BQ Yorkshire Summer 2016

BUSINESS QUARTER

Yorkshire: Summer 2016

Celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship

University challenge

We talk to Karen Stanton, York St John University’s new VC

Dreamy creamery Profile of the mecca for cheese lovers

Marxist capitalist Simon Biltcliffe has a unique business philosophy

£4.95 Business Quarter Magazine

Yorkshire: Summer 2016

Kitchen genius Michael O’Hare - rewriting the culinary rules

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CELEBRATING 100 EDITIONS OF

ACROSS THE UK

BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk

EDITOR’S VIEW YORKSHIRE ISSUE 29 With all the food and drink we have in this latest edition of BQ Yorkshire, we are certainly ready for a party – and now we have the perfect reason.

The magazine you are reading is the 100th BQ has produced – so happy birthday to us!

From Yorkshire, the West Midlands, Scotland and the North East we have brought you hundreds of indepth profiles of entrepreneurs and the people who help turn their dreams to reality.

We are the only magazine which specifically targets those young businesses that will one day be the cornerstone of thriving regional economies – and we thank you, our readers, in print and online at bqlive.co.uk, for sharing your stories and supporting in such numbers what we are doing. Here’s to the next 100!

As mentioned, in this BQ Yorkshire we turn our attention to the food and drink sector, headlined by one of the most innovative chefs in the country – Michael O’Hare, who has already earned a Michelin star for The Man Behind the Curtain in Leeds. Every food-lover is watching what he will do next, so find out what he told me inside.

I also look at the art of drinking from the point of view of master wine merchant James Goodhart at Bon Coeur wines in Melsonby and the bright future for one of our iconic food brands – Wensleydale Creamery at Hawes where MD David Hartley is just crackers for cheese.

And then over a Business Lunch, I discuss the future direction of the legal sector with one of its most high-profile figures in Yorkshire, Roger Hutton, senior partner at Clarion Law. If you’re still hungry for more, how about the fascinating Simon Biltcliffe, who has mixed Marxism and Capitalism to produce his ideal way of working at print specialists Webmart.... or some essential advice on exporting from Mark Robson at the UKTI. And to bring us right up to date, we’ve got reaction from some of Yorkshire’s leading entrepreneurs on the result of the EU vote.

As always - plenty to read and hopefully plenty to learn.

Keep in touch.

MIKE HUGHES Editor

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Celebrating 100 EDITIONS “Proudly celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship across the UK. My thanks to all who have contributed to our journey over the last 100 editions and I look forward to supporting many more of you going forward.”

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CONTENTS 32

Summer 16

DREAMY CREAMERY How Yorkshire’s favourite cheese was saved for the world

26 UNIVERSIT Y CHALLENGE Interview with Karen Stanton, new VC of York St John University

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BOTTLING SUCCESS

Uncorking a tale of wine enterprise

A MARXIST C APITALIS T

Simon Biltcliffe explains his philosophy of life and business

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LIFT AS YOU CLIMB

Victoria Davey, partner at law firm Gordons, on lending a helping hand

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Celebrating and inspir ing entrepreneurship

FEATURES

REGULARS

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AS I SEE IT Victoria Davey, partner at law firm Gordons on mentoring women in business

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BUSINESS UPDATE Round up of Yorkshire’s business activity in the quarter

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CULINARY GENIUS Mike Hughes meets Michael O’Hare Michelin-starred innovative chef

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INSIGHT PD Ports on how important location is

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COMMERCIAL PROPERT Y Who’s building what, where and when

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BUSINESS LUNCH Mike Hughes discusses the changing face of law with Clarion’s Roger Hutton

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ON WINE Simon Young’s burgundian love affair

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DEGREE OF VISION Karen Stanton a VC with a vision for potential L O YA L T Y A N D L O C A T I O N A cheesy story of Wensleydale’s iconic Yorkshire brand

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INJECTING INNOVATION Interview with Nuffield Health’s York Hospital director Matt Lamb

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10 0 M P H I N N O V A T O R Simon Biltcliffe and a blend of marxism and capitalism

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EXPOR TERS - THE NEXT GENERATION Interview with UKTI’s Mark Robson

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BUSINESS LUNCH Mike Hughes discusses the changing face of law with Clarion’s Roger Hutton

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WATCHES FOR OUR TIME Swiss watches find new ways to make a statement

ENTREPRENEUR’S GUIDE TO FINANCE Firms on the go, thanks to Let’s Grow

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BUSINESS UPDATE Marco’s new home Above is the latest views of the new Leeds base for chef Marco Pierre White – part of the regeneration of one of Leeds’ best known hotels. It shows how the development on the former site of the Merrion Hotel will look once work at the landmark scheme – a key part of the city’s Arena Quarter - has been completed

by GMI Construction. Town Centre Securities, owner of the Merrion Centre, has franchise agreements for the Ibis Styles hotel with AccorHotels, the world’s leading hotel operator, and Black & White Hospitality, which owns the Marco’s New York Italian brand.

Leeds-born celebrity chef Marco Pierre White will open his first-ever restaurant in Leeds as part of the development - on the ground floor of a new modern two-storey extension which will front onto Wade Lane.

The hotel, which will feature a Yorkshire-themed reception area, and Marco’s New York Italian are set to be completed in spring 2017.

Very attractive University of Sheffield spin-out Magnomatics, the world-leading manufacturer of magnetic gears, has won the 2016 Made in Sheffield innovation award for two products, Pseudo Direct Drive, a high-torque motor and generator

and MAGSPLIT, a transmission system for hybrid vehicles. The award also recognised the company’s passion for inspiring future generations of engineers, providing interview coaching, mentoring and industrial placements to the region’s young engineers. Magnomatics’ connection with Sheffield-based Workwise has helped over 40 young people through coaching and work experience placements.

An international reputation UK Export Finance’s export finance adviser for Yorkshire and the Humber has earned the Institute of Export’s Diploma in International Trade. Paul Wright joined eight other UK Export Finance staff at a graduation ceremony held in London and said: “I am delighted to receive my diploma and look forward to using the knowledge and contacts I have gained through this course, continuing to support exporters in Yorkshire and the Humber.”

UKEF’s Export Finance Advisers work directly with businesses and intermediaries, guiding them to the support available from the Government and from the private sector.

Marco’s coming home: How Marco Pierre White’s new restaurant will look

It pays to be outdoors Sheffield, which launched as The Outdoor City last year and this year published an Outdoor Economic Strategy, has adopted the city motto ‘It pays to be outdoors’ to press home the message to investors. The new campaign will support and promote the people, places, businesses and events that help grow participation in outdoor activities, conserve Sheffield’s green open spaces and attract and retain talent and trade to the city.

It’s a rich seam to tap into, with the outdoor industry generating £53m a year for the city, and providing more than 1,500 jobs.

New business model for JLL A collection of three life-size Lego people was unveiled in Leeds by property consultants JLL. The triathlon-inspired sculptures, made from 135,000 bricks, mark JLL’s sponsorship of the Columbia Threadneedle World Triathlon in the city. Jeff Pearey, lead director of JLL’s Leeds office, said: “The sport of triathlon is becoming the new golf in the business world and supports our aim as an organisation to provide a rounded environment for all. It’s a great way to engage employees and clients in an event that encourages teamwork and healthy competition.”

BUSINESS UPDATE www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

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Hull Fruit Market? Google it.

Internet giant Google has been in Hull working with one of its new partners, digital agency Strawberry. Representatives from a number of local businesses took part in a masterclass in online advertising with Google UK’s Guy Littlejohn at the new C4Di building in Hull’s Fruit Market. Strawberry director James Greenwood said: “We’ve worked hard to be able to earn our Google partnership badge and now we’ve got it, it’s great to share the insights and knowledge we gain with the local business community. Strawberry have always been early adopters of digital and the partnership allows that to continue.”

QUOTE OF THE QUARTER I’m not going off and buying a yacht anytime soon, but I have enough for anything I could reasonably want and it gives me this surplus profit that I can do fantastically unusual things with.

Simon Biltcliffe, CEO of Webmart

Eddisons bid secures Pugh deal Leeds-based national property consultant Eddisons has strengthened its property auctions division with the acquisition of the UK’s largest auction house outside London, North West-based Pugh & Co, for an initial £2m cash sum.

Established in 1991 and hosting auctions in Leeds and Manchester, Pugh & Co offer more lots for sale than any other commercial auction house outside the capital. The acquisition will see Eddisons’ auction division and Pugh & Co, who together sold over £100m of property at auction last year, run monthly auctions in Leeds and Manchester under the Pugh brand, with a combined team of 36.

WEBSITE OF THE QUARTER Accolade for new chef A Harrogate newcomer, Restaurant 92, has been named by The Sunday Times as one of the UK’s 25 best value fine dining restaurants. Chef Michael Carr, 23, who worked alongside Gordon Ramsay at a number of his restaurants, has scooped rave reviews since launching just a few months ago and said: “The response we’ve had from our customers so far has been awesome and to be recognised in this ranking is absolutely fantastic. We’ve only just started on our journey and we have big ambitions. We want to make sure the people of Harrogate have something really special on their doorstep.”

answerthepublic.com.

Fascinating and valuable aggregator of how potential customers are phrasing their web searches

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BUSINESS UPDATE www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

TOP TWEETS 5 trips to Yorkshire next season. Not sure my bank balance can deal with it. Let alone 21 trips to Villa Park. @charlie_cox6 Fabulous result @HullCity what a year it’s going to be @2017Hull @HullTruck we are on the up!!! - @MarkBabych #biscuitcriteria in Yorkshire: today’s count includes ginger biscuits & Tesco’s finest spicy dark choc cookie - @ProfSallyBrown In the wild, a Ste McCormick can smell an injured Yorkshire pudding up to twenty miles away. - @SteMcCormick Just saw a Yorkshire Tea pop-up van...

Future career goals. - @FakeLilyDixon The #ghost of St Hilda, who is seen wearing a shroud at a window in Whitby Abbey, #Yorkshire, was mentioned in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. - @RussellGrantcom £3m grant to put people & heritage at heart of Hull City of Culture 2017 - @heritagelottery

The Siemens development in Hull has taken another big step forward with the company awarding a four-year £43m contract for the supply and deployment of cranes, specialised transport equipment and personnel. The deal with UK-based ALE covers Siemens’ harbour-based offshore wind sites in the UK and Germany, with three quarters of the contract value relating to UK offshore projects involving blade export or pre-assembly at the new facilities in Hull.

Clark MacFarlane, Managing Director of the Wind Power Division at Siemens, said: This is a great step for our development in Hull and the offshore industry in the UK, and given the high proportion of the work that will take place here, we are delighted to be able to appoint a British company.”

Working with Associated British Ports, Siemens is investing £310m in the development, which will create 1,000 direct jobs and many more during the construction phase and in the supply chain.

Boost for construction skills

The Minster-inspired @Welcome2Yorks #RHSChelsea garden has been voted the BBC RHS People’s Choice! @York_Minster

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The Department for Work and Pensions has teamed up with housing and community regeneration specialist, Keepmoat, to launch a new initiative in Doncaster tackling the skills crisis in construction. The new partnership invited local Doncaster NEET residents to get work experience on the Carr Lodge home scheme at Dominion over a four-week period. They will work with a range of subcontractors to understand each of the particular roles in more depth, and develop their own skills.

Matthew Lawrie of Keepmoat, said: “There is a well-documented skills crisis in the construction industry and we are passionate about working with local schools and colleges to maximise interest in the field.”

SEDBERGH SCHOOL

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Growing Gazelles The board of entrepreneurs support group Connect Gazelles has approved a growth plan from its new operations director, Sophie Patton.

Nick Butler, CEO said “Sophie has made a major contribution to Connect Gazelles and has a plan to accelerate the growth of Connect Gazelles while continuing to provide advice and support to Yorkshire’s growing businesses. I am confident that she will play a major role long into the future” Sophie, 28, studied at Leeds Met University and has only been with the Gazelles for three years.

Vision of new market A vision for Scarborough Market Hall has been produced by Leeds-based architecture practice Group Ginger and Scarborough Borough Council, alongside work from Esh Construction.

Following extensive consultation with past and present traders, the interpretation of Victorian and 1930s arcade architecture will be immediately familiar to local people.

Group Ginger’s Simon Baker said: “The £2.7m investment in Scarborough Market is indicative of a trend emerging in the North of England, with public bodies increasingly choosing to invest in supporting independent retail businesses in a drive to combat the lure of online shopping.

There remains a great deal of affection for markets amongst the general public which town and city centres - not only Scarborough but also Leeds, Bradford, Barnsley and elsewhere - are well placed to capitalise on by investing in their assets.”

FACT OF THE QUARTER The UKTI’s target figure for UK exports by 2020 is £1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion or 1,000 billion)

Theatre work is centre-stage

XBlades provides Carnegie haul Yorkshire Carnegie will be sporting the name of a new kit supplier in the form of fellow Yorkshire business XBlades Sports. The five-year deal will see the Doncaster based company design, manufacture and supply the Greene King IPA Championship Rugby Union club with all of their home and away kits as well as leisure and training wear. XBlades CEO Lee Jenkinson said: “Although XBlades was established over 25 years ago in Australia, we’ve only been trading in the UK since 2012 and since then the brand has flourished.

“Landing the Yorkshire Carnegie contract is an amazing opportunity, we can now add the club to our impressive list of partners, which includes Gloucester Rugby, Leeds Rhinos, Cronulla Sharks, Parramatta Eels and Castleford Tigers.

Brandon Medical, the Leeds-based manufacturer of operating theatre lighting and equipment led by MD Graeme Hall, has seen a surge in overseas orders with exports now accounting for 45% of sales for the £6m turnover business.

This is a 17% increase on the previous year and growth has been fuelled by the appointment of a network of a new distributors covering the major Asia Pacific countries, as well as substantial growth in the Middle East and Latin American markets, with large orders worth over £340,000 from healthcare and medical technology companies in Colombia and Mexico.

Brandon Medical moved to 50,000 sq ft premises in Morley two years ago, following a £2.5 million investment. The facility, which was opened by HRH Princess Anne, allowed the company to double its manufacturing capacity and it now employs a 48-strong workforce.

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AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

Take time to lift as you climb Victoria Davey, partner and head of operations at Yorkshire law firm Gordons, discusses the importance of mentoring women in business

AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

There are various schools of thought about the best way to achieve gender equality. All have merits and should be acknowledged in the debate about making this an important business issue. We have to improve the gender equality of the talent pool at all levels, not just in the boardroom. We need a pipeline from which to recruit and promote to achieve parity. As a member of Gordons’ executive board and the most senior woman in the firm’s 170 year history, I know that I have not attained this without encouragement, inspiration and support, without ever formally labelling it as mentoring.

However, the gender imbalance means that we do have to be more explicit about helping others and how we do it. The message that Heather Jackson and her colleagues at Inspirational Journey, an organisation which aims to promote gender equality in the corporate world, clearly communicate is “lift as you climb.”

For me, this perfectly summarises what I have a responsibility to do. I have no intention of being the woman who has climbed the corporate ladder only to pull it up quickly behind her. I have never met a business leader who hasn’t been inspired along the way by another person.

That influence and inspiration can come from all walks of life, but the single most important outcome has to be what impact you can have on helping others achieve their full potential.

So is this about running a formal mentoring programme? In some cases yes, but I don’t think that works for everyone. I have spoken to many business leaders who tell me that when they have set up structured mentoring programmes this has not always had the desired effect.

This can be through a mismatching of mentors/ mentees or failing to create an environment where the mentee can truly open up about what their personal challenges are. This is about time, honesty, involvement and networks.

If you want to help someone you have to invest the time. Helping someone means getting to know them, and I don’t believe this is best achieved by formal meetings. The people who have inspired me the most have taken time to get to know and understand me.

So I am not for undertaking endless formal appraisals, slotting in short appointments in calendars or sitting in a meeting room asking people what they want to discuss. I want to get to know people without ever mentioning the word ‘mentoring’.

It is well documented that women are not good at promoting their abilities. I have experienced women telling me they don’t feel ready for a certain challenge and even putting forward a colleague who, they feel, is better placed than them. Sometimes it takes time to convince them they can do it, but that time investment is worth it. If they won’t promote their own successes, find out what they are, let them know you are aware and share their successes more widely. If you are helping someone unlock their talent and ability you have to know what that is.

If you are going to help someone reach their full potential sometimes you will have to say something they don’t want to hear. You have to give constructive feedback and be honest.

Be straightforward about what they could do differently, but also be prepared to be honest about yourself.

We’ve all made mistakes, I still do. There are so many situations I know I could have handled differently or better and I have no problem with

15

encourage women to not wait to be asked. We all need a little help but we also have to take personal responsibility for our own careers. So I want others to put themselves forward but my role is to help them not only find a voice, but also be heard. Finally, I cannot underestimate the importance of networking, internally and externally. You shouldn’t be expecting to be promoted if you are not taking the time to get to know your colleagues. You have to be visible and take an interest in others in the work place.

I encourage people to get to know their colleagues and try to bring different groups together at all levels of the business, in different projects. Everyone benefits from a group who will help each other out when work or just life requires it. This has made such a difference to my career. The support and strength you can give and receive from these networks is immense.

An external perspective on business and life is equally important. It is only when you open yourself up to this that you find there are many

“I have no intention of being the woman who has climbed the corporate ladder only to pull it up quickly behind her”

sharing these. If you are mentoring someone else it is reassuring to show your own vulnerability and acknowledge that you don’t always get it right. This can be very helpful in building confidence and rapport. Help others understand what they actually want to achieve. This isn’t about getting every woman a seat on the board. I could name many women I know who make great contributions but do not want that position. Instead help them unleash their talent and ability to reach whatever level they honestly want to achieve.

For me, the best way to encourage others to better understand their abilities is to involve them. This can range from assigning simple projects to giving them bigger personal challenges. I don’t do this as a formal mentoring objective but just ask someone if they could take on a specific responsibility.

Sometimes this will result from a conversation where they’ve identified that they lack experience in a certain area or that they want to be pushed out of their comfort zone. It is important to

women out there willing to help or wanting help themselves. This network can provide invaluable guidance and advice. I have found it more beneficial to develop my own contacts rather than through networking groups but that does take more time to develop.

Whilst much of what I say relates to women helping women, I have had great male influences in my career. Your mentor can come from anywhere and does not need to be a woman.

This is about finding the person who inspires you to want to be the best version of yourself.

Someone who is willing to share what they know without any agenda other than helping you realise you can do more than you thought possible.

The American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Helping someone else feel that their ambition is possible and helping them realise it is immensely satisfying. n

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EU REACTION bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

WHY YORKSHIRE IS

BQ Yorkshire Editor Mike Hughes looks at the EU vote and what is now needed Running a company in Yorkshire involves many challenges, but trading from outside the EU probably wasn’t on anyone’s list of potential issues.

But the nation has spoken and here we are – preparing to look inside from outside for the first time since 1 January 1973. It is a groundbreaking new era for every business large or small and some will fall by the wayside as exchange rates twist and turn and the safety net of a perceived but largely non-existent collaboration is removed.

But this is now our new landscape and so many times before in Yorkshire change has come at us with frightening speed and we have coped.

We have taken the hit, regrouped and made the most of our new surroundings and you will now see us do it all over again.

The understandable fear comes from not knowing anything other than the EU. BQ deals with so many Yorkshire firms who were born under EU rule and have now been given a freedom they are not sure they want. But just because we have always had Europe’s crutches doesn’t mean we can’t stand tall without them.

There is formidable industrial firepower in this inspiring county, enough to take on the world, and that is what we now need to do - again.

The only option for true Yorkshire entrepreneurs is to let the dust settle, have a pint and a pie and start work. Here we ask some of BQ’s finest to give us their opinion of a vote for change.

“There is formidable industrial firepower in this inspiring county, enough to take on the world, and that is what we now need to do - again”

DOMINIC COLENSO

ADAM COX

Dominic Colenso is a former film and TV actor who now runs In Flow Training, which teaches teamwork, leadership and presentation skills to individuals and businesses. He told BQ Yorkshire: “I was surprised by it and it certainly throws up a lot of challenges for businesses with the level of uncertainty it has created.

“As a service provider, some things are going to go down on people’s list of priorities now until we get a better sense of where we are going.

But in these sorts of times communication is more important than ever because when we are leading people through change we need to be clear on our intentions, so after the initial shock, there is opportunity here for us to build bridges and turn the uncertainty into a positive.”

As an expert in presentation skills, Dominic was interested in the Cameron exit speech on the steps of Number Ten. “I thought ‘wow, what a difficult message to have to deliver’ but he did a very good job. It was a very human speech in which you could see the clear emotion. It was balanced and conciliatory and I take my hat off to him for restraining that emotion.”

Adam Cox, owner and MD of Cavendish Pianos at Bolton Abbey, was “surprised and worried” by the decision. “Turmoil is a very big word - I have spoken to a lot of business people and we can’t see how it will affect us directly.

I have just returned from the Euros and saw Sweden play Belgium and Iceland play Hungary and there was a lot of talk about Brexit from a real cross-section of people.

Everyone there thought it would be madness for the UK to leave.

“There might be some positives, like house prices coming down for the next generation and maybe we could even get a handle on the big corporate tax-avoiders.

“But this will take years to come through, so it is very difficult for businesses to say whether their situation will be worse, better or the same.”

FREYA BASS Freya Bass (right), the 25-year-old entrepreneur who runs the Handbag Spa which cleans, restores and refurbishes luxury goods, said her whole team in Harrogate was shocked by what had happened, but she was still in a confident

EU REACTION bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

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READY FOR CHANGE mood.“I voted Remain and we were all pretty sure that was what would happen so I think it is a sad day that we are not now united. “But we are British, so we will keep pressing on!”

ROWENA JOHNSON Rowena Johnson runs two businesses, Bugbrush, which makes an infant-friendly toothbrush, and Essence of Peru, which sells handmade Peruvian clothing and goods. She was shocked by the decision to leave the EU. “It was a horrendous morning and I was absolutely mortified,” she said.

“The economic impact across the UK is terrible and for me personally it is awful because I have my Bugbrush manufacture in China and the cost of buying that product has just gone up by ten per cent. Luckily I invoice a lot of customers in US dollars but the cost to the British customers of me getting the product over here has risen.

“Essence of Peru is an import business and I pay in US dollars, so the cost of all my stock has gone up. But we just have to take this all on board and put our prices up slightly just to absorb the hit.”

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EU REACTION bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

“We have been moseying along for so long now with people banging the drum and complaining about certain issues this is our chance to control those things”

JOE CARNELL Joe Carnell is the entrepreneur behind the Ugot healthy eating brand, which was built on a background of multi-culturalism. He told BQY “For me it seemed obvious that we should remain, because I didn’t want to take a step in the wrong direction and brush aside all that we had achieved in the EU. But we now have to stay united and look forward to what will unravel over the next few months.

“Almost everything we use at Ugot is from within the UK, so that gives us a level of protection from the import and export implications, but we are looking to expand in Europe so we hope for some stability.”

CRAIG BENTON Craig Benton is a serial entrepreneur and the director of the London Deli Company. For him, leaving the EU was the right decision.

“It was important for my company to look beyond the scaremongering and get to the facts and figures,” he said. “In a way there is a freedom now, but we don’t do much trade in Europe because we are already taxed and penalised so much for going across it with shipments and we still find a lot of anti-UK feeling out there. But there are opportunities there and I am still looking ahead with confidence. We have been moseying along for so long now with people banging the drum and complaining about certain issues - this is our chance to control those things.”

EU REACTION bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

“We will now have a free market again and I think that is a refreshing change and positive for a lot of businesses.”

DAVE CLARKSON Dave Clarkson works with entrepreneurs throughout Yorkshire in his role as Business Development Director at Armstrong Watson on South Parade in Leeds. He voted to leave, but was still shocked by the result.

“I am not speaking on behalf of the business, but I have seen clients upping their orders before the Brexit decision and others saying that after a few days it won’t make any difference at all.

“There is the immediate shock of the enormity of what has happened, but the real instinct inside me is that we have two years of transition yet to take everything in and know what we are looking at.

“Our job now is to help our clients make some sense out of it and plan to move forward. The vast majority of people we deal with are not there because of handouts from the EU, they are entrepreneurial businesses who have been through highs and lows before.

“My main reason for voting out is that if I create a new product, I have to go to the European market who will tell me how much they will pay and that they only want 200 anyway. I don’t want anyone dictating to me at what price I can sell something to other people.

JAMIE ROBINSON Jamie Robinson works with his brothers Ashley and Nick in their Keighley-based nursery product design firm Bababing! He said: “Personally, I am always a glass half-full person, but I have been desperate to export Bababing! products into Europe, but they have been very protective of their borders even though we consume far more from them than they ever consume from us.

“There are people in all this who may be more educated than me, but make things far more complicated. Business can be relatively simple – if I have a product that I think is good enough I can take it wherever I want in the world and if they want it, they can buy it whether we are in or out.”

ROGER HUTTON Roger Hutton is joint managing partner with Clarion Law in Leeds and was among many who thought that staying in was better for trade and the economy generally. “The landscape has been completely changed and there is now a new set of winners and losers,” he said.

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“Some of my clients will think this is a great result and others will fear a very negative impact in their businesses and their employees. There is a complete unknown about the stability of the country for the next few months, so I was so disappointed that there was no coherent argument from Corbyn or Cameron that anyone could understand. In the end I think the vast majority of the vote was one of emotion rather than reason, which is perhaps not the best way for the future of the country to be determined.

“From a lawyer in Leeds you will get two things happening – you will get a lot of people retrenching through a lack of confidence and a raft of opportunistic people who will grab some wins from the chaos and uncertainty.

“It will certainly mean Clarion being a lot busier helping people cope with the change and as a law firm, there will also be a whole set of new legislation changing on a regular basis and it will be part of our game to get up to speed with that and understand the ramifications.

“From a very personal point of view, I think of my daughter growing up with her own family in 20, 30 or 40 years’ time and whether she will be living on an island that is strategically isolated and doesn’t have the global clout it used to have.” n

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Mike Hughes meets Michelin-starred Michael O’Hare, one of the country’s most innovative chefs, who is rewriting the rules from his Leeds restaurant

The man behind the phenomenon Have you ever met a genius – and how can you tell??

Mine works on the third floor of a men’s outfitters and had his silver-booted feet up on a window ledge, leaning out of the window wafting away a quick smoke when I turned up.

But trust me, Michael O’Hare is a genius. The thousands of people who will agree mean that if you want to eat on a Saturday at The Man Behind The Curtain on Vicar Lane in Leeds you’re looking at March or April next year.

He uses the very best ingredients to create his dishes, but it is the combination and presentation that are his highly-valued signature.

When he was competing on Great British Menu on BBC2 (he will be back as a judge for the next series) he served a starter called Everyone I Ever Ate With, which was langoustine, lavender puree, salted cucumber, compressed melon and gin sour served in a huge upright eggshell covered with scrapbook images of... everyone he had ever eaten with.

In a recent Masterchef, the 34-year-old challenged contestants to work on a dish which required the diner to squeeze prawn heads until the brains oozed out and provided the sauce.

But even with that astonishing level of presentation and imagination, it is flavour that has won the plaudits, which is what every chef wants to hear.

The fact that he had a natural talent waiting to

be revealed is underlined by his start-up story.

“I ate out a lot with family and friends but didn’t start cooking until I was 19”, he tells me in the empty restaurant (it is noon and there is only an evening sitting).

“At that stage I was going to be a pilot or an aeronautical engineer, so I went to university and ended up studying aerospace engineering.

That was the first time I had had to fend for myself - I think I was probably a bit of a mummy’s boy – and I really got into it and found that I liked shopping for food. It was nothing glamorous, maybe just a nice piece of fish, because when you are on your own for the first time you eat what you want when you want.

“I was afforded that luxury at university in Kingston-upon-Thames and it was a nice thing to be able to do. I certainly enjoyed it a lot more than the course lectures because I think I chose the wrong course - it was a bit too maths-heavy and it kind of did me in, so I took solace in cooking at home.”

If he had chosen aeronautical instead of aerospace (the latter can be more advanced because it includes space flight as well as planes and helicopters), he might have been more satisfied with university life and not been distracted by the kitchen.

But then I have written many times about the inevitability that some people will become entrepreneurs because there is something in

their DNA that demands that weird mixture of control and freedom. I worry about how things might have turned out for Michael (and us, his potential customers), so I am going to blank it all out by believing he was always going to be a chef – no matter what.

“A friend of mine was a chef and it seemed like a fairly nice life, enjoyable if not particularly social. This was almost 20 years ago and I thought it was cool because it was almost underground back then – a bit piratey.

“So I looked around for the best restaurant I knew locally – which was Judges in Yarm which already had three rosettes - and asked the chef if I could get involved. He gave me the option of going to college again or learning training on the job. So I chose the training and have still never spent a day in catering college.

“Here I have four members of staff who have degrees, but they are in things like psychology and fine art, which shows you can definitely still do it the way I did – learn your trade as you progress rather than on a course – but I think it should definitely be at the age I did it, not at 16.

“You need to be smart or learn to be smart, with life experience and a bit of knowledge.

Unfortunately you can’t do that straight out of school at 16 by just dropping into a local catering college and hoping for the best.

“I tried then to stay at restaurants that were ‘top end’ for the area and from there worked

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I think wanting to be different is quite a dangerous thing to say.

I don’t really know where it comes from. I love to eat classical fine dining, but it just didn’t seem right for here.” my way further down south and ended up with John Burton-Race at The Landmark in London, which went bankrupt. So I moved back up north to work at Seaham Hall and then sort of floated on from there, job after job.”

The distinctive ‘it can only be O’Hare’ style had still not developed. He was cooking high class meals for people who knew about food, so there was certainly no hiding place, but it was the establishment of The Man Behind The Curtain that signalled the arrival of a new brand.

“Even when we had opened, the first menu was stylistically miles away from where we are now.

It is something that has rocketed.

“I think wanting to be different is quite a dangerous thing to say. I don’t really know where it comes from. No-one wants to be shit, so we were constantly trying to be better and I guess when you look at the landscape of fine dining, there are certain avenues you fall into. I

love to eat classical fine dining, but it just didn’t seem right for here.”

His instructions for another of the Great British Menu dishes shows the distance his style has travelled to earn his Michelin star – and the gulf between his and any other style of cooking.

Called My Mum Is Single And Looking For A Well-Dressed Man, it included pork skin which needed to be steamed for two hours (three if you were using a bamboo steamer over boiling water), then dehydrated for 24hrs in a dehydrator or in the oven for 48 hours. Then fried at 100ºC in vegetable oil...while pulling and stretching the skin with tweezers.

“The style developed here in Leeds based on what I and the staff felt was needed,” says Michael.

“We moved here from York because back then it seemed to be just chain after chain after chain there, with hardly any businesses that weren’t

leisure-led, which meant that everyone who worked there earned a leisure-sector wage.

“So there was not a huge amount of disposable income, which is what you need when you are pitching high-end dining because the cost of produce and ingredients is so high that to make a profit you need to charge a higher whack. If you haven’t got £150 a head to blow on dinner, then you are in the wrong city.

“Leeds was the obvious natural progression from that – it was only 22 miles down the road, and six months prior to us finding this spot Anthony’s – run by Anthony Flinn – closed down which meant there was a gap in the market for a fine dining restaurant in the city.

“Anthony’s might even have been a little bit before its time, and I guess we took advantage of that, but the move here was also for very cost-effective reasons.”

Apart from the name on the windows of the

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third floor, there is no signage on the outside.

You have to know it is there.

“It’s not a secret, there’s no sense in that,” he says.

“There are no walk-ins so why do we need advertising or a sign? If you have booked online you can look at the windows and see that we are here. It’s not as if it’s a speakeasy that’s difficult to find.

“I certainly want to tell people ‘here I am’ but to do that with signs would be a bit chavvy.

If you look at the great brands like Krug Champagne or Louis Vuitton, they don’t have bright pink labels or neon shining at you like Sports Direct. With Man Behind The Curtain, I always wanted it to be exciting, but understated at the same time.

“I didn’t want it to look like a chain or even like any other restaurant. It was always supposed to be about the food and the experience, and this site was perfect for a first-time business because it already existed as a restaurant so there was a kitchen, toilets and tables and chairs, even though we ripped all those out.

“So it wasn’t just a box where you would have to do all the plumbing, but somewhere where we could just make everything a little bit nicer.

Plus the rent was effectively subsidised because we are part of the shop rather than just out on the high street.

“It was low enough that we knew we could make a profit without having to fill it with a million people because you never know when you are starting a restaurant whether anyone will come. You can throw a guess at it, but I don’t think anyone would have foreseen our level of success.”

The Michelin inspectors said: “A unique, very individually styled restaurant with a minimalist interior and bold graffiti artwork, set on the top floor of a privately owned fashion store.

Accomplished, highly skilled cooking uses very original, creative combinations - and the artful presentation is equally striking.”

The Guardian added: “If a chef can put a silky foam of potato laced with puffed wild rice on top of an elaborate chocolate dessert and have you laughing out loud as you fight over it (turns out it’s scented like a salt and vinegar crisp), he’s doing something very right.”

So it is working – and attracting attention like no other restaurant in the country at the moment. “I had a bit of a name by then, but

not huge. There was an interest in seeing what I would do next but, I’ll be honest, the clientele for the most part that I had built up in York (at the much-applauded Blind Swine) didn’t follow to Leeds. We almost started again and the style developed from here.

“The thing that I am surprised at the most – and I don’t mean any disrespect by this – is that I have been cooking a long time, as most chefs of my age have, and it is pretty easy.

“Cooking food nice is a standard. I think I have an ability to make food look new and interesting and original, but it is not unbelievably different, just food on a plate.

“I think we can stand on our own in this country, but internationally..... we definitely have our style, but it is food on a plate that we try to make look as if it belongs here.

“I went to Gordon Ramsay’s in London the other day and it was phenomenal. But we couldn’t take a single thing from that apart from the fact that we enjoyed it. Nothing at all would fit here...because theirs is perfect and ours isn’t,” he laughs.

“I think we have our own style that is relevant to here. Each restaurant should have its own style no matter what it is, and that doesn’t just go for presentation, but the ‘the’ of it, how staff are with you – and that doesn’t always mean nice, it can mean firm or just being normal.

“We try to be a restaurant that serves good food that is visually intriguing, that tasted great and used top ingredients, but moreover it would be somewhere you would go and have a great time. There is a big focus for us on the experience of dinner, like the music we play, the temperature, the lighting the beverages we serve, and the gaps between the tables.”

The Michelin star came in his first year at Leeds.

As always, the inspectors arrived unannounced.

You can’t request an inspection and they won’t tell you you’re having one, so you have to be very, very good every time. One night where you are feeling a bit out of sorts can cost you the chance of international recognition. So it means a lot when you officially become a star.

“The Michelin guide has its critics, without a doubt, and nothing is perfect, but I think it is the best barometer for any restaurant, fine dining or not. It is the only guide book that has stayed current and has a level of class that is timeless and when I got that star it justified what we were doing, telling people we weren’t

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just being weird for the sake of it. This is a legitimate restaurant and if the food looked any different, we would still get that star.

“Our food costs are huge because our ingredients are world class, which means we can plan our menus far ahead. There are dishes I serve now which have been on the menu for 18 months and we won’t put a new dish on unless we are sure it is better than an old one.

“One of the things we have that is very fortunate is that because our bookings are so far in advance, we are not a neighbourhood venue that people come to each month. We are an international restaurant with a clientele that have waited ‘x’ amount of months and they want to see that cod dish on or that pork dish on because they have seen the pictures. You can’t change those - they are the staples.

“So there is a menu we serve that will be the same this week as next. Occasionally we will

“Each restaurant should have its own style no matter what it is, and that doesn’t just go for presentation”

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change a dish, perhaps if someone doesn’t eat pork or fish, but it is pretty much a set menu and I would say 50% are what we have become known for. Even if you only come once a year, you would be able to have that dish again.”

For the lunch at Gordon Ramsay’s three-star restaurant in London Michael opted for the ravioli, because it was so good the last time he had it – 12 years previously. He compares the decision to going to your local takeaway and almost always having the same one or two dishes because you know what you enjoy and you trust it will be served in the same way each time.

The other staple at The Man Behind The Curtain is how O’Hare the chef’s transition into O’Hare the businessman and boss means the restaurant is a good place to work – not one dominated by an ego, but led by a genuinely caring personality with a strong philosophy of looking after his staff.

“For this business to work it needed to be an environment I wanted to be in – which was a happy one and a content one, that can’t be micro-managed. The best thing about this place is that on our worst day we are still a Michelin-starred restaurant. And that is a great experience.

“Among our 20 staff I have three guys in the kitchen who are head chefs in their own right and in the next couple of years I think they will have their own restaurants with their own star above it.

“There isn’t really a hierarchy here, everyone just knows what they are doing and enjoys it. That’s quite unusual, because often you will have some star at the front and everyone bowing down before him or her. It’s not that way here.

“Honestly, if I hadn’t been in the building for the last three months it would have been exactly the same. The only thing about that is that there is an expectation of customers to see me there.”

Those 40 customers each night (there is only one sitting over the five hours) share a very generous 3,000 square feet of restaurant space, adorned with huge graffiti-style panels of art

by Schoph Schophield and sculptures by Gareth Griffiths.

It has undoubtedly brought him fame. Some of it of the TV star variety where you can catch him on Saturday Kitchen, Masterchef or Great British Menu. Some from the people lucky enough to eat here and some from within the industry. So

“For this business to work it needed to be an environment I wanted to be in – which was a happy one and a content one, that can’t be micro-managed” does he enjoy that level of recognition?

“Yes and no. I’m a perfectionist and because of that everything you do becomes a reflection of yourself and in your own restaurant you have complete control over how the restaurant looks and feels, what the food is like. But I am not a TV producer, so sometimes you have to give up that control to other people.

“I was happy on Masterchef and Great British Menu and the restaurant benefits enormously, but they are produced for their audience and how they wish for you to be seen. Sometimes you have to say to someone ‘that isn’t really me’, but as well as wanting to be seen and have our voices heard we want to fill our restaurants.

“There are good and bad things that come off it and when you do those sorts of things you tee yourself up and for all the niceities you get there will be one that cuts you to the core – and you remember that one. It’s almost as if you become removed from society a little bit and lose a little of your life and give a scaled-down version of yourself.”

Like any successful Yorkshire entrepreneur who

has launched a new product, the question now is what comes next. Do you do more of the same to satisfy your market or do you have the confidence in your brand to believe you can recreate the success in another place?

“As a restaurant, The Man Behind The Curtain (he pauses) I don’t want to say it has peaked, but it has found its place and has its own identity. It will evolve and change as everything does over time, but it is almost fixed to what it is going to be.

“Personally, I have other projects on the go, including GG Hospitality set up by Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs, who are opening a hotel in Manchester and I will set up a fine dining restaurant there called The Man Who Fell To Earth. I have been given free rein with that, which is good because I never, ever, wanted to wheel out this place as a chain.

“It needs to be recognisable, but different. It’s not that hard. The new place will be a la carte and we’ll do away with tasting menus. I’m not chasing Michelin Stars, but we got one in our first year here and I don’t think one is my limit at all. But even if we don’t get the accolades I still want to be at that level.”

To stay at that level, the supporting structure needs to be strong and as well as the 20 staff led by ever-efficient manager and sommelier Charlotte Rasburn, York solicitor Stephen Baylis remains as the business partner of the operation.

Michael lives an hour away in Prestbury and away from the kitchen, fiancée Amanda Gilby provides the essential work/life balance. But it is not that easy now to escape that kitchen. As a chef it is possible, but he is now much more than a chef and that makes it trickier.

“You almost become a 24/7 chef and I suppose that is the sacrifice,” he says.

“The simple reason for my success now is that what I do, I am good at. I was in awe when I first met Gary Neville, but he is just a guy like me. I have been fortunate to be in touch with a lot of amazing people I wouldn’t normally get the chance to meet. I get the reaction to me, but it is unusual, because it is still me, nothing’s changed.”

His mix of humility and acceptance of the breathtaking level of skill he has are what marks him out. His food is assembled and presented uniquely, which is an over-used word, but in its right place here in the heart of Yorkshire. n

@fantasticmedia fantasticmedia.co.uk

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Buy expertise.

Buy people.

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Mike Hughes meets Karen Stanton, a vice- chancellor with an exciting vision for the potential of York St John University The Twitter account for York St John University (@YorkStJohn) has set itself quite a challenge.

To mark the university’s 175th anniversary, it is listing 175 things the students and lecturers ‘know & love’ about their campus. Now, I’m sure if you looked at your own business and started to list the plusses, you would race to the first 25, then maybe 50, perhaps even higher if you got the coffee on and sat a few enthusiastic colleagues around a table. But 175?

I think Karen Stanton would approach the task fearlessly and with the confidence of a vicechancellor with enough brio in her biro to head past the 175 mark with a flourish.

“It’s fabulous and I am really enjoying it,” said Karen, who has been in her role since September last year.

“I have worked in the university sector for some time now but, for me, the opportunity to work at York St John is even better than I thought. It is a smaller university than those I had previously worked in, but there is so much potential.”

York St John has a rich history back through those 175 years, but you sense a feeling on the campus that there is another era to be released from the history books. Its reputation owes a lot to its all-encompassing approach to every type of student, which has given it a powerful community feeling.

Most recently, that included a bursary to encourage young people from traveller communities to be involved in higher education.

But this ‘village’ is a city at heart and has the skills, students, leadership and educational credentials to take its place among the elite and open a new page in the textbooks. That’s Karen Stanton’s personal curriculum and she is relishing the chance to lead York St John into the next phase of its development.

“There is potential to grow the university and also diversify what it does. It already has a strong

reputation, particularly in the support it provides to its students, offering a really personalised experience.

“In a larger organisation you wouldn’t get that sense of community among the staff and again among the staff and their students. That brings a lot of opportunities in terms of how we can develop the institution.

“One of the reasons I came here is that it is very much a values-based university. We were founded in 1841 as a male teacher training college. The female training came along two years after that and the history of the institution was formed.

“At that point it was an Anglican College, set up by the diocese. The church had done this around the country and these particular places are called the Cathedral Universities, with us, Winchester, Chester, Chichester and Canterbury all in the same grouping, reaching out to students who wouldn’t necessarily have had an education.

“That has been a very strong theme here, and has allowed us to work with students from disadvantaged backgrounds – 37% of our students are from the lower income quartile and 96% of students are from state schools.

“So that original value set has pretty much stayed good for us now.”

The university – with its motto of ‘Life More Abundant’ – is a student itself, learning how best

to care for its young people, and how to grow with them and Karen knows that the next 25 years may redefine it. It has already seen more than £100m of investment in the last ten years, but it is clear from what she is telling me that what it has learned over the last 175 years will always form the foundations.

“We can demonstrate time and time again that when you get the students here, their background makes no difference at all. We have a lot of initiatives here to reach out into schools and colleges to target students whose aspirations we can raise.

“In my experience, you have to reach out to the parents as well. You can do so much to encourage the students to think about their future and realise that higher education might actually be an option for them when it is not something their family would ever have considered.

“One reason I am so passionate about that is that I was the first person from my family to go to university. I come from a very tiny place called Louth, in the middle of Lincolnshire, and university just wasn’t on my family’s radar.

“So I have had a personal journey, so I can understand the journeys of those we are reaching out to.”

This is an important point. When the interviews were happening to choose the next VC

“We can demonstrate time and time again that when you get the students here, their background makes no difference at all”

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VC with a degree of vision

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– perhaps its most important for all 175 years – the candidates would have been among the most skilled in their sector, all with experience and vision. But Karen’s personal insight is rare and valuable and gave her the ‘life more abundant’ that the university had been looking for.

“There is increasing Government pressure to have targets for bringing in people from a more diverse student body – black and ethnic minority students in particular – and we are working hard to exceed any national norms.

For all of these reasons, I wanted to come here and I am delighted with what I have found and know I can build on all of those foundations.

“One thing that ‘building’ will involve is looking at the social impact we have. In York, we calculate our economic impact at around £60m, which is equivalent to more than 1,000 jobs. But I think there is another dimension, and one of the areas I would like to strengthen is the work we are doing within the community.

“We are seen in York as an engaged university and that is something to build on, by working more with the City Council around children and young people, and with the police and social services. That could be about anything from leadership training to support for foster carers, where we run a support programme that is probably the first in the country.

“We also work closely with businesses across the city, like Hiscox, who are working with us on what the future of the insurance industry might look like. Businesses like that want to access student thinking on these subjects because they will be the customers of the future. We want to work with businesses and help influence how their work develops moving forward.

“We are also strong in the creative industries with our thriving Faculty of Arts which works with businesses on design needs and the use of placements and internships as part of a partnership approach.

“As a small institution with fewer big research grants, we are never going to be very high in the global league tables, but we can assure that our students get the right experience. A national student survey among third year students gave us an 88% satisfaction rating last year, which put us in the top 30 in the country.

“We also work very hard at making sure our students are job-ready and 96% of our graduates are in either full time employment or

“We are very well known locally and regionally, but I know we can operate on a global stage” have gone on to do further study within their first six months – which is better than Oxford and Cambridge.

“That’s a tremendous statistic that we are very proud of and which shows that we are making sure our students are ready for work.”

To support that, York St John became a signatory to PRiME the Principles for Responsible Management Education, in November 2014.

This is a network of higher education institutions focused on the development of current and future managers through shared best practice.

“It links perfectly with what we are doing here, says Karen. “Doing the right thing in business and being socially responsible.

“We have also created ‘Graduate Attributes’ which we want our graduates to have in their portfolio, as part of their own make-up. We would certainly want one of those attributes to be an understanding of what it means to be socially responsible.

“Another would be a global perspective. In terms of my aspirations for the university, this is about more internationalisation here. We are very well known locally and regionally, but I know we can operate on a global stage and we will

be bringing that awareness into the curriculum because when they leave that is the world they will be working in.

“That also leads on to our research. We are not a Russell Group research-led institution, but we can make sure that we are strategically placed so that the work we do has an impact.

All of these things collect together to form our mission.”

On a personal level, Karen is very aware that women VCs make up only 22% of the national total.

“Unfortunately, this is still something we need to talk about,” she says.

“I would love to be able to say it didn’t matter, but it does, and particularly in higher education there is a problem for women who want to progress up that career ladder.

“While 22% for VCs is great progress, if you look below that at middle and senior management those percentages are less. Nationally women make up only about 19% of professors and the number going into science and engineering is still very small.

“So it is important that we try to help and support equitable practices in terms of promotion.”

But there is so much optimism and energy here and around the region, and the continuing rise of Yorkshire plays an important part in Karen’s plans.

“The innovation here is really exciting and I know it is part of the role of the university to engage with and support that as it shapes the region. We are part of the city, but we are also for the city.

“Potentially there are great opportunities around devolution and the Northern Powerhouse, but it is really important that this part of Yorkshire really gets a voice and doesn’t lose out to Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield.”

VCs will always have to quote statistics and metrics. There is little point in only telling parents and prospective students that York St John is a great place to learn. They need the reassurance of percentages and rising bar charts to know that their son or daughter has a better chance here than a few miles away.

But Karen’s job is to have that file to hand at the same time as she is walking around the Hogwartsian quads and corridors setting out her plans and ambitions. The combination will be difficult to resist. n

PROFILE Clarion

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Growth for prepared vegetables and salads manufacturer Third generation family business Troy Foods has extended its West Yorkshire-based operations with a £2m investment in a new distribution hub at Stourton Link in Leeds, complementing its existing two processing plants in South Leeds and creating 20 new jobs

L-R Simon Young of Clarion with James and David Kempley of Troy Foods Dating back to the 1920s, Troy Foods began as a vegetable wholesaler and now employs 350 staff as well as up to 400 agency workers in peak seasons. In the 1980s, it moved into supplying prepared vegetables and now processes around 800 tonnes a week at its Royds Farm Road facility, supplying a selection of prepared vegetables for ready meals and retail packs in the supermarkets. In recent years, the company has diversified into processing value added lines such as dressed salads including coleslaw, potato salads and pasta salads as well as mayonnaise and dressings. This operation, based at the company’s Hunslet facility, currently supplies around 1,000 tonnes a week direct to the leading retailers and food service groups. Located close to Troy Foods’ two processing sites, the new 38,000sq ft distribution centre will provide ambient and chilled storage of raw materials, increasing capacity at the processing facilities and enabling production to be expanded.

The company secured a five year lease on the new premises with the help of Clarion’s property team.

“Over the last four years, we have seen really strong growth, particularly in the wet salads and dressings part of the business which now accounts for the larger part of our turnover,” explains James Kempley, commercial manager of Troy Foods.

“Last year, revenue in this division rose by 17% and we expect our total turnover to be close to £40m this year.

“As we continue to take advantage of new opportunities within the food sector, such as the

“Troy Foods has established a niche business, proving able to adapt to changes in what is a notoriously competitive and fast moving sector”

growth of discount retailers, we expect our business to continue to grow and the expansion into our third premises will enable us to increase production in line with customer demand. Going forward, our longer term vision is to move both of our processing operations onto a single site while remaining in West Yorkshire.”

Mr Kempley continues: “Having used Clarion for all of our legal work over the last five years, they have proved able to support us as the business has expanded and taken on the role of trusted adviser. From advising on property, employment and intellectual property matters to litigation and corporate, there’s no doubt in my mind that they have played an important part in our success. They are an excellent firm with people who are personable and straightforward in their approach – they look after us well and understand our business.”

Simon Young, partner at Clarion, says: “Troy Foods has established a niche business, proving able to adapt to changes in what is a notoriously competitive and fast moving sector. With a heritage of almost 100 years, it has diversified to meet new eating and shopping trends while retaining a focus on customer service whether working with traditional supermarkets or newer discount retailers.

In what is a very seasonal and time critical business, they have demonstrated an ability to provide high quality product and, at the same time, cope with the peaks and troughs in customer demand.”

Can we help you? Call Simon Young on 0113 222 3206 or email simon.young@clarionsolicitors.com. Please visit www.clarionsolicitors.com for more information.

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INSIGHT bqlive.co.uk

Ports – the UK’s vital logistics link BQ Yorkshire recently turned its focus to the importance of the UK’s ports operations for the regional and national economies. Here Geoff Lippitt, Business Development Director at PD Ports, sets out their strategy and how important location is for ports up and down the country

PD Ports has had a strong presence on the Humber for 50 years so we are perfectly placed to take advantage of the natural trade corridor cross-country while giving customers the most cost-efficient service through our enviable portcentric logistics. With operations at Immingham, Howden, Keadby and most recently Groveport, we’ve built a solid reputation as the project and bulk cargo experts on the Humber.

As we work alongside other ports, location is key and we have worked hard to make sure the right facilities are in place at each site.

Our Immingham terminal facility is situated on the South bank of the Humber Estuary providing a prime East Coast position and a gateway to the Humber region, which has a strong

industrial heritage supporting a range of industries. They are all there because of exceptional access by sea, to and from Continental Europe and beyond, or by land, as Immingham is located right at the heart of the UK and uniquely positioned, being just 200 miles from London and Edinburgh, which in fact, places 40 million consumers within a four hour drive.

Howden is located on the River Ouse and directly adjacent to the main M62 Trans-pennine motorway which connects Liverpool with Hull via Manchester and Leeds intersecting the M1.

This link positions the Port with unrivalled access to the key industrial markets of the North, West and Midland regions of the country.

While Keadby’s main focus is the supply of a

specialist steel handling and storage facility that both supports the industry and is utilised as a UK stocking point for a range of imported steel products. The port also handles other commodities such as forestry products and dry bulk cargoes.

From these sites we provide agency and freight-forwarding services for a diverse number of clients throughout the world handling all types of cargo. During 2015 we decided that as a strategic acquisition to further enhance our Humber operations, as a result PD Ports acquired Groveport, an inland port complex on the River Trent which has a strong position in the UK’s market for imported steel long products.

Close to Scunthorpe, with over 190 acres and nine berths, coupled with an excellent reputation, and a strong customer base with good growth prospects, this acquisition ideally complemented our existing businesses.

Groveport is an excellent strategic fit with our other operations on the East Coast, where we are providing supply chain services in both the short and deep sea shipping sectors.

In our wider operations we can clearly show how the role of a port can enhance and change supply chain. Before the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ was even a concept, PD Ports was on the front foot, putting connectivity at the top of its logistics agenda.

There is a need for a better connected North including better use of our rail and waterways to move goods around the country. To be competitive in UK container transport, rail requires well-positioned, high quality terminals and the site at Teesport delivers both.

We have just launched a new 550m deep water quay there after a £35m redevelopment, meaning that we now own and operate some of the deepest general cargo berths in the UK.

INSIGHT bqlive.co.uk

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“Customers in general are not focused on whether the logistics supply chains are horizontal or vertical; they just want the most efficient way in terms of cost and service delivery to enhance their own offer to their customers” This 18-month project means the port can take two fully laden 235m long vessels simultaneously in water 14.5m deep. To get there, we had to demolish 24,000 tonnes of the existing concrete deck and used six miles of heavy duty steel tubes for the supporting piles.

We’ve also invested £3m in a new intermodal rail terminal at Teesport with daily services to Felixstowe, Scotland and Southampton with the opportunity to establish new routes to the Midlands and the North-West.

For Scotland, we partnered with DB Cargo in a completely new offering for the market from Teesport with daily weekday services running to Mossend and Grangemouth.

As the markets have changed, PD Ports has had to adapt as well and we are working together with other major ports to develop strategies to minimise the road distances that lorries have to travel and put the intermodal issue at the forefront of the Northern Powerhouse strategy.

Turning once again to the Humber, its advantage is its location positioned at a mid-point in the UK, 200 miles from London and Edinburgh and facing Northern Europe. The Humber estuary as a whole handles an average of 40,000 ship movements per year and is the country’s largest port complex.

Customers in general are not focused on whether the logistics supply chains are

horizontal or vertical; they just want the most efficient way in terms of cost and service delivery to enhance their own offer to their customers.

We have invested heavily in our facilities to meet changing customer demand and will continue to go that extra mile so that we can provide that differential.

We are not a new arrival on the Humber; we have a considerable business platform and are using our expertise to strengthen our position even further. Over the years we’ve enjoyed growth as well as faced challenges in the sector but we are taking a long-term perspective and combining new technologies with old values – putting our customers first. n

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

BQ Yorkshire Editor Mike Hughes goes crackers for an iconic Yorkshire brand

A cheesy story of loyalty and location How far would you go for cheese?

Not the sweaty, pre-sliced stuff, but some real Yorkshire quality with a bit of bite and so much flavour that you would give your mortgage money for the right bottle of red to be within reach.

The cheese in question is Yorkshire Wensleydale, recently awarded the dreadfully-named but very important European Protected Geographical Indication status meaning that if you buy it, it’s from this most beautiful part of the county and not some imposter from the South.

With tremendous customer loyalty already in

place, Wensleydale Creamery MD David Hartley knows he has got the product right – and is blessed with the inbuilt dream location – but is also well aware of the challenges ahead.

“People have to make a choice to come to Hawes and when you think of customers travelling from Kendal, Skipton, Darlington or the Dales you have to provide a destination that is worth the trip.

“The visitor centre was first developed in 1994, but in 2010 we rebuilt it and added a restaurant and coffee shop and, of course, a large cheese shop to maximise the views we have in all

directions. Since that investment the business has grown pretty well and the visitor centre side now accounts for about ten per cent of the whole business.”

The work to project the brand now brings more than 250,000 visitors on their various journeys each year. Each one is an ‘engager’ for David and his team, getting to know the brand and what it means to the region and taking that message away to their local shops, where the battle to be first choice among so many shelves of cheese is a top priority.

Here, European designations can be brushed

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aside if ‘Grandma Doreen’s Homemade Cheddar’ is half price for a week.

The brand’s own loyalty to the region is another good reason to buy. It is an integral part of Yorkshire life, having been first crafted in the 12th Century by a group of Cistercian monks.

In 1897 (remembered in the name of the coffee shop on the site) the first creamery was built in Hawes.

“I don’t see a company like ours with a £26m turnover as a big company – we are a typical SME, so we don’t have a massive marketing budget. So we need a plan centred around

the visitor centre where customers can see the product and appreciate that we are a retailer and a caterer as well.

“We take all those things incredibly seriously so it is a very real ambition for us to be a restaurant destination worth a day out, alongside being the perfect networking base for a morning business meeting where visitors can have a coffee and get the laptops out.”

David joined the company as production manager in 1990, moving from Kendal Creamery. In November 1992 he and three colleagues, along with local entrepreneur John

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Gibson sealed a management buyout in the wake of closure plans announced by Dairy Crest.“We always had a plan and a belief,” says David.

“When you have such a fantastic history – with people like Kit Calvert who led the company for more than 30 years – for it then to stop and someone say there is no more viability in Wensleydale cheese, that’s just ridiculous.

“We trade on tradition and history and authenticity and all of that, but we have to be relevant and innovative for today’s consumer.

We have to take the business forward all the

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

time, but we all genuinely love the area and the products and that is so important.”

Kit Calvert is a key name in the company’s history – and there is a lot of him in David.

Back in the industrial depression of the 1930s struggling farmers who had been working for Mr Edward Chapman, a corn and provisions merchant of Hawes, were offered contracts by the Milk Marketing Board to take dales milk to a national dairy miles away.

The farmers, although they were creditors of Mr Chapman, were adamant that the Hawes dairy should continue. One of them, Kit Calvert, called a meeting in the Town Hall and gathered enough support to rescue the dairy and lay the foundations for what we see today.

That Wensleydale determination is still here.

Just as it did back in the 1930s, the importance of the company goes beyond the food shelves and becomes a strand of Yorkshire business life that helps bind together the community.

The creamery uses 41 of the very finest local farms for its milk, which is now all made in Wensleydale after a £4.5m investment, which allowed the blending (savour the flavour of cranberry, ginger and apricot) and packaging operation to be based in Kirkby Malzeard near Ripon.

The blended market and the crumbly cheese market are key battlegrounds for all cheesemakers and David is one of the Big Cheeses masterminding the strategy that will keep his company one truckle ahead of the rest.

“The whole Wensleydale market is worth about £15m at retail, with the whole crumbly market at about £40m, including Wensleydale. But if you look at the blended market, with its savoury and sweet flavours, that is worth around £90m and is growing. So it is really important that we get a strong share of the Wensleydale market, a good share of the crumbly market and are a serious player in the blended cheese category.

“It is also the blended sector that often translates itself into sales for the export market.

It is all about looking for a good base cheese like Wensleydale and thinking about the latest food trends and how we might combine the two. There is a lot of bad blending going on at the moment where someone will just throw two flavours together and convince themselves it will taste good.

“So we have set up a new product development team who really carefully plan ahead and have

“Cheese has a fantastic part to play as part of a balanced diet and should be an important part of everyone’s eating plan”

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become very successful at knowing what will work and what levels of flavour to use.

“We are cheesemakers and are known for that, but we will always be innovating around that.”

The region is seeing a surge of activity in the food and drink sector – and legends like Wensleydale Creamery are the bedrock of that activity. There are clusters of home-grown businesses helping each other out and sharing their experiences, but like the food and drink itself, there is also very organic growth.

“We are in touch with a whole network of agencies like UKTI and Welcome to Yorkshire as well as events like the Great Yorkshire Show, which has a fantastic tradition of promoting produce and food,” said David.

“There are also great retailers keen on supporting local entrepreneurs, and that includes the big supermarkets.

“Then there are outstanding restaurants and chefs like Brian Turner and Stephanie Moon, cheesemakers like Swaledale and Shepherds

Purse and breweries like Black Sheep and countless other small operations.

“You will always have to have fresh blood coming into the system because the market is changing all the time and we need those new skills here. We have all been here a long time, but we also need to see the outside world as well.”

I can certainly testify that cheese is addictive. If I come in from a long day at the BQ Yorkshire laptop and I know there is a chunk of cheese to be had, that’s my ‘starter’ sorted. So is it really bad for me or is there a headline soon to be written that says ‘Scientists reveal cheese and beer actually very good for you’?

“We continue to understand that the quality of the product we supply is non-negotiable and while cheese contains fat, as so many people tell us, it also has protein and minerals and is a very healthy food,” says David, reassuringly.

“Cheese has a fantastic part to play as part of a balanced diet and should be an important part

“We talk a lot about how to use cheese so that it is not all about sandwiches and cheeseboards. It is great in soups, salads, on toast or with meat”

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of everyone’s eating plan. There will be cheese in 99% of fridges around the country, so it is about us being a part of that market. At the moment we don’t do a reduced fat cheese, but we might look at that in the future.

“We talk a lot about how to use cheese so that it is not all about sandwiches and cheeseboards.

It is great in soups, salads, on toast or with meat, or how about stuffing your chicken with Wensleydale and Cranberry?

“When we had a retailer visit the site recently, we served tomato and basil soup with Wensleydale crumbled into it. On the same menu we had mini macaroni cheese, grilled chicken with a blue cheese sauce and a threecheese quiche, just to show off the versatility of it. We have also recently worked with the Yorkshire Provender soup company at Leeming Bar to make a Cauliflower Cheese soup.

“Personally I like a brown bread and Wensleydale sandwich with good quality tomato and cracked black pepper and sea salt – and a beer!”

It is surprising he has time for that sandwich, having just bought a bike to get some more cycling done at the same time as taking on a new pup to go with his two Cocker Spaniel gundogs, aged nine and six. His oldest daughter is heading off to university to study food production and marketing at Harper Adams and the youngest is just starting her GCSEs. There is also fishing and a good friend who is a grouse moor keeper, so plenty of chance to pursue the country skills he loves.

The future for the company is being built on a very strong technical base and a global reputation. The innovation and investment will continue hand-in-hand with each other and the export opportunities will only grow in places like the Middle East. Yoghurts and butter are already on the shelves with strong branding and there is physical space at Hawes to expand where necessary. Yorkshire entrepreneurs – with their legendary dogged determination to make something work – have left the county with no option other than to be the national centre for home-cooked businesses, just by the sheer number of them making beautiful food that will literally stop you in the street.

You won’t find forgotten Yorkshire food lurking behind the open bag of pasta at the back of your kitchen cupboard. You will already have eaten it all. n

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INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

Injecting innovation Mike Hughes talks to Matt Lamb, director of Nuffield Health’s York Hospital, about the opportunities for entrepreneurs in the medical sector

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

When you see a medical breakthrough being discussed on the TV news and hear the intro “Doctors have, for the first time, been able to......” we are all used to responding “It’s amazing what they can do nowadays...”

The pace of change in the medical sector is lightning-fast. Procedures, medication and strategies that are saving thousands of lives every day simply didn’t exist a decade ago.

This is one of the most dramatic areas of entrepreneurialism, where an innovative idea will be snapped up by hospitals and clinics not only because it is a revenue-earner, but because it can help patients who thought help was beyond them.

Alongside the global medical companies who have such an impact on our hospitals, the image of calm precision at hospitals like the Nuffield Health in York owes a lot to entrepreneurs who have battled to bring to market their ideas.

BQ Yorkshire has talked with many of them – from Kevin Kiely, joint founder and MD of health technology support organisation Medilink, to Mel Elyard of Aptamer Group, which makes synthetic compounds which attach to targets such as cancer cells and viruses, and Richard Paxman whose family business in Huddersfield makes scalp-cooling caps that help prevent chemotherapy-induced alopecia.

All driven and passionate entrepreneuers determined to make a difference. For Matt Lamb, hospital director for Nuffield Health in York, such businesses have always played a key role in modern medicine.

“Nuffield Health is in a great position to benefit because we have the hospitals, but also gyms, medical centres and a new diagnostic centre in Manchester providing the full set of services for people beginning to worry about their health or just keeping well,” he told me.

“We are unique in the way we are joined up in that way and the fact that we are a not-forprofit organisation allows us to plan ahead for a longer period of time without being at the beck and call of shareholders and owners that want a quick return on their investment.

“So we are able to make investments in innovation which, on paper, might not seem to make an immediate financial return, but in terms of what the overall health and wellbeing market needs it allows us to have a different

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strategy to our competitors.

“In the last 15 years I have seen how the market has changed and how far ahead of the game Nuffield Health is as far as innovation is concerned. There are various areas of innovation that we need to consider – not only focusing on putting the patient at the centre of our healthcare strategy, but also technology, research and the process side to our operation.

“The health sector is looking at the whole person now, so that is not just about someone getting a knee injury, getting it treated and going away again. It is about how we can prevent people getting ill or injured in the first place.

“But through all these we have to be costeffective so that we can pass that on to the people who use our services.”

The concept of tailored medical care is hugely important to the medical sector now. There is an open door here for new technology that allows patients to receive DNA-specific treatments that

“Counter-intuitively, the other big area to look at is hospital avoidance.

How to make a growing business out of helping people stay away from one of your core businesses”

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INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

are literally perfect for their bodies and therefore more capable of doing their job than off-theshelf products.

Counter-intuitively, the other big area to look at is hospital avoidance. How to make a growing business out of helping people stay away from one of your core businesses. The balance, of course, is to be very good at both and provide a continuous loop of holistic treatment for wellbeing and medical needs.

Personalised care and wellbeing are both desperate for new ideas and processes which will keep them one step ahead of their rivals. Yes, it is specialised, but its appeal to entrepreneurs is widening as it moves away from pure medical tech.

“The gyms we have aren’t just for people to purely drop into and do their classes, sit-ups, weights and press-ups,” said Matt.

“It is all about treating the wellbeing of an individual and there is all sorts of new technology needed here, even down to Nuffield Health investing tens of millions into a new IT structure that will replace our existing multiple systems and provide a fantastic interface for all stakeholders.”

So with all those opportunities, how do you

“We don’t know what the fine detail of what is going to be coming out, but there is always a principle that we put the patient’s needs at the centre of any innovation” actually start a working relationship with giants like Nuffield and the NHS – whose door do you knock on, and how do you find the address in the first place?

“We don’t have our own R&D wing. But we have innovation and technology people within our board structures and they are constantly out there looking at what people are working on in the marketplace. Also, we have tie-ins with universities like Manchester so that we can build a strong relationship in the city and know what is coming down the line.

“Nuffield Health is very keen to invest in the research and innovation happening at the universities, so there is very much a two-way flow of information between the two and a great sense of commitment on each side.

“We don’t know what the fine detail of what is going to be coming out, but there is always a principle that we put the patient’s needs at the centre of any innovation.

“We have to keep ahead of our competitors, so we have a growing list of training targets for our staff to keep us up to date and we engage with reps all the time looking at new technologies and equipment with us.”

Nuffield Health’s new Diagnostics Centre at Manchester is a good illustration of how the sector is opening up opportunities for entrepreneurs. It will have a network of experts, health and wellbeing facilities and digital technology supported by clinical research.

The new centre will deliver the latest MRI, X-ray, mammography, CT, cardiac and ultrasound services from the 7,279 sq ft space. Health assessments, physiotherapy services and private GP appointments will complete that holistic strategy.

Everything on that list is a potential contract, from electrical work to endoscopies. Whatever sector you are in as an entrepreneur, there are growing opportunities to innovate and care. n

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

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Looking after your main asset It makes sense to have your machinery and company assets regularly maintained to make sure you can keep up with the orders.

BQ Yorkshire editor Mike Hughes asked Nuffield Health to tell him whether he is fit enough to be an entrepreneur.

Perhaps it is a unique aspect of an entrepreneur that they will be proud of working until they drop. If you work for one of the big corporates a 70-hour week would be your biggest moan down at the pub on Friday night. But if you’re self-employed you’d be getting a round in.

But that pride can come before a fall if you don’t look after your company’s most valuable asset – you. Perhaps it is time to find a few moments to pause and look honestly at ourselves and invest in our own machinery. For the milling machine, get an engineer. For that knackered Yorkshire body, get a doctor. Matt Lamb, the 46-year-old director of Nuffield Health’s York Hospital, told me: “Anybody can get a health assessment.

Many businessmen will get it through their workplace because companies have bought in to certain packages from us through their insurers, but there is no restriction on who comes to us.

“We hope that our interaction with the corporate side of things, and the gyms and health centres, will help remove the stigma that private health care is not an option for most people.

“I certainly wouldn’t put myself in the top quarters as far as fitness is concerned, but I like walking and I’m on the lifeboats at Runswick Bay, which is all about getting out of bed in the morning and getting active.

“This is not about saying to your entrepreneurs ‘right, you have to go for a six-mile run each morning and eat salad each evening’. It has more to do with having a ‘wake-up’ conversation with somebody and making simple adjustments that fit into a busy lifestyle – walk up the stairs instead of getting the lift.” So I did the decent thing and accepted the offer of a 360 degree health check devised by Nuffield as a holistic look at my lifestyle and its effects on this 56-year-old piece of kit. It all started quite innocently “Just hop up on to the couch and we’ll get some blood,” said physiologist Dr Simon Taylor. “How are you with needles....?”

What followed from Dr Taylor and then Dr

The undeniable facts

Height: 6ft 1ins (I may have shrunk) Weight: 16st 10lbs (on a good day) BMI: 30.78 (Body Massive Index) Waist: 110cm (that’s more than a yard!)

Blood pressure: 146/103 (it’s just gone up! ) Cholesterol: 5.8 (so less peanut butter!!??)

Lalitha D’Souza was a more thorough checkup than I have ever given anything I have ever owned (including the dog). I knew my weight (too high) and blood pressure (too high), but what about my hydration level (too low), posture score (normal) and cognitive performance (in the top 40%)? And I was also scored for 17 different levels of chemicals in my body including protein and calcium (heard of them), but also Gamma GT, Alkaline Phosphatase and Bilirubin (sound more like Star Wars villains....). Nuffield is the industry leader in holistic medicine and the 58-page spiral-bound report sent to me a few days later joined together all these dots and made a red-faced, overweight editor out of them. The holistic approach is well illustrated by that cognitive performance reading. It basically monitors your heartbeat, but interprets it to tell you which parts of your brain you use the most.

For instance, a smooth heart rate is known as ‘Coherent’ and is associated with increased blood flow to the area of your brain responsible for problem-solving, emotions and decision making.

Mine was a decent score here, so I am generally well-adjusted and emotionally stable (I know.....I was surprised too). So the basics have to be checked and logged but there is a rare skill in delivering that ‘hidden’ information in a way an unskilled patient can understand sufficiently to act on it. Dr Taylor agrees the assessment of each patient needs to step beyond the tests and often

starts as soon as they walk in through the door.

“It is best if we can be objective about things and then back that up with some data to get the best results,” he told me during his part of the examination, which took less than an hour.

As we chatted about my lifestyle he homed in on the definition of exercise and the challenge he throws out is that 30 minutes of exercise each day is about right. But how could I fit that in among all the peanut butter sandwiches, spoonand-a-half coffees and Kit Kat breakfasts?

“150 minutes of moderately intensive exercise each week will give you health benefits like improvements in weight and blood pressure and in your body composition and mental health,” said Dr Taylor, interrupting my peanut butter daydream. “You can break that down into tenminute blocks and it can mean general activity like walking up and own stairs or walking the dog as well as the most vigorous stuff like a bike ride. We can measure how that is working with a body composition index which takes into account weight, BMI, waist size, collates them all together and gives a risk score.”

The day continued with a genuinely impressive set of tests (even including the dreaded forefinger of fate as a grand finale. All clear, thanks for asking). The amount of tests and the way they are presented meant this was the biggest MOT I had ever had. So do I write the article and forget about it? To be honest, the truth is that I have been sufficiently happy with my health for it not to be on my mind. I knew I should drop a stone (or two), cut back on the Merlot and the Millicano and shop more sensibly so that I have better food available throughout the week rather than chip the ice from a forgotten pizza because ‘it’s all we’ve got in’. I knew it – but wouldn’t have regarded it as a game-changer until I was clutching my chest and leaning against a wall, because I was able to continue with my enjoyable life, wear a few loose shirts and aim for a world record in how long a stomach can be kept from assuming its usual capital ‘D’ shape.

But the one thing I would say is to be brave enough to go and get checked and look at personalised information from the experts. That’s what changed my approach. If you can look through those 58 pages and happily toss it into the bin, then good luck to you. n

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PROFILE York Business School

Shaping the business leaders of tomorrow at York Business School York Business School, formerly known as York St John Business School, is looking ahead to an exciting year.

The name change ushers in a new chapter for the school which was founded in 2008.

The recruitment process for a new Dean to head the school is underway, with interviews taking place earlier this month, and a wider restructure across the whole University means a renewed focus on priorities and student experience ready for September 2016.

Employers from across Yorkshire and the North East are invited to be part of this next stage of the Business School’s success and join with York Business School to benefit from their placement scheme.

York Business School is strongly rooted within the region and continues to develop strong progressive relationships and partnerships with local, regional and international businesses.

Existing links with companies such as MINI, Hiscox and Yorkshire Bank provide great opportunities for students to engage with real world business issues.

Following the recent launch of the new MINI Clubman, a group of postgraduate marketing students were tasked to work on a live project to examine key branding issues. The students, who were all studying the strategic brand management module, were introduced to key people from MINI and the Cooper Group and visited the MINI factory in Oxford. Catherine Wilcox, Regional Brand Manager, MINI commented: “I started working with York Business School back in May 2015 when I was asked to do a Masterclass on MINI marketing. This was the start of a partnership that has forged a positive relationship between

“We’re appealing to the business community – come and help us shape the next business leaders and be involved in this exciting phase of our development”

the University and MINI. We have worked closely together on a number of projects including discussions on student outcomes and how best to prepare students for business life after they graduate. In addition we have collaborated over engagement in the local community including competitions and sponsorship of a local school’s new sports kit.

“Our partnership – which has grown thanks to the innovative and forward-thinking philosophy of the University – is one which I hope will continue!”

Pete Sumners, Specialist & Acquisition Finance Director at Yorkshire Bank has also been impressed with the work of York Business School: “There is a firm commitment to developing graduates that not only understand the theoretical aspects of business, but the role business can play in shaping a better society. Having had an input into the development of York Business School’s undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum design, I see a good balance of theory and practical application in a business context. York Business School’s work in this regard is - in my view sector leading.”

The School, and wider University, has developed a close working partnership with Hiscox, involving academics, students and graduates in several exciting initiatives. These include design projects, integral involvement in the development, promotion and recruitment for the Hiscox Business Club and, most recently, a futures partnership; providing Hiscox with research expertise and student creative and innovative input into the development of their future products.

The University also works very closely with the Make It York team on a number of initiatives including UNESCO, Illuminating York and the York Culture Awards. It has collaborated to promote graduate employability through graduate internships and to provide businesses across the creative, digital and bioscience networks with access to the business masterclasses and professional development

Noel Dennis, Acting Dean of York Business School

York Business School enjoys a productive and successful relationship with MINI

opportunities across the University.

Noel Dennis, Acting Dean, York Business School, said: “We welcome interest from all businesses who want to know more about working with our fantastic staff and students. Whether this be on a short term live project, internship and placement opportunities, or research and consultancy projects. York Business School has a wealth of staff expertise in a number of

PROFILE York Business School

areas from leadership to digital marketing. We have an excellent track record of delivering high quality consultancy and research projects for the business community.” York Business School currently has over 1,800 students from more than 60 countries and expects to grow further in the new academic year.

Following a restructure of the whole University the Business School’s portfolio will include management and business programmes including Accounting & Finance, Business Information Technology and

De Grey Court, the home of York Business School in York city centre

Business Management (with placement).

York Business School has been an approved CMI Centre since June 2015 and can offer students additional qualifications in management and leadership.

The CMI (Chartered Management Institute) is the only chartered body in the UK that awards such qualifications which are highly regarded by employers as evidence of a manager’s practical skills. York Business School offers an opportunity

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for Undergraduate Management students to gain the CMI Level 5 Certificate in Management and Leadership (QCF) alongside their academic award.

A CMI Level 7 course will be available at the end of Easter 2017.

Embedded within the methods of the Business School’s management education is the ever increasing importance of the role of business in a contemporary society. York Business School demonstrates its commitment to this need as a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact initiative – Principals for Responsible Management Education (PRME). And earlier this month the University was awarded the Social Enterprise Gold Mark which reflects the institution’s commitment to social enterprise excellence. It is only one of two UK universities to have achieved the gold accreditation and reflects the way York St John works in terms of governance, business ethics and financial transparency. The gold mark also demonstrates the University’s commitment to the wider social impacts of its work within the community and how it makes a difference.

And in May, the Business School was approved to join the Central Eastern European Management Network (CEEMAN). CEEMAN is closely aligned to PRME and will offer great opportunities for the Business School, including: networking and mentoring opportunities, access to best practice relating to teaching and learning for management educators, collaborative research opportunities, possible partnership working and, ultimately, School accreditation. Perhaps most importantly, though, this affirms the Business School’s commitment to internationalisation and gives it an opportunity to influence future debates and developments in management education Mr Dennis said: “Here at York St John we’re passionate about the role of business in society, social enterprise and the wider impact of the University on the local and, wider, regional area. So we’re appealing to the business community – come and help us shape the next business leaders and be involved in this exciting phase of our development.”

Contact details for Noel Dennis, Acting Dean n.dennis@ yorksj.ac.uk 01904 876966 or 876843

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Fantastic – we’re ten!

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BQ Editor Mike Hughes recalled that the tenth anniversary is marked with a ‘tin’ present.

So, can of Yorkshire beer in hand, he met Fantastic Media CEO Andy Hobson Ten years ago, when Andy Hobson started working on a logo for his new business he saw red – for all the right reasons.

The vibrant colour which dominates the office walls and website of Fantastic Media was chosen to signal the revolution in marketing that Andy knew was waiting to happen.

“I felt there was something missing from marketing,” said Andy.

“I was running a business, so I was able to put myself in an owner’s shoes and ask myself – where’s the value?

“I wanted a company focused on the people we were working with. Nowadays, everything is results driven so it’s commonplace, but ten years ago it was pretty radical.

“Every client we have worked with knows why we did something and what the results were.

Whether it was a complete company rebrand, a TV advertising campaign or a single email newsletter, our results speak for themselves. We will continue to be judged on them and we’re fine with that.

“It’s all about relationships. I’ve always worked with people and understanding the value of relationships was one of the first things I learned.”

A decade on, the firm has just recorded its highest quarterly revenue and now employs 25 people at its Birstall offices, working with big names like Card Factory, House Of Fraser and Adidas and Premier League sports personalities Theo Walcott and James Milner.

With a family full of creative people like architects, artists and musicians, it was always a good bet that design would appeal to Andy.

“I have always been able to sketch and draw – it is in my blood - so I went straight to Batley Art College from school and onto design courses for five years. But that wasn’t sexy enough for

me and I always had my eye on marketing and results and what they could do for a business.

“I cut my teeth with a number of creative houses, starting at Matrix Design in London, but my nature is all about networking and meeting people and putting them together as a dealmaker so I don’t think I was ever going to be working for someone else all my career.”

The young Hobson then came back up North and worked for TSA (which later became SFX and now WFG), where he worked with stars such as David Beckham, Alan Shearer and Dwight Yorke, and soon felt the time was right, aged 25, to set up Atom Design and then on to Fantastic Media.

He faced one early hurdle that looms up for all our BQ entrepreneurs – recruitment of the right people to take the business forward – with confidence and insight from his previous employers.

“Part of running a business is selling a dream to clients and colleagues, so you have to be able to identify people in other businesses, win them over and convince them that they will be safe with you – or that it will be more exciting with you than with someone else.

“There must be 30 or 40 agencies around Leeds that good staff could go to, but at some stage people make the decision based on a gut feeling and an emotional connection that tells them they want to jump to people. That connection is how you build a team and spot the people who

are going nowhere in a business that might be flatlining.

“Young talent is essential in this market, but it is also so important to have grown-ups around the place that can make that level of connection.

“At 44, I’m the oldest in our company, but I always make sure I have at least six grown-ups around me of very similar age who will go out and make the commitment to people. That relationship is just as important as the work you deliver – although we are well aware that you need to do the walk as well as doing the talk.”

That means he is not a fan of “waffle and bull” and that his results-driven strategy has to keep working, always impressing the clients. The initial contact has to be good, the relationship has to grow and the results have to be measurable so that the client gets a return for his ‘investment’.

“I work in the business with the first high-level insight and strategy which I thrive on and then I’ll pass it over to an account director and carry on working on the business. We work a lot for owner-managed and family-run businesses between £10m and £40-50m turnover and they want to see value and look into the whites of the eyes of the people they are spending their money with.”

With more than 90% of businesses not making it past their first ten years, Fantastic must be doing something right – so what advice would Andy pass on to new businesses

“Part of running a business is selling a dream to clients and colleagues, so you have to be able to identify people in other businesses, win them over and convince them that they will be safe with you – or that it will be more exciting with you than with someone else”

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heading for their first ten months?

“That statistic doesn’t take into account marketing companies founded two years before the worst financial crash in almost a century,” he points out.

“Many more established agencies didn’t make it through the worst of it, so I’m incredibly proud that Fantastic is part of the 4%.”

“The recession was tough for many businesses, but we were able to demonstrate ROI for business owners and directors so we became a safe pair of hands for those still looking to actively market their business. That built our reputation as an agency that offers value and results which is what I always set out to do.

“I don’t know if I’m a little old-fashioned, but I never took more out of the business than it could afford.

margins and your clients.”

There are lessons there for new businesses, who will be encouraged by the fact that they still form the backbone of Andy’s operation and have helped lay the foundations for the next few years.

“There isn’t a plan for the next decade because I don’t think anyone can plan that far ahead in detail. But there is a plan for the next five years which includes making the business more manageable by the heads of department who make up our agency board to give us that flexibility.

“Perhaps that will eventually lead to an MD sort of figure who is on an equal standing with the rest of the board. But that sort of planning is already in place here and there is a fresh excitement to move away from a comfortable

weekends are precious and I think it is important for a business leader to have a clear, positive head rather than running round like an idiot.

“I have two kids and do everything all other parents do, from the ‘dad’s taxi’ to trips to Whitby and even a bit of kayaking!”

Sport has played a big part in his business life ever since the days of Beckham, Shearer and Yorke at SFX and that continues now, with Fantastic Media becoming important sponsors of local clubs from Huddersfield Town to AFC Emley, where a rolling contract between the club and the agency means the ground has been renamed the Fantastic Media Welfare Ground.

At Huddersfield Town, the Fantastic Media Stand will certainly be full on 12 July when The Terriers take on Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool team for the Shankly Trophy, named after the

“I pay people well to look after the operation over the weekends. I have two kids and do everything all other parents do, from the ‘dad’s taxi’ to trips to Whitby and even a bit of kayaking!”

“It’s what we call in Yorkshire ‘wool on our backs’ – and I know woolybacks get the mickey taken out of them – but the fact is that I will always have wool on my back for a rainy day or if things aren’t going too well and we have a quiet month.

“I honestly believe that a lot of businesses go to the wall because they haven’t planned their finances properly and kept the accounts tight enough and end up spending beyond their income.

“No matter how things are going, I will always acknowledge that the buck stops with me and if there isn’t enough work in then that isn’t anyone else’s problem. So I will go to the ends of the Earth to make sure this business is constantly fed.

“Also, businesses need to be early adopters of new technologies, whether that is social or apps, or e-commerce, I have always gone out and employed leaders in those areas that Fantastic needs. If you don’t keep up with the trends – which can change every six months you will just fall by the wayside and let young upstarts in to start pecking away at your

demographic into other regions – notably down South.

“I have held back from that move, but the business is stable enough now and we have plenty of clients in London, so why don’t we have a little go in the next couple of years and at least get some sort of base down there?

“We are delighted by what we have achieved, but we still have a long way to go. We are proud to be one of the most successful and established agencies in the North of England, and we are also one of the most decorated, but we will never rest on our laurels.”

Rest doesn’t come easily to entrepreneurs like Andy. The set-up was very successfully completed ten years ago, the reputation established and the figures are looking good.

The team has been built and the technologies mastered...but entrepreneurs will always battle the deep need to be at the centre of their organisations so that it is still their ‘baby’ no matter how fast it grows.

“I pay people well to look after the operation over the weekends,” he admits.

“And I am happy to do that because my

legendary former manager of both clubs.

“We do lots like this, helping junior rugby and football clubs with kits and sponsorship,” says Andy.

“We don’t get a lot out of it – and we certainly don’t get a return on investment – but for me that’s not what it is about.

“Me and the staff get a real feelgood factor out of it, particularly the breakfast clubs Huddersfield hold which get out into some deprived areas around West Yorkshire and give breakfast to some kids that might not otherwise get a meal in the mornings.

“It’s not really something to shout about, but it makes the area we live in a little bit better and helps the youngsters grow into halfdecent kids.”

Perhaps that’s the very human side of Andy Hobson’s marketing mind in a nutshell. Take the basic product in front of you – with all its potential and unfulfilled aspirations – whether it is an innovation, a person or a region – get to know what the issues are and guide and assist it towards the best possible outcome.

He never could resist a challenge. n

Our clients…

“We wanted to develop ourselves and our business with a fresh approach – going in with an open mind, we have quickly gained a different perspective and we have started to change. There is a fascinating blend of gradual, slow, ‘wait and see’ adjustment and some decisive, quick, ‘take the plunge’ change… it’s exciting to be working with a team helping us move to a new way of thinking, building on all the good things we have and leaving some of the not so good things behind”. …Our teams are focused on the performance of your business, understanding every part of your operation, your people, processes, current situation and future goals.

Visit www.armstrongwatson.co.uk for more information.

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XY TXCRXYX bqlive.co.uk

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY At the double Beprotectedinsurance.com has doubled its office space in Leeds to 5,000 sq ft in Wellington Park House. The company has taken three floors in the office, located on Thirsk Row, near the train station. The site will operate as the fintech company’s UK head office and customer contact centre.

MD Adrian Watson said: “It is an ideal location for our national headquarters. Leeds is rapidly growing as a global centre for fintech and has a long history of providing great customer service through contact centres, with pioneers like First Direct leading the way.”

Key move for Thorpe Park Work is now underway by Thorpe Park Developments Ltd, a joint venture between Scarborough Group International and Legal & General Capital, on a speculative development of the first Grade A office building in phase two at Thorpe Park Leeds.

This is currently the only major out-of-town speculative office scheme being delivered in Leeds and will be available for occupation from November.

Paradigm is a 31,650 sq ft, premium ‘headquarters’ office building which sits prominently at the gateway to Thorpe Park Leeds overlooking the M1 at Junction 46.

It is the first of a total 940,000 sq ft of

new business space planned at the business park where planning consent is secured for a further 1.35 million sq ft of mixed use accommodation, bringing a significant boost to the East Leeds economy.

Development plans include a 300,000 sq ft shopping and leisure park with cinema, 300 new homes, further leisure and hotel space and 140 acres of parkland and sports facilities. Thorpe Park Leeds is already a well-established 800,000 sq ft business park with over 60 occupiers including IBM, National Grid, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Atkins, BAM and United Utilities. Delivery of the next phase of development at Thorpe Park Leeds follows last year’s announcement that Legal & General Capital were to invest £162m as joint development partner.

Barnsley boom Barnsley is experiencing a commercial property upturn as it attracted more than three times the expected number of businesses to the area.

Companies which have moved to Barnsley in the last year include cross-media marketing specialists Rethink CMYK, who have invested £500,000 in their new digital print and production workspace at Shortwood Business Park in Hoyland and specialist machinery supplier MOBA which has moved its national HQ to Park Springs industrial

Adrian Watson, MD, Beprotectedinsurance.com has doubled its office space at Wellington Park House, Leeds

estate near Grimethorpe.

Universal Components UK, global distributor of truck and commercial vehicle parts, is also expanding from Sheffield in to a new purpose built 165,000 sq ft advanced logistics facility at Ashroyd Business Park in Barnsley this year.

And established Barnsley business Melett Ltd, which supplies turbocharger parts to international customers, has recently taken on an additional 12,500 sq ft of warehouse space next to its HQ at Barnsley’s Zenith Business Park.

In the shadow of St Paul’s Prospect Business Centres, part of the Leeds-based Prospect Property Group, has announced further expansion with its fourth serviced office centre in London.

The new 22,000 sq ft offices, at No 5 Old Bailey, in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, is the company’s largest centre and has the ability to accommodate up to 350 desks over the first and second floors of the building.

The whole portfolio now comprises 112,000 sq ft of serviced office space and 1,700 desks across its four London centres and two Yorkshire centres at Prospect House and Fountain House in Leeds.

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A Riccall bit more Harworth Estates has secured a number of new leases from local businesses at its refurbished Riccall Business Park in North Yorkshire, which will generate over £100,000 of recurring annual income. HLW Keeble Hawson LLP has acted as an adviser on each deal.

The Environment Agency has taken a lease on 12,330 sqft of commercial space and 1.2 acres of land as a depot for their flood rescue services operation. TLK Trailercare Ltd has taken an 11,400 sqft industrial unit and 1.5 acres of land.

Local koi carp fisherman Damian Herapath has taken a storage unit of 870 sqft on a five year lease.

Ambience Venue Styling, a wedding venue styling service provider, has taken a 355 sq. ft office on a three year lease, and Chillies and Lavender, a local craft business, has taken a 232 sqft office on a three year lease.

Strong start for R&W Independent lettings agent R&W Lettings and Property Management marked a successful first year for its Leeds office with the letting of the penthouse apartment at Bridgewater Place in

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the city centre, within a week of it being on the market. The firm secured a 12 month lease for the two-bedroom apartment on the 30th floor of the landmark building known as the Dalek, covering around 850 sq ft and with underground parking and a concierge service.

Established in Harrogate six years ago by directors Simon Roberts and Guy Wigginton, R&W opened the Leeds office at Broad Gate on The Headrow in May last year. During their first year of business in Leeds they have doubled the number of properties they manage in the city.

Widely distributed

Funeral service expands

Rexel UK, a global retailer and distributer of electrical supplies, has expanded its business in Yorkshire with the acquisition of new space at Latchmore Park in Leeds.

The firm, already an existing occupier at the industrial estate, has taken a ten year lease on a 51,555 sq ft unit owned by Eskmuir Securities.

The comprehensively refurbished building will be a new trade counter and regional distribution hub for its expanding customer base in the North and North East of England.

An independent funeral director in Huddersfield is aiming to offer new services to the local community after completing the purchase of new premises with support from Yorkshire Bank.

Deborah Ingham, owner of Huddersfield Funeral Service, has purchased the 5,800 sq ft building in Milnsbridge, which she intends to use for funeral services and funeral teas with a licensed bar if requested. The Milnsbridge venue complements her existing premises which include the main office in Lepton and the chapel of rest in Crosland Moor.

The funding was arranged by Alan Richardson, relationship manager at Yorkshire Bank’s business and private banking centre in West Yorkshire.

Helix takes shape

From closure to a new start The former Tomlinsons Furniture Group showroom in Sandbeck Lane, Wetherby has been sold in a deal brokered by the Leeds based commercial property experts Gent Visick.

Tomlinsons Furniture Group, once Britain’s biggest antiques dealer, closed its doors for the final time in February after nearly 40 years of business. Owner Ray Tomlinson originally started trading on Wetherby High Street back in 1977 and following a relocation from a 50,000 sq ft warehouse in Tockwith he then moved to a purpose built showroom adjacent to Junction 46 of the M1 Motorway in 2010. Stone Vale and Pure Adhesion, specialist suppliers of stone tiles and tiling products, are moving in from their existing premises in Pannal Harrogate.

The steel frame of the new 75,000 sqft Helix unit at Harworth Estates’ Gateway 36 development in Barnsley is now under construction.

The new unit, which is the largest speculative commercial development in the borough for a number of years and the only development of its size in the whole of Yorkshire, will provide highquality manufacturing and logistics space on the site’s 17-acre first phase of development.

Funding for the construction of the new unit has come from a £2.7m loan from the Sheffield City Region (SCR) Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas (JESSICA) Fund. It will be the fourth unit to be developed at Gateway 36, which is located by junction 36 of the M1 off the Dearne Valley Parkway.

The 100mph innovator

Mike Hughes tightens his seatbelt and tries to keep pace with Simon Biltcliffe’s mind as he discusses the philosophy that has earned him a unique reputation in Yorkshire business It’s a terrifying scenario - smallpox is being deliberately released into a major city through virus-infused bank notes.

It sounds like a job for Batman... or Spiderman... or Simon Biltcliffe. But don’t shine a spotlight into the night sky if you need this print hero, just call into his office here in Barnsley (or East Kilbride or Bicester) and have a chat. That’s how it started for games giant Ubisoft when they wanted an eye-catching way of promoting their latest new offering, Tom Clancy’s The Division, which features the bank note scenes in its intro.

Simon’s team at print specialists Webmart provided 6,000 US$1 bills that covered a long brick wall in Shoreditch. As fascinated passers-by

picked the notes off they revealed a graffiti-style mural advertising the game – and even prizes under some of the notes.

But that sort of challenge is what Webmart is built on - alongside its unique blend of Marxism and Capitalism that has been in Simon’s DNA since before he formed the company 20 years ago, where the Capitalism generates the income and the Marxism means it is distributed back to the workforce.

Revealingly, the potentially dull question about ‘Have you had to change as the industry has changed’ is answered with: “No – we have had to lead.

“You can’t wait for anything to be proven, you

have to have the mental agility to try lots of things very quickly – and fail at many, but learn all the time.”

Already the thoughts are flooding in...

“For instance, everything these days comes delivered in a box with all these white vans around delivering to your house.

“But you can throw lots of things into that same box and make it the delivery channel for print as well. There is lots of space in there, and the marginal cost of delivering is nothing because they are delivering the product anyway.”

So....?

“So why don’t we do in-box promotion, loyalty magazines, third-party inserts. Make the box a

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‘wow’, personalise it so that it has more details about the person on the inside and makes it a real ‘ta-dah’ instead of a ‘huh’.”

Such ideas are hurtling around Simon’s significant brain all the time – controlled to some extent by deeply-held beliefs that have helped him turn the ‘why don’t we’ into a ‘we have’.

“Do you know what – the more you give the more you get back. So I have always thought that you make comparative advantage outside your physical environment.”

Comparative what?

“It means that ‘out there’ is where all the opportunities are, so I make sure I am out four days a week so that the operation stays moving and fluid.

“And that means that you are able to help people who will spend a lifetime trying to pay you back. Every day I get people coming in and telling me things that I would never have known and giving me an opportunity to combine those things into a product that a customer might be interested in or harvesting it to show to a team in a videocast.”

It might help to pause for breath and return briefly to the Batman/Spiderman idea. This 100mph mind across the desk swoops around, spotting problems and opportunities in dark corners and darting down with precision to deal with them before anyone else has really appreciated what is going on.

Sometimes - for a few minutes - you get the admittedly impressive stature of Bruce Wayne... but you really want to see Biltman in full flight.

“We are not tied to shareholders or to manufacturing capacity,” Simon continues.

“If you have those fixed entities that you revolve around then you are giving yourself certain parameters. As far as I am concerned, if it is a physical product with variable data on it – ink on anything – we can do it.

“So then how do you put it on, how do you make it the most tactile, sensory, exciting, innovative and relevant version of what you do.

Then you are creating USPs which make people want to find you.”

One of the inspiring parts of the Webmart philosophy – and there are many – is that it can apply to anyone in any sector. If you are starting up a business, build in a strategy and set of personal principles to set you apart from the competition.

But don’t fake it. There has to be an honest belief in your own character and a willingness to put that on the line and earn applause for the sort of person you are as well as the product you make. The true test of that will be when you have the option of turning down a £130,000 deal because you don’t agree with the customer’s approach.

Deal or no deal?

“If you are honest about what you do and why you want to do it, then people will want to share and help you,” says Simon.

“My dad helps by being my official reader. I am doing what I call my DIY MBA, which means that every Tuesday I have half a day to read a whole range of stuff. Dad goes over them all for me and synthesises them to get all the salient points and then I go through them on my Tuesdays.

“One of those articles was in the Economist and talked about Atom Bank. So I approached them and asked if I could pop down and meet

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and basically did the opposite of what had been done in the past, with lots of command and control and divide and conquer, where you make sure you hold on to the knowledge and only give it to show your superiority over the minions.

“I tried to do the inverse of that and gradually it worked and it was actually better and easier.

You make sure you don’t act like an arse, you do it sensibly and thoughtfully and only invest what you are happy to lose – like savings – and I only spent what we had in the bank.

“The fact that we didn’t borrow money gave us a slow innovation curve to start with, but it also gave us solidity and then you get to a certain level and you can do what you want.

“You don’t have to sell out, merge, float or even think of exit. I was always staggered that when you talk to advisers the first thing they did was ask what your exit plan was. I’m 20 years in and I don’t know what my exit is!

“That experience has made me really passionate

“Every day I get people coming in and telling me things that I would never have known and giving me an opportunity to combine those things into a product that a customer might be interested in or harvesting it to show to a team in a videocast” Graham Moore and we got chatting about traditional banking going through the same sort of disruption as print.

“They then travelled to Bicester to see how we work and suddenly I’m being invited to all sorts of events and you know that there is value in getting out and meeting other people.

“Personally, it is also about why we are in business. If you are not doing it to just bank money, then there is a purpose to it all and you will never get sated. If you want to pop anybody’s bubble don’t ask ‘what’ they have done in business, ask them ‘why’ they are in business.

“If you can get to that, you can understand the real driver behind the person.

“For me, if I had worked for someone else, I wouldn’t have seen the children growing up.

When I set this up 20 years ago, there was no paternity leave or anything like that and I was doing 60,000 business miles each year for this printing business.

“I wondered what sort of business I wanted

about start-ups and using Webmart as a case study. I don’t think it is a presence I have, I think it is just about returning to that belief that you are doing something for the greater good and knowing that no one can argue against that.

“I’ve always been impressed by paradigm shifts.

Nobody thought Roger Bannister could break the four-minute mile – but he did it and within two weeks someone else had done it because the mental shift had been taken.

“Not that long ago when you went into a pub you couldn’t see the bar for smoke. But then the law changed and within three weeks you forgot it was ever like that.

“Look at plastic bags in shops that we always used until we were told to pay 5p and nobody uses them anymore!

“There are ways of making very simple changes that can alter the paradigm in the same way that it is possible to change the way a business is run.”

Pause... Breathe... Reflect... Ready for more?

“I’m not going off and buying a yacht anytime

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“The miners’ strike was a massive seminal moment for me.

Barnsley was a coal town and there was a true sense of community, but a Conservative government used its power through spite in a very destructive way” soon, but I have enough for anything I could reasonably want and it gives me this surplus profit that I can do fantastically unusual things with and still do mentoring and speeches for free and the company can have a weird office space and still give £500,000 to charity.

“We pay a load of tax and I’m delighted because that is the redistributive model that pays for everything else.”

I manage to get another question in and, out of nowhere, a shadow comes over this hugelylikeable character when he talks about the genesis of his beliefs and way of life.

“The miners’ strike was a massive seminal moment for me. Barnsley was a coal town and there was a true sense of community, but a Conservative government used its power through spite in a very destructive way.

“All of that hypocrisy we have seen unravel and I saw it all first-hand and we are now in a place that is only just getting its GDP back to the right levels after 30 years. There has been multigenerational deprivation and it made me realise you cannot have one against the other that brings such an inequality of opportunity.

“We will send our troops to war to give people a democracy, yet you go into a business and it is run by dictators.

“Apparently that ‘command and control’ approach is the way we should do it. Well, it

doesn’t seem to ring true to me, and if it was such a great way of working we would all be in despotic countries with command and control systems.“If we believe that democracy is one of the least evil ways of running an operation, then why not in business as well with transparency and support?

“Marxism is fantastic at redistributing wealth but not at making it, while capitalism is fantastic at making it but not at sharing it out. Combine those two and everybody wins.

“At Webmart, 50% of profits above £400,000 and up to £1million is split 50:50 with me and the team, but above £1m it all goes to the team.

So the bigger we get the better we get because everyone is happy.

“Businesses should all be able to give 10% of their time to help out locally, whether that is start-ups, friends or family. Just spend that time with them and help deliver to the least well-off in society.”

As you can imagine, Simon does a lot of sharing and mentoring, much if it through the Barnsley Economic Partnership which has a target of helping a minimum of 140 local start-ups.

The Partnership aims to build up a complete skills matrix so they can quickly step in and help at any stage in any sector, in much the same way as Simon uses his 7,500 LinkedIn contacts when he needs advice or a particular

thread of experience. He has always proudly retained his status as a 50-year-old entrepreneur and is assembling a new software business now that he suggests may be “the nemesis of Webmart”.

Most businesses would just reinforce their own model and then get taken out by a competitor.

But Simon’s approach is typically challenging – create the competitor yourself and be ready for the changes it brings to your original business.

So he is not a businessman looking to wind down just yet?

“We are just not designed for retirement. Do you honestly know of anyone who sits back and does nothing and doesn’t end up with either mental illness, alcoholism or chronic obesity?

Having anything like a retirement is only a relatively recent post-war event.

“My job can be stressful and quite taxing, but I’m not killing myself down the pit, so I’ve hopefully got another 40 or 50 years yet.

“Just do something your mum would be proud of, and just in case your mum is a psychopath, do something that you would be happy to see in the public domain.”

Simon has a gift for putting things into perspective and therefore being able to prioritise to the exclusion of anything that doesn’t inspire or add value. The personal challenges he sets himself help him realise what is possible.

“I am doing Ironman, I did Marathon des Sables last year (billed as the toughest footrace on Earth), I’m climbing a mountain in Iran next and I’m running the Spine Challenge along the Pennine way in January.

“So whatever anyone else does to me is fine. If you put yourself there you know you can deal with anything. I put myself in really difficult positions, train for it three hours a day to get as fit as a fiddle - and then put it all back on again because I’m back in Britain with the beers!”

Simon Biltclife is his own Sky Box Set. You start off with a bit of him and then get the chance to switch off and come back to it another day. But what if the next episode is the one with the big set-piece... so just one more in case you miss the best bit. But then you get interested in the lead character and want to see how he develops over the whole series – and then you hope the series gets recommissioned and before you know it, you’re hooked. Perhaps the BBC – Biltcliffe Broadcasting Corporation – should be the next step. I’d certainly pay my subscription. n

ENTREPRENEURS’ GUIDE TO FINANCE

SPECIAL FEATURE

Firms on the go, thanks to Let’s Grow

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Finding the right funding formula The aspirations of Yorkshire entrepreneurs will always need support from the three Fs – family, friends and financiers.

The first two are almost automatic if the kitchen-table ideas is to progress. You will always need to bounce ideas around and ask for help to get things made and marketed.

That physical support can often be financial – but might not be enough to see the project through its most challenging development stages.

So all firms will need finance from someone with the insight and empathy to understand what they are aiming for and the skills to dig deep into a busy market of products and come up with the perfect combination.

In this BQ Yorkshire report we look at some of the options available and offer case studies of people who have experienced the system.

We talk to Labman Automation near Stokesley, where MD Andrew Whitwell’s company designs and manufactures custom-made robotic solutions for companies around the world. He had already planned a major expansion, but a major boost from the Let’s Grow fund has changed his timetable and as he puts it “Let’s face it – we didn’t have £200,000 to help our company grow and now we do!”

Then we look at another situation – where a firm has to act quickly and needs the funds to make its plans happen. RedBlack Software was looking for software developers to help with the massive job of moving their product on to

“So all firms will need finance from someone with the insight and empathy to understand what they are aiming for and the skills to dig deep into a busy market of products and come up with the perfect combination” the Cloud. Let’s Grow made it happen, and the online availability of RedBlack’s work is now opening up a much wider market for MD Jane Tyler.

Certainly the stats for Let’s Grow in North and East Yorkshire are impressive. A delegated fund from the Regional Growth Fund, administered by accountants and business advisers UNW and independent business services group BE Group, it has awarded 14 vital grants in the area totalling just under £3m.

This translates into an investment from those businesses of £23.7m which they are using to create or safeguard 584 jobs. And there is still time to benefit, with £900,000 still to be

allocated by the end of the year.

But the scheme is just one example of the funding foundations that Yorkshire firms can build upon.

You will also find out more about the Bradfordbased Business Enterprise Fund - a not-for-profit social enterprise set up to provide loans to SME businesses who are unable to raise finance from mainstream lenders. For the last 11 years, BFE has ploughed its profits back into the company to support its own crucial work.

Yorkshire entrepreneurs also have the option of Start Up Loans, a government funded scheme providing advice, money and mentoring to new businesses. They offer the opportunity to borrow up to £25,000 at a fixed interest rate of 6% per annum and access to free business support.

So the help is out there from people and organisations who aren’t just in it for the money, but are part of a comprehensive network of lenders which recognises that an investment now can pay off not only for the individual firms, but for the local and national economies.

Take a few minutes to cast your eye over what is in here, take which bits you think will be useful, make your move and invest in your future and that of your workforce and your region. n

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PROFILE Labman

Innovation inside and out The striking cedar-clad exterior of the Labman headquarters at Seamer near Stokesley suggests innovation with an eye for detail, and the inside doesn’t disappoint Labman Building

Led by the irrepressible Andrew Whitwell – according to his online profile, he has been MD for 113 years and eight months – the company designs and manufactures custommade robotic solutions for companies around the world.

Their work covers a remarkable range of sectors, from medical, petrochemical and bio-energy to food & drink, coatings and software solutions. Features include powder feeding; liquid handling; capping and decapping; grinding and milling; weighing; heating and cooling; centrifuging and more.

For more than 30 years, the company has established itself as a market-leader with a positive approach and some innovative solutions. Many of its systems are completely unique and are tailored to each customer’s specific requirements, which may include anything from consumables that allow operators to work more comfortably, to dedicated control software, or a special hand-tool to help remove a tight cap.

The high level of innovation also extends to the Labman staff – who enjoy a climbing wall, pool table and table tennis inside the office and off-road buggies outside, and when their extensive new 10,000 sq ft building is finished – doubling the space they have – one of the meeting rooms will double as a squash court!

So this is not a boss or a company from central casting - but the dynamic approach is paying off and the building extension and £200,000 of Let’s Grow funding are evidence of that.

“Yes, things are going well and we are very busy with a welcome mix of customers in the UK and abroad”, Andrew tells me.

“The Let’s Grow money will help us create about 30 jobs and speed the whole project up, meaning that perhaps our planned growth for the next five years could come down to three.

“Because we make things practically, anything bureaucratic is not usually in our nature, but we are very grateful for the Let’s Grow money. Let’s face it

– we didn’t have £200,000 to help our company grow and now we do!”

Andrew is very much a man who would rather be making things than talking about making them, and he is determined that his love of finding a new solution to a problem will be echoed by his hand-picked team. So they were very involved in the company’s stimulating open-plan space, meaning that the next generation of Labmen and Labwomen have an exciting future ahead of them.

“If we pay in salaries a million and a half each year, the cost of doubling a meeting room into squash court costs £20,000. It’s peanuts when it provides so much enjoyment and we are here for half our lives,” says Andrew.

“And in another way it is me being selfish because it means I get free squash partners!”

The layout is important for clients as well, with fully equipped meeting rooms to allow the creative process to begin in a quiet space. As projects move toward the detailed design phase engineers will

PROFILE Labman

55

Andrew Whitewell, Labman MD

utilise one of the many SolidWorks CAD seats out in the office and build area. Once manufacture commences the project team have access to two dedicated machine shops and an electronics build area and analysis equipment.

The company’s investment in its 60 staff has already been recognised with the awarding of the Apprenticeship Award at the North East Business Awards final this year.

“We feel very strongly that the education system provides a familiarity with knowledge, but doesn’t really provide competencies and skills, so the only way we can get that is to have people in-house and bring them on ourselves,” said Andrew.

“It is a big part of what we do here and we think that if you have apprentices but you are only using them for the cheap jobs, then that is the wrong attitude.

The whole idea should be for them to have aptitude – that’s the crucial thing – and build that into skills, competencies and knowledge.

The company’s philosophy is clear and supportive: “We pride ourselves on our apprenticeship scheme and wholly believe that apprentices hold the key to the success of the future of engineering. We strive to employ young, talented, motivated and enthusiastic individuals who are keen to immerse themselves fully in the Labman work ethic believing that apprentices contribute greatly to the effective running of any

“Labman are a great example of an innovative North Yorkshire business that has grown successfully through a focus on providing solutions to meet its customers’ specific needs. Coupled with a strong commitment to develop its workforce, this has resulted in their next expansion phase, which we are delighted to have been able to support through the Let’s Grow programme.”

SIMON ALLEN, LET’S GROW

business. They bring an enthusiasm and willingness to learn that cannot always be matched by ‘wiser’ established employees/candidates.”

Andrew Whitwell and his team have developed an innovative and forward-thinking company with a global reputation. Now, with the help of Let’s Grow, it can move in to its next exciting phase – complete with squash court....

North &E ast Yorkshire

For more on Labman Automation, go to www.labman.co.uk or call 01642 710580.

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PROFILE RedBlack

This is not just software – this is RedBlack software York-based software development company RedBlack was set up by managing director Jane Tyler in 1998 to design bespoke applications for customers in the food industry as well as in health and safety, NHS management and online learning It also works with travel agents; car park management; clubs and charities; stock control systems for book distributors, garage chains and engineering firms as well as helping track and distribute web leads to sales agents.

It has built such a strong reputation in the food sector that RedBlack is now working with perhaps the country’s most high-profile food brand – Marks & Spencer.

“We are delighted to be working with M&S,” said Jane.

“It’s one of Britain’s best-loved brands and I am really pleased that we can put our experience with automated sales-based ordering to the test at an enterprise level.”

RedBlack has four key products in use at wholesalers and retailers around the country.

Cybake is its flagship bakery management software, controlling everything from goods in to orders, production, invoicing, deliveries as well as reports and analysis.

Instore is the sales-based predictive ordering system for retail bakers that eliminates unplanned waste and cuts admin.

SG Systems V5 is used for precision shop-floor recipe control, product labelling and mobile warehouse management systems.

And Infood is a cloud-based solution that uses recipes to generate regulation-compliant allergen

“It was a good process with Let’s Grow and the handholding was very efficient which meant that there were no problems and we got around £45,000. That’s important money for the company because our main product, Cybake, is server-based and we need it on the cloud.” and nutritional information.

“The fundamental problem bakers have is that every day they are trading in products from scratch,” explained Jane.

“They are taking loads of ingredients and turning them into a couple of hundred lines, but the challenge is to know what to produce. So we take the orders from their customers, do the number crunching and use their recipes to let the bakers know exactly what they need to do – how many hot cross buns or dough types to make. Doing it manually would be really time-consuming.

“Most of our clients are craft bakers and we deal with the likes of Thomas the Baker and have a couple of other ‘biggies’ which is a great thing for us.

“We have been trying to grow the business, but these big names are certainly a game-changer for us and I like to think it will open even more doors for us.”

The company now has 23 staff and has taken on six as result of the work with Let’s Grow.

“I think the confidence we got from winning the grant meant we are pushing ahead even more than we said we would,” adds Jane.

“We are delighted to be working with M&S,” said Jane.

“It’s one of Britain’s best-loved brands and I am really pleased that we can put our experience with automated sales-based ordering to the test at an enterprise level.”

“It was a good process with Let’s Grow and the handholding was very efficient which meant that there were no problems and we got around £45,000.

That’s important money for the company because our main product, Cybake, is server-based and we need it on the cloud.

“It is a really big job to move it because it is 18 or 19 years since I first wrote it and it has been under development all that time, so it is quite a beast. We had moved one or two of the modules like Infood and Instore and converted to the Cloud one small bite at a time.

“But it is a huge ‘elephant’ to bite and we really need more developers, which can be quite expensive, so we couldn’t really commit to taking them on because there were too many unknowns for us. So we turned to Let’s Grow for help.

“It really helped to have that commitment from them because it can be scary to think of us taking on those developers, and it gives you confidence to progress.”

RedBlack all started for Jane while she was on maternity leave and her uncle, who was selling bakery software, needed a Windows version writing. As one of the first generation of Windows programmers she was the obvious choice.

For the future, the move to the Cloud will give them a crucial global reach and create many more opportunities for the software to be accessed.

“We will still target the smaller baker because they don’t seem to be very well served and they could pay per month to use the system.”

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Grant funding from £25,000 for capital investment and R&D projects • Let’s Grow is a £4m Regional Growth Fund programme which provides grant support for capital investment and R&D projects that will create new sustainable jobs or safeguard existing jobs at risk.

• The scheme covers North Yorkshire, the City of York and the East Riding of Yorkshire.

• The scheme is available to businesses with proposed projects of £125,000 and above.

• Funding is available until March 2017.

• Projects must meet the scheme criteria and are judged on their levels of job creation and value for money.

• Further details about the fund, eligibility criteria and how to apply can be found on our website or by contacting one of our advisors. web: www.be-group.co.uk

tel: 0191 389 8434 email: letsgrow@be-group.co.uk

North &E ast Yorkshire

Jane Tyler, RedBlack MD

“We are delighted to have been able to support RedBlack Software with their expansion plans through Let’s Grow. The business has built a good reputation over a number of years, resulting in them securing contracts with some major clients, and I am sure that this will continue as they move to their next phase of development” SIMON ALLEN, LET’S GROW

For more information call 01904 622888, email jane@redblacksoftware.co.uk or visit www.redblacksoftware.co.uk RedBlack Software Ltd, Kings House, 12 King Street, York, N Yorks. YO1 9WP

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PROFILE BEF

Owning your own business is as popular as ever SME Businesses Rise as Start-ups Spring Up

Ali Allawa, Operations Manager at Everybodys All Day Social in Guiseley Britain’s start-up scene is showing no signs of slowing down. As trends change and workers become fed up of the corporate world, small businesses are being created as new found entrepreneurs want to become their own boss. 600,000 new companies were started last year, a rise by over 3% from the previous . These emerging businesses contain the potential to grow and become the bedrock of our changing economy.

For 12 years Business Enterprise Fund (BEF) have grown to cover Yorkshire and the North East of

“2000 jobs have been safeguarded or created as a result of BEF’s lending which has amounted to nearly £7 million in the last year alone – £1.8 million of which in Start Up Loans”

England and offer loans up to £150,000 for new and growing businesses. Since the financial crash in 2008, demand for alternative finance is higher than it ever has been, as banks are unable to fully assist with the needs of young and emerging SME businesses.

BEF is an official Delivery Partner for the Government’s Start Up Loans scheme, which was set up to encourage and strengthen emerging businesses with unsecured lending up to £25,000 for terms up to 5 years at 6%. When the banks are unable to assist, this is realistically the best solution for start-ups that are unwilling to give up equity.

The number of people employed is key to note when measuring how effective SME businesses will be in the economy. On paper over 99% of UK businesses are SMEs, employing 15.6 million people with a combined annual turnover of £1.8 trillion .

2000 jobs have been safeguarded or created as a result of BEF’s lending which has amounted to nearly £7 million in the last year alone – £1.8 million of which in Start Up Loans.

This lending has contributed nearly £40 million to the Yorkshire and North East economy - all businesses assisted were unable to access reasonable finance from mainstream lenders.

As the country recovers from recession a growing demand for food & drink and retail businesses is occurring, particularly in Leeds and the surrounding area. BEF recently arranged a loan for entrepreneur Adam Lewis, who has opened bar and restaurant ‘Everybodys Social’ in the town of Guiseley.

Adam saw the opportunity for his business existed in the area and balancing a range of British favourites on the menu with cocktails and edgy décor, Adam’s aim to welcome all generations has got off to a positive start.

“I know Guiseley really well and it needed something like this” Adam said. “As a town it’s expanding quickly, it’s still got a good suburban feel and is only 15 minutes by train to Leeds city centre, it’s perfect for commuters.”

Adam has created 50 jobs in the area and has big plans to open 10 further venues across the North over the next 10 years. As SMEs grow, their influence spreads – all it often takes is the funding and support to ignite a businesses potential.

Business Enterprise Fund (BEF) are a not for profit organisation that lend money to small and medium sized businesses. Beginning in 2004, BEF are a Responsible Finance Provider that works across Yorkshire and the North East with creating and safeguarding jobs at the heart of their mission, with a particular focus on businesses set in less advantaged backgrounds. Over the last year their investment team has grown to 14 and plans to continue growth are set for the year ahead, with a focus on expanding their offering further into the North East of England.

Contact Business Enterprise Fund on 0800 080 3145, visit www.befund.org or follow on Twitter @BE_Fund

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Over a Leeds lunch, BQ Yorkshire Editor Mike Hughes discusses the changing face of law with Roger Hutton of Clarion

How to win the law war With cameras in court and an incoming wave of IT heading for its shores, there certainly seems to be a clarion call for change in the legal sector. So it seems fitting that my lunch guest Roger Hutton is joint managing partner with Clarion Law – and that the most recent Chambers report said the firm was “quite good at explaining things in layman’s terms...”

Roger’s firm has had a strong start to the year, with one division securing £200m worth of transactions within the first three months, so what’s the secret?

“The market is changing and I think Clarion has a very particular place in that market,” he says, at our private dining table in The Oak Room at Quebecs in Leeds city centre.

“It has established itself as a provider of legal services, and I am pretty confident we know exactly who we are selling to and why they are buying from us, having done a lot of work on why people choose us and what we can offer them.

“We have finally got it right and the legal market is helping us because it is in a state of change and for us the big national firms are typically less focused on regional businesses or certainly less hungry about them, which creates a space for independent legal practices to succeed.”

This move towards personalised services throughout every sector is growing. The cut-price mass market approach was seen as the only way to make huge inroads into a crowded sector, but now the customer has so much choice that he is looking for a supplier who knows his business from back to front and will deliver only precisely what is needed. The tailor-made strategy is also

improving customer relations, making future contracts more likely which is helping suppliers plan ahead.

“We have spent a long time doing it – and none of it is rocket science – but in a fairly sleepy profession not really up for change it has put us ahead of the curve,” explains Roger, who is looking particularly chipper – impressive for someone who only recently decided to become a dad and a husband within the same 18 months.

“We are unusual in that, during the recession, we recruited a load of junior partners who were feeling uneasy or were surplus to requirements at the national firms. They would then go to their big clients and tell them about this single site offering in Leeds they might never have heard of and ask if they would take a risk and bring their business to us for two-thirds of the price.

“This was unashamedly selling on price, and we did it to 30, 40 or 50 blue chip firms and that has meant we now have a raft of a dozen or so highquality partners serving really big clients.

“Then you can take that to the owner-managed businesses and show them this success and – unless they need a national brand or a multi-site office in which case we are out – we tell them we will invest a lot of time in the relationship over the next ten or 15 years.”

This is back to the early ideals of small businesses, which engendered a sense of trust and partnership because each side meant something to the other. For a magazine focusing so much on entrepreneurs, it’s a joy to see the strategy making such a comeback.

“Most of the work we are winning is from the

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£10m-£100m businesses and we are taking that from the national firms because we talk about the relationship and how the big firms might not really know the right contacts and who your competitors really are regionally.”

His profile on the Clarion homepage underlines the point, saying: “Ultimately success comes from getting under the skin of a situation quickly and understanding exactly what my client really wants both now and in the longer term. Whether working with the leading insolvency practitioners or directors in difficult circumstances in excess of 20 years of experience has taught me that recognising a problem or a desired outcome early is the best approach.”

For him and his team, growth isn’t the be-all and end-all of what they do.

“I think if we can get the right people and the right culture, then it sustains the business. That approach has given us a distinct personality which is perhaps quiet-minded, quite casual and collegiate. Everyone can see our figures at any stage – it is certainly not hierarchical.

“So if you get two 40-year-olds walking through the door, one might want to see rows of books behind a lot of grey hair and someone telling them they have done it 30 times before.

Or they might want someone who will engage with them empathetically and are more energised and more integrated in their approach, more casual and look a bit younger.

“I think if we can get the right people and the right culture, then it sustains the business. That approach has given us a distinct personality which is perhaps quiet-minded, quite casual and collegiate”

It’s horses for courses.”

Roger knows that is the easy bit – telling someone how different you are and pointing out where your competitors aren’t as strong as you. The test is to back that up with an outstanding customer experience.

The front office facade might be polished and shiny, but you won’t get any money from your customer if the next five doors they are shown through don’t match up, until you get to the boardroom, which is polished and shiny again.

“As lawyers we have a fair degree of autonomy, as long as the figures are alright. There is a freedom of expression and our junior lawyers get much more access to clients than in some practices. We also hold a meeting every Wednesday morning where the entire firm turns up to discuss sales and matters of interest to our clients.

Clarion’s entrepreneurial image is obviously paying dividends, judging by that £200m worth of deals for its corporate team and a surge in mergers and acquisitions. That means it is attracting like-minded companies who sense a connection. It’s that sort of direct, measurable

link that has got Clarion‘s senior team excited about the coming few years.

“We act for a large amount of the digital marketing community in Leeds and have clients in leisure and fintech and tend to work for innovative companies rather than the more traditional manufacturing businesses, although we have a lot of family-owned businesses looking at generational change and preparing for the future,” says Roger, who isn’t looking at all sleep-deprived as his chicken course is served.

That way family firms are changing is something that will chime with many law firms who would find it difficult to predict how they will be operating in five years. Like many of those generational firms, they are braced for upheaval that could mean the end of an era for some rusty old Rumpoles.

“We have just done the first phase of an IT rollout and next year our strategy is to put in a whole new system,” he says.

“The trick is that this becomes an opportunity for your communication strategy with your clients to become a differentiator. What information you give your clients and at what

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speed is important and many practices are years behind with that – and yet it is always one of the top issues when you survey clients.

“I remember a few years ago having piles of paper around me and someone invented a fax machine – it was infuriating because when you got a letter you had seven days before they bothered chasing you. Now you were forced to get a response out within 48 hours.

“Then emails came along and if you haven’t responded four or five hours later there is a chasing email... and texts are even worse!”

To keep pace with this level of change, there needs to be a suitably-equipped stream of new talent coming into Yorkshire’s law firms.

“We have good relationships with the suppliers of good young lawyers, but the market is increasingly over-supplied because there is an increasing number of young people who want to become lawyers – which is great – but not enough jobs so there is an over-supply of students.

“Interestingly, more and more of those successfully coming through are women, reflected in the fact that more than 70% of Clarion’s staff are female. I think essentially

you will see a demographic of students doing law that are successful at a certain age and pass their exams after four to five years and interview well. At the age of 21 to 23, the girls are more mature, sophisticated and organised than the boys.”

Roger believes that, in those rising overall numbers of potential staff, there is an element who are leaving but not really knowing what they want to do. Law still has the promise of a long and solid career, so they take a conversion course lasting a couple of years at the most, and move over from their intended discipline.

The benefit of that is law firms end up with more rounded characters who have experience of other areas – and who make up the majority of lawyers at Clarion.

One recruitment challenge comes from the practice of north-shoring - the process of moving certain aspects of a southern-based business up North. The problem with that is that the people who then become potential recruits up here, while very skilled technically, have less and less client experience and people skills because their jobs have never required it in the less forward-thinking South.

“We have good relationships with the suppliers of good young lawyers, but the market is increasingly over-supplied because there is an increasing number of young people who want to become lawyers”

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Personally, Roger had always fancied being a lawyer (“maybe I just like the sound of my own voice...”) despite dad being a teacher and mum working in a mill.

“They’d have been amazed if they thought I would end up as the managing partner in a decent law firm,” he says modestly.

“I had tried to get into Oxford but didn’t make it, so did a history degree but then converted to Law and got to be quite good at it quite easily.

I thought I might be a barrister, but then a guy at Squire’s asked if I would come for an

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interview. “I wasn’t really bothered and I think when you feel like that you often do better at the interview and he offered me a job. I left after four or five years because I wanted to be at the top somewhere, so I first went into industry in Penistone.

“The thing I noticed was that we would be sitting in a meeting waiting for a lawyer to turn up and my MD would say ‘he’s just going to waste an hour and half, then tell us why we can’t do things and then write us a bill.

“It became one of my life ambitions for the client to be pleased a lawyer is going to turn up and maybe even tell them something that might make them a bit richer or their lives a bit happier.

“So now my day job is insolvency, which is in a wholly transitioned and very competitive marketplace. After the crash produced such a backlash, the banks are much more reticent now to let a business go down.... or if it does go down they don’t want to be responsible for it.

“I think lenders had quite rightly figured out that putting businesses through the hands of the professionals to go through a formal involvency was too expensive a strategy. So I think most businesses in distress don’t go through a formal process now and one agency or another spots their distress and helps them at the right stage.

“Now there is a more sophisticated dialogue towards positive resolutions, so there is less insolvency work around, which is good for the economy. Criteria for lending have also been relaxed quite dramatically, which is actually quite worrying because 15 months ago they weren’t going to lend a penny to them.”

But he adds one concerning observation after so much time working with the sector: “One thing we have found as well is that many banks are phasing out their relationship managers and reinvesting in regulatory compliance to tackle the likes of cybercrime.”

There are two sides to that wave of IT change – as well as the ‘good guys’ needing to embed it in their own operations and make them as efficient and secure as their clients would expect, it also means the ‘bad guys’ are becoming more sophisticated and a new level of counter-thinking is needed from that stream of new talent working alongside more experienced colleagues. Bradford-born and a dedicated Yorkshireman, he loves sport, but often from the

armchair or a seat in the stands for his cricket, apart from a bit of golf and squash. Further away from the office, he is trying to keep fit so that he can make the most of his time with his baby daughter Hattie.

“My dad was a teacher in the Moravian settlement in Pudsey – he got shot out in Italy and thought he was going to die, but came back to teach in the same place for 60 years.

“He is now 98 and his dad had him when he was 49, he had me when he was 49 and I had

Hattie when I was 49, so there has always been a big generational spread.

Having been managing partner for just over a year, a husband for just a few weeks and a dad for only 18 months, Roger Hutton is busy but very happy. If people asked ‘what do you do – you look a bit like a lawyer’ I think he would be disappointed. He is obviously very good at a job he has a great deal of passion for, but his skills are much broader than the sector he works in and that sector is brighter for it. n

Quebecs Quebecs in Quebec Street in Leeds city centre is the imposing former home of the Leeds and County Liberal club – and it maintains a feeling of long-held quality, quiet respect and good service, led by general manager John Weatherhead.

The only independently owned luxury hotel in the city centre, it was voted by Conde Nast Traveller as one of the top 80 hotels in the world and by the Independent as one of the 50 best in Britain. Distinctive terracotta brickwork dominates the street and welcomes you through an elaborate entrance with wrought iron gates flanked by Corinthian columns. Inside there is a sweeping oak staircase leading past five huge stained-glass windows illustrating the coat of arms of five Yorkshire towns, and on to our dining table in the former Liberal Club committee room clad in oak panelling. Very splendid.

As was the food, served with a politeness and efficiency befitting the 4-star surroundings.

Roger agreed with me that duck and champagne terrine, rocket and caramelised red onion was excellent, and while we both opted for the generous cheeseboard as dessert, my main was a beautiful Cumberland sausage with creamy mashed potato, with a red wine sauce and French onions. Roger went for the chargrilled fillet of chicken marinated in lemon and coriander with a Thai red risotto. Delicious.

It was a relaxed and peaceful conversation with the discreet privacy business leaders would expect when meeting clients.

For longer stays, the hotel has 44 rooms and its owners have just bought the Old Post Office building in City Square Leeds, which dates back to the 19th Century and underwent a £6.3m refurbishment in 2005 to create 23 serviced apartments, known as Residence 6.

With confidence and growth plans like that, Quebecs is illustrating a commitment to the city that we both wholeheartedly applaud along with our meals.

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Open road required Rachel Spencer Robb, Partner at LCF Law finds the ideal conditions for the Aston Martin V8 Vantage

Allow me to share with you my 24 hours with Martin... Aston Martin (apologies, James Bond references will now be kept to a minimum).

When Mark Hill showed me around the V8 Vantage at Brookfields Aston Martin garage, a beautiful steely blue (‘Sea Storm’), waited patiently for me on the forecourt. Sinking into the cockpit felt like stepping into another world.

The cream leather sports seats were firm, like having arms around you. The smell of the brand new interior was intoxicating and I started to feel a thrill of anticipation as to what was to come. It was, I imagined, like being held by a stranger and not caring less how the night

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“The cream leather sports seats were firm, like having arms around you. The smell of the brand new interior was intoxicating and I started to feel a thrill of anticipation as to what was to come” might end. Very Bond.

However, the best was definitely yet to come as I started the engine. One of the most amazing sounds I have ever heard. A child’s first cry? A marriage proposal? They are both up there with the starting engine of the Aston Martin. A twostage growl from the 4.7 litre engine to a roar that begs to be driven.

Now, I could tell you all the fancy spec of the car, torque, electronic brakeforce distribution but what you need from this review is how driving a car like this makes you feel because really that is what’s important.

Mark warned me that I, or rather the car, would be honked at, stared at, driven up the back of, and refused out into traffic. Personally, I didn’t find that, however, as the driving position is very low and the car so subtle and stealthy, I could not actually see into other people’s cars or anyone that was standing on the pavement.

On the way to the Harrogate Business lunch at the Pavillions, I started to wonder whether this handsome stranger and I might not be talking the same language – as the Sportshift II ASM gear box does take a bit of getting used to. But I was advised to use the ‘automatic’ option in

traffic so that the car could just drive itself and I did not have to keep shifting up and down the gears. I was looking forward to a bit of open road around Kirkby Overblow, but was denied by a hay lorry so the car was soon chomping at the bit like a racehorse. I was starting to realise that this is a car that is not too keen on going less than 60 mph. The gear change was starting to irritate as in automatic there is a distinct roll forward and back as the gear shifts. This is improved slightly in the manual mode which increases the speed of the gear change but keeps you busy on the paddles trying to get out of Leeds.

I said I would call into our LCF Law Harrogate office to collect a couple of colleagues to attend the lunch so that frankly, we could show off when we pulled up in front of 500 of our contemporaries! Ah – but only two seats. This is a car for a couple, a loner or a loner and their one special friend. I have to admit it was disappointing not to be able to share the joy with as many people as I could find!

Once the lunch was over and I had driven around the car park of the Pavillions to show off a bit, I was back down to earth with a bump

managing the school run, with heavy traffic , pouring rain and having to do it twice as the two seats meant I had to do shifts with two children and their stuff. Perhaps this beautiful car deserves an open road, a sunny day and a different life to the one I lead....

The following day dawned and I was determined to get the most out of the car before I had to take it back. I drove out to Wetherby and the first foray on the A1. Well, that’s more like it!

Smooth gear shifts into 7th gear on the paddles, and we were away.

Then get your foot down and the car immediately responds with 0 – 64 in less than 5 seconds. The engine roared and at last we were friends. This was a brilliant experience and summed up when my 10 year old asked the price and I informed him it was over £100K. “Brilliant - I’m saving up!” he replied. n The car Rachel drove was an Aston Martin V8 Vantage Coupe, 4.7 litre, 7 speed. On road price from £92,495. Price including all options, £108,010. Supplied by Aston Martin Leeds, JCT600, Brooklands, Ring Road, Lower Wortley Leeds, LS12 6AA. Tel 0113 389 0777

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The Aston Martin V8 Vantage sits alone as a high-performance sports car of truly iconic status. Combining instantly recognisable compact sporting design with exceptional technology, the V8 Vantage embodies all that is great about Aston Martin. Total emotion. Complete control.

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CONTACT YOUR LOCAL DEALERSHIP TO ARRANGE A TEST DRIVE JCT600 BROOKLANDS ASTON MARTIN RING ROAD, LEEDS LS12 6AA 0113 292 6372 | www.jct600.co.uk

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A Burgundian love affair Simon Young,, partner at Leeds law firm Clarion, explains why wines from Burgundy have a special place in his heart I am, admittedly, a bit of a petrol head and in 1997 I decided to build my own car - a Caterham 7. Working with a friend we spent about four weekends bolting together this sort of Mecanno set for adults and finished just in time for a drive to Le Mans in June with my girlfriend to watch the world famous 24 hours race.

A Caterham 7 is simply not built for touring.

There are essentially two seats, an engine and four wheels. Directly behind the two seats is a very shallow and small ‘boot’. It took us several attempts to pack and repack a soft bag and mould it into the shape of the ‘boot’ to maximise its capacity. After each unsuccessful attempt more ‘non-essential’ items were removed which, as you can imagine, did not go down particularly well with my girlfriend who, to compound matters, had only agreed to the trip lured by the post Le Mans holiday in the beautiful French countryside. After much heated discussion the only offending item was a hair dryer. I suggested that a hair dryer was not an essential item for a 10 day trip. Needless to say, I have not made that mistake again and the hairdryer was stowed in the foot well alongside other essential items such as food and water.

“What has all this got to do with wine?” I hear you say. Well, it was during our tour of the Loire Valley that my love of Burgundy’s world renowned wines began. We first drove to Chambord and visited the stunning Chateau there. It was then on to Sancerre, Pouilly-surLoire and through the heart of Burgundy staying in the beautiful villages and towns of Macon, Vezelay, Beaune and Chablis. I recognised the names and had tried the wines from most of these regions, but driving through Burgundy ignited a genuine interest in its wines which has remained with me to this day. Indeed, I even popped the question to my girlfriend during our stay at a very romantic hotel in the picturesque

hill-top village of Vezelay. Thankfully ‘hair dryergate’ had been forgotten and she said yes!

Knowing my love of Burgundy wines, those nice people at esteemed wine merchant Bon Coeur Fine Wines (thank you Jamie Goodheart!) sent me a red and a white from the region. The white was a Saint-Veran 2014 by Terre Secretes located close to Macon, and the red was a Domaine Faiveley Mercurey 2014.

For me, white Burgundy is a wine best served very chilled on a hot summer day. Remarkably, our British weather recently served up such a day. I retrieved the Saint-Veran from the fridge, ventured out into the garden and asked my resident white wine expert, my wife Ness, to share it with me. We both agreed it was delicious; it was lemony and floral and smooth with a hint of vanilla.

My favourite wine of all is red Burgundy so I was really looking forward to trying the Faiveley Mercurey which we also opened on that hot Sunday afternoon. It, too, was superb. It smelt and tasted of blackcurrants and strawberries, with a spicy finish and had a very rounded smooth texture - probably best served with white meat, but great to drink on its own, as we did.

So, despite my Burgundy journey beginning with discord over a hair dryer, I became engaged in the region along the way and my wife and I were nothing less than harmonious in our agreement that the Saint-Veran and the Faiveley Mercurey were superb and an ideal accompaniment to a hot summer day. Hopefully, there are many more to come! n White Wine: Saint Veran ‘Vignerons Des Terres Secretes’ Burgundy France 2014, £12.99. Red Wine: Mercurey Rouge ‘La Framboisiere’ Domaine Faiveley, Burgundy, France 2014, £19.99

Contact: James Goodhart Head of Private & Corporate Sales Bon Coeur Fine Wines Ltd Moor Park, Moor Road, Melsonby, Richmond, North Yorkshire DL10 5PR T: 01325 776446 W: www.bcfw.co.uk E: wine@bcfw.co.uk

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In an age of digital innovation swiss watch makers are finding new ways to make a statement and grab the consumers attention, as we report

Watches for our time “In this often gloomy world I think it’s important to put a smile on the customer’s face,” says Jean-Marc Pontrou, the CEO of Roger Dubuis. “We’re here to provide emotions. We’re in the love business, the gift business - even if that gift is to yourself.”

Many in the Swiss watch industry will acknowledge the functional outdatedness of the mechanical watch in the light of smart-phones. Few will stress just how much success in that industry is about getting people excited. “The fact is that you need to make a statement,” Pontrou adds. “People may like it.

They might not like it. But they remember it.”

That may be all the more important seeing as, Pontrou predicts, there is something of a cull among watch brands on the way: Switzerland has some 700 of them, relative to just 12 major car manufacturing groups, he notes. “We can’t forget that the last 10 years have been exceptional ones for the business,” he adds.

Perhaps this is why Roger Dubuis, like many of the companies unveiling wares at this year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva - the high-end watch world’s catwalk shows - has taken such distinctive position: in its case by focusing on watches for women. And not the usual scaleddown men’s watches: dials with flowers and leaves in laser-cut

enamel, models inspired by the Chanel-owned shoemaker Massaro, even ones with the first diamonds set in carbon and super-rare Paraiba diamonds at that - all feature in the collection.

Certainly, while SIHH offered up some trends, as far as watches at this end of the market follow trends - yellow gold and skeleton dials most notably - many watchmakers have gone out of their way to be stylistically or mechanically inventive. Richard Mille’s RM 50-02, for example, sees the company team up with Airbus to make, fittingly, its most streamlined model to date, with the case made from the same alloy used to make Airbus’s turbine blades and screws holding the watch together the same as those used to hold the airframe together.

Audemars Piguet, meanwhile, has now launched a production version of its patented Royal Oak Super Sonniere minute repeater, just a year after it unveiled the concept: it uses the science of instrument making, including a sound board, to produce a watch with a chime 10 times louder than anything on the market to date and cleverly circumventing the typical problems suffered by minute repeaters, notably a tinny sound deadened by being on someone’s wrist.

“We have historic legitimacy in the making of minute

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repeaters - lots of companies have introduced one over the last five years - but still we knew we had to make a strong statement in this area to really re-think how a modern minute repeater might work,” explains Olivier Audemars, head of the company’s R&D. “We spent a lot of time talking with physicists and musicians about harmonics...”

The show even revealed what could prove a genuine game-changer for anyone really fixated on the notion of cogs and wheels being in some way a superior form of timekeeping to circuits and batteries.

Parmigiani Fleurier, at 20 years old this year still a young brand, has made a major splash with an innovation called Senfine - that’s ‘eternally’ in Esperanto. It is still in concept, though the company says it will have a production model on the market by 2018. The big idea? It replaces the usual classic watch regulator - the several parts of which burn through energy as a consequence of friction - with a virtually frictionless silicon oscillator that combines balance, balance spring and pallet fork.

If that all still sounds like technical gobbledegook, the upshot is a mechanical watch with a power reserve measured not in the usual few days, but in months. Or at least one-and-a-half of them. Perhaps the most curious - and telling - aspect of the innovation is that it’s the brainchild of Pierre Genequand, a scientist who never trained as a watchmaker. In that is a lesson perhaps for the closeted and insular Swiss watchmaking industry to think outside the case more often.

Indeed, SIHH - usually a showcase for the long established and internationally known brands - seems to be embracing this notion itself: for 2016’s show the organisation opened a new area for the expanding generation of young, progressive niche players the likes of Urwerk, MB&F and H.Moser. These

are the companies making waves by placing innovation over refinement, and successfully charging big bucks for the results.

Hautlence, for example, has produced a watch with stained glass panels, designed in conjunction with, of all people, Eric Cantona; Urwerk has its T-rex, the dial of which is almost entirely covered by a bronze carapace, cut into tiny jags to mimic, what else, but dinosaur skin.

It is not your usual Swiss conservatism, and yet it is not without craft: the metal cover - which will develop a patina, thus itself becoming a more poetic expression of passing time - was painstakingly hand-cut using sandblasting and acid washes.

Of course, SIHH also offered the less adventurous, if no less technically sophisticated or well-crafted. Cartier’s new men’s model, the Drive, for example, is pure classicism - with its cushion case, guilloche dial, blue hands and Roman numerals.

IWC’s stand-out piece is the Timezoner Chronograph, the kind of high function, higher machismo watch that the company specialises in: it’s the only pilot’s watch that enables the user to set another time zone, together with the date and the 24-hour hand, in a single movement.

“Something like the Timezoner is simple to use but very hard to pull off, mechanically-speaking. But it’s always hard to find something technically new to do with a pilot’s watch and I’m rather worried about the next collection,” as IWC’s technical director Stefan Ihnen jokes, “because I’m not sure what else we can do. So far I have no ideas...”

Perhaps the answer, even for a brand regarded as a master of minimalism, is to nod to the aesthetically extreme. That may make the guardians of brand values shudder to think on, but the fight for consumer attention seems to be what the watch market is increasingly about these days. n

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The next generation of exporters UKTI Regional Director Mark Robson tells BQ Yorkshire Editor Mike Hughes how entrepreneurs can take the first steps into exporting and take the Yorkshire brand across the world

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

At a recent BQ dinner debate in Hull, Mark Robson told our guests that exporters need a certain approach to get the job done, saying: “Companies that grow rapidly have a novel way of thinking about how to create a market. It is all about an attitude to look for new markets and new ways of selling and growing.”

Sound advice from the man who has been the UKTI’s regional director for Yorkshire and Humber for more than 16 years. But how soon should a new business start finding time in a hectic first few years to think about assessing international market opportunities?

The timing can be critical. Too soon before the real potential of the new business has been investigated and you lose the global market through poor reputation and the local market because you have stretched too soon. But too late and you may never know how lucrative it could have been to be the fresh new face of your sector.

“It depends so much on which sector you are in and what sort of specific product or service you are providing,” Mark told BQ. “But with the growth of the internet and online sales in recent years a lot of people are sending internationally anyway and traders can be found quite naturally through web searches from anywhere in the world.

“So entrepreneurs need to realise that is the case, foresee any early enquiries for their goods and know how to respond if they have to send something abroad.

“You have to maximise the benefit of that and make sure you make the right decisions from the start because there are controls and possible barriers to overcome, like the shelf-life of a product and how it is packaged before you can just send something off.

“Take simple steps. Set up the website and be aware of what information you are putting into the marketplace and what your overall attitude is to international business. My thought would be to think before you act, because you don’t want a panicked response which means you could miss an opportunity.”

BQ entrepreneurs in Yorkshire are known for being an enthusiastic and confident bunch, but this is where the foot needs to be taken off the accelerator for just a few moments. Saying ‘yes’ to every enquiry will sound good and will make you feel like you have made the right career

move. But having the strength to know your limitations and sometimes turn something down until the time is right can be a valuable asset.

“This may seem like an obvious thing to say, but you also need to think about being paid,” adds Mark.

“It can be an easy process, but it can be complicated and you need to be aware of which you are dealing with and how you will respond.

“The other side of the situation for an aspiring entrepreneur is that, when you have looked at the situation carefully, there are ways you can treat an export as just another customer.

Maybe they will be as easy to deal with as someone across in Liverpool. Think about it and be rational.”

The UKTI is at the centre of a helpful network that new exporters can turn to. Two of the more obvious members of that are the banks and chambers of commerce. A first enquiry to any of these will set the ball rolling, but each have their particular part to play.

“Banks will provide their information and then pass people to us and we would do the reverse, so that we all work in a collaborative way to help the businesses. Our particular priority is to start people off on the way to being successful long-term and sustainable exporters.

“We can help them grow from responding to an enquiry on their website to building a business. We would encourage them to find out why these people are buying from them and what else they might be interested in and what else other companies in their country might be interested in.”

One of the most powerful assets available to Yorkshire’s new generation of exporters is the region’s global reputation. Ever since goods were able to be transported outside the UK, the standard of product and the strength of character of the people delivering it has been admired and is now welcomed - and expected.

‘We’re based in Yorkshire’ gets hundreds of exporting companies one step nearer to new deals and long-term business relationships.

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“The Yorkshire brand is certainly very well known,” says Mark.

“For instance, the work of people like Gary Verity means the profile is very strong in France and I think it means a lot that a firm is from Yorkshire, and that the region is part of the overall UK brand.

“They see cutting-edge quality and innovation here and around the world. The industrial revolution started in the Pennines, with the wool and cotton mills and then the steel coming in from Sheffield and the Yorkshire mills becoming the grain basket of the UK. This region has always been a producer and that has driven our wealth and built the cities and the great municipal buildings you see here.

“We are known as the place where industry started and that reputation has continued. We are still creative, still producing high quality goods and services in a beautiful part of the world that is well worth visiting.”

His enthusiasm for the region he has represented for so many years makes him a Yorkshire champion alongside the likes of Sir Gary, with his days spent telling countries why they should work with Yorkshire. Times have changed and industries have thrived and fallen, but that job of steering potential customers here is as valuable as ever.

“I started in 2000, when all the talk was about what the internet could do for us. But it wasn’t until a couple of years later that the full impact was felt, with the first e-commerce sites appearing after all the B2B activity. The mass online market is probably only about seven or eight years old and is a massive revolution.

“We have also weathered a recession during that time and while it was very difficult for many Yorkshire businesses, those that traded overseas were less impacted. We went into the recession early and Europe a little later, so we had businesses under pressure but then we came out of it when other firms in Europe were going into it and that created opportunities.

“Then in the last fifteen years we have had the

“We would encourage them to find out why these people are buying from them and what else they might be interested in and what else other companies in their country might be interested in”

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growth of massive consumer markets in places like China and Indonesia. Markets that were pretty unthinkable a few years ago are now accepted as normal, such as computer gaming which has gone from nothing to huge potential along with growth in training, education

and communication.

“It’s not going to slow down and things will keep changing and evolving, which keeps us all on our toes, but this is what we want. It is different, but it doesn’t have to be difficult.”

The optimism is contagious, and based largely

“It’s not going to slow down and things will keep changing and evolving, which keeps us all on our toes, but this is what we want.

It is different, but it doesn’t have to be difficult”

TOP TEN: What the UKTI will do to help new exporters 1. Provide access to a regional network of international trade specialists across the UK 2. Help businesses acquire the skills, contacts and confidence to start exporting or to break into new markets 3. Work closely with a global network of UKTI advisers, to ensure UK businesses are given the best advice about exporting to their chosen destinations 4. Find high value opportunities, to help businesses win large projects overseas 5. Set up e-exporting, to help retailers and brands to sell their products online 6. Source tradeshow access, providing grants to eligible businesses so they can attend overseas events 7. Make overseas market introductions, offering tailored research from our network of overseas experts 8. Give help with bidding for international aid agency projects 9. Help businesses with the language and cultural aspects of exporting 10. Draw up an export plan using Open to Export, a free advice service for exporters

around the belief that exporting at the right time is becoming a ‘normal’ part of business planning for firms of every size. When you can export at the touch of a button, growing that to become a multi-million part of your operation has already got a head-start.

One of the oldest pieces of advice for entrepreneurs – probably first discovered on a wall somewhere in White Scar Cave – is ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ and it is advice that every entrepreneur will instinctively follow. The first months of running your own company might well be dominated by telling everyone what you have and what it does.

But then comes expansion of your client base and product range – moving away from one marketplace and looking further afield for the next opportunity.

“Getting out there and talking to people is still the best way to do business,” adds Mark.

“If you want happy customers who will come back to you and want to buy from you, you will start with a conversation and build a relationship. That will inevitably involve emails, but you have to get out and get to know people as well and see how they use your product so you can best understand how to sell it to them.

“How much time you spend doing each can depend on whether you are selling a bottle of beer or a complex piece of machinery, but it still all about trusted relationships that you have to stick with. We can help open doors overseas for the full range of companies and then grow with them as they expand across a fascinating and constantly changing world.”

Since it was set up in 1997, the UKTI’s stated aim has been to “help businesses export and grow into global markets and help overseas companies locate and grow in the UK.” Its own brand is hugely successful, and no entrepreneur in any of the BQ regions - Yorkshire, Scotland, the North East, the Midlands, the North West or London - would consider exporting without at least a call to Mark or one of his colleagues. It’s clear that Mark has a hugely-experienced business brain and it is to the UKTI’s credit that they are able to recruit and keep the sort of talent that many businesses would look for in their boardrooms.

Perhaps that is how Yorkshire entrepreneurs should view their UKTI contact – as an available non-exec they can ‘headhunt’ to bring another dimension to a management team. n

PROFILE Sedbergh School

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The confidence to fail Andrew Fleck, Headmaster of Sedbergh School, explains why only by challenging children to do truly difficult things can they ever achieve their very best

Andrew Fleck, Headmaster of Sedbergh School

Education is a complex web of opportunities and priorities yet one question stands out above everything else. “How does a school get the best from its pupils?” No matter what the school, we all claim to enable pupils to “fulfil their potential” or “realise their ambitions.” Yet how many schools can articulate how they do so in a coherent manner?

Try the question.

Creating success is about more than offering opportunity and more than managing performance.

Opportunity and talent may be good places to start but the question must be how do schools generate a success mind-set in a teenager who may lack direction or even ambition?

Teenagers are rapidly developing adults in every respect and whether it be academic, emotional or physical, they develop fastest when they are exposed to real challenge and a genuine risk of failure. Only by persuading them to step outside their comfort zone can we get the very best from them and enable them to achieve standards beyond their imagination. Yet whilst teenagers are risktakers in certain respects, they are conservative unless they feel confident of a positive response from their peers around them. Herein lies the greatest challenge for schools, to create an environment

“The importance of failure has nothing to do with building resilience and getting used to disappointment, but everything to do with creating success.” in which their pupils are willing, or even inspired, to take intellectual and educational risks. Only by challenging children to do truly difficult things can they ever achieve their very best.

It’s strange how fads come and go in education.

In recent years we have seen resilience morph into mindfulness, now the current fad seems to be the need to fail. The subject is cropping up everywhere; Tony Little, erstwhile headmaster of Eton, was quoted as saying “gilded youths need to learn to fail” on 12th March. Most commentators argue that in order to become ready for the harsh realities of life, pupils should experience failure in the structured and supportive environment of their school. This is a recent iteration of the rather contrived “Failure Week” initiated by a high performing London school in 2012 when pupils were set tasks to fail and thereby learn about failure. It was not continued.

The importance of failure has nothing to do with building resilience and getting used to disappointment, but everything to do with creating success. Matthew Syed has written about the paradox of success being the need to fail in Black Box Thinking, but whilst businesses might embrace failure in a structured manner as a means to improve, teenagers are more driven by emotion than rational thought. The key to getting teenagers to embrace the risk of embarrassing failure in front of their peers is managing the response of those around them. Quite simply, a pupil who is laughed at and called names for getting a question wrong in class, running slowly or singing out of key will avoid such a situation in the future. By contrast, the pupil whose peers celebrate his contribution to the team effort will go back for more, try even harder and learn to excel alongside his peers. Shared experience of that nature is life-changing.

How can schools achieve that? By celebrating the success of teams in every sphere of school life.

Instead of celebrating an individual’s academic results, we celebrate the performance of the whole class; it is the team on the pitch which counts not the star athlete and the performance of the orchestra is more important than the soloist. Then we set the teams the biggest challenge we can find.

Schools which celebrate collective success in every sphere will get more from their pupils. Their pupils will take risks, confront failure and ultimately excel.

Sedbergh School is a co-educational boarding school.

It comprises a junior school for children aged 4 to 13 and a senior school for children 13 to 18.

A: Sedbergh School, Sedbergh, Cumbria, LA10 5HG. T: 015396 20535 E: admissions@sedberghschool.org W: www.sedberghschool.org

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Getting to the heart of good wine I’m getting vintage skills blended with fine notes of innovation...

Mike Hughes uncorks a tale of enterprise from wine dealer James Goodhart The setting is perfect as James Goodhart listens to me trying to ingratiate myself.

His company’s new wine centre is a stunning Bond-like building in the middle of breathtaking Yorkshire countryside. And as I tell the owner of one of the county’s finest wine palettes that I have some experience myself, having progressed from Lidl (only those with a score above 85...) to the up-market wooden shelving round the corner from the £6 bottles in Sainsburys and on to the Majestic six-packs, I can sense him reaching under his desk for the button that opens the trapdoor down to the piranhas, or at least releases the hounds.

His company Bon Coeur (Good Heart...

Goodhart) has just had its 21st birthday, and I can only guess at the quality of the wine at that party. James and his wife Samantha (helped

by those hounds - black labradors Merlot and Malbec) only made the move to Melsonby in September last year, but their confidence is clear to see in Moor Park, a huge two-storey lodge offering meetings spaces as well as fullyequipped kitchen and tasting room and even a retail space as you walk in, to the left of the eyecatching wall made from James’s vast collection of case-ends.

The idea of drinking for a living might seem very acceptable, but with a recent trip to Bordeaux comprising tastings at up to 16 chateaux a day, the art of spitting becomes invaluable and the palette builds by the sip.

“It is all about experience,” James tells me.

“I find the intensive white wine tastings harder because there is more acidity and they tend to attack your teeth a bit more, particularly if you

are doing 150 white Burgundies a day. With the reds you just get coloured teeth - which doesn’t do much for your looks....”

I sense we are moving well away from my trips to Sainsbury’s wooden shelves, so switch to safer ground by looking at the entrepreneur at the heart of Goodhart.

“I was born and brought up in York and my dad had a farm in Beverley, but advised me not to go down the farming route,” he tells me.

“He had a Pick-Your-Own fruit farm, so it was a natural transition to look into the grapes. Also, I was 18 and just thought it would be a fun industry to go into – I certainly wasn’t any good at sitting behind a desk all day, I would really rather roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.

“My first job in the wine trade was driving a van for Yorkshire Fine Wines and I met an Aussie

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winemaker. I really wanted to go travelling, so I faxed him my CV to make sure it as sitting on his desk when he got back to Australia and he told me to get over there.

“That was what ignited my flame – it was such a learning curve. I had been out for a harvest in Saint-Emilion, but in France it was all about the tradition, where in Australia it was all about computer analysis. I learned a lot, but they also asked me my opinion and got me involved. I did that for six months, then came back and did a business studies course at Newcastle Poly and then worked in the trade in Edinburgh and London.

“It is a very poorly-paid industry, in many ways, and I realised I would either have to work for myself or get a proper job and keep the wine as a hobby.”

One of the turning points for James – all entrepreneurs have them at one stage – was that one company offered him a job if he could sell £100,000 of wine. He realised that if that sort of prize was achievable he would rather do it for himself.

“So I started when I was 24, borrowing £1,000 from my dad which helped me get an SBS grant – Small Business Start-up – which gave me £40 a week for six months.

“At that stage I was buying wine on the UK market and storing it in my flat and then moving up to bringing in some wines myself. My first list probably had about 25 wines on it, with my own notes attached.

“My friend gave me a desk in his office and then some storage space as I built the business.

I think when people know you are starting out on your own they can be very generous. But when you have had that initial support you are on your own in the big wide world.

“The first order I got was from a university friend and then I got a bigger order from an entrepreneur who needed to entertain some potential customers and then it built up through word of mouth.

“You must always be ready to go to the next step. This is about hard work and getting out what you put in, as well as making your own luck. If you go to a good restaurant and have a poor meal, you will give it another go because perhaps the chef was just having a bad night.

But if you have two poor meals then you might not go back again. I was only ever as good as my last recommendation.”

James then moved in to renting a Network Rail unit under the Eurostar operation in London and soon after met his wife Samantha. They were up in Yorkshire every other weekend, so decided to rent a farmhouse at Masham.

“When we closed the London operation and focused on Yorkshire we thought we might lose

some customers, but they have stayed very loyal.

Also, London is now over-saturated with about 500 wine merchants, so we decided to follow our hearts and make a name for ourselves in the North East.

“People and businesses here support each other all the time. We all look after each other.”

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“I think when people know you are starting out on your own they can be very generous.

But when you have had that initial support you are on your own in the big wide world�

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“We started with a blank canvas and just pushed at the boundaries of what we could afford to get it as our customers see it today”

The result of that support and the feeling that James and Samantha had ‘come home’ is reflected in the strength of the business and the impressive scale of Moor Park. They wanted to avoid the industrial estates and find somewhere with a character to match their business.

They ended up in Melsonby to look at a site as least twice as big as they needed, but it was affordable and they had the vision to see what it could become, led by Samantha’s ideas and creativity.

“We started with a blank canvas and just pushed at the boundaries of what we could afford to get it as our customers see it today, with help from Yorkshire Forward, HSBC and Mark Hunter, our accountant.”

There are now 16 people on the payroll, supplemented by a home-grown graduate each year to keep the skills as cutting edge as possible.

“I think most people are interested in wine, so

this is about engaging the brain to think a bit more about what it is they like and why they like it and taking it to the next step.

“Pairing is important but I would choose the wine before the food, although the embracement of food is educating people about quality food and with that comes quality wine.

“I get fed up drinking the same thing, so I like to try different wines. The definition of a good bottle of wine – red for me, and white before Champagne – is one that makes you relax.

I’ll lay some wine down to drink at different stages, although that is also to improve my own knowledge.”

James’s approach to his work is enviable.

He travels the world, loves what he does, has developed a natural talent for it and it is something that customers from a wide spectrum can enjoy, from the two-bottle weekenders to the cellar-owning execs.

He’s like the mate you always give a call to when

you’re having a get-together ‘Give Goodhart a ring – he’s always got a few stories to tell and he’ll bring some decent bottles with him.....’

One of those bottles now carries the company’s own name – Jacques Boncoeur – which is made for them by a small co-operative and gives them control over pricing of an important element of their stock.

But that control is unlikely to spread to Bon Coeur having its own vines, given that James has a belief that running a vineyard “makes a very rich man rich”.

“It is very hard work and you need pretty thick skin, as tasters can judge in 30 seconds what you have taken two years to grow,” he explains.

That neatly underlines the nature of his business.

His own palette is crucial to his business.

Not just his skill at knowing what makes good wine and what makes great wine, but a single sip (and spit) will help him decide whether to wait for the next harvest or get his wallet out and snap up the lot.

Precarious, you might think, but there is something basic and remarkable at the same time about the human senses – looking, smelling, tasting – being the core of an entrepreneurial business. n

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BIT OF A CHAT

Bill Board’s examining the news behind the headlines

A toast to (mainly) sober workers Another proud claim to fame for Yorkshire workers – new research (which must have been fun to carry out) shows them to be among the least likely to allow drinking to have an impact on their productivity.

Just over a third (36%) of Yorkshire workers have gone to work with a hangover that has caused them to be less productive in the past 12 months – only 5% having done so 30 times or more.

That’s the headline figure here – one in 20 Yorkshire workers have been hungover at work THIRTY times. Bosses with an eye on the bottom line should be installing Paracetamol vending machines alongside the tea and coffee.

But they should also take note of another finding from the survey - only 8% of workers said their employer offered health advice on alcohol consumption.

Look out – it’s a Yorkshiresaurus!

A Barnsley theme park company has brought dinosaurs back to life with the creation of a five metre long animatronic dinosaur. Themesparx, based at Fall Bank Industrial Estate in Dodworth, were approached by Paultons family theme park in Southampton to create a fullyfunctioning baby Tyrannosaurus Rex. Themesparx managing director Matthew Kitchen-Dunn said: “This project has really pushed our boundaries as it’s different to anything that we’ve ever done before. It’s been a great project to work on and we’ve had a lot of fun in the process.

Themesparx, which employs a team of 11 and has a £1m+ turnover has already completed work for Alton Towers, Legoland and London Dungeons. But its most recent design was for an animatronic Shaun the Sheep ride in Sweden.

Hall area of York, Mark is known for portraying Detective Constable Gary Boyle in the British sitcom The Thin Blue Line, Dave in the film The Full Monty and King Robert Baratheon in Game of Thrones. Mark said: “The awards will help showcase lots of local talent, from artists to musicians, actors to playwrights. I’m especially interested to encourage local schools and community groups to submit an entry.”

Sporting greats King of York Born and bred Yorkshireman Mark Addy is set for one of his greatest roles – as Patron of the York Culture Awards in December, organised by Make It York. Born in the Tang

Good to see Yorkshire tech helping us all enjoy a sporting summer.

Over at Headingly, intechnologyWiFi, based in Harrogate, has sealed a ten-year deal to provide Yorkshire County Cricket Club with free WiFi coverage across the 17,250 capacity ground.

Fans will be pleased to hear that it will be

completely free to use, without requirements for payment details or restrictions on time, and the network will allow fans open access to browse the internet, post on social media, follow the game online or check for updates on the weather. Quite a bit further south, the attention was on Manchester United’s FA Cup Final against Crystal Palace – which might not have happened without Huddersfield-based Adare SEC. They printed the tickets for Wembley’s big match and for the first time in the cup’s 146 year history, images captured by fans appeared on the tickets after a campaign on Instagram.

Barry Crich, managing director of Adare SEC, said: “We are incredibly proud. With such a high profile event it was essential that tickets are produced in a secure environment and are protected against fraud and counterfeiting.”

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Providing the inside track on what drives leading businesses and business people, BQ offers a unique and refreshing mix of business news, commentary and profiles of the most inspirational entrepreneurs across the West Midlands, the North East & Cumbria, Yorkshire and Scotland. Published in four separate editions with content unique to each area, BQ aims to get to the heart and soul of business people to find out what drives, inspires and motivates them towards their ambitions.

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EVENTS BQ’s business diary helps you forward plan

J U LY 20 21

21

13

York & North Yorkshire Chamber business lunch from noon-2pm at Talbot

17

Mid-Yorkshire Network from 9-11.30am at Cafe Ollo, Media Centre, 7

Hotel, Yorkersgate, Malton, YO17 7AJ. Contact 01904 567838

West and North Yorkshire Chamber Pure Networking from 7.30 - 9.00am at York Army Museum, 3 Tower Street, York, YO1 9SB. Contact 01904 567838

Contact 01484 483660

West and North Yorkshire Chamber Pure Networking from 7.30 - 9.00am at Kala Sangam Arts Centre, St Peters House, 1 Forster Square, Bradford, BD1

Northumberland Street, Town Centre, Huddersfield HD1 1RL.

4TY. Contact 01274 206660

SEPTEMBER

Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce new members event from

01

Connections Count from 9.30-11am at The John Smith’s Stadium, Stadium

08

West and North Yorkshire Chamber golf day from noon-9pm at York Golf Club,

08

Doncaster Chamber St Leger Ladies Day from 11-6pm at Doncaster

09

Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber race day from 11.30am at Doncaster

12-2pm at the Chamber office, 2 Genesis Business Park, Sheffield Road,

Way, Huddersfield, HD1 6PG. Contact 01484 483660

Templeborough, Rotherham, S60 1DX. Contact 01709 386200

27 29

Leeds Chamber annual lunch from 11.45- 2.15pm at The Queens Hotel, City

Lords Moor Lane, Strensall, York, YO32 5XF. Contact 01904 567838

Square, Leeds, LS1 1PJ. Contact 0113 247 0000 Last Friday Club from 12.30-1.30pm at Harrison Social, 11 Harrison Road, Halifax, HX1 2AF. Contact 01422 399422

AUGUST 02

City Region Business Breakfast from 7.30-9.30am at Tankersley Manor,

03

York & North Yorkshire Chamber business lunch from noon-2pm at Novotel

04

Yorkshire Day Celebrations with Yorkshire Mafia from 6-11.30pm at Rudding

Racecourse, Leger Way, Doncaster DN2 6BB. Contact 01302 640100

Racecourse, Leger Way, Doncaster DN2 6BB. Contact 01709 386200

09

Mid-Yorkshire Network from 12.30-1.30pm at The Hop, 19 Bank Street,

15

Chamber Means Business 2016 from 9am-3pm at Oakwell Stadium, Grove St,

15

Connect Gazelles masterclass on running a business from 6-8pm at the

Church Lane, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S75 3DQ. Contact 01709 386200

York Centre, Fishergate, York, YO10 4FD. Contact 01904 567838

Park, at Rudding Park, Follifoot, Harrogate HG3 1JH. Contact 0113 323 6400

Wakefield, WF1 1EH. Contact 01924 311600

Barnsley S71 1ET. Contact 01226 308444 or 01709 386200

Quadrant, 99 Parkway Avenue, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S9 4WG. Contact 0113 337 2001

04 12

Connections Count networking from 9.30-11.30am at Wakefield (venue tbc) Contact 01924 311600

16

West & North Yorkshire Chamber AGM and Lunch from 11.45-2.30pm at York

21

Connect Gazelles masterclass in effective entrepreneurs from 8.30-10.30am

Racecourse, York, YO23 1EX

Mid-Yorkshire Network from 12.30-1.30pm at The Hop, 19 Bank Street, Wakefield, WF1 1EH. Contact 01924 311600

at Carrwood Park, Selby Road, Leeds, LS15 4LG. Contact 0113 337 2001

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 eventsdiary@bqlive.co.uk and please put ‘BQ Yorkshire’ in the subject heading

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.

The diary is updated daily online at bqlive.co.uk

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IN THE REAR SEAT: SERENITY IN THE FRONT SEAT: EUPHORIA

MASERATI QUATTROPORTE. STARTING FROM £69,565 The Quattroporte is more than just the finest high performance, luxury sports saloon. It blends extraordinary beauty with uncompromising performance from a range of V6 and V8 engines.

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Official fuel consumption figures for Maserati Quattroporte range in mpg (l/100km): Urban 18.1 (15.6) – 35.8 (7.9), Extra Urban 35.8 (7.9) – 54.3 (5.2), Combined 26.4 (10.7) – 45.6 (6.2). CO2 emissions 250 – 163g/km. Fuel consumption and CO2 figures are based on standard EU tests for comparative purposes and may not reflect real driving results. Model shown is a Maserati Quattroporte GTS MY16 at £114,845 On The Road including optional mica paint at £1,080, 20” Anthracite GTS design alloy wheels at £3,360.

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