.

>> Aer Lingus back at Leeds Irish airline Aer Lingus Regional is to feature on the departures board at Leeds Bradford International Airport for the first time in 14 years. The airline, operated by Stobart Air, is to launch direct double daily return flights between Leeds Bradford and Dublin.The flights launch on 23 October.

The airline expects to carry up to 70,000 customers annually on the new route using a brand new fleet of regional aircraft.

13

SUCCESS FROM OUT OF THE BLUE

Over the past 6 months we have helped businesses in retail, engineering, hospitality, IT, textiles, FMCG and construction take time out of their businesses. To help them reflect on where they wanted to go with the business and to remember the personal goals they were originally setting out for. With the investment of time away from the day to day running of the business, many owners and managers have been able to find answers and solutions to challenges that they were being faced with for months and years, but never tackled. Through the sectors we are currently working with, our advisory teams have already helped clients identify: • New customer growth opportunities • Defined a new hierarchy and leadership strategy • Helped with an exit plan and succession planning • Run a brand audit and supported the development of a marketing plan • Grown a client business through a focused acquisition plan • Structured a growth plan to sourcing access to appropriate finance • Identified expansion plans for a client with export and an overseas presence With our Blue process you and your business will achieve a clear direction with a number of strategic objectives and more importantly how to deliver on them. We will be there to remind you of where you wanted to go with the business and what you wanted to get out personally. All of the above are areas where the owners and managers of businesses know what to do but through our process are now investing the time required and it is already bringing them rewards.

For more information, visit www.armstrongwatson.co.uk/blue or contact Dave Clarkson on 0113 2211300 or dave.clarkson@armstrongwatson.co.uk

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

COMPANY PROFILE

AUTUMN 14

Investing in Teesport As well as owning and operating Teesport, the Port of Hartlepool and many other sites throughout the UK, PD Ports is the statutory port authority for the River Tees. This responsibility requires PD Ports to ensure safe navigation for up to 5,000 vessels seen annually and maintain the required channel depth for 11 miles up to the Tees Barrage. As part of its ongoing investment in the business, PD Ports has significantly upgraded the facilities and assets used to maintain safety on the river and support operations at Teesport.

As part of this, an upgrade of the vessel traffic services (VTS) system at Teesport has been completed which will provide a modern and reliable platform to manage the movement of ships to and from berths on the River Tees.

An investment of £1.3M has provided Teesport with a new state-of-the-art VTS system including the replacement of all existing radar equipment.

The Port Operations Centre also underwent refurbishment to improve facilities for the employees and modernise the office space.

To ensure a great level of service to the users of the River, PD Ports has welcomed a new pilot vessel to Teesport named Saltholme, after the Middlesbrough RSPB nature reserve. The vessel was officially named in a ceremony that took place in June with Dame Julia Cleverdon DCVO, CBE – Vice President Business in the Community, having the honour of undertaking the christening by breaking a bottle of champagne on the new pilot cutter.

PD Ports invested over £1M into this new vessel, built by Anglesey based Holyhead Marine Services Limited, which will enable the Tees Bay Pilots to continue to assist Teesport and the Port of Hartlepool.

MULTIMODAL ADDITIONS AT TEESPORT As well as the providing investment to ensure safe navigation on the River, PD Ports has recently invested in the port facilities including £3M in a new intermodal rail terminal following the announcement of Freightliner moving a new rail service to Teesport.

The construction of the new, open access rail

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

(L-R) Father Adam Gaunt, Dame Julia Cleverdon DCVO, CBE – Business in the Community, Colin Worswick - Mission to Seafarers and David Robinson – PD Ports

terminal by PD Ports has commenced and once complete will welcome the new intermodal connections from Teesport to Felixstowe and Southampton. Opportunities for the establishment of further new routes to Scotland, the Midlands and the North West are expected in line with market demand.

The establishment of the new rail terminal is the next major phase in PD Ports’ wider ongoing investment at Teesport and follows on from the £16.7M container terminal expansion development in 2011. This latest investment further cements Teesport’s position as the UK’s leading provider of portcentric logistics, offering greater operational flexibility, improved efficiencies for customers.

David Robinson, PD Ports’ Group CEO, commented on the new rail services: “We are delighted to announce that Freightliner will support the

14

new rail terminal at Teesport. We have invested significantly in expanding the intermodal services available at the port and the arrival of Freightliner will provide a greater level of service options, as well as improve our portcentric capability for our customers.”

Freightliner will switch its existing services from Wilton to Teesport once the terminal is complete at the end of the year.

For further information please contact 01642 877000, email enquiries@pdports.co.uk or visit our website www.pdports.co.uk

AUTUMN 14

NEWS

>> Law practice boosts staff The University of Birmingham’s new library

Fast growing law practice Beaumont Legal has expanded into its second office in Wakefield, after adding more than 100 new members of staff in the last 18 months.

The firm’s new 8,800 sq ft office, at Wakefield 41 Business Park, adds to its existing 11,500 sq ft headquarters at Paragon Business Village.

As well as giving the firm the potential to expand beyond 200 employees, the new office will also be home to a new £150,000 training academy, created to help all the firm’s staff, at all levels, improve their skills.

>> Sprinkling ‘fairy dust’ The chair of the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Enterprise Partnership is to be appointed Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant.

Barry Dodd will add the role to his current responsibilities, which also include pro chancellor and chair of council at the University of Hull and chair of the Global Service and Manufacturing Group (GSM Group) and its subsidiary companies.

He said: “It is a huge honour to be appointed as Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant for North Yorkshire; the most wonderful County in England. This is not a role anybody can apply for so the initial invitation letter from the Prime Minister came as a complete surprise. I look forward to working with my Deputy Lieutenants on a mission to bring the benefit of the amazing ‘fairy dust’ of the Monarchy to as many organisations as possible.”

>> Venture creates 200 jobs Construction has been completed of a £15m technology park in Hull, which will employ up to 200 people on the site of a former model-making factory.

Eight years after Airfix owner Humbrol plunged into administration, the Marfleet

>> Ilkley firm grabs a slice of £42m university library project Ilkley-based NG Bailey has secured a major slice of work on a £42m development in Birmingham through a collaboration with Carillion. The firm’s engineering division has won a £9.2m mechanical and electrical contract as part of the £42m University of Birmingham New Library redevelopment. NG will work in collaboration with main contractor Carillion, with the company providing the installation and new build design of the library, covering six storeys over a 16,000 sq m floor area.

Environmental Technology Park is complete.

The development is the first part of a 484-hectare enterprise zone to be built in the city to fully open for business.

Stoneferry Estates bought the site in 2007.

It is now part of the Humber Energy Cluster Enterprise Zone, which is aimed at supporting the offshore wind sector and related firms.

Hull City Council’s regeneration and policy manager, Mark Jones, said: “Hull is a key gateway to Europe and it is essential that we maximise our position to attract further investment opportunities to drive forward ambitious regeneration and transform the economic future of our region.

“We are at a crucial stage in the city’s transformation and are pleased to work with local companies like Stoneferry Estates who have vision and commitment to the city, bringing key sites to fruition.”

>> GRI subsidiary to be sold Sheffield headquartered GRI Group has agreed to sell its Belgian subsidiary TensaChem S.A. to a Malaysian firm.

TensaChem, which manufactures substances sold globally into the personal care, household care and industrial sectors, is to be acquired by Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad (KLK).

KLK is a major producer of oleochemicals – natural-based chemicals derived from animals and plants.

The transaction is subject to certain European regulatory approvals and is expected to complete within two months.

Initial consideration for the deal is €16.2m, and is subject to adjustment up to a maximum total consideration of €17.6m.

Sheffield based advisers, law firm Nabarro and corporate finance advisers BHP Corporate Finance, acted on behalf of GRI Group.

Available to businesses throughout Leeds and Bradford.

15

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

COMPANY PROFILE

SUMMER 14

What’s your strategy in the so-called ‘race to the cloud’?

The cloud has become an inevitable part of almost any technology conversation but the level of hype created by the industry is at best a distraction and at worst likely to put off the more conservative in the business community completely.

So are there any truths when it comes to the cloud?

Should businesses be migrating all of their data and services up to the cloud, or stay put with their existing ‘on premise’ solutions?

For the majority, a hybrid solution is likely to be the most appropriate and effective option. And critically, it’s important to leave the door open to reverse out of the cloud in the event of unforeseen challenges.

It’s worth pointing out that it’s actually nothing new. Hotmail has been around for almost two decades and a staggering 1.15 billion Facebook users rely on the cloud for their daily fix.

In the context of our personal lives, the cloud is a relatively simple proposition and seems to be readily accepted, albeit that ‘integration’ is usually more by accident than design. And by sharing photos on social media we’re inadvertently taking advantage of cloud storage.

In a business environment, however, there are many more considerations.

Assuming you make well-considered decisions and work with a partner you can trust, the cloud can offer distinct advantages for many businesses: flexibility; mobility; scalability; predictability, with business continuity built-in; no more worries about backups and significant improvements to certain aspects of security.

The key is to understand that it’s not all or nothing and that’s why our customers are adopting a hybrid approach. You need to be confident that your provider can take the wider view and that they aren’t simply selling a single part of the cloud offer because they’ve jumped on the bandwagon.

What is critical is to consider compatibility, connectivity and security and remember that nothing in the modern technology environment exists in isolation – or at least it shouldn’t.

There’s little point in railing against the desire of employees to access information, data and services

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

Caption to go here xxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xx xx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxx

through all sorts of devices, whether those devices are their own or provided by the business.

After all that’s the point of adopting cloud-based technologies. It allows us to capture, process, analyse and share data irrespective of location.

Security has become more complex as the boundaries of almost all networks have become far more difficult to define and the threats continue to evolve. So it’s essential to put in place mobile device management – or MDM – to control configuration settings and protect the data.

Equally the data centre may well be secure, arguably more so than your server room, but can your provider help you protect your data when it’s being accessed from the many devices used by your employees. Not forgetting they could be literally in any location with connectivity; often public and less than secure.

The question remains, where is the most logical place to start your cloud journey?

For most businesses the logical starting point is emails and document storage. Microsoft’s Office365 offers all sorts of advantages: unlimited mailboxes, anytime access from any device, free

16

storage and probably most important for those who have budget responsibility, simple per user, per month billing.

It’s also possible to adopt Office365 on a number of different levels, from simple email only, to comprehensive ‘bundles’ that include a subscription to the full Office suite – meaning your users will always be on the latest version – and technologies such as SharePoint and Lync which lead you into the world of document management, collaboration and unified communications.

At TSG we use a structured ‘Cloud Readiness Assessment’ to provide the answers. So how quickly could you move? Book yours now at www.tsg.com/cloudreadiness or call 0845 11 11 888.

AUTUMN 14

>> Getting connected Almost 400 businesses in Leeds and Bradford have been awarded vouchers worth over £800,000 to pay for hardware and internet connectivity installation under a government scheme. The Government’s Superconnected Cities programme, launched in February, has been accessed by more businesses in the two cities that anywhere outside London. Leeds and Bradford had more connections made than in Cardiff, Belfast, Manchester and the other 16 cities covered by the initiative. York is the only other part of Yorkshire taking part in the scheme, which funds businesses to help them maximise their potential with faster web infrastructure.

>> Nursery creates 40 jobs A new Leeds children’s nursery is to create up to 40 new jobs following a £2m renovation programme of a historic Grade II listed building. Tiny Tree Day Nursery opened in August, offering 163 places for children aged up to five. The nursery, on Sycamore Lodge in Hyde Park, dates back to the 1860s but had been in a state of disrepair for four years until husband and wife team Graham and Amika Abbott acquired the site last year.

They secured a £1.8m funding package from HSBC to support the redevelopment.

>> Cube abandons Capital London agency Carbon Cube Design has relocated to Barnsley Digital Media Centre from the capital.

Set up seven years ago, it makes personalised Oyster Card holders for London businesses.

It has worked with several large organisations such as Skype, NHS, Starbucks, West Ham Football Club, and a number of start-ups.

It moved from London to cut costs, enhance communications with its Yorkshire-based supplier, and expand its portfolio in the North.

NEWS

assets have also significantly increased, from £51.6m in 2011 to £79.49m in 2013.

The organisation has no shareholders and any surplus is re-invested to benefit members.

Chief executive Andrew Townsley said: “We aim for returns that outperform cash savings.”

>> ICE has new director

L-R Dave Helm, Mark Ambler, and Chris Amble

>> Client wins force move IT firm Blue Logic has expanded its Yorkshire headquarters to accommodate its fast-growing workforce.

In the past six months the company has appointed 11 new staff, taking its employee count from 55 to 66.

To house the new team members, the company has invested in a 1,200 sq ft extension at its head office in Thorner, which will create enough space for an additional 20 staff. The new appointments follow several new client wins – Blue Logic has added 57 new customers to its roster since the start of the year.

>> Top performance Yorkshire-based friendly society Kingston Unity has reported more than five-fold growth inside two years, taking premium income beyond the £10m mark.

The Wakefield organisation saw increases in both premium income and assets between 2011 and 2013. Premium income climbed from £1.8m in 2011 to £10.63m in 2013. Its

BREAKFAS T

Register now at www.bq-magazine.co.uk

The retirement of a well-known engineering leader has led to the appointment by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) of a new director for Yorkshire and Humber.

David Tattersall, who retires at the end of August, has been an influential member of staff working for the Institution for 17 years and was instrumental in setting up regionalisation within the organisation.

Experienced civil engineer Penny Marshall has been appointed as ICE’s new director for Yorkshire and Humber, as well as for the North East.

Penny has been working as interim director for the North East region for the past year, having joined ICE as membership development officer in 2012.

>> £75K boost aids relocation Essential Healthcare Solutions, the medical equipment firm, has expanded into a new 18,500 sq ft site with the aid of a £75,000 funding boost. The group has moved onto the site of the former Wilkinson’s Potato Farm in Birstall, West Yorkshire, after receiving a funding boost from the Leeds City Region Business Growth Programme. The move and subsequent recruitment drive – adding eight members of staff to its team – was also support by Kirklees Council.

SIGN UP TO YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION OF BQ BREAKFAST. DELIVERING YOU INSIGHT, NEWS AND ANALYSIS TO HELP GROW YOUR BUSINESS

www.superconnectedleedsbradford.co.uk

17

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

AS I SEE IT

AUTUMN 14

TIME TO STOP WATCHING THE CLOCK – AND PUT OUR CLIENTS AT THE TOP OF OUR AGENDA Matt Osbourne, Corporate Director at Armstrong Watson, in a call to arms to firms on how clients can really benefit from ‘added value’ services

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

18

These are interesting times for the professional services community.

Unsurprisingly, as industries whose fortunes are intrinsically linked to the general health of the economy, the profits of accounting and legal firms remain some way below the aspirational levels set during the economy’s mid-noughties peak.

However, it would be remiss to lay the blame for the current malaise solely at the door of the financial crisis.

For the challenges that currently exist within the professional sector are here to stay.

The dynamic between client and advisor has seen a marked change in recent decades.

The days when the ‘professional’ was treated

AUTUMN 14

AS I SEE IT

Added value is an overused expression – the challenge is to demonstrate our ability to add real, meaningful value

with deference are gone – this is the age where the client is the customer and the customer is king.

It is the client that holds the transactional power and so the usual rules of procurement apply. A natural consequence of this shift has been to introduce greater fluidity to the professional marketplace – switching between advisors, once rare, is now commonplace and so competition between firms, previously operating within a cosy cartel, has increased.

This commodification of core accounting and legal services has seen an erosion of margins and profitability.

In addition, advances in IT have enabled businesses to bring a number of core services in-house.

This increase in competition is surely great news for the client.

However, this ‘race to the bottom’ is one in which large swathes of the profession has willfully participated – meaning that notions of value and service are often side-lined in favour of low cost.

Added value is an overused expression.

However, the challenge to the professions – always there but now more pertinent than ever – is to demonstrate our ability to add real, meaningful value to clients.

For accountants, the Government’s tightening of tax avoidance legislation has hampered our ability to deliver ‘added value’ in a way that is understood and measurable.

So, how can real measurable value still be added to the client relationship?

Turn off the clock – too often we have a reluctance to invest time in the client relationship.

This is understandable when so many of our key measures are based around cost and ‘profitability’.

But, if we maintain the relationship at the transactional level – working reactively at the point of engagement – it will ever be thus.

However, if we invest time in proper business conversations, we increase our ability to identify the real underlying issues – to which we can then add value.

Ongoing strategic input – often corporate financiers are only engaged when a transaction is imminent.

However, by engaging in a proactive dialogue with the client, the conditions for transactional activity are optimised, increasing the chances of such activity occurring and maximising the eventual transaction value.

Real sales growth advice – the professional advisor holds a position of unique privilege,

19

understanding the business in a level of detail unmatched by others outside of the business.

However, our advice in respect of revenue growth is often restricted to the anecdotal.

Useful, but worth paying for?

Employing specialists who truly understand market positioning, pricing strategy and branding may be a step too far for some, but is the only way of leveraging our unique understanding of the clients’ business in a way that delivers actual revenue growth.

Deep sector understanding – many of us purport to be sector specialists but what does that actually mean?

Real sector expertise means delivering insight into the clients’ own sector that they do not possess themselves.

General understanding of a sector helps build confidence and rapport but only deep understanding is capable of adding value.

All of the above require a break from shorttermism and a confidence on the part of the advisor that they are able to add meaningful, measurable value.

The consequences of continued inertia, for the professions in particular, are bleak.

While the benefits of a richer, deeper, adviceled relationship to both client and advisor are clear. Which would you rather have? n

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

XXXXXXXX ENTREPRENEUR AUTUMN 14

AUTUMN 14

BURNING DESIRE TO SAVE LIVES Young entrepreneur Lewis Bowen is on a mission to save the world through his fastgrowing gel fuels business Geco Industries, as Andrew Mernin reports >>

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

20

AUTUMN 14

21

ENTREPRENEUR XXXXXXXX AUTUMN 14

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

ENTREPRENEUR As far as entrepreneurial goals go, helping to prevent two million deaths a year is a pretty noble cause.

And this is exactly what 24-year-old Lewis Bowen has tasked himself with through his flourishing fuels business Geco Industries.

The Sheffield firm, which employs nine and is expected to surpass £1m turnover next year and £3m by 2017, has developed a smokeless, non-toxic, non-explosive alternative to cooking and heating fuel.

The bioethanol gel product Fuel4 has, in three years, cracked the UK camping market. A deal with retail giant Go Outdoors was followed last year by a £250,000 per year, six-year contract with European camping distributor AMG Ltd. This took the brand into 1,000 new stores including Blacks, Millets and Cotswolds Outdoor, and Fuel4 even counts the Scouting Association as an ambassador. It is also recommended by three of the UK’s largest music festivals; Leeds, Reading and Latitude.

At the time of writing Bowen says the business is on the verge of securing a new round

AUTUMN 14

I started the business on the same day as my last university exam. The aim was to eradicate harmful fuels around the world, which is a small ask

of investment that will help power it onto the shelves of the UK’s supermarket giants.

Exports are also on the radar, with interest from Scandinavia, France and Germany arising in recent weeks, following attendances at trade shows on the Continent.

But it is Fuel4’s potential to save lives in areas of humanitarian crisis or poverty that could truly accelerate its global growth.

An estimated two million people die every year in lesser developed parts of Africa from indoor air pollution, while three billion people around the world are exposed to harmful cooking and heating fuels. Fuel4, says Bowen, could be a game changer for humanitarian charities and military organisations in providing vital fuel safely to people who need it most.

“I started the business on the same day as my last university exam,” he says from his Sheffield manufacturing plant. “The aim was to eradicate harmful fuels around the world, which is a small ask. I had been working on a placement at GlaxoSmithKline where I came across a company called TerraCycle.

They take toothpaste tubes, break them down and recycle them into something else. They do that in 23 countries as a commercial entity. It’s a brilliant business and it really got me thinking that I wanted to start

something that could be socially responsible, make an environmental impact but also be commercially viable.”

His chances of start-up success were bolstered by a level of entrepreneurial experience far beyond that of most twenty somethings.

“Everyone’s got a story about selling cans of drink in the school yard, but I did that when I was 12 and made £40 a week. It maybe helped that my dad runs a successful alcoholic beverages company which sells to the likes of Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. When I was about 15, I sold hooded sweatshirts and T-shirts to my school and local clubs. Then in university, I ran a telemarketing campaign where I gave a lot of friends Skype credit and a list of numbers to ring.”

His desire to develop a social and environmentally aware business needed a spark of inspiration. This came from his dad, in the unlikely setting of a shark dive off the South African coast.

“Like any business owner or entrepreneur starting a business, you don’t always need the experience – you just need to find someone who has the experience. My dad knew what I was looking for in a business, and I told him to keep his eyes open. He met a lady called Mariette Hopley who had developed a gel fuel made of bioethanol which I thought I could develop further. Her fuel as it was wouldn’t have been able to sell in this country because of legal restrictions, so we looked to take

A law firm which offers more In life and in business

Expect More www.clarionsolicitors.com 7053_20x175_Clarion_BQ_Magazine_AW01.indd 1

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

22

06/06/2014 15:00

AUTUMN 14

23

ENTREPRENEUR

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

ENTREPRENEUR >> it to a different level. She subsequently became my business partner, although she has since exited the business amicably.”

Having come out of university in May 2011,

by August he had secured a factory in Sheffield and was underway with the testing process, with the support of Sheffield Hallam and the University of Sheffield.

“There are some amazing minds at the universities so we did some testing there to make sure the products complied to UK regulations.”

Then a chance meeting with John Graham, founder and CEO of Go Outdoors while undergoing some leadership training at university, opened doors into an hour-long meeting with the retailer’s top brass.

Bowen and his small team quickly set about designing a product range and developing the tooling and machinery to manufacture them.

“The product needed more development,” says Bowen. “So we met Go Outdoors for a second time in November 2011, developed a stove to go with the gel and by January had secured an initial order for about 2,000 units.

We got local suppliers to make the stoves and all sorts of other bits and bobs like pots and pans, cups and sporks.”

Further success followed with Go Outdoors attracting interest from other retailers. Then came a deal with AGM, which multiplied Geco’s presence on UK high streets. The festivals markets also opened up, with Fuel4’s launch proving timely, given that the Leeds and Reading Festival’s had both begun to ban the use of gas during events.

Schools, Scouts and Duke of Edinburgh Award activities have also proven fertile ground for Bowen’s firm.

As well as export markets, the next frontier for the business is to work with humanitarian aid organisations.

The product was developed specifically to address the problem of indoor air pollution in Africa. And, given the ease at which it can be transported safely, and its safe-burning

AUTUMN 14

Like any business owner or entrepreneur starting a business, you don’t always need the experience – you just need to find someone who has the experience qualities, Bowen believes it could be an ideal solution in times of crisis which require people to survive in makeshift shelters.

“We’ve had discussions with the Ministry of Defence but things take a bit longer than retail with this type of organisation because of various processes involved.

“But Fuel4 is safer to use than the hexamine blocks currently used by many humanitarian organisations. These are toxic to burn, omitting cyanide and noxious gases, which our products don’t do.”

With the UN currently providing aid to

around 34 million refugees and the Red Cross reaching 950,000 vulnerable people in 20 countries each year, humanitarian aid-driven demand could clearly be vast for Geco in the future. But while the firm aims to reach people in crisis by distributing through larger organisations, Bowen would also like to “set up sites around the world that would produce fuels to help as many people as possible”.

In the meantime, with investors circling, he is focused on servicing new areas of the buoyant UK market and harnessing any export opportunities that arise. n

A law firm which offers more In life and in business

Expect More www.clarionsolicitors.com 7053_20x175_Clarion_BQ_Magazine_AW01.indd 1

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

24

06/06/2014 15:00

C0

C001185_come_from_heading_ad_BQ_yorkshire_260x205_090914_V2_outline.indd 1

10/09/2014 14:58

COMPANY PROFILE

AUTUMN 14

Taming the monster When do you take time out to evaluate the true potential of your business? Rana Harvey, managing director of Monster Group, discusses rapid growth and her participation on the 10,000 Small Businesses programme For a business leader, having the time to sit down, reflect and learn is a rare commodity. The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme offers this, and much more. We’re now in our fifth year of delivering the programme on behalf of Goldman Sachs and there are now over 270 participant businesses from across the region.

The programme offers clear business benefits, such as increased sales, staff numbers and market share, all things that are having a tangible effect on the economy. Our alumni network is growing and an increasing number of our alumnus have gone on to become nationally recognised for their excellence, their growth and their potential.

They’re a diverse bunch with one thing in common - they all have the determination to grow and become better at what they do.

Professor Nigel Lockett, Academic Lead, 10,000 Small Businesses A MONSTER MOVE Eager to continue on the rapid growth trajectory her company has experienced, Monster Group Managing Director Rana Harvey has recently moved her company into new purpose built premises. The move will facilitate growth, allowing the company to employ around 50 more people.

The Monster Group now has five divisions, selling a diverse range of products – from shop fitting

Left: Professor Nigel Lockett. Right: Rana Harvey of Monster Group

equipment through to commercial racking.

Rana joined the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme in 2011. Since that time her company has undergone a complete restructure and rebrand and Rana has overseen the design and build of her new 19,000 sq ft premises, called Monster House. The move has allowed the company to re-examine every detail of their operations, something which will drive even greater efficiency in the business. “We had already managed to bring our time from order to dispatch down enormously,” says Rana. “But being able to design our new premises from scratch has meant we can really look at how systems work and ensure our environment supports the most efficient way of working.”

The programme, says Rana, allowed her to take a step back and really look at the direction her business was going in. It was during the programme that Rana decided to create different divisions all under the Monster name and also when she altered her growth plans. “I wanted to expand into Europe when I started the programme,” says Rana. “But having used some of the tools the programme provided, it became clear that diversification was a more effective way forward in the shorter term, and that expansion into Europe should follow that.”

“We’re positioning ourselves for growth at the moment, making sure everything we do will still work when we’re dealing with greater volume sales,” says Rana.

INTERESTED TO FIND OUT MORE? We are holding a series of workshops for guests to meet the team behind the 10,000 Small Businesses programme, and to learn some of the practical sales techniques that could help you achieve growth in your business 21 October - Advanced Manufacturing Park, Rotherham 11 November - Leeds City Museum, Leeds 12 November - The Village Urban Resort, Hull 19 November - Innovation Centre, York Science Park, York 25 November – Leeds City Museum, Leeds To register, and for more information, visit: business.leeds.ac.uk/10ksb/events

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

26

For more information visit business.leeds.ac.uk/10ksb.

Leeds University Business School

10,000 SMALL BUSINESSES: ENABLING SMEs AND SOCIAL ENTERPRISES TO ACHIEVE THEIR GROWTH POTENTIAL 10,000 Small Businesses is a 100%-funded programme for leaders of small businesses and social enterprises, who will benefit from targeted support and resources to help them define and achieve their business growth aspirations.

“

My single most powerful experience in the last 5 years of business.

Filled with a huge selection of business advice all totally focused on growth

Lindsay McKenzie Director of BioClad Ltd.

“

You will receive: » 100 hours of business and management education » Support to develop a Growth Plan tailored for your own business » One-to-one business support » Unique networking and peer learning opportunities » Specialist workshops

Registration for the spring cohort closes on 28 November 2014. Attend one of our upcoming events taking place across the region to discover more: business.leeds.ac.uk/10ksb/events

W: business.leeds.ac.uk/10ksb | @Yorkshire10ksb | E: 10ksb@leeds.ac.uk | T: 0113 344 3924

INSIGHT

AUTUMN 14

Seeing the future: An artist’s impression of how the city of Masdar in Abu Dhabi will look when complete

IMAGINE arriving in a traffic jam-free city centre in a self-driving car, to be directed by computerised signs to the most convenient parking space.

Having glided effortlessly through pristine streets devoid of litter, you notice lights in office buildings automatically switching off as staff leave for the night.

As you walk to a restaurant to meet friends, past billboards that tempt you with personalised offers, you remember you forgot to switch off the central heating and don’t expect to be home before midnight.

No problem. You reach for your smart phone and do it remotely, then set your electric blanket to come on at 11.30pm.

If all of this sounds a little too ‘Minority Report’ for your liking stop reading now because, according to the world’s leading technology experts, this is where society is heading.

Whilst the term Intelligent or Smart Cities was

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

GET READY FOR A BRAVE NEW WORLD The creation of ‘intelligent cities’ – ultra-modern urban hubs that maximise efficiency, minimise waste and enahnce the lives of citizens – may be closer than we think, writes BQ’s Ken Oxley

28

AUTUMN 14

first coined as far back as the early 90s, it’s only now that we’re beginning to get a sense of what this really means in practice.

And not just in the world’s most powerful capital cities either, but here in Yorkshire.

Indeed Bradford hosted an Intelligent Cities conference in July, bringing together some of the world’s leading future-gazers to discuss the shape of things to come.

Much of what came out of that event will be on the agenda in November at the NextGen 14 conference in neighbouring Derbyshire, with many who spoke in Bradford taking part.

One such speaker is Julia Glidden, Managing Director of London-based 21c Consultancy.

An internationally renowned expert in ICT trends, Julia is on a mission to demystify a concept that, for many of us, is confusingly abstract? So what, exactly, does the term ‘intelligent cities’ mean?

The easy answer is a city that is quite simply more efficient; an environmentally-friendly centre for commerce and culture, retail and consumerism that maximises productivity and minimises waste.

Julia believes this Utopian vision is achievable – but will only be realised if there is a transfer of power from bureaucrats and large corporations to ordinary people.

“Bureaucracy came about because it was better than chaos, and it enabled us to manage scale. But in the 21st century we don’t need that,” she explains.

“Intelligent cities will use modern technology to leverage their greatest asset – their citizens – to improve efficiencies and enhance lives.

“These days almost everyone has more computer technology built into their smart phone than that which sent man to the moon.

“That’s why I’m convinced the future will be about collaboration and people power.

“The old model of governments taking money from us (in taxes) and giving us back what we need in services will be outdated.”

Julia cites the website FixMyStreet, which enables people to report problems such as flytipping, potholes and faulty street lights, as an example of citizen-led smart technology.

But, of course, these ideas will only take flight if they are embraced by the current power brokers in politics and business.

The outlook for Yorkshire looks promising,

We have more technology in our smart phones than that which sent man to the moon followng the Coalition Government’s recent announcement of a scheme to regenerate the North, with investment in public transport, infrastructure, science and technology.

David Brunnen, Editor of Groupe Intellex, an international publication specialising in new technology transfer, welcomes extra investment but believes real change needs to come from within. And for that, a change of mindset is needed, especially among local authorities.

He advocates them acting more like businesses – something he calls Municipal Enterprise which, he insists, is not an oxymoron.

“The North East might seem an unlikely place for the idea of Municipal Enterprise to take root, but I think it could work here,” he says.

“Intelligent cities and communities don’t just happen by accident. The come about out of necessity – usually because of a problem such as industrial decline or young, talented people leaving due to a lack of opportunities.

INSIGHT

“That’s why we need to put the authority back into local authorities…too many have become service agents when they could be working with the private sector to create growth.”

Mark Clayton, Strategy Officer at Bradford Council, shares Julia Glidden’s overall vision, but stresses the importance of analysing all the available data in key areas where improvements are sought before taking action.

He explains: “The general accepted view is that intelligent cities use technology to enhance the quality of life of citizens.

“However, this can only be achieved by collecting, interrogating and interpreting data to improve resource efficiencies, minimise waste, save money and better manage complex systems such as transport networks, energy, waste, water and public health services.

“It’s set against a world in which ownership of smart devices connected to the internet is growing exponentially, and where consumers are increasingly voting with their fingertips.”

It might seem that the drive towards smarter cities is an inevitable consequence of the digital explosion, a revolution that has led to the accumulation of so-called Big Data that is exciting and – at times – confounding teams of analysts seeking to unlock its secrets.

However, the pressure has been building for some time with many cities simply unable to keep pace with their own expansion. And if predictions are accurate, the situation will >>

Power without pollution: Masdar will be the world’s first zero-carbon city

29

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

INSIGHT

AUTUMN 14

only get worse unless society acts. By 2050 it is estimated that 75% of the world’s population will live in cities – putting an intolerable strain on already stretched transport networks, emergency services and utilities.

Professor David Gann, head of Imperial College London’s Digital Economy Lab, summed up the gravity of the situation recently when he said: “Cities are reaching breaking point. Traffic jams are getting worse, queues longer, transport networks are more prone to delays and power outages are becoming more common.”

Just Like Julia Glidden, Mark Clayton believes these issues can only be addressed effectively by harnessing the technology at our fingertips.

“Cities across the world face many common issues,” he says. “These include economic development, demographic change, competition for finite resources, and increasing expectations coupled with reducing budgets – in short, the need to do less with more.”

The technology-driven smart city Mark and others like him envisage involves networking every part of a city, so that interconnected systems are measuring, monitoring and analysing data about everything – people, retail activity, waste collection, public transport timetables, weather conditions, energy usage and so on. Is it an achievable goal?

Technology giants IBM certainly seem to think so. The company has some 2,500 smarter cities projects around the world and has even trademarked the term “smarter cities”.

One such project – in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro – features a Nasa-style control room where banks of screens gather data from sensors and cameras. Similar schemes, focusing predominantly on traffic management, operate in Singapore, Stockholm and across California.

In the oil-rich Arab state of Abu Dhabi they have gone several steps further with the creation, from scratch, of the world’s first zerocarbon city. Masdar, which won’t be completed for another five to 10 years, will be a car-free zone with homes and buildings – all of them low-rise – powered by the sun.

It’s a nice idea, but one we can’t hope to emulate here in the UK, insists Nada Nohrova, a researcher at London’s Centre for Cities.

She says: “Our cities grew up over hundreds of years and are very complex. We have to devise different solutions to suit different cities – a

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

People will be empowered, but that power will come with responsibility ‘one size fits all’ scenario won’t work.”

Nada is also sceptical about the Rio model, pointing out that it has come in for criticism – it has been described by some commentators as ‘just people looking at TV screens’.

She doesn’t think this top-down – some might say Orwellian – approach would be acceptable, let alone successful, in the UK. Instead, she believes the way forward is to push for greater collaboration between key stakeholders.

“At Centre for Cities, we seek to improve performance in key areas such as employment, business, skills and education,” she says.

“One of the main problems is a lack of focus which is causing confusion and uncertainty amongst cities – they are unsure which sectors to target and which initiatives to implement.

“If UK cities are to become smart, a high level of co-ordination will be required between and within cities, government departments, the private sector and communities.”

For Andrew Macdonald, Director of NextGen Events Ltd, which organised Bradford’s conference and is also behind the forthcoming event in Derby, the availability of superfast broadband is the catalyst that will make

30

intelligent cities a reality. He says: “Superconnectedness will provide businesses with a platform for economic growth – put simply, it’s a case of, ‘I have a road, so now I can trade’ because being geared up to do business is vital if we want to create intelligent cities.

“Bradford has a fantastic manufacturing base, an available workforce and low ground rents, which are attractive to investors. The problem is that it does not have the required connectivity, so big business is put off.”

Whether that issue will be adequately addressed by chancellor George Osborne’s plans to increase expenditure in the North East remains to be seen.

However, the impetus for growth in Yorkshire’s urban and rural communities must come from within, says John Duncan, of Super Connected Cities at Leeds City Council.

He says: “What we’re aiming for is using technology to support people’s lives. And that means everyone, wherever they live.

“We have been working side-by-side with the Superfast West Yorkshire team, which is looking at the issues faced in rural areas.”

So, does John think Yorkshire’s cities can be serious players in this brave new world?

“I don’t see any reason why not,” he insists, “Why can’t we be a forerunner? Why do we have to be in anyone’s shadow? We just need to get the infrastructure in place.

“Leeds is the third largest financial capital outside London – we have great technology stories to tell. There are around 20 suppliers offering digital support to our companies.”

Like David Brunnen, 21c’s Julia Glidden agrees a change of mindset is needed for intelligent cities to take off. But she remains convinced that the necessary changes will come…and be widely accepted.

She says: “A little over 16 years ago Google did not exist. Now we can’t imagine life without it.

“So, yes, change will come. It’s impossible to say exactly what the future will look like, but it will certainly be more collaborative, more open and transparent, and have less boundaries.

“People will be empowered, but that power will come with responsibility. Ultimately, if we take that responsibility seriously and exercise our power wisely, the new technologies at our fingertips have the potential to bring us even closer together as communities.” n

Your business is our business Our personalised service is second to none. We listen to where you’ve come from, and pay attention to what makes your business special, so that we can help you get where you’re going.

Start the conversation today Call us on 0333 123 7171 or visit www.bhp.co.uk

Sheffield | Leeds | Chesterfield | York | Harrogate @bhpaccountants

COMPANY PROFILE

AUTUMN 14

In today’s highly competitive market, Managing Director of Gentoo Construction, Allan Thompson explains how being an Art of Living business differentiates Gentoo Construction from the rest of the industry.

Gentoo Construction is growing from strength to strength as a leading contractor in the North East and Yorkshire and stands as a new breed of construction company. The company has a commitment to making a positive impact on people, planet and property alongside a range of traditional and specialised services. These include new build, refurbishment, asbestos, sustainable solutions and supported living facilities for both residential and commercial properties across many sectors including health, care and education.

WHAT IS AN ART OF LIVING CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS? This encompasses the thought process behind what we build, who we build it with and how we build it.

This means using more efficient and sustainable building techniques, investing in new innovations and ensuring we think about protecting resources for future generations. This includes involving communities, getting children engaged and enthused about the built environment and also investing in and caring about the health and wellbeing of our team.

SO WHY DO WE DO IT? Giving back to society is important to us. As part of the Gentoo Group, our mission is to ‘generate wealth by improving the lives of our customers and re-invest it through passionate people to create a climate for personal and collective opportunity.’

We have won national awards that showcase the diverse ways in which our people achieve this including Stonewall Workplace Equality Index 2014 1st Place, Sunday Times 100 Best Not-For-Profit Organisations to Work for 2014 and BITC National Big Tick Workwell Engagement and Wellbeing Award 2014.

Gentoo Construction is open to a world of new possibilities. Re-imagine the future; believe nothing is impossible; cultivate a learning curiosity are some of the principles that sum up

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

Starting on site in Beckfield Lane back in March. Left to right Michael Jones, Housing Development Manager for City of York Council, Allan Thompson MD of Gentoo Construction and Cllr Tracey Simpson-Laing.

Of course we still operate with the basics of any other construction company in that we have turnover and profit targets to reach, but the difference is our profit is “profit for purpose” as it is reinvested back into the Group to put back into improving people’s lives. On top of this our approach to issues like community engagement means that we deliver on so much more than just financial targets. our approach and reflect the ambitious challenges we set ourselves.

As a construction business we translate these values through wining highly accredited industry awards. Accolades include MCS accreditation; ARCA accreditation; retaining the RoSPA Gold Award since 2009; Considerate Constructors Silver Awards; several Constructing Excellence and RICS awards and recognition of our innovation in building the first and largest residential development of Passivhaus in the UK. From new and repeat contract wins ranging between £1 million to £12 million and from as far north as Berwick down to Yorkshire, we are proving

32

our credentials to new, existing and potential clients every day. Just last month we secured a place on two of Yorkshire Housing’s frameworks that combined, are worth an estimated £200m over a four year period.

Our attitude to any project is ‘if you want it, we can do it.’ Whether this be through financial solutions, safety issues, recruiting local labour or community engagement, the diverse workforce we nurture and train ensure we can deliver on all levels.

A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO CONSTRUCTION Back in March we were delighted to be appointed principal contractor on behalf of City of York

AUTUMN 14

COMPANY PROFILE

Left Allan Thompson, MD of Gentoo Construction

Right, A number of Gentoo staff who participated in a week long volunteering effort to redecorate a local community centre in York. Bottom, Local children’s football team Gentoo Construction sponsored as a thanks to letting them use their car park on site at Beckfield Lane.

Council on an exciting contract worth £2.9 million.

The design and construction of 18 houses and 9 apartments is currently underway at Beckfield Lane, York.

All homes will be built to the high sustainability Code 4 so uses materials including high levels of insulation in the walls and sustainably-sourced timber for the buildings’ main frames. To help keep energy bills down in a sustainable way, photovoltaic cells will be installed on the roofs to produce free electricity in daylight hours.

The homes will also be built to lifetime homes standards to allow them to be adapted easily as the occupants’ needs change, from raising young children, to working from home to helping accommodate disabilities.

Working with City of York Council since 2012 after securing a place on its framework, we have completed works in the region of £1.5 million, including kitchen and bathroom replacement, plastering and tiling, window replacement and rewiring. In addition to the new build scheme at Beckfield Lane, a refurbishment contract worth over £300,000 for the modernisation of empty or void council houses is still ongoing.

For us sustainability is not just about offering low carbon construction and bespoke PV solutions, but generating a sustainable supply chain. We still operate 30 day payment terms with our suppliers and deliver extra value that comes from being part of Gentoo including volunteering and wellbeing

activities and events. To ensure consistency and high service levels we ask our supply chain partners to comply with our code of conduct and mirror our values in return.

One ask of our supply chain is to work with us to maximise the social return on the programme, working to the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) targets where required. We have adopted a community engagement programme coupled with an employment and skills matrix to bring added value to all our contracts and demonstrate the difference we bring to the community in which we work. To do this we need our supply chain and subcontractors to buy into our values and help us deliver this, and our responsibility is therefore to provide them with the support they need to do this.

A GREAT EXAMPLE OF WHAT WE DO BEYOND FINANCIAL TARGETS IS ON OUR YORK MODERNISATIONS PROJECT: • 4 members of staff received health and safety training • 3 members of staff completed short courses related to either supervision, health and safety or operational issues • 2 work experience opportunities provided for those aged 16+ in full time education • 1 apprenticeship safeguarded • Provided 1 career opportunity for someone who had been unemployed for less than six months.

33

I know from my own experience of talking to different people, that there is a misconceived perception that Gentoo Construction just deliver housing association refurbishment contracts. This is certainly not the case! We deliver a wide range of contract activity to a diverse public and private sector client base and each contract receives our full Art of Living customer offer. Our approach is founded on client choice. It’s all about how they want to work with us, our job is to complete the project with an expert team, on time and in budget.

Through awards, reputation, contract wins, client feedback and a strong customer focus, we are continuing to show that we are now so much more than a social housing provider. In fact we are harnessing the experience of working within the social housing and affordable housing sector to our advantage. Understanding the demands and requirements for the build as well as a long history of client engagement and after care services, only increases our offer to customers.

Of course we still operate with the basics of any other construction company in that we have turnover and profit targets to reach, but the difference is our profit is “profit for purpose” as it is reinvested back into the Group to put back into improving people’s lives. On top of this our approach to issues like community engagement means that we deliver on so much more than just financial targets.

My view is that if we concentrate on supporting sustainable communities, leadership and culture, working with our supply chain, innovation, staff wellbeing and a big push on customer focus, our financial targets should pretty much take care of themselves.

Allan Thompson MD of Gentoo Construction Tel: 0191 525 5110 Web: gentoogroup.com Email: construction@gentoogroup.com Twitter: @gentoogroup

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

ENTREPRENEUR

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

AUTUMN 14

34

AUTUMN 14

ENTREPRENEUR

BARN AND BRED IN A YORKSHIRE VILLAGE A few years ago inventor Michael Gould locked himself in the outhouse at his village home to build some software. What emerged from the barn has since been taken up by the biggest firms on the planet, secured US$150m in investment and become a Silicon Valley darling. But despite rapid global growth, his firm will never leave its Yorkshire homeland, he tells Andrew Mernin

35

The Yorkshire barn which gave birth to software firm Anaplan is a world away from the sun-kissed Californian HQ it lives in today.

But while the palm tree-lined grid of Silicon Valley may be its official base, its motherland remains crucial to its ongoing growth.

For despite holding office in the world’s technology epicentre, in the shadows of Google, Facebook and friends, the company deems Yorkshire a more fertile ground for skilled staff.

Buoyed by US$100m in new investment it secured in May, the firm plans to double the size of its York R&D team to 90 within a year.

The expansion plans come amid a move into a larger site at the old Bonding Warehouse, which had lain derelict for almost 15 years.

Since Anaplan’s launch in 2010, its Yorkshire team has provided the innovative software development, while their San Francisco colleagues have been largely tasked with selling it to the world. And they’ve done that in spades, with HP, Nokia, Diageo and McAfee now standing among its clients.

The fact that inventor and company founder Michael Gould is a resident of the North Yorkshire village of Yearsley is one reason why the company maintains a local footprint. But much more significant, says Gould, are the readily available skills in the county, compared to Silicon Valley where the best talent gravitates towards the tech world’s biggest firms. He says: “It’s a real challenge for start-up companies to fill skills gaps in Silicon Valley.

Once a company is growing fast and >>

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

ENTREPRENEUR

beginning to be known then it becomes a bit more feasible to find people – and actually we’re making progress there now.

“But a lot of the software giants have their offices there – you’ve got firms like Google and Facebook as well as a huge number of start-ups. So it’s a very competitive market and difficult to be distinguished.

“Contrast that with the UK where there are not so many companies around, particularly in the North of England, but there is a great pool of talent and some really strong university computer science departments. One of our early developers was a PhD student who came from York University, for example, and she’s been a fantastic member of the team. So there is some good talent here without so much of the competition from the larger companies.”

Anaplan’s CEO Fred Laluyaux, who is permanently based in Silicon Valley, agrees, telling the press recently: “We have long

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

AUTUMN 14

believed the North of England offers a substantial and untapped source of great [software] engineering talent. The region has a strong heritage in financial software: the core products of SAP and IBM were both built around applications developed here.”

Anaplan’s software helps businesses build plans and assess execution against them. Since its commercial launch in 2010, it has built up a base of more than 20,000 users, a network of 11 offices in seven countries and has raised around US$150m in investment.

Alongside private backers, funding has come from some of the technology market’s biggest players, including salesforce.com, the cloud computing giant currently ranked by Forbes magazine as the most innovative firm in America. Revenues have grown from US$10m in 2012 to around US $40m last year – with the firm generating around US$10m per month in 2014 so far.

36

We have long believed the North of England offers a substantial and untapped source of great [software] engineering talent – the region has a strong heritage in financial software

AUTUMN 14

And all of this from a business created in the stone outbuilding at Michael Gould’s rural home less than a decade ago.

“It was a risky decision,” says Gould of quitting his job at the now IBM-owned software empire Cognos to develop his own software in 2006.

“I recognised it was going to be a long journey to the point where I had a commercial product.

Building a system like this takes a significant amount of time, so I worked by myself on the core calculation engines of the product.”

After two years of working in isolation, a breakthrough came in the form of investment from Guy Haddleton, his Anaplan co-founder.

Haddleton was formerly CEO of performance management software firm Adaytum, which he co-founded and was later sold to Cognos for a reported US$160m.

As Gould’s endeavours evolved into a viable business, the company put together a small team of developers in York.

Anaplan’s software is a cloud-based business modelling and planning platform for sales, operations and finance. Its creation was a response to what Gould calls “legacy systems”, built by tech giants IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and SAP, which he believes are often used inappropriately by businesses or are unsuited to certain requirements.

“There were a number of products that had been doing the rounds for 20 years or so.

There was a need for a new platform and new technology to solve the problems that these older products were not addressing very well.

“Getting our first customers was a challenge because our competitors were established companies, so getting customers to take a risk with an unknown newcomer was a big milestone to get past.”

IT security empire McAfee was the first major player to put faith in Anaplan, then others, like HP, Procter & Gamble and American consumer giant Kimberly-Clark, followed.

The company’s aim from day one was to be global, rather than starting slowly by building up a home market.

ENTREPRENEUR

Getting customers to take a risk with an unknown newcomer was a big milestone to get past Gould, who visits San Francisco at least every six weeks, says: “When we first got investment, we discussed where we should be based. We intended it to be a global business, and since we were selling to global companies, Silicon Valley was the natural choice. So that’s where we chose to put our head office, sales and marketing, but we kept our R&D facility in York since we were having huge success in bringing on really talented individuals here.”

Today Anaplan is in the midst of international expansion, using small offices with a handful of staff to target strategic territories.

“We are expanding a lot in the Far East, and set up an office in Singapore last year. Since then we’ve opened in Malaysia and Sydney and we are also seeing a lot of uptake in Russia. Obviously there’s a tense situation there at the moment but from even a couple of years ago in the early stages of our sales, about 10% of our customers were in Russia so we’ve got some good opportunities there.

37

“We are looking at Latin America which, although we don’t have a presence there at the moment, is probably next on our list.”

Its growth in recent years has, in part, been driven by global economic turbulence.

“When things are going well in business, the numbers essentially look after themselves.

Companies focus on building whatever it is they are building or selling products and running with it. When things are tough and companies have to look very closely at their finances and keep a very close eye on cashflow, that’s when the kind of detailed planning that Anaplan provides is ideal.

“So we’re seeing great success within the construction sector, for example, with a number of UK house-builders using our software. I’m sure they always did focus on their numbers, but they now have a more urgent need to look more closely at their costs and the timing of projects. From when they start committing to costs to when they expect to get sales coming through, that detailed level of tracking allows them to keep control of their costs and stay profitable. In many ways the recession was an opportunity for us to help companies improve their processes.”

Given that Anaplan had less than 30 employees two years ago, and now has over 200, has the firm experienced growing pains?

“We’ve learnt over the last two years of really fast growth that everybody’s job changes.

There is a continual reassessment of what everybody’s job is. My job has changed dramatically over the years, from purely writing code, to managing a small team and then becoming much more strategic in terms of being engaged with our key customers and directing the overall company strategy.”

As further growth ensues, and Gould’s current role of CTO no doubt changes yet again, will a permanent move to California eventually become inevitable?

“Silicon Valley is a lovely place but I’m happy to stay put in Yorkshire,” he says from his new home on the banks of the River Ouse. n

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

AUTUMN 14

Retail building sold with redevelopment potential, derelict mill brought back to life, report reveals upturn in hotels market, green light for110-acre site development, industrial units in short supply >> Commercial projects up Yorkshire was one of only two English regions to record an increase in commercial development in the year to June 2014, a recent report shows.

In all, £1.7bn worth of commercial projects were started in Yorkshire in the period, a 7.3% increase on the previous year.

JLL and Glenigan’s Commercial Construction Index points to the Flemingate redevelopment in Beverley and Central Square in Leeds as major contributors to Yorkshire’s buoyant market. Work began on £22.7bn of commercial projects in the UK over the 12 months to June 2014, an increase of 6.6% on the previous 12 months. Unsurprisingly London was easily the strongest single contributor, accounting for almost a quarter of the entire UK total (£5.5bn). The development of new workplaces, shopping centres and industrial facilities is playing an increasingly important role in Yorkshire’s economic recovery, the report says.

But it also highlights concerns that the development of commercial space is still lagging the UK’s booming economy – and could prove a constraint with time.

>> First class development A new £35m student development in York has been completed by a joint venture between Evans Property Group and the University of York. Constantine College is the third phase of accommodation and includes facilities totalling 2,000 student beds and £100m of investment over three new colleges at its Heslington East campus.

The new BREEAM Excellent rated £36m Constantine College will accommodate 621 students and tutors over eight blocks.

A new 7,500 sq ft amenity hub ‘The Forum’ contains social space, meeting rooms and laundry facilities, and has been unveiled in time for the new term

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

>> Delta does £3.5m deal A prominent retail building in Bradford has been sold for £3.5m in an investment deal. 26 Market Street Bradford has been snapped up by Delta Properties from First Investment Real Estate Management, acting as LPA Receivers.

The deal for the 26,708 sq ft retail investment was brokered by Rob Hepworth from the Sheffield office of Knight Frank for the vendor. It sees Delta Properties add to its existing presence in Yorkshire where it sees value and growth. Tenants at 26 Market Street include Boots The Chemist, Caffé Nero, Nationwide, KFC, Betfred and The Cash Store, while the property has three vacant floors above – offering potential to redevelop to office or residential use dependent on planning approval.

>> Home for homewares store Gregory Property Group has agreed terms with a discount homewares store to take 15,000 sq ft at its proposed retail park on Great Eastern Way, adjoining Parkgate Town Centre in Rotherham.

The agreement follows previous deals with Iceland and Aldi which will occupy units at the 50,000 sq ft development, phase one of which received full planning consent last month. Phase two has outline consent.

>> Derelict mill to be revived Gregory Property Group has submitted a planning application to redevelop a derelict, former Corn Mill building in Horsforth, Leeds, and deliver new office accommodation.

The Grade II listed building off Low Lane,

38

which is thought to date back to the 16th century, was used as an auto spares scrapyard but has been empty for the last ten years. It remains in a poor state of repair with only a part of the original building still standing.

>> Park’s new lease of life Phase one of the transformation of the 13-acre Park Valley Mills site in Lockwood, Huddersfield, into a business park has been completed. The site, owned

by Holmfirth Dyers, is being developed into a business park with 18 new industrial units with office and storage space. Park Valley Mills had previously been derelict for many years, with buildings falling into disrepair.

TORONTO SQUARE

DON’T MISS OUT! GET IN ON THE ACT EXCEPTIONAL OFFICES AVAILABLE NOW WITHIN A LANDMARK BUILDING IN THE CITY. ONLY 15,162 SQ.FT OVER 2 FLOORS OF BREEAM ‘EXCELLENT’ OFFICE ACCOMMODATION REMAINING.

WWW.TORONTOSQUARELEEDS.CO.UK Jonathan.Shires@cbre.com Alex.Hailey@cbre.com

Eamon.Fox@dtz.com Adam.Cockroft@dtz.com

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

AUTUMN 14

new hotel in Walmgate.

Shiraz Boghani, chairman of Splendid Hospitality Group, said: “The York hospitality market is an exceptionally robust one and, quite simply, assets of this quality do not come along every day.

Beck Hall in Malham, which recently changed hands

>> Increased confidence boosts hotel sales The hotel market in Yorkshire and the North East is experiencing an increase in transactional activity amid rising confidence and greater availability of debt, a report suggests.

Colliers International’s 2014 transactions are up 50% compared with the same period last year, reflecting the national trend of mounting investment in hotel assets.

The upsurge in hotel investment activity has been led by both investors and private buyers.

Peter Bean, director of hotels at Colliers International, said: “Although huge deals are occurring in London and the corporate market in general, significant investment is being made in smaller hotels in the regions, including Yorkshire and the North East.

The majority of our hotel transactions in the region have been for properties priced between £500,000 and £1million.”

Recent hotel sales in Yorkshire include the 18 en suite bedroom hotel Beck Hall, in Malham, and the Grade II-listed Yorkshire Dales property, Falcon Manor Hotel.

>> Green light for offices Work on Logic Leeds – Muse Developments’ 110-acre manufacturing and distribution development in the Aire Valley Leeds enterprise zone – is to start this autumn.

Following the signing of a £2.5m grant agreement with Leeds City Council, construction of a speculative 80,000 sq ft industrial unit at Logic Leeds will begin in October. The building, which will include 4,000 sq ft of offices and 100 car parking spaces, is the largest of its kind to be speculatively developed in West Yorkshire since the recession. David Wells, development director of Muse, said: “The £2.5m grant from the Department for Communities and Local Government will fund the infrastructure to prepare a 5.5 acre site for development.

“The agreement gives the green light to our speculative development of the 80,000 sq ft

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

unit. Detailed planning has been submitted for this which will be determined next month and it is the intention to start on site in October. The building will be completed by August 2015.” Logic Leeds is part of the Leeds Enterprise Zone, which means that it benefits from a range of incentives for occupiers.

>> Refurbished hotel sold The five-star Cedar Court Hotel & Spa in York, which opened after a £30m refurbishment four years ago, has been sold.

Wakefield firm Cedar Court Group has sold the 107-bedroom hotel to London-based Splendid Hospitality Group for an undisclosed sum. Cedar Court bought the former North Eastern Railways HQ seven years ago for £11m. Splendid has 14 hotels in its portfolio including the Holiday Inn Express near Monks Cross, while it is also currently developing a

40

>> Industrial units needed The take-up of industrial property in South Yorkshire in the first half of 2014 was almost double that of the same period last year, forcing a shortage of supply, a report warns. The LOGIC report,

by Knight Frank, shows that initiatives provided by Enterprise Zones, supported by awarded grants and hardening of occupier incentives on sub 25,000 sq ft units over the course of H1, are supporting speculative development. And as manufacturer enquiry levels increase, industrial property stock levels have decreased. This has created a renewed demand for smaller industrial units.

Rebecca Schofield, partner at the Sheffield office of Knight Frank, said: “The demand for industrial stock across South Yorkshire is a strong economic indicator for the region.

“Incentives at the smaller end of the market are paving the way for a new round of speculative developments, as the levels of stock reach a historic low since recessionary pressures abated.”

But St Paul’s Developments responded to the report by identifying its 29 acre Smithy Wood site as being in pole position to attract large occupiers seeking design and build opportunities to the region.

201

Esh Group Eshholdings esh_group

2014 Advert.indd 1

..................................

Leading the way in constructing communities

Esh Construction Limited is the multidisciplined “one stop shop” construction division of Esh Group. We have delivery arms for new build, refurbishment, historic restoration, housing & regeneration, civil engineering and facility solutions.

Our vision is clear. We see construction as dynamic, exciting and rewarding.

The communities in which we work are supported through our ‘Added Value’ approach.

Our people are our strength; we succeed and achieve through their experience, commitment and training. In short, Esh Construction delivers.

To find out more please visit:

www.eshconstruction.co.uk

4/22/2014 8:44:51 AM

COMPANY PROFILE

AUTUMN 14

Invest in your talent to attract the best In a highly competitive market or sectors that are growing rapidly, the investment you place in your people and environment could be the best talent attraction strategy you have!

With a recent survey published by Yorkshire Bank, it claims that the regions SME’s will be looking to employ nearly 42,000 new jobs in the up and coming year, the research highlights that SME’s expect to grow their workforce by 3.8% and with the regions SME’s employing 1.1million it’s a significant increase in pressure on the regions SME’s ability to retain-attract-find the talent they need to grow. Some 31% of regions SME’s when questioned are intending to spend additional money over and above existing budgets on new staff in the coming year!

The growing pressure on an ever shrinking talent pool in the region are wonderful indicators in a confident region economically, but this confidence if not supported with clear strategies can result in panic buying when it comes to the crunch in recruitment.

There’s no greater example of this than in the recruitment sector. Based here in Leeds, with a regional over trade in the sector after the proliferation of firms born in the 90’s and early 00’s after spectacular demise of a number of high profile recruitment business, Leeds and Yorkshire boasts more than its fair share of the nation’s most well-known recruitment brands with a significant number of them here in Leeds.

Managing Director of Rilwood Associates tells us about the challenges a recruiter faces when recruiting!

It’s been difficult to define Rilwood as an employer brand. Historically we’ve faced the same challenges the industry faces with high levels of staff turnaround, I’ve just finished my first full year in charge of the business and not only have we seen a 25% growth in revenue we’ve increased our staff retention massively and delivered

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

Springwood house, Leeds

Having worked for the same business for 10 Years, it was a big decision deciding to make a move. Like most people I was conscious of how big a decision it was and I had to make sure it was the right move for my career the most stable year ever. By focussing on our values, business and staff engagement we’ve given everybody a clear view of where we’ve been and more importantly where we are going. We invested in our facilities to define the different

42

work environments and initiated work incentives that reward In work-life balance, not just financially, we take time to celebrating together as a team and most important of all we communicate.

Our modular training and development programme is revolutionary in the industry and helped is to attract consultants that wont to be developed and see their careers grow. We look to develop our consultants as aspiring business leaders not just recruitment consultants. We’ve driven a different methodology in the development of our people spearheaded by our head of training Chris MercerJones and his dedicated team now implement an in house coaching and mentoring programme and business recognised development accredited through the ILM. All of these different elements together make our culture and work-life richer and more rewarding and they have been instrumental in how we attract talent. Our recent new senior team member, Jamie Caulfield joined us because he recognised that we are a business that puts the right conditions in place for success and career growth.

Having worked for the same business for 10 Years, it was a big decision deciding to make a move. Like most people I was conscious of how big a decision it was and I had to make sure it was the right move for my career. I spent time initially doing my own personal research into which business would be best for me. I wanted to make sure that the company matched my career ambitions both now and in the future and I also wanted to make sure that the company’s core values matched my own.

In the end the decision was relatively easy for me, having done all my research into business, people culture etc there are always pros and cons for any move and sometimes you just have to go with your gut instinct and just ask yourself “If I didn’t get

AUTUMN 14

COMPANY PROFILE Our new offices also encourage a real work hard play hard culture, we are just putting the equipment in our gym downstairs and the ping pong and table football in the kitchen can get a bit heated at lunch times benefits match and exceed industry standards as well as a team building culture. Other little things also make a big difference, the team culture is fantastic, we have recently all been to the lakes for the weekend and we are currently in the process of organising an office paintballing day, although I am not sure everyone will make it back in one piece! Our new offices also encourage a real work hard play hard culture, we are just putting the equipment in our gym downstairs and the ping pong and table football in the kitchen can get a bit heated at lunch times. Businesses need to understand that they are constantly competing with their competitors, not just for the business, but even more importantly, for the right staff. In any industry, sector or role all companies want to attract the very best candidates they can in the market. As such its important that the business is represented in a positive light, both by the company themselves and also by the recruitment business they are working with. At Rilwood we pride ourselves on working with the best companies both nationally and internationally and see the businesses we work with as an extension of our company. We help and advise on the best possible way to ensure that the companies we work with are best placed to make sure they attract the very best the market has to offer.

Kenton Robbins, Managing Director, Rilwood

this job would I be disappointed?� If the answer is 100% yes then everything else takes care of itself.

Ironically, the recruitment industry is one of the hardest to attract talent, it is also hard being in the sector to decide on a business best for you.

One of the major reasons why retention overall within the industry is low is due to the fact that the sector is very target driven and for some the pressure and long hours can seem too much but those who preserve really reap the rewards.

Recruitment as a career is always changing and no two days are ever the same, for some this can be both a positive and negative but for most the variety is what keeps people in the industry.

Rilwood appealed for lots of reasons, a prominent one being the retention of their staff. Knowing that in a usually fluid industry, the average length of service at Rilwood is considerably higher than most others was hugely encouraging considering I was seeking longevity in my move. The company

43

Kenton Robbins | Managing Director Rilwood Associates - www.Rilwood.com 08712 888 888 - 07707 811590 - @kentonr Rilwood Associates, Springwood House, Low Lane, Horsforth, Leeds, LS18 5NU O113 2583515

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

BUSINESS LUNCH

AUTUMN 14

GROWING TRUST

Tenacious business leader Linda Pollard’s journey from fashion entrepreneur to the helm of the healthcare sector may have culminated in her toughest challenge yet, she tells Andrew Mernin over lunch Linda Pollard has hotfooted it across town from a film set to meet BQ over lunch. She’s been under the camera’s glare for an upcoming event and also, perhaps, to support the NHS’s ongoing survival strategy.

As the organisation looks to recover from heavy cutbacks and shape a prosperous future, marketing activity like film shoots serve to give the institution voice and empower staff.

And the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which Pollard chairs, is also looking to come out fighting once its current turnaround is complete. Despite previous roles Pollard has held – which cover global brands, major public sector bodies and high-growth entrepreneurial ventures – she says “last year was one of the toughest years I’ve worked through”.

The trust, which covers six hospitals and 15,000 staff, is currently £54m in debt.

Alongside her fellow board members, a mighty task has been set to reduce the deficit over the next two years and emerge in rude health.

And she has been using her vast private sector leadership experience to ensure this happens.

“There is this belief that the public sector is different from the private sector and never the twain shall meet,” she says. “What a load of rubbish. You structure an organisation like a business. I’m in a £1.2bn organisation here in Leeds, which is the equivalent of a FTSE 100 firm. Do I have bankers? Yes. Do I have shareholders? Yes, I’ve got patients and stakeholders. I’m also jumping through a lot more political hoops than a FTSE 100 firm would have to.

“The language of the board and the language of an organisation might change depending on the sector, but the basic business principles,

whether it’s public or private, are the same.”

Pollard is confident that once the next two years of careful cost cutting and restructuring are done, the future is bright for Europe’s largest healthcare teaching authority.

“We’re forging ahead with our cost improvement programme. It’s a big task but we’ve got big ambitions. We’re going to be the centre of excellence for the North for specialist services and we want to be one of the best places in the UK to work and to be treated.”

Private sector firms will play an important role in the recovery of the trust, she says.

“Earlier this week I had 15 medi-tech companies coming in because I’d heard that many of them weren’t getting access to us as a provider. We explained technical details and the procurement system within the public sector and had a Q&A session. Often it’s not that >>

Your business is our business Start the conversation today. Call us on 0333 123 7171 or visit www.bhp.co.uk

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

44

AUTUMN 14

45

BUSINESS LUNCH

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

BUSINESS LUNCH we don’t want to work with them, it’s just that we don’t know about their widgets.

“If companies really are facing a closed-door situation, I would suggest they drop me or the CEO a line. There’s probably a very good reason. It’s probably not technical, but there might be some perfectly sensible reason.

With some small organisations we can direct them towards universities and see if we can collaborate on some research together.

Sometimes these medi-tech companies have very good ideas but they’re not getting to the door just because they need refinement.”

While building links with UK private sector firms, Pollard is also working to forge export ties to strengthen the trust’s commercial power.

“We’ve got a really interesting international commercial proposition on the table and it’s growing and growing. We’ve got BIS and UKTI involved and contracts in places like Jordan and Egypt. They usually start off with the training of people, and then we can cross fertilise. For example, The King Hussein Cancer Centre in Jordan is the main cancer centre for the Middle East. We have the biggest cancer centre in the UK in Leeds so they know we are a centre of excellence and they want to be taught by us and also they want the same kit as us, which goes back to the medi-tech people.”

Pollard was appointed into her current NHS role in February last year, having previously been chair of NHS Leeds, and NHS Airedale, Bradford and Leeds Primary Care Trust Cluster. In the education sector, previous roles have included

UK plc is only going to work when the regions are as active as London

AUTUMN 14

pro chancellor/chairman of the University of Leeds and a board-member of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA).

And she has been an equally prolific chair in the corporate world too. Until recently she served as regional chair of Coutts Bank and, before it was scrapped, was Yorkshire Forward’s deputy chairman. Two years on from the abolishment of the regional development agency (RDA), she still feels passionately that they were the best model for the North.

“The RDAs in the North had just had enough time to become established and were getting to grips with European funding. When they were scrapped we had some really good pieces of work happening. We were putting Yorkshire on the map – there were hundreds of things that had nowhere to go after the ideas were scrapped. The local enterprise partnerships have had to start again city to city, not region to region. We now have cities vying against cities, which dissipates energy, whereas if you are all as one you are much stronger. Yorkshire is geographically the biggest county and we’ve got some massive urban areas with some real

strength, but you need leadership and coordination, which is what we were beginning to grow with the RDAs. Does talk from Whitehall about northern powerhouses and rebalancing the economy away from a Londoncentric model give her hope for the future?

“UK plc is only going to work when the regions are as active as London. If the regions are failing, then why on earth have we got regions all over Europe that do work? Why do we think we have to have a centrally run UK plc? You wouldn’t do it anywhere else.

“We are still a bit tribal in the North, but if it’s for the greater good and we are grownup enough to say that we are getting left behind and we need a bigger voice, that is the only way to go forward. And I’m definitely convinced we need to hold our own transport budget,” she adds.

Regardless of politics or the funding models of the day, Pollard believes many large organisations can do much more internally to boost their competitiveness.

One approach which she has drawn from in virtually every board role she’s had stems >>

Your business is our business Start the conversation today. Call us on 0333 123 7171 or visit www.bhp.co.uk

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

46

???

BUSINESS LUNCH

AUTUMN 14

I’m also an eternal optimist. There is always a solution and I don’t see problems, I see challenges from her experience with German firms. After setting up, growing and selling a multi-million pound high-end fashion retailer in her 20s, she founded a marketing firm.

Through this she won global sportswear giants Puma as a client. She worked with the German brand for seven years, travelling the world setting up conferences, exhibitions and shows.

Working at board level with the business gave her what has proved to be an invaluable insight into successful leadership structure. In a previous role she’d also gained similar insight through work with BMW. “German firms tend to have two-tiered boards.

They have the main board and a management board which may include union representatives, chief engineers, partners and stakeholders that are contributing to the overall agenda.

“I’ve lost count of how many things I’ve chaired, but I’ve always had the same structure underneath. How do you reach huge groups of people working in a large organisation?

You have to start by having really good communication. That’s where you need to have a tier of people filtering things through.

“The trouble is you’ve often got boards who think they know it all and have a top-down approach, which is a recipe for disaster.”

Pollard also believes in the power of gender balanced boards. She is chair and a founding member of An Inspirational Journey, the Leeds-based organisation which encourages a business culture that enables the best talent to lead, regardless of gender.

“This isn’t about women, it’s actually a business

Satisfaction guaranteed... for the fit and the flabby As a senior figure at the NHS, it was no surprise when Linda Pollard chose the healthiest main on the menu at Quebec’s in Leeds. Despite dining with a top bod from an institution battling to make the country less flabby, I shamefully plumped for classic fish and chips.

Fortunately what arrived was a cut above the greasy fare found elsewhere. And, the crisp batter and succulent haddock definitely had nutritional value – and tasted delicious. Chef had also strategically stacked the chips in a neat pile to disguise their volume from my health conscious guest. Linda’s tuna nicoise equally satisfied its devourer. Tuna steak cooked to perfection was accompanied by new potatoes, olives and Quebec’s homemade dressing. Unfortunately time was too tight for starters and dessert but there were plenty of options on offer, including Whitby smoked salmon to start and artisan cheeses to round off.

The 44-bedroomed venue, on Quebec Street, has plenty of interesting areas in which to unwind with food, drink or afternoon tea. The Porter’s Lodge offers light meals and sharing platters – and cocktails and parties if that’s your poison. Private dining for up to 30 people is accommodated at the hotel in the Oak Room or Conservatory. The hotel also does a roaring trade in weddings, baby showers and any other cause for celebration for up to 70 guests. www.quebecshotel.co.uk. 0113 244 8989

decision. If we ignore well-educated women at the point where they might have a bit of a wobble in their careers, we are throwing away a massive amount of talent. We need to look at different ways of retaining them, perhaps by giving them some tools and support and carrying out constant succession planning in our own organisation because we need them in decision-making roles.

“I always remember the CEO of Boots saying some time ago that ‘80% of our purchasers are women, so why wouldn’t we listen to their opinions about our products?’

“Mixed boards are very different. Women will think about things that perhaps male

counterparts might not and are not frightened of asking what might seem obvious questions.

“Women are also very analytical in their approach. They have tenacity and they don’t always agree with everything.”

As an individual in business, Pollard says her ability to keep standards high is a major contributing factor to her success. And that success includes both an OBE and a CBE. “Letting people down is a cardinal sin. The bar has always been high in all the organisations I’ve worked in. If something needs doing when you’re working, just do it. I’m also an eternal optimist. There is always a solution and I don’t see problems, I see challenges.” n

Your business is our business Start the conversation today. Call us on 0333 123 7171 or visit www.bhp.co.uk

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

48

ENTREPRENEUR

AUTUMN 14

STILL LIVING LIFE IN THE FAST LANE After a career measured in bomb disposals and bob skeleton races, Mike Maddock’s path crossed that of long-serving F1 engineer Dan Fleetcroft. They conspired to create and grow a business which, they tell Andrew Mernin, is now just as relentlessly exciting as their previous undertakings “I was blown up twice and drowned three times,” says Mike Maddock over coffee at the Advanced Manufacturing Park near Sheffield.

“My nickname was ‘nine lives’ Maddock but I’d used them all up so I thought I best leave,” he adds of his 13 years as a Navy explosives clearance diver.

As if keeping British and allied waters clear of explosives wasn’t dangerous enough, he also spent seven years hurtling down bob skeleton tracks for Team GB. For all the death-defying moments he faced, however, and his later role in charge of 5,000 staff in the pub trade, he still believes starting a business is the toughest thing he’s ever done.

His business partner Dan Fleetcroft is equally appreciative of just what it takes to turn a start-up into a successful business.

And this is from someone who spent 15 years working in the intensity of Formula One racing.

Mentored and trusted by one of the sport’s most renowned innovators, he was locked in a constant battle to find infinitesimal gains for the likes of Alesi, Berger, Schumacher and Irvine from 1992 to 2007.

“The beautiful thing about motorsport is the

teamwork,” he says. “You really have this Dunkirk spirit. It could be three in the morning, the race is tomorrow but the driver’s stuffed the car into the tyre wall during qualifying and you’ve got to rebuild it. But that’s what we did because we wanted to win that race on the Sunday.”

The qualified aerospace engineer started his career at Ferrari under technical director John Barnard. John, the legendary F1 engineer, is credited with introducing semi-automatic gearboxes and the carbon fibre composite chassis into F1 amongst other game-changing additions. Dan spent 15 years working in multiple F1 teams, Kenny Roberts’ MotoGP team and Barnard’s B3 Technologies business.

Today he and Mike – both with CVs plucked straight from a Boy’s Own comic strip – are well underway on a new pulseraising adventure.

Their business, Performance Engineered Solutions (PES) Ltd, does exactly as its name suggests – engineer ways to boost performance, as well as solve problems.

And its fingerprints can be found in a seemingly endless list of sectors. Bike parts

www.rilwood.com

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

50

for Team GB, the development of the longest driver in golfing history and decoy systems for fighter jets are just a fraction of the projects on PES’s plate currently.

Then there’s the Porsche across the pond.

“We’ve got a client in New York who over the last 10 years has been working with engineering firms to light-weight his Porsche,” says Dan. “It’s a bit of an odyssey. We’ve managed to take over 600kg out of it and I reckon he’s spent more than US$4m.

“Nearly everything on the car has been light-weighted, with changes made through new manufacturing techniques and material selection, including the extensive use of composites. Some parts have been remade again as technology has evolved over the last decade. His aim is to explore advanced engineering techniques and how and where they can be applied to deliver performance gains. He’s just a very wealthy individual, who’s very well connected in the US. We can’t say any more than that.”

PES was launched as a standalone business in 2010, having originally started life as a division of a South Yorkshire-based BT Ltd, an >>

08712 888888

info@rilwood.com

AUTUMN 14

51

ENTREPRENEUR XXXXXXXX AUTUMN 14

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

ENTREPRENEUR

People say ‘you must be brave’ but it was more about knowledge and preparation. And anyway I can’t be that brave as I’m scared of spiders

AUTUMN 14

SME which produces Olympic winter sports equipment including bobsleighs and other sliding sports products. It was here where Dan and Mike’s paths first crossed.

Mike, the winter sports athlete, and Dan, the engineer working to create the fastest sleds in the world, had set up a performance engineering division within the firm alongside its niche bobsled work. But with the BT team remaining focused on winter sports, the pair eventually took what became PES amicably out of the business.

The company now has a handful of staff, including another ex-F1 engineer, and expects to grow this to 10 in the coming months, with several major contracts likely to land.

Eventually the company hopes to turn some of its creations, perhaps including its currentlybeing-developed carbon road bike, into products that it will sell under its own brand or in collaboration. Its global client base covers organisations working in aerospace, defence, elite and motor sports, energy, marine, medical and manufacturing industries.

Recent projects include the new Ribble 883 Aero bike, which was designed, modelled and tested in conjunction with PES through hours of advanced computer simulations to produce the frame’s varying aerodynamic profiles. PES was also involved in defining the composites specification for the bike.

It also worked on the composite and aerodynamics design of the DR-Moto GP Track Bike – a MotoGP eligible specification bike built to give the enthusiast rider access to Grand Prix level technology and performance.

PES is also assisting the restoration of a 100-year-old rollercoaster through reverse engineering techniques. And several supercars of various badges are also lined up for clever modifications by the firm.

“A high proportion of our work is exported.

We can just pick up the phone and say ‘yes’ and it doesn’t matter whether you’re in Malaysia, Australia or Canada,” says Mike.

But business wasn’t always so brisk, with the

www.rilwood.com

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

52

pair enduring a tough start-up period before finding commercial success.

Surely their experience of risk-taking, through handling bombs, bob skeletons and race cars, carried them through those early days though?

“For me it’s been about taking calculated risks,” says Mike. “When I was in the Navy I developed a bit of OCD in terms of my systematic approach. People say ‘you must be brave’ but it was more about knowledge and preparation. And anyway I can’t be that brave as I’m scared of spiders.”

Mike, who left a high-flying career as operations director of brewery giant Punch Taverns to eventually pursue entrepreneurialism, says: “I started to get that itch to do my own thing. You spend your life thinking, ‘there’s got to be an opportunity to take things forward’. I’d bitterly love to own my own Spitfire but you’re never going to achieve that in employment, so you either accept that or you make that step forward, take a risk and take yourself from a big salary onto minimum wage and you go from there.”

Dan adds: “This is our fourth year in business, but our journey started in 2008 as the recession hit. It was absolutely a struggle and we funded it through our savings and houses.

We are fully committed having both made significant investments into the business.”

PES’s first major contract was won under tragic circumstances.

The death of 21-year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics prompted an investigation into the track on Whistler Mountain.

Dan says: “We got a call on Christmas Eve 2010 to say ‘this is happening, can you throw some costs in?”

The call was from the head of engineering at the South Alberta Institute of Technology in Canada, and the work was ultimately worth US$250,000.

“We won the contract alongside a collaboration of 11 other global companies,” says Dan. “Our involvement was to take >>

08712 888888

info@rilwood.com

AUTUMN 14

XXXXXXXX

By Appointment to Her Majesty The Queen Information Technology Services Technology Services Group Newcastle upon Tyne

TSG recommends

ISO 9001

Integrated. Converged. Trusted.

Building a modern technology environment requires strong

With six Microsoft Gold Competencies and a precious Royal

and solid foundations.

Warrant, we’re equally at home with the applications that drive your business as we are with the telecoms, connectivity and

Compatibility and connectivity are critical.

infrastructure – both physical and virtual – that underpin them.

Blind alleys are to be avoided.

For businesses of all sizes in all sectors, Microsoft Office 365 is the logical starting point. More importantly, it can open the door to collaboration and communication tools that could

That’s why thousands of business trust Technology Services Group to provide the guidance and support needed to maximise the value of their investment in ICT.

transform the way your teams work.

53

To find out more visit www.tsg.com/trusted or

call 0845 11 11 888 to speak to one of our experts.

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

ENTREPRENEUR scanned data of the track and create a mathematical model to simulate particles which had the characteristics of sleds running down the track, enabling us to evaluate the corner where the luger died.”

From here PES began to pick up more global contracts and now, says Mike, “there are two or three contracts in the pipeline which will be transformational”.

He reflects: “I’d certainly say starting up is the biggest challenge I’ve ever had. It was a breeze operating a business turning over £150m compared to starting out with just two of us. It was a massive learning curve from a business perspective in terms of my arrogance in thinking that I could just waltz into an SME, which is a completely different environment.

When you take on your first employee that is 100% of your workforce, so dealing with challenges like that was tough.”

A looming challenge Dan has faced since startup has been adjusting to the dynamics of the wider world of engineering.

“When you look at British bob skeleton, for example, a lot of engineering is learned from F1. The margins for victory are so small and to be on the top step of the podium you have to be the very best. And that’s everyone’s mentality behind the scenes. But coming into the bigger engineering world, sometimes you see some amazingly successful products and businesses and you just wonder ‘how did that ever go together?’

“It’s amazing what works in the engineering world but sometimes you think ‘that really shouldn’t be happening’. I worked in such a precision environment where nothing was left to chance. However, not all industries have the luxury of the budgets and technologies of motorsport for example.”

This experience at the pinnacle of engineering, and the vast facilities at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) which PES has access to, are central to the firm’s success, says Mike.

For all the stellar organisations, like F1 firms

AUTUMN 14

I’d certainly say starting up is the biggest challenge I’ve ever had. It was a breeze operating a business turning over £150m compared to starting out with just two of us. It was a massive learning curve

and defence giants working with PES, the business also takes small, ad hoc requests from individuals and local SMEs. “Because we’ve always worked at the forefront of emerging technology, we can basically deliver solutions to people which, when we explain them, they think they’re magic. They just think you’re crazy because they’ve been working on a particular technology which they think is cutting edge but which actually might be 20 years old.”

Anything from a reverse engineered gearbox on a vintage motor to the local chap who recently needed a particularly tricky borehole put into a piece of wood, can be handled by the firm.

Not every request is met, however.

Dan says: “We get people coming to us with some of the craziest ideas who ask us ‘is this possible?’ Sometimes they’re written on the back of an envelope, sometimes they’ve got legs and some are real opportunities. But you also get things that just aren’t viable.

For example we’ve had a perpetual motion machine related to energy storage. Essentially the rationale behind it was really sound but unfortunately it broke one of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. The guy wanted to spend his money but we just had to tell him it wasn’t going to work.”

The company’s own innovations include a new road bicycle which uses emerging manufacturing methods and draws from its experience in aerodynamics.

www.rilwood.com

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

54

Mike says: “We’re looking to use the project as an expedition into new technologies and different composites. We previously did a bio-composite skateboard just to see how it would perform. These type of projects grow our profile but also get our engineers learning about new areas – which is great since true engineers crave variety.

“Where we want to be as a business eventually is selling our own products instead of just designing or optimising something for someone else who goes on to make significant returns from selling the product we created or improved.”

PES works collaboratively too, sometimes integrating staff into large organisations, or on joint-venture projects like The Bloodhound Golf Driver.

This initiative sees Dan working with fellow engineering luminaries, including the team behind the Bloodhound SCC bid to achieve a 1,000 mph land speed record, to create the world’s longest golf driver.

Not that Dan’s a golfing fan, sharing Mark Twain’s opinion that “golf is a good walk spoiled”.

His real interest in the project stems from a desire to push the boundaries of performance engineering.

Initially the product will not be restricted by golfing regulations and therefore not usable in official tournaments. But its development will be used as a starting point to work backwards into the confines of legal club requirements. It

08712 888888

info@rilwood.com

AUTUMN 14

might also have commercial potential in certain Asian markets such as Japan where driving is all important among amateur players.

“Our idea is if we focus on the attempt to beat the world record and don’t restrict the technology or materials we use, we can really evaluate and optimise the performance of the golf driver and how it interacts with the player.

This gives us the ability to implement some of that technology into something that will be legal and be able to be used by pro players.

This is similar to the way that F1 technologies and the pursuit of performance-driving innovation eventually seeps its way down into road cars.”

Involvement in such projects is part of PES’s long-term goal of developing “branded” performance improvement innovations. Mike says: “If there’s a client selling skis that wants to optimise what they’ve got and improve performance, for example, they could be developed by us and branded as a PES version, like AMG Mercedes, to reflect our level of high quality and performance.”

In all of Dan and Mike’s projects, the

ENTREPRENEUR

capabilities of the people who will ultimately use the product must be factored in.

“Everything comes down to that grey matter between the ears,” says Mike. “On the bob skeleton we did a development programme on the aerodynamics leading up to the Olympics at Whistler. We developed new belly pans to go on the sleds and there were definitely measurable gains. But the guys hadn’t really spent a lot of time using them. By the time they had run them during training in Canada, they decided they would not compete on them for the games. You can argue the point that the loss in confidence in the athlete far outweighs the advantages gained by using the latest design or technology, so you might as well stay with what you’ve got. And it’s the same on other projects. Across sport, business and commercial sectors, it’s about the interaction of a human being with equipment or a piece of technology.”

And Dan agrees that the quirks of people involved in each project are a crucial consideration in performance engineering.

“In my Formula One days, we used to do seat

55

fits for the drivers. Schumacher was the most successful driver I worked with and he was completely focused on getting the maximum performance from every aspect of the car and team. He was a bright guy with the ability to forge his team around him but also have the car developed to his requirements. The team always felt valued by him. We did seat fits for him and he was always totally professional and understood the importance of optimising his driving position. In contrast other drivers wouldn’t sit still so we would end up doing the seat fit twice. They were all talented drivers but it highlights differences between the people we work with in performance engineering and the difference between a great driver or athlete and a true legend.”

Away from performance sports, PES is also involved in the arts and recently helped artist Steve Mehdi create a sculpture of a steel woman that was recently installed in Sheffield city centre.

The sculpture is called Tall Dreams – a fitting title for PES given Mike’s affirmation that: “Our applications are almost limitless.” n

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

The wine has been kept in old French oak barrels, which really does enhance the sensation and give an even deeper taste

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

56

AUTUMN 14

SOWDEN ON WINE

THE WINES ARE THE STARS... NOT ME! Daniel Sowden, a Partner at BHP Accountants in York, enjoys his 15 minutes of fame before sampling some planet-friendly, hippie-chic wine What did you do this weekend? I helped save the planet! It’s not often you can say that, especially when referring to drinking fine wine. It is no secret that my drink of choice usually comes in pint glasses and has a frothy head. However, how could I turn down an offer from BQ Magazine to sample and review some fine wines? Well, the answer is I didn’t and after sampling the chosen wines I’m certainly pleased with my decision.

The experience started one sunny afternoon in August. I met Peter, the photographer for BQ Magazine, at The Star Inn The City, a wonderful riverside location in central York, for the photo.

After the photos were complete, and when I had eventually managed to convince a group of tourists enjoying lunch in the wonderful surroundings that I was not, in fact, famous and that no, they didn’t need my autograph, it was home to sample the wines that had been delivered.

I was provided with two wines, both produced by Origin Wines. They are a relatively young company whose small but dedicated team pride themselves on being one of the more innovative wine producers from South Africa, more specifically the Stellenbosch

region in the Western Cape. Interestingly, both wines are made from organic grapes.

This basically means that during the growing cycle the grapes are not exposed to artificial chemical fertilisers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides and it also typically means that preservatives are not used during the winemaking process.

I started with the red, a Stormhoek 2013 Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon. The first thing that grabs your attention is the colour, a magnificent deep ruby red that is very pleasing on the eye. The aroma is a delicious combination of spice with a little smoke. The Cabernet Sauvignon provides much of the framework in this blend, but where it lacks in the mid-palate, the Shiraz takes over and gives the wine a rich raspberry and blackcurrant flavour, with a fine peppery undertone for good measure.

The wine has been kept in old French oak barrels, which really does enhance the sensation and give an even deeper taste. It’s a medium bodied wine, therefore it was great on its own. However, it was an even better

57

accompaniment for the steak which was on that evening’s menu.

The white was a Stormhoek 2011 Chardonnay Viognier. This is gloriously golden in appearance and it gives off a gorgeous array of fresh floral and fruity aromas. The citrus undertones of the Viognier are reined in beautifully by the velvety tones of the Chardonnay. This wine was very nice on its own, which is how I enjoyed it. However, I should imagine it would be a great accompaniment to a nice risotto, or chicken based dish.

The final thing to comment on is the label.

Apart from being the most colourful I’ve seen on any bottle of wine, there is a definite underlying hippie theme. On the reverse are messages such as Go Green, Love, Smell The Roses, Be True, Enjoy, Save The Planet Or Go Home – if only it were that easy then surely we would all be doing it? But why not, go on give it (them) a try….. n

The wines provided were Stormhoek 2013 Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon £8.29 and Stormhoek 2011 Chardonnay Viognier £8.29.

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

MOTORING

AUTUMN 14

LIVING UP TO

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

58

AUTUMN 14

MOTORING

EXPECTATIONS Roger Hutton, a partner at Clarion Solicitors, takes his pregant wife and elderly father for a spin in a Jaguar XJ >>

59

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

MOTORING

AUTUMN 14

When I received the invitation to test drive a Jaguar, I was delighted. I have never owned one but have long been an admirer – after all they made one of the most elegant cars in motoring history in the E-Type.

I have to confess that my first criteria of buying a car is what it looks like and in particular whether it excites me when I see it in a car park. If I further confess that my first car was an Opel Manta GTE and I have recently been hunting down a brightly coloured two door sports car you may understand that the XJ Portfolio, a stand out leader in the luxury saloon class, was not originally on my shopping list. However, when the XJ arrived, I was impressed. As well as retaining some classic Jaguar lines, it appeared muscular and futuristic. As ever, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder so I will leave it to you to decide whether it excites you.

The weekend I had been given to test drive the Jaguar, Tanya and I had promised to take my

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

As you would expect with a Jaguar there was plenty of high quality stitched leather, sweeping chrome and polished wood – it oozes class

dad to Bolton Abbey for a spot of lunch. My Dad is 96 and Tanya is eight months pregnant with our first child – this was precious cargo for me so perhaps BQ had been doing some thinking for me. To start with the four doors were certainly better than the present two!

Inside there was plenty of space for everyone and whilst I have heard reports that the room in the rear is a little limited, it was certainly

60

more than adequate for the mum-to-be.

While it may not look like a sports car on the outside, inside it certainly feels like one. As you would expect with a Jaguar there was plenty of high quality stitched leather, sweeping chrome and polished wood – it oozes class.

The dashboard is futuristic and there is every gadget you would want including a very impressive touch screen media centre and a

AUTUMN 14

MOTORING

20 speaker sound system that was perfect for Miles Davis. And now for the important bit – how was the drive? I had the 3.0 V6 Diesel.

This is a large car over five metres long with a diesel engine and so I was mightily surprised at its acceleration. It gets to 60 MPH in just about six seconds and that is plenty quick enough for the Yorkshire Dales. The handling was remarkably light and agile and for such a large car the steering was really accurate. It is easy to slip into the sports mode and the paddles were light to the touch. It shifts effortlessly through its eight gears. However, whilst you know the engine is roaring, I would prefer to hear a bit more of its growl – others may enjoy the peace and quiet. Ultimately this is a driver’s car taking on any roads you may care to throw at it. For a car that competes in the luxury saloon category it could easily give many sports cars a run for their money.

After lunch, I asked my dad’s opinion and he was certainly impressed with the car. The Jaguar XJ was spacious and comfortable but because it is designed for sports performance, the ride was a little firm.

So mission complete. Precious cargo returned and I have learned some valuable lessons – looks can be deceiving. This luxury saloon is classy, comfortable, considered but importantly it was a whole lot of fun. Maybe it’s time to rethink my plans. n The car Roger drove was a Jaguar XJ 3.0 V6 D Portfolio from £67,870 It was supplied by: H.A. Fox Jaguar Leeds 39-41 Barrack Road Leeds, LS7 4AB

The handling was remarkably light and agile and for such a large car the steering was really accurate

61

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

BEST OF AUTUMN in association with

GAME ON FOR A BEEF ALTERNATIVE Now is the perfect time of year for game and venison is right up there as one of the most popular. Why? Because venison is low in fat.

Because it can be obtained relatively cheaply.

Because it is free of the pharmacological stew of growth hormones, antibiotics, and antifungals fed or injected into commercial livestock. Because venison resonates with the current slow-food movement, and locavorism, the hip new mantra of community-based consumption that short-circuits the burning of fossil fuels. Eat a deer, save the planet. Venison is higher in moisture, similar in protein and lower in calories, cholesterol and fat than most cuts of grain-fed beef, pork, or lamb.

Venison has enjoyed a rise in popularity in recent years, owing to the meat’s lower fat content. It can often be obtained at less cost than beef. Big in flavour, deer are easy to handle and quick to prepare. It represents some of the finest, moist and flavoursome meat available during autumn and winter.

The geniuses behind Bowcliffe Hall are Yorkshire proud and aim to source as much of their products, services and produce from god’s own country, but the exception to this rule is the sourcing of the venison... Why? You may ask... Well, as well as Bowcliffe

Venison has enjoyed a rise in popularity in recent years

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

Seasonal Autumn Produce (September-November) • Apples, plums, pears, damsons, cabbage, kale, celeriac, pumpkins, squashes • Game, venison, grouse, pheasant, partridge, wild duck • Mussels, oysters, scallops, seabass, sole • Wild mushrooms, truffle It’s chef’s heaven as a season – a time for slow cooking, great stews and puddings.

Hall, owner Jonathan Turner is also the proud owner of Laudale Estate in Scotland.

Laudale is nestled on the southern shores of the picturesque Loch Sunart on the beautiful and unspoiled Morvern Peninsula.

Laudale House was built by John Campbell of Ardslignish between 1755 and 1790. The

62

House has recently been refurbished and as well as accommodation has a farm and more importantly wild roe. Visitors can stalk to their heart’s delight in the 1300 acre estate that boasts free range deer. It is from this estate that Chef John Topham sources his venison for this recipe.

BEST OF AUTUMN

>> Chargrilled Venison, Potato Terrine, Celeriac and Plums Ingredients >> 4 x 250g topside of Venison 1 x Finishing Jus (from Waitrose) POTATO TERRINE: 1500g Maris Piper Potatoes 500g clarified butter Salt Pepper 2 Bread tins Steamer CELERIAC PUREE: 1 large celeriac 100ml milk 100ml double cream ½ lemon, juiced 1tsp salt 10g butter Black pepper Water PLUM KETCHUP: 1kg red plums 2 large shallots 100ml red wine vinegar 100ml red wine 100g sugar 1 bay leaf

1 star anise 1 cinnamon stick CELERIAC CUBES AND PLUM WEDGES: ½ celeriac 4 plums

Method >> Dice the celeriac into 2 cm cubes and poach in hot water for 2 minute, drain and allow to cool then burn with a blow torch. Cut the plums into 8 wedges and burn with the blow torch.

POTATO TERRINE: Peel the potatoes, slice thinly on a mandolin and toss them in clarified butter, salt and pepper. Line a bread tin with parchment paper, ensuring that there is sufficient overlap to cover the terrine when it is in the tin, butter it lightly then layer the potatoes evenly in the tin. Continue until you have filled the tin. Fold the parchment paper over the potatoes, cover tightly in cling film and steam for 1 hour. Take the second bread tin and place on top of the covered terrine, lightly press, add a weight and place in the fridge overnight.

CELERIAC PUREE: Peel and cut the celeriac into rough cubes, and add to a large pan with

63

the milk, cream and lemon juice, cover with cold water. Add the salt and bring to the boil, simmer until the celeriac is tender. Blend in a food processor until smooth. Season with black pepper and set aside until required.

PLUM KETCHUP: Wash and halve the plums, remove the stones. Peel and dice the shallots, add a tablespoon of rapeseed oil to a large pan and gently cook the shallots until golden. Add the plums, red wine, vinegar, bay leaf, star anise and cinnamon stick and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until the ketchup has a jam-like consistency. Puree in a blender until smooth and allow to cool.

TO SERVE: Chargrill the venison for 5-6 minutes then leave to rest before slicing into chunky triangles. Slice the potato terrine into 2 cm slices and pan fry in butter on both sides until golden. Assemble the plate with the potato terrine, spoon the celeriac puree and plum ketchup alternatively around the edge of the plate, blanch some kale leaves and place the venison on top of the kale. Add the celeriac cubes and plum wedges and finish with warmed jus.

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

FASHION

BIRTH OF THE COOL

Chet Baker

The laid-back and effortlessly stylish look pioneered by the jazz greats began life in a side-street store, writes Josh Sims

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

He is adjusting the collar on a shirt – navy or maybe black, with white buttons. More unexpectedly, he is wearing an Alpinestyle hat, high, narrow-brimmed, with badges. What would look comical on anyone else looks effortlessly right on him. But then this 1956 black and white photo is of saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, looking into a dressing-room mirror. He’s a cool dude in a cool era. What is perhaps stranger is where that dressing room is: not in one of the high fashion hubs of London or Paris, not Milan or even New York – but in a small, side-street store in Cambridge. And that’s Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here was found Charlie Davidson’s The Andover Shop. It was here where Ivy League style took hold, where the WASPish under-graduates of Harvard, Princeton or Columbia developed a none too formal, nor too casual style of dress that would arguably become the lynchpin for western male sartorial standards for the next half century and more: crisp white button-down Oxford shirts and army surplus khakis, saddle shoes and penny loafers, hopsack blazers and flannel trousers, knit and rep ties and shawl-collar cardigans. It was, defiantly, the look of good grooming, privilege and money. It was defiantly white. That worked for Mulligan. But then what would fellow jazz maestro Miles Davis also be doing there, in everything – background, race, culture – an outsider?

Or John Coltrane? They were, in the words of Roy Haynes, also a visitor, just picking up the “slickest shit out”.

Jazz has long been associated with ideas of cool, and a cool that is not just this week’s fashion, but which comes from the core, that grows out of living apart from the mainstream, from going one’s own way – it’s the cool of a James Dean, Steve McQueen or Cary Grant, sometimes imagined, sometimes projected (“Everybody wants to be Cary Grant,” noted Cary Grant. “Even I want to be Cary Grant”) but often innate. Certainly, the great players of jazz from the 1950s to 1960s – chiming with post-war prosperity, the birth of the teenager, the civil rights movement and the spread of TV as a mass media – effectively invented the modern idea of cool that would later inform the performances and personae of Dean, McQueen et al. It was Capitol Records that, in the year before Mulligan’s snap, helped popularise the term with its album ‘Classics in Jazz: Cool and Quiet’, Davis underscoring the ineffable definition of this ever-so-desirable state of being with his seminal ‘Birth of the Cool’ compilation in 1957. By association with its performers, and their performances – in smoky, ill-lit, intimate late night venues, immortalised in evocative monochrome photography – ‘cool’ came to be associated with the idea of a nonchalant manner and effortless style, as much in playing as in posing. More than any record label before or since, the visual style of Blue Note in particular – boldly typographic, modernistic, unexpected and unmistakable, and perhaps the first to match the artfulness of sleeve design to that of the music – drove this home. Its most striking aspect, its colour-wash, stained glass effect appropriately gave its subjects the power of saint-like iconography. But the clothes had to >>

64

FASHION Gerry Mulligan

Miles Davis

Wynton Marsalis

Duke Ellington

65

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

FASHION match, in part to sell the complexity of the music. And what better way for a sound that was radical than duds that also cut against the grain – by appropriating the uniform of the conservative, by undercutting the US national powerbroking tribe much as Teddy Boys were doing in the UK, taking the style of one’s betters and, well, making it better?

The result was more than a gravitational pull for pioneering jazzmen to the east coast caucasian enclave, and this one little shop of collars, cuffs and clubhouse rules. It was, appropriately enough, the meeting of dissonant notes, of the establishment and the experimental, the square and the hip, to create as much a new aesthetic of style as of sound. Yes, the style-seeking jazzmen were building on the shoulders of swing and bebop giants – Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were none too sloppy with their wardrobes either.

Billy Eckstine - whose big band extraordinarily hot-housed the talents of Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis among others – even designed and wore his own collar shape, the ‘Mr. B’, a high-roll collar that (with some imagination) formed a ‘B’ shape over a Windsor-knot. But the simplicity of the newlyadopted and twisted Ivy style perhaps only made the post-trad music feel all the more avant-garde. And the music came first. Far from being unpracticed, unnatural wonders with their instruments, the likes of Davis and Coltrane, Mulligan and Haynes, as well as Bill Evans, Charles Mingus, J.J. Johnson, Paul Desmond and other dedicated musicians of the period, had given recitals since childhood – and for these they were expected to dress presentably, which back then meant like their parents, as adults-before-their-time, in scaled down takes on the era’s wide-shouldered, peak-collared suiting. It was a habit that stuck, as visits to The Andover Shop – or the likes of J.Press, as favoured by Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records – would refine. What these jazz masters wore, often as signatures, consequently attained an unexpected hispster credibility: Dizzy Gillespie’s double-breasted pinstripes, goatee, black horn-rimmed glasses and beret; Stan Getz’s dark Italian suits and skinny ties; Lester Young’s tilted pork-pie hat; Thelonius Monk, with his outsized specs and beret too... Oh how they loved a hat, belonging to a period when any self-respecting man about town would risk social opprobrium to go about without one, even if in not so studiedly unstudied a way.

Then there was Miles Davis. It was Davis – searching for a look to announce his cleaned-up comeback – who made the clarion call to this definitive, artsy, neo-con jazz dress when, in 1954, the aptly-named jazz promoter Charles Bourgeois took him to the Cambridge haberdasher to find what he would call Davis’ “costume”. The trumpet player left having

put the I back into Ivy, with his own distinctive blend of soft-shouldered, narrow-lapeled tweeds and madras jackets, blindingly-white button-downs, flannels and Bass Weejuns.

The following year, playing the Newport Jazz Festival, he took to the stage in a custom-made, side-vented seersucker sack coat, club-collared shirt and a bow-tie. Described thus, he could have looked like a pre-war door-to-door salesman, stiff and falsely smiling. He looked anything but. He looked like a man of tomorrow. Six years later, in fact, he was being hailed by ‘Esquire’ as a model of style for his bespoke suits, made by Emsley in New York and costing him a whopping $185 a pop. Bourgeois similarly overhauled Chet Baker who, as the promoter would put it, “arrived from California dressed like a ragamuffin”, also in 1954 - and again at the same store. In 1958 the cover of ‘Chet Baker in New York’ – note the title, pointedly east coast, against the bohemian and badly-dressed west coast – had him in rep tie, white button-down and navy blazer, his hair slicked back. We’re decidedly not in Baker’s hometown of Yale, Oklahoma anymore – more Yale, Connecticut, home of the elite training ground of American blue-bloods. Later Baker would adopt a trademark minimalistic dark suit and white t-shirt – at a time when tailoring played only to the accompaniment of shirt and tie. Like all moments in style this great era of jazz cool was, of course, set to pass – not least because the jazzmen’s way with a buttonhole, tie-pin or pleat, just so, would enter the dress vernacular. It would become, superficially at least, the norm. They moved with fashion too, so that by the 1960s Davis, for one – how the great had fallen preferred kick flares and fey neck-scarves.

And, naturally enough, they got older and their outlook changed. Maybe, as the world grew ever more obsessed with image, at the expense of content, these maestros felt less and less like dressing the part. The legacy lingered, with the likes of Wynton Marsalis, who in the 1980s rocked 40s elegance when everyone else was rolling their jacket sleeves and forgetting to put on socks. And, as the fashion business has acknowledged, it lingers in jazzland even today: among the notables, David Sanchez – who’s modelled for Banana Republic, Joshua Redman – who’s modelled for Donna Karan, and Greg Osby - who chiefly just models his own vintage fedora but, like Mulligan with that Bavarian number, just looks straight-from-the-fridge dad. But, the music aside, the greatest legacy goes beyond jazz. Jazz’s lifting and re-energising of Ivy style gave men a model of cool that is timeless. It is for less well-dressed men to, as Charles Mingus had it, look to its golden era of style and “sing their praises while stealing their phrases”. n

Jazz has long been associated with ideas of cool – a cool that is not just this week’s fashion

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

66

AUTUMN 14

COMPANY PROFILE

Ensuring your online presence puts your business in the best light So you spent weeks putting together your amazing new company website, but have you considered how your customers will use it? To give your potential customers the best impression, it’s important to think about things like how easy it is to navigate around your site to find useful information, rather than simply concentrating on how impressive your site looks.

It’s also essential that your site (and your social media presence) keeps your customers interested enough to stick around and find out more about what you have to say. Keeping their attention is hard work – research has shown that visitors often leave web pages after 10-20 seconds (or even less in some cases) – but pages that are clear and focused can hold a visitor’s attention span long

enough to help you convert visitors to customers while they’re there. On the subject of attention spans, as someone who deals with the company website you must also consider how potential customers will access your site. Research by Ofcom reports that 61% of all UK adults now own a smartphone (rising to 88% for 16-24 year olds), so it’s vital to take into account any mobile browsing that visitors may undertake, ensuring that your website is as clear and easy to access from mobile devices as from laptop or desktop computers.

In today’s market, there are a lot more aspects to consider to ensure your online presence stands out from the crowd for all the right reasons. Providing a ‘customers perspective’ and recommendations on where to focus your attention for your own business, Superfast North

Yorkshire have introduced fully funded Website and Online Presence Reviews to eligible businesses across the region, providing a bespoke report with guidance on where you could focus any improvements.

For further information and to request a Website and Online Presence Review for your own business, please call 0845 002 0021 or visit www.sfny.co.uk/web-reviews

LEEDS’ CITY CENTRE EVENT SPACE CONFERENCES • EVENTS • TRAINING • EXHIBITIONS • PARTIES • WEDDINGS

A unique Leeds city centre events venue offering meeting rooms and venue hire over 4 Floors of amazing event space, from intimate meeting rooms to more grandeur spaces to hold events for up to 1000 guests.

Complimented with our in house catering team and high tech audio visual facilities, Aspire is the perfect choice for both corporate and private events.

To arrange your personal viewing of this beautiful venue call our sales team now.

www.aspire-leeds.co.uk

T: +44(0)1132 368 368 E: events@aspire-leeds.co.uk W: www.aspire-leeds.co.uk. A: 2 Infirmary Street, Leeds, LS1 2JP

EQUIPMENT GRAND DESIGNS

Car manufacturer Ford’s executive design director Martin Smith talks about the challenges and rewards of turning his boyhood dream into a lifelong career

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

Martin Smith counts many objects in his repertoire of things that inspire him: his vintage Omega watches, an original Bertone car model which he keeps on his desk, a couple of massive handguns (“it often raises eyebrows when I say that, but where I live in Germany sport shooting is quite common”) and his bespoke loafers, which he designed himself. “But they only took 10 minutes to design, even though it’s nice to have anything to your own specification,” he notes.

Of the objects, it is the Bertone model that is perhaps most revealing – because Smith himself is a car designer, more specifically the executive design director of Ford, for Europe and Asia Pacific, where this year he celebrates his tenth year at the car giant. Indeed, not just any car designer, Smith can claim to be the designer of the world’s best-selling car – the Focus. That also happens to be the best-selling car in the world’s fastest-growing new car market – China.

“Some boys are into planes or trains. For me it was always cars.

I always wanted to be a car designer,” says the man who, still in short trousers, wrote to the Mini maestro Alec Issigonis requesting some tips on how to get into the job. “But it’s certainly gratifying when you can work at your hobby, especially when someone else is prepared to put up $1bn to put your design into production and you can then actually drive it around.”

Not that Smith’s success comes through simply doing what he wants – and this despite his greatest hits including the likes of the Audi Quattro and Audi TT. One thing he has learned over his career – which began with Porsche just over 40 years ago, before heading both the external and then the interior design studios for Audi, and then overseeing design for Opel and Vauxhall before being lured away by Ford – is exactly what his job is.

“And that isn’t necessarily to design something I like but something that is right for the company,” says the Sheffieldborn Briton, who is credited with giving Ford its so-called ‘kinetic design’ philosophy – one that helped, through introducing a more complex surface architecture, transform a maker of often rather dull cars into one of much more dynamic, energised ones.

“I think cars just happen to be the most complex piece of industrial design there is – as well as the necessities to be safe and functional, it has to look good too,” he adds. “The fact is that people subconsciously expect aspects of a car design, like safety, to be there. What they really respond to is the sense of the driving experience being reflected in the way it looks. You have to express to them the car’s capabilities in those looks.

Today any car has to exude that it is a quality piece of work. The customer wants gorgeousness. Well, at least some people do.

Of course some people buy a car like they buy a refrigerator. I buy a refrigerator as I would a car – I assume it will keep things cold, but I want it to look good.”

Smith says, smiling, that he just happens to like all the cars he has designed. But getting that balancing of style and functionality >>

68

EQUIPMENT

69

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

EQUIPMENT or the lights too large,” Smith says. “People get very emotional about car design, which is good because we’re always trying to add more emotion into a car design. People actually write in to tell us what they want. Of course, we don’t just listen to one guy in the street who tells you he thinks your car is ugly. But we do have to listen to a groundswell of opinion over several years.”

Indeed, those changing demands have affected the way the industry operates at all levels: witness Ford pushing on with its Vignale concept, essentially an upgrading of the materials, presentation and sales environment of its cars that aims to put it more on a par with much more expensive vehicles.

“The difference is that in my work we still have to work within a budget that allows us to produce cars in major plants, that sell all over the world and do so at a good price,” says Smith. “They don’t have quite the same problems at Rolls Royce. But I don’t mind. In fact, I love the challenge of designing mass production cars. In my job even a commercial vehicle gets a lot of attention even that has to look good.” n

is, he admits, no easy trick. Car design has become an ever more complex business too. While, when he began his career, cars were developed using sketchpads and clay modelling, now to these have been added the tools of computer-aided design and illustration – “not that this doesn’t mean car design cannot still be artistic,” he adds. “People often tend to think you press a button and a car design is produced, which definitely isn’t the case.”

Technology has also changed what cars actually are: and, Smith says, the advent of new technologies, from the voice control systems already on the market to the retina controls to come, from changes in power plants and materials that will allow vehicles to be lighter, tougher, more efficient, “will radically change the way the typical car looks, both for its interior and the exterior. But I’ve no idea what exactly that look will be. Not yet.”

Presumably two of Smith’s latest designs – the Edge concept, an upscale, more sleek take on the SUV, and the first-of-itskind C-Max Solar Energi concept, with a solar panel roof with a concentrator lens that provides 30km of sun-powered driving a day – at least hint at the future. If, that is, customers buy into the ideas. Certainly customer higher expectations have transformed the market during Smith’s time in the business too, whether that be for the way super-cars are built and sold, or volume producers like Ford. Customers, in fact, are what drive the market. And the customer is ever more vocal, with an opinion that needs to be taken into consideration with each new iteration of a model.

“The latest Focus, for example, responded to a lot of points raised by consumers about the design - that the front end was too busy,

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

Some people buy a car like they buy a refrigerator. I buy a refrigerator as I would a car. I assume it will keep things cold – but I want it to look good

70

Connected

Ambitious Prepared

What an international business should be

“International trade can unlock significant growth but is often complex. So, whatever your sector, our Trade Portal has been developed to help you identify the largest markets, understand local regulations and connect with potential customers and suppliers on the ground.

Helping Businesses go Further

GET CONNECTED WITH

And with access to Trade Club, an exclusive online community for international businesses, we could give you the best chance of success overseas.”

MORE THAN ANY OTHER INTERNATIONAL BANK

,

To see how far your business could go, visit santandercb.co.uk/tradeportal and if you’d like to get in touch, contact Jackie Cane on 0113 285 6203* email jackie.cane@santander.co.uk Simple Personal Fair What a bank should be 5 million customer source: Santander Group internal data.

You need to be an online banking customer of Santander Corporate & Commercial to gain full access to the Trade Portal and Trade Club. Santander Trade Portal is provided and managed

by Export Entreprises S.A. Santander provides access to its client companies but is totally unrelated to the database contents, which are the responsibility of Export Entreprises S.A.

Santander Corporate & Commercial is a brand name of Santander UK plc, Abbey National Treasury Services plc (which also uses the brand name Santander Global Banking and Markets) and Santander Asset Finance plc, all (with the exception of Santander Asset Finance plc) authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Our Financial Services Register numbers are 106054 and 146003 respectively.

In Jersey, Santander UK plc is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission to carry on deposit-taking business under the Banking Business (Jersey) Law 1991. Registered offi ce: 2 Triton Square, Regent’s Place, London NW1 3AN. Company numbers: 2294747, 2338548 and 1533123 respectively. Registered in England. Santander and the flame logo are registered trademarks.

Santander UK plc is a participant in the Jersey Bank Depositors Compensation Scheme. The Scheme offers protection for eligible deposits of up to £50,000. The maximum total amount of compensation is capped at £100,000,000 in any 5 year period. Full details of the Scheme and banking groups covered are available on the States of Jersey website (www.gov.je/dcs) or on request. *Calls charged at local rate.

CCBB0512_SEP 14 HT

XXXXXXXX

AUTUMN 14

FROM SECRETARY TO A BUSINESS LEGEND BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

72

AUTUMN 14

ENTREPRENEUR

For someone at the helm of one of the world’s leading providers of security equipment, Julie Kenny is not averse to taking the odd risk. It’s a strategy that has won her admirers and plaudits, writes Ken Oxley The business community of South Yorkshire is running out of superlatives for Julie Kenny. Inspirational, determined, a fantastic ambassador for women…you name it, Julie has been labelled it. In September, she was crowned Businesswoman of the year at the UK Private Business Awards. Quite impressive, you might think…but that accolade is just the latest of many recognising her achievements in a male-dominated industry.

In 2013 she was Vitalise Business Woman of the Year. In 2012 she won the Engineering and Manufacturing award at the First Women Awards. And in 2010 she won the PSI Premier Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Security Industry.

She has twice served as chairman of the Security Equipment Manufacturers’ Section of the British Security Industry Association; she was the first woman president of Rotherham Chamber of Commerce; former chairman of Yorkshire Forward and has served as High Sheriff of South Yorkshire.

Oh, and she was also awarded a CBE in 2002 and an Honorary Doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University in 2006.

You could forgive Julie for letting these plaudits go to her head. Yet I have rarely come across a more modest, down-to-earth interviewee.

“I’m not afraid to ask stupid questions,” admits the Chairman and CEO of Rotherham-based Pyronix, one of the world’s leading providers of security equipment, employing 165 staff.

“I try not to think of myself as a woman in a man’s world, but I do believe women think differently, which can be useful in a boardroom situation. And I’m not saying that we are better or worse… I am just saying the presence of a woman can add a different perspective.

“We don’t mind asking stupid questions for the sake of clarity. Men tend to be reluctant to do that – they worry about what others think.

“Yet whenever you do ask the seemingly stupid question, you can see others are glad you did.

“At the end of the day, if you don’t understand

something you have a duty to seek clarity because you have an obligation to reach a conclusion that is in everyone’s best interests.”

It’s exactly this type of straight talking that has won Julie so many admirers. Her rise from being a secretary to the boss of a multimillion pound business – remarkable though it is – has not changed her outlook on life, nor her philosophy, which remains “if I can do it, anyone can.”

Of her most recent award, she says: “I am absolutely thrilled to win, especially being up against such strong competition from pioneering and inspiring women at the forefront of their respective industries.

“Being recognised by the private business community is something I greatly appreciate.”

Julie, 57, began her working career as a junior secretary for a firm of solicitors in Cornwall, where her boss identified her flair for law.

She recalls: “I had an aptitude for it and picked it up quickly. My boss recognised that.

“I’ve had a couple of lucky breaks in my life – both of which have been delivered by men – and this was the first of them.

“My boss got it in his mind that he was going to create his own legal department and that I was going to be the legal clerk.

“He sent me on day release to get legally qualified. I knew that was a great opportunity, so I just grabbed it.“ Julie qualified as a litigation lawyer and practiced in local authorities and private law until 1986 when, just six weeks after getting married, life threw her an unexpected curve ball. She recalls: “I was a lawyer in Sheffield when my then husband, Paul, was made redundant from his job with a Rotherham company that provided external lighting.”

The blow left the newlyweds re-evaluating their options, resulting in a life-changing decision neither of them could have foreseen.

Julie says: “I just asked him what he wanted to do and he said he wanted to go it alone as a designer of security equipment.

73

“The problem was, he had no money to launch the business. However, I owned a house so I sold it and raised £28K equity, which we used to launch Pyronix.

“It was a big decision, but I just believed he could do it. He was a bright guy, and even though he had no formal engineering qualifications, he grew up messing about with things and learning how they worked – his father had been a university lecturer in mechanical engineering.”

Pyronix set out to become the UK’s leading manufacturer of security detectors and, says Julie, made some pretty smart early decisions, not least of all to invest in surface mount technology, an expensive but more efficient solution for printed circuit boards.

This made their product – which was also designed to be the world’s smallest – technologically superior to those of rivals, giving them a vital competitive edge.

Julie continued to work in law in those first few fledgling years as the business grew.

“I would finish my day job then go over to the factory to do some work there, so it was really 24/7 for the first three years,” she says.

She joined the business full time shortly after having her first child and played a pivotal role in growing it, eventually becoming Managing Director in 1995, although she had been in the role informally for a number of years.

However, another life-changing bombshell was just around the corner…this time on a much more personal level.

“In 1997 Paul had a relationship with someone else and left me and our three children, who were eight, five and three-and-a-half at the time,” says Julie.

“It was a horrible time, especially with the children being so young, but I was determined to keep the business going.

“Essentially, I had to buy Paul out and that meant me once again selling everything that moved – all the stuff I had accumulated over the years, with the exception of the house. >>

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

My advice to anyone starting out in business is to be true to your values and to be happy in what you are doing. There will be tough times, but you must stay focused and persevere.

Believe you can do it... and just do it!

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

74

AUTUMN 14

“It took six years for us to reach a settlement, which was far too long. But I believe that bad times always come to an end eventually, that there will be a resolution, so I did my best to remain positive for the sake of the children.”

Was there ever any danger of Julie handing control of the company over to her husband?

“Definitely not,” she insists, “this industry gets in your blood. As well as my role in Pyronix, I was involved with the British Security Industry Association and, ultimately, became chairman, so I had no intention of giving up my work.”

Since taking complete control of the business, Julie has faced more challenges along the way. The economic downturn, in particular, hit the business hard…but she refused to make staff redundant. Instead, in consultation with her workforce, she introduced a four-day week.

She explains: “It was a brave decision, but I knew we had to save money and felt it was important to keep our staff. I was confident the recession wouldn’t last, so what would be the point in making a third of the staff redundant then having to train people again when things picked up? “We agreed on a fourday week and we had to work harder…we had to sell, sell sell. I went around the world to see customers face-to-face because I needed to know what their own markets were like and take a view as to whether they could pay us.

“For the first three months of 2009, I was only in the UK two weeks. But the strategy worked and we actually grew 2% in the recession.

“After that things returned to normal and everyone got a pay rise. And now we are investing in R&D, taking on staff and aiming to significantly grow our export market. Last year our turnover was £18.5m and this year it will be £22m.”

While Julie’s down-to-earth management style has clearly paid off at Pyronix, some of the most valuable lessons she has learned were gained outside her normal working environment. For example, the second lucky break given to her by a man came when she was asked to join the board of Rotherham Training and Enterprise Council in the 90s.

She recalls: “At that time the Government insisted local boards involved in regeneration work included women and people from ethnic backgrounds.

ENTREPRENEUR

“There were only two companies in Rotherham run by women so they asked me. Of course, I knew I was the token woman but, as with law, I found I had an aptitude for the work, and I felt I was making a difference.

“After that I started to get involved in all sorts of things and found that, although I was contributing, I was learning a great deal too – lessons that I could take back to my own business.

“Now, whenever I talk to people about my story, I always say to them ‘get involved with other boards, or parent-teacher associations, or school governors, and you will learn.’

“These are organisations that you’re not the boss of. You can’t just tell people to do this or do that. So you learn to persuade and to listen, and to look strategically at something. It really is a massive learning opportunity.”

Julie also felt she learned valuable lessons throughout her year as South Yorkshire’s High Sheriff, which ended in March 2013.

Having cleared her diary and promoted her deputy at Pyronix to MD, she threw herself into her civic duties.

75

She says: “It was such an honour and a wonderful experience – I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

“I met so many amazing people – volunteers who make a massive difference to the lives of others. There was a very profound sign on the wall of a hospice in Doncaster that said it had benefited from 55,500 volunteer hours.

Without those volunteers, the hospice couldn’t have survived. I found that incredible and so humbling.”

With her year as a civic dignitary now firmly behind her – and yet another trophy in the cabinet – Julie is once again fully focused on growing the Pyronix brand.

She attributes her phenomenal success to having pounced on opportunities when they arose and, quite simply, to plain old hard graft.

She adds: “My advice to anyone starting out in business is to be true to your values and to be happy in what you are doing.

“There will be tough times – times when you have to dig deep. But you must stay focused and persevere. Believe in yourself. Believe you can do it…and just do it!” n

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

XXXXXXXX INTERVIEW

AUTUMN 14

£40M BOSS WANTED A PROPER JOB Not all entrepreneurs are dice-throwing risk takers, says Chris Clarke, who has stuck to his principles to grow his own national construction sector empire. Here he tells Andrew Mernin how he turned his last pennies into a £40m-a-year giant Chris Clarke doesn’t consider himself to be a true entrepreneur, given his aversion to debt and risk.

But the construction business he bought with the last £1,200 he possessed, which now has a turnover of £40m-plus, suggests otherwise.

Its annual 15% growth this year, with the economy still not firing on all cylinders, gives further evidence of his enterprising talent.

He founded Bradford-based construction, design and building services company HB Projects in 1989.

The opportunity came in a deal to rescue the business he had worked for before it collapsed during the late 1980s recession. At the time it was simply a way to cover his next mortgage payment, with no longer term plan in place.

It was, he says, two years before he thought about making a career from the company and employing his first member of staff.

Today HB, a main contractor specialising in construction, design and building across a range of sectors, has offices in Bradford and

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

Livingston near Edinburgh, and employs 135 people across its four associated businesses.

The company emerged from the ashes of Henry Barrett Projects, a project company bringing together the activities of around 40 businesses in the Henry Barrett Group plc, which civil and structural engineer Clarke had been headhunted to set up and run. When the recession hit and it went bust, the Projects business was handed over to the liquidators.

Clarke says: “I was retained by the liquidator to wind up the jobs that the clients had been left having to finish for themselves.

“It was during that period of three or four weeks that the idea came to me that I hadn’t got any method of paying my mortgage at the end of the month, and I had no other options.

So I thought maybe I could finish these jobs for the clients I had been working for.”

The remaining customer projects – the redevelopment of Heaton Tennis and Squash Club near Bradford, a fabric dyeing company extension and a number of smaller warehouse

76

and extension jobs for Asda – welcomed his plan and Clarke approached the liquidator with an offer to take over the business.

“I knew nobody had come forward to try to buy it and also that a liquidator has to accept any offer for an asset that it has for a plc if it represents a profit of transferring it,” he says.

“There had been an argument when the plc first went bust that as I’d been using my own credit card at the time to pay company bills, the receiver initially said he wasn’t going to pay me back for those, although eventually did.

“In the course of that argument I told the receiver that I’d only got £1,400 to my name, and that I couldn’t afford to lose the money I’d spent on his behalf. So he knew I had £1,400 when I came to the liquidator’s offices in Leeds, to buy the company. I offered £800 and the senior man said he would only accept £1,400.

“I said I couldn’t afford £1,400 and he said ‘why is that?’ In all honesty it was because I had to buy a suit for £200.

“So that was it – I paid £1,200 to them, >>

AUTUMN 14

77

XXXXXXXX INTERVIEW

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

INTERVIEW

AUTUMN 14

£200 on a suit, and that was me wiped out. I borrowed a car from my father to get around.

But then we went cash positive in week two of opening the company.”

Henry Barrett Projects became HB Projects and tackled the immediate cash flow crisis by negotiating with initial clients. Some, including Asda, have remained long term customers.

For the first two years, running the business alone, Clarke was convinced he would only stay at HB until he found a “proper job”.

Initial projects were small but then a £70,000 warehouse extension deal with Asda in Huddersfield was agreed.

“It felt like a really big project to be given in my own right,” he says.

“And I remember thinking at the time, ‘gosh maybe this is sustainable’. From then on we never looked back. The next project was about £130,000, the next was £200,000 and it steadily grew. I think our biggest project so far is about £5m which was at Wakefield Asda.”

Clarke admits the effects of the late ’80s recession have coloured the way he runs HB and his attitude to debt. Having never been out of work since graduating from university, Clarke was shocked at the prospect of redundancy and how quickly the whole house of cards can collapse in a matter of weeks.

“It was a formative thing that governed one of the main principles I’ve had throughout business, which is that I would never borrow a penny from anyone,” he says.

“If I was going to do it I would do it completely with my own money. And this year we’ll turn over £40m and we still never borrowed a penny from anyone to do it.”

Clarke initially paid himself a £14,000 salary to cover his mortgage and living expenses, and for the next 15 years left any profit in the company. Building up the business’s reserves, he says, means HB has never been ‘held to

ransom’ by clients trying to wriggle out of paying their full bill.

“A lot of contractors will accept a deal on offer because they need the cash flow, whereas we’ve never had to do that because we’re strong enough to say, ‘no that’s not right, that’s not fair’,” says Clarke.

In an industry where the average time from invoices going out to being paid is 30 to 60 days, with some of the larger clients taking up to three months to settle up, the approach has paid dividends. Having cash reserves is also important because HB has taken the quality first approach of directly employing a large proportion of the trades people it uses on its jobs. The company operates brickwork, damp works and joinery apprenticeships and has always needed sufficient cash in the kitty to meet its weekly wages bill.

Clarke admits his frugal approach has been criticised as non-entrepreneurial but he says he has never regretted it.

“Funnily enough, an awful lot of those voices that were critical of us not being entrepreneurial died away during the recession,” he said.

“And they haven’t really come back because anybody who was borrowing hard through the recession, when things started to go lean and dry up, they were really in trouble.

“I can remember consecutive years of banks telling me that we could grow quicker, we could take more projects on, if we didn’t have the restriction of only using our own money.

Of course that is absolutely true, but it carried a level of risk I wasn’t comfortable with.

“I wasn’t trying to be entrepreneurial – I was trying to lay the foundation for a business that would be there for a long time; to create security for myself and for anybody who was working here. I wasn’t too worried about being big, indeed I’m still not trying to be big, I’m

just trying to be good and known for delivering a good job, with quality and sincerity.”

HB’s expansion into retail, industrial, commercial and food sector work led to the formation of other businesses, initially set up to service HB, which remain part of the HB group. HBPW was formed around Clarke’s former colleague Paul Withers to provide quality design services; HBMS was built around Mick Smith, who Clarke regularly employed on cladding jobs, and HBCL was based around Craig Lovett to take care of food hygienerelated construction work.

Clarke says: “They were all really formed to serve HB projects but now do far more of their turnover for the industry at large. They are all separate limited companies but we share directors and shareholders.”

HB’s specialism in food and retail projects and its ability to carry out jobs while clients continued to operate their business proved key in helping to weather the recent recession.

Clarke, however, was dismayed by the way some companies attempted to “brutally” take advantage of construction firms and beat them down on price during the recession He says: “In my experience the best results come from old-fashioned business practices – but I don’t think of them as old-fashioned, I think they are true and timeless principles.”

HB works across the UK with a concentration on northern England and Scotland. This year, the company is on course to grow by 15% and it is seeing a return of demand from private sector and blue chip clients. Clarke believes HB’s current workload is evidence that the industry has now turned the corner.

At 52, he has “no plans whatsoever to exit the business” and still owns a 60% stake.

Not a bad nest egg for a man who only thought the business would last a couple of years until he found a “proper job”. n

I wasn’t trying to be entrepreneurial – I was trying to lay the foundation for a business that would be there for a long time; to create security for myself and anybody working here. I wasn’t worried about being big... I’m still not trying to be big

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

78

AUTUMN 14

79

XXXXXXXX

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

BIT OF A CHAT

AUTUMN 14

Tomlinson, the bank-bashing, race car making entrepreneur. Or what about an inspirational female leader – like this issue’s Business Lunch interviewee Linda Pollard (see page 44)? Suggestions on a postcard, or, better still, to the Government’s policy-shaping Northern Futures scheme which, apparently, will be listened to and acted upon, depending on next year’s general election.

with Frank Tock >> In a bit of a fix Sometimes in business you just have to tell your customers what they want to hear to keep them happy. And that goes for any trade, even Formula One – as former F1 engineer turned South Yorkshire entrepreneur Dan Fleetcroft told BQ in an interview.

In his trackside days, the co-founder of engineering firm PES Performance was regularly asked to carry out seat fits for the world’s best drivers. One particular superstar once asked him to move the pedals further away from his feet. The request was a physical impossibility, given the driver’s lanky frame.

But instead of telling him so, Dan crouched under the engine, banged his spanner around to suggest ‘fixing it’ sounds without adjusting so much as a nut. “How’s that?” he then asked the driver, “much better,” he happily replied.

>> Who will be our Boris?

In all the recent talk of northern powerhouses and wrestling economic dominance away from London, one burning question had not yet been approached until BQ hosted its latest live debate. As Eric Hawthorne, of Shipleybased tech firm Radio Designs asked the room: “If we’re going to have this new inter-connected region, who’s our Boris Johnson?” Immediate suggestions included Nick Clegg, Gary Verity, of Welcome to Yorkshire fame and Lawrence

BUSINESS QUARTER | XXXXX XX

>> Good guys are winning New research suggests it really does pay to be socially aware. A study claims that 40% of consumers feel personally ashamed about buying from businesses they know are socially irresponsible.

The poll, by Social Enterprise UK and the Cabinet Office, shows that people value businesses with a strong ethical and community focus. In Yorkshire and the Humber, 56% said they thought business should be legally obliged to report on the positive or negative impact they have on the communities they operate. Meanwhile, a separate survey by Santander has found that the majority (79%) of UK small to medium enterprises (SMEs) agree that social enterprises have some commercial advantages over traditional businesses.

The research shows that social enterprises are growing faster than traditional SMEs, with 38% reporting an increase in their turnover in 2013 compared with 29% of SMEs. More than six times as many SMEs in the Santander survey agreed, than disagreed, that social enterprises have better relationships with their customers. If such figures are to be believed, there really are no excuses left for not being socially aware in business.

>> Dragon calls the tune When the Dragon’s Den cameras stop rolling, cynics might think that the reality of “having a Dragon on board” is far less rosy than the TV show suggests. And, in fact, BQ has reported over the years on tales of agreed deals falling once small print has been read, while there are also plenty of failed

80

investments now gathering dust. But Levi Roots insists his remaining Dragon Peter Jones has not lost any of the vigour for his Reggae Reggae business. Speaking to us ahead of an event in Sheffield, he said he and Peter actually still share an office. And they remain as thick as thieves. “I’ve got the guitar, singing the songs and bringing people in to buy the products.

But Peter’s there at the end of the room with the books and pen saying ‘Levi, they may be singing the songs, but let’s have a look at the numbers’.” And those numbers are looking pretty healthy, with the brand currently in the throes of global expansion. Proof, if needed, of the power of an interested and knowledgeable mentor in business.

>> Keeping it local?

Next time you’re in Leeds city centre, watch out for a sharp-suited Italian shaking his head angrily at a passing bus.

It might be Enrico Vassallo, CEO of Leeds bus manufacturer Optare who admitted to BQ recently his sheer frustration at the fact that Leeds’ transport system is populated by buses made, not in Yorkshire at his plant, but in Turkey. Such situations raise the question of, to what extent, local authorities should aim to use local suppliers. In Hull an argument broke out in newsprint in August over this issue between the council and business leaders.

Pete Smurthwaite of PBS Construction was the latest to raise concerns, after Galliford Try was awarded a string of contracts his Hull firm might have potentially managed. An earlier criticism from engineering boss Daniel Roche suggested firms winning council contracts were then farming work out to companies outside Hull. The authority responded by saying 56% of spending was with local suppliers – the fourth highest in Yorkshire.

Public authorities walk a thin line between getting the best deal for their taxpayers and supporting local businesses. But with infrastructural spending set to rise, expect similar tensions elsewhere in the coming months.

BREAKFAS T SIGN UP TO YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION OF BQ BREAKFAST.

BREAKFAS T YORKSHIRE

WIN £10K FREE

ADVERTISING* WITH

SIMPLY REGISTER TO RECEIVE YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION OF BQ BREAKFAST AT BQLIVE.CO.UK FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN. BQ BREAKFAST IS YOUR DAILY DIGITAL BULLETIN PROVIDING BUSINESS NEWS ANALYSIS, BUSINESS STORIES AND EVENTS. *TERMS & CONDITIONS APPLY

EVENTS

AUTUMN 14

BQ’s business events diary gives you lots of time to forward plan. If you wish to add your event to the list send it to editor@bq-yorkshire.co.uk and please put ‘BQ events page’ in the subject heading

OCTOBER 2 Mock Corporate Manslaughter Trial, 5.30pm, Sheffield Crown Court 1 South Quay, Sheffield, 0113 243 0152 www.iod.com/connecting/events/mockcorporate-manslaughter-trial-sheffield-crown-court 2 Pure Networking; a breakfast networking event, 7.30am, Bremner Suite, Leeds United Football Club, Elland Road, Leeds, LS11 0ES, 0113 247 0000, clare.jones@leedschamber.co.uk 2 Bootcamp – Business Improvement Bootcamp, 9.30am, Cedar Court Hotel, Harrogate, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 2 Marketing on a shoestring, 10am til 12 noon, Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, 2nd floor, Elizabeth House, 13 – 19 Queen Street, Leeds, LS1 2TW, 0113 247 0000 3 Chamber Annual Lunch (Leeds), 12 noon, The Queen’s Hotel, City Square, Leeds, LS1 1PL, 01904 567 838 7 Masterclass – Social Media for Business, 9.30am, Copper Dragon Brewery, Skipton, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 7 City Region Business Breakfast (a joint initiative between The Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce, Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, Doncaster Chamber of Commerce and Derbyshire & North Nott’s Chamber of Commerce), 7.30am, Tankersley Manor, Church Lane, Barnsley, www.scci.org.uk 8 Fast Track to Growth – Sheffield – free interactive workshop, 2pm, Aizelwoods Mill, Nursery Street, Sheffield, register here: http://www.growthaccelerator.com/ events/jb-aizlewood-8-10-14/ 8 How to write a great blog that brings you business, 9.30am til 4.30pm, The Ron Cooke Hub, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5GE, cpd@york.ac.uk, 01904 435 213 9 Keighley Business Network, Keighley Cougars, Cougar Park, Royd Ings Avenue, Keighley, BD21 3RF, 01274 206660 9 Sheffield Chamber of Commerce Presidents Annual Dinner, 7pm, Church Street, Sheffield, www.scci.org.uk 16 Masterclass – First Steps in Cloud Computing, 9.30am, Mercure Fairfield Manor Hotel, York, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk

6 Training Course – Gateway to Export, 9.30am, The Ron Cooke Hub, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5GE, cpd@york.ac.uk, 01904 435 213 11 Masterclass – Social Media for Business, 9.30am, Cedar Court Hotel, Harrogate, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 18 Masterclass – Get More Enquiries from your Website, 9.30am, National Railway Museum, York, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 19 Pure Networking in York, 7.30am, Loch Fyne Restaurant, Foss Bridge House, Walmgate, York, YO1 9TJ, 01904 567838 20 Masterclass – LinkedIn (Online Networking and Lead Generation), 9.30am, Copper Dragon Brewery, Skipton, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 21 Chamber Annual Dinner (Bradford), 6.45pm, Cedar Court Hotel Bradford, Mayo Avenue, Off Rooley Lane, Bradford, BD5 8HR, 01274 206660 25 Business Lunch in Harrogate, 12 noon, Imperial Suite, Bettys Harrogate, Prospect Place, Harrogate, HG1 1LA, 01904 567838 27 Construction Lunch, 12 noon, Headingley Experience, Headingley Carnegie Stadium, St Michaels Lane, Headingley, Leeds, LS6 3BR, 0113 247 0000

DECEMBER 1 York Property Forum, The Royal York Hotel, Station Road, York, YO24 1AA, 01904 567838 2 Masterclass – Social Media for Business, 9.30am, Mercure Fairfield Manor Hotel, York, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 3 Bootcamp – Business Improvement Bootcamp, 9.30am, Cedar Court Hotel, Harrogate, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 3 Keighley Business Network, 8am, Keighley Cougars, Cougar Park, Royd Ings Avenue, Keighley, BD21 3RF, 01274 206660 4 Masterclass – Search Engine Optimisation, 9.30am, Evolution Business Centre, Northallerton, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk

16 Social Media – How it Works, 10am, Leeds Chamber of Commerce, 2nd floor, Elizabeth House, 13 – 19 Queen Street, Leeds, LS1 2TW, 0113 247 0000 17 Construction Lunch, 12 noon, Sandburn Hall, Flaxton, York, YO6 7RB, 01904 567 838 21 Masterclass – LinkedIn (Online Networking and Lead Generation) Woodend Centre, Scarborough 09:30 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 23 Masterclass – Get More Enquiries from your Website Evolution Business Centre, Northallerton 09:30 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 28 Masterclass – Search Engine Optimisation, 9.30am, Innovate Business Centre, near Richmond, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk

NOVEMBER 4 Masterclass – Preparing to Win (Contracts and Tenders), 9.30am, Cedar Court Hotel, Harrogate, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 5 Cereal Networking, 8am, Bradford Chamber of Commerce, Devere House, Vicar Lane, Little Germany, Bradford, BD1 5AH, 01274 206660 5 Business Lunch in York, Holiday Inn York, Tadcaster Road, Dringhouse, York, YO23 1QF, 01904 567 838

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 14

6 Bootcamp – Digital Marketing Bootcamp, 9.30am, Evolution Business Centre, Northallerton, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk

4 Pure Networking, 7.30am, Leeds United Football Club - Bremner Suite, West Stand, Elland Road, Leeds, LS11 0ES, 0113 247 0000, clare.jones@leedschamber.co.uk 9 Masterclass – Get More Enquiries from your Website, 9.30am, Talbot Hotel, Malton, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 11 Masterclass – LinkedIn (Online Networking and Lead Generation), 9.30am, Cedar Court Hotel, Harrogate, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk 12 Chamber Annual Lunch York, 12 noon, The Royal York Hotel, Station Road, York, YO24 1AA, 01904 567838 16 Masterclass – Practical PR, 9.30am, National Railway Museum, York, 0845 002 0021 enquiries@sfny.co.uk www.sfny.co.uk

The diary is updated daily online at www.bq-magazine.co.uk Please check with contacts beforehand that arrangements have not changed. Events organisers are also asked to notify us at the above email address of any changes or cancellations as soon as they are known.

82

HAVE YOU BOOKED YOUR CHRISTMAS PARTY YET ?

• Festive party nights starting from £34.95 • 3 course choice menu and entertainment provided by our resident DJ. Midweek dates and exclusive use • Tribute Nights from £41.95 – includes 3 course choice menu, tribute act and resident DJ. Fridays & Saturdays.

• Butlers Ultimate Christmas Experience £59

www.devere-hotels.co.uk/oultonhall christmas.oulton@devere-hotels.com 0871 222 4690 to book Calls cost 10p per minute plus network extras