BQ Yorkshire Autumn 2016

Diamond geezer BUSINESS QUARTER

Neil Geddes leaves no stone unturned to satisfy his clients

MADE16

A forecast of the UK’s premier business event

Mind games

How to apply psychology to business

BUSINESS QUARTER

Yorkshire: Autumn 2016

Celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship £4.95 Business Quarter Magazine

Yorkshire: Autumn 2016

My roo - my business Rachael Dunseath is changing the face of skincare

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EN T R E P R EN EU R I NT E R V I E W S

B U SIN ESS U P DAT E

IN SIGHT

LIFES T YLE

E VE NT S

BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk

EDITOR’S VIEW YORKSHIRE ISSUE 30 We are heading off in all directions in this autumn issue of BQ Yorkshire, from stately homes to kitchen table start-ups and from exclusive jewellery to market halls. That diversity is unavoidable in Yorkshire with its rich seam of entrepreneurs seeming to be as busy as ever.

And we’ve been busy at BQ as well, keeping track of all that growth and aspiration and capturing it each quarter as well as playing our part in encouraging it, with our new PD Ports Northern Powerhouse Export Awards.

We wanted to recognise the remarkable and global appeal of goods and services from across the Northern Powerhouse region and our year-long campaign will culminate in a major event right here in Yorkshire in February. So if you are proud of your exporting performance, we want to hear about it. Full information is on our website and in this magazine so get clicking – initial deadline for entries is 31 October.

There is certainly plenty of that pride in the magazine this quarter, judging by that list at the top of the page.

The kitchen table start-up that is now heading for the shelves of one of the country’s biggest retailers is Myroo, where Rachael Dunseath makes allergen-free skincare products.

Her business was born a few years after her children were born, to help them with skin problems. If diamonds are your best friend, then we invite you to meet Neil Geddes who is one of a very rare breed – a fine jewellery concierge dealing with private clients and sourcing the very best gems from across the world, to make into unique items for that very special occasion. And so to market halls – for so long the cornerstone of so much growth and prosperity in our Yorkshire towns. Leeds architect Simon Baker is the man with a plan for Scarborough Market Hall and he has been telling me about the wider role of architects in breathing new life into towns and cities.

If you want to be inspired by more entrepreneurial stories then why not join us at MADE 16 in Sheffield, see pages 34-37 for more information.

There’s so much more waiting for you inside – I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. And if you want to get involved in the next edition, just drop me a line at mikehughes@bqlive.co.uk. I look forward to hearing from you.

Mike Hughes, editor

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Business Quarter, Spectrum 6, Spectrum Business Park, Seaham, SR7 7TT. www.bqlive.co.uk. Business Quarter (BQ) is a leading national business brand recognised for celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship. The multi-platform brand currently reaches entrepreneurs and senior business executives across Scotland, the North East and Cumbria, the North West, Yorkshire, the West Midlands and London and the South East. BQ has established a UK wide regional approach to business engagement reaching a highly targeted audience of entrepreneurs and senior executives in high growth businesses both in-print, online and through branded events. All contents copyright © 2016 Business Quarter.

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bqlive.co.uk

CONTENTS 18

66

Autumn 16 THE NEW FACE OF SKINC ARE

Rachael Dunseath found inspiration for her new business at home

28

FINDING HIDDEN GEMS Diamonds are this entrepreneur’s best friends

ITALIAN JOB

Mike Jackson takes the Maserati Quattroporte for a spin

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ALL IN THE MIND The growing role of psyschology in business

XYXTCRZXX bqlive.co.uk

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Celebrating and inspir ing entrepreneurship

FEATURES

REGULARS

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MY ROO - MY BUSINESS Rachael Dunseath is changing the face of skincare

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BUSINESS UPDATE Round up of Yorkshire business activity

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LESSONS TO BE LEARNED BQ speaks to Hull College Group CEO Gary Warke

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AS I SEE IT Content must always be king in marketing

28

DIAMOND GEEZER Entrepreneur Neil Geddes leaves no stone unturned for his clients

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

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BUSINESS LUNCH Plane talking with Leeds Bradford airport boss John Parkin

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M A D E 16 Preview of the UK’s leading business event

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ALL IN THE MIND The growing role of psyschology in business

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MARWOOD ON WINE Marwood likes his wine well Chilli-ed

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L O O K I N G A F T E R 7, 0 0 0 E N T R E P R E N E U R S Interview with Chris Bateman, CEO of York St John’s Students’ Union

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MOTORING A QP on the QT

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A F R I E N D LY A P P R O A C H A special relationship

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GROUND BREAKING Simon Baker breathes new life into Scarborough

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VENTUREFEST Profile of an extended event

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BUSINESS LUNCH Plane talking with Leeds Bradford Airport boss John Parkin

SPECIALFEATURE Leeds Business Week 8 page special feature

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S TATE OF THE UNION Interview with Chris Bateman chief executive of York St John’s students’ union

BUSINESS UPDATE Swallows and Yorkshires Yorkshire is getting plenty of big-screen exposure at the moment, with the release of the new film adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s classic, ‘Swallows And Amazons’ starring Rafe Spall, Jessica Hynes and Harry Enfield. The production took in locations from Coniston Water and Derwent Water in Cumbria to Heptonstall, Wakefield and Wetherby in Yorkshire with some iconic scenes shot at Plumpton Rocks near Harrogate and at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway at Keighley, Oakworth and Oxenhope stations. At Calderdale the high-street was closed, modern street furniture removed and even the local buses were re-routed to enable filming to take place over two days in August last year. Creative England estimates the film will have contributed over £700,000 to the local economies over the course of the 43-day shoot and Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive Sir Gary Verity said: “Film tourism is continuing to grow in Yorkshire with visitors enjoying exploring the fantastic locations where their favourite movies and TV shows were made and I’m delighted that Yorkshire’s eclectic landscape continues to be a magnet for film and TV makers across the world.”

The Large Huddersfield Collider Scientists at the University of Huddersfield are to develop vital new technology for the world’s most famous research facility – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Based at the

Swiss headquarters of CERN – the European Organisation for Nuclear Research – the LHC is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. There is a project to increase the amount of data that the experiments can

Time travel: The cost of Swallows and Amazons on location in Yorkshire

gather in their search for new particles, by boosting the LHC’s luminosity. But for this to be successful it is vital that improvements are made to the collimators – devices which ensure that beams of accelerated particles that travel around in bunches are cleaned and do not veer off, causing serious damage. “It would be a disaster if that happened. The whole LHC would be shut down for many months,” said Prof Roger Barlow, a leading particle physicist who heads the International Institute for Accelerator Applications at the University of Huddersfield.

With colleagues at the University of Manchester, he has been carrying out computer simulations of the LHC’s collimation system. Prof Barlow and Dr Simon Fletcher, of the Engineering Control and Machine Performance Research Group that is part of the University of Huddersfield’s Centre for Precision Technology, have been awarded £639,336 to carry out work on the vital upgrade and have now embarked on the three-year project.

SEDBERGH SCHOOL

Co-Educational Boarding School in Cumbria

FOUNDED 1525

WWW.SEDBERGHSCHOOL.ORG

PROFILE Sedbergh School

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Do league tables have value?

Andrew Fleck is occasionally asked about the value of League Tables and where Sedbergh features. The answer to the latter question is more straight-forward than to the former The first League Table was published by the Telegraph in 1966 and they became important in the mid 1990s. As they gained importance schools developed strategies to enhance their position. The question whether League Tables have value is determined by the person who reads them and in common with any set of measurements it is important to understand what they show. If the reader values what League Tables measure, then they have value. When considered as a whole, a school’s position in the League Tables is the product of its selectivity, its balance of educational priorities and the strategies used to enhance its position. It follows that they are likely to be useful to a parent who has access to a number of different schools and who is seeking a school which is defined solely by its academic success. The League Table will be less informative to a parent who may seek the benefits of broader education and who values the development of the character and personality of their child alongside academic attainment. Perhaps the best assessment is that they provide an insight into a school and may be a starting point for discussion.

All schools are able to measure how well their pupils perform in relation to their individual ability and other schools. This Value-Added measure is more relevant and may be more interesting to a parent and pupil.

Sedbergh does not provide information for League Tables which fail to reflect the unique character and value of a Sedbergh education. Ours is a broad education which properly embraces academia, the arts and sports as well as a social and spiritual education. To use an Olympic analogy, League Tables are the equivalent of awarding medals for the heptathlon based solely on results in the 800 metres race. Durham University demonstrated how the level of difficulty of A levels varies by two grades between subjects (SCORE Report, July 2008). Happily universities recognise this even if League Tables do not; the breadth of subjects offered at different

Andrew Fleck, Headmaster of Sedbergh School

schools and the variability of exam boards makes this a significant problem. For both these reasons we do not provide information to the media for League Tables.

The Sedbergh intake is modestly selective. Our average ability profile sits close to the 40th centile of the national population and the range extends from the top 5% of the population to the 60th centile.

We respond to this range of ability by using distinct sets in subjects from Year 9 and thereby group pupils according to ability. This ensures that pupils are taught at an appropriate level and with proper ambition. We measure “Added Value” for every level of ability and many sub-groups. Yet even this measure creates problems because pupils who are predicted A* grades cannot excede their predictions and cannot score Added Value.

A different insight into the academic credentials of the School are the universities at which pupils gain places. In 2016, 87% of pupils who applied to university gained places at their preferred institution immediately on receipt of results, 52% gained places at Russell Group Universities. The full range of universities can be found on our website www. sedberghschool.org.

“Beyond the classroom a vast range of opportunities give Sedberghians the edge when it comes to competing for places at the top universities and employment”

I have said that ours is a broad education. Beyond this, Sedbergh School does not operate a ‘one style fits all’ policy - each pupil’s needs are assessed individually and each has a dedicated tutor who is responsible for his or her academic development.

The tutor monitors their progress, liaising between subject teachers, Housemasters, Housemistresses and parents. Almost all staff and pupils live on site which provides plenty of time for extra lessons and tutorials. Beyond the classroom a vast range of opportunities give Sedberghians the edge when it comes to competing for places at the top universities and employment. Their personal statements and references are full of comments about community service, charity work and fundraising, expeditions, teamwork, responsibility and a host of other relevant experiences. Alongside an outstanding senior school education, Sedbergh prepares its pupils for interesting lives.

Sedbergh School, Sedbergh, Cumbria, LA10 5HG. 015396 20535, admissions@sedberghschool.org www.sedberghschool.org

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

More staff, more exports A Barnsley manufacturing company that exports its products to more than 50 countries around the world is looking to double its workforce after entering new markets and securing contract wins.

Xtraflex cuts and assembles bespoke hoses for customers in diverse sectors including the pharmaceutical, marine and automotive industries. Its flexible hosing is used in the manufacture of products such as cosmetics, chocolate and other food stuffs.

Currently employing a team of nine, the company is based at Fallbank Industrial Estate at Dodworth and is looking to double its team to 18 by the end of 2017, while turnover is also set to grow from £1.8m to reach just over £2.3m through more export deals and a move into the milk production market. Managing director, Simon Cooper, said: “We’re always looking to push ourselves and grow as a business and we’re in the process of growing bigger and better than we’ve ever been.

“Because of this, we’ve obviously started to give some thought about moving to new premises but we’re not going far. We want to stay in Barnsley. We get excellent support and the transport links are great and really help a regular exporter like ourselves.”

Enterprising Barnsley, the business development arm of Barnsley Council, has been providing specialist support to Xtraflex.

£84m in pipeline for region Assurances from the government on the future of EU funding means more than £84m of European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) activity is moving towards delivery across Leeds City Region. Contracts in the region with £42m grant funding are now being finalised to help businesses become more competitive through projects including digital skills, exporting and broadband infrastructure. This will be matched by a further £42m from other public and private resources to support businesses and communities across the Leeds City Region.

The government set out assurances on the future of EU funding earlier this month, which included a commitment that all projects signed before the Autumn Statement later this year will be fully funded, even if these projects continue beyond the UK’s departure from the EU. Roger Marsh OBE, chair of the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership said: “The European funding we secured as part of our ESIF allocation in 2014 is an important tool to help us deliver our ambitions set out in our revised Strategic Economic Plan for the region to transform the economy and create thousands of new jobs. The sooner we can start delivering on these important projects, the sooner we will start to feel the benefits of a stronger, prosperous and thriving City Region economy at the heart of the Northern Powerhouse.”

Fraud risk shock Two thirds of businesses in Yorkshire, Humberside and the North East have no fraud risk policy in place to prevent and detect fraud, according to new research.

Insolvency trade body R3 talked to 500 senior financial decision-makers and found that 54% of businesses nationally had no such policy in place, compared with 66% in the region, where 10% of businesses didn’t even know if they had a policy.

Adrian Berry, chair of R3 in Yorkshire said: “Businesses in every sector and of all sizes are at risk. An agreed written risk policy should outline a company’s strategy for preventing, detecting and dealing with fraud.

“Fraud is a staggeringly expensive problem for the UK economy, yet two-thirds of the region’s companies don’t have precautions in place to protect themselves against fraudsters, who are even replicating company email addresses pretending to be senior staff, and writing to employees ordering the quick transfer of funds to a specific account.

“It’s no surprise that the internet has proved a popular portal for fraudsters to target individuals and businesses. Companies with an online presence, whether they are a small local firm or a multinational corporation, are more vulnerable.”

A capital achievement Yorkshire based Caddick Developments has celebrated a milestone for its business with the completion of the exterior at its first London development.

Vauxhall Sky Gardens at 143 - 161 Wandsworth Road in London is valued at £140m and comprises a mix of commercial and residential space, including an eight storey block and 36 storey tower.

The buildings will offer the highest plot ratio of any residential building in London through the incorporation of two ‘Sky Gardens’ offering more than 22,000 square feet of outdoor space.

Johnny Caddick, director at Caddick Developments, said: “This is a momentous occasion for us and I’m thrilled to see our aspirations for this development taking shape and nearing fruition. I’m immensely proud of the quality of the scheme and the fact it will form a major part in the regeneration of the South Bank and a great addition to the London skyline.”

PROFILE Armstrong Watson

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Phil Wearmouth, MD of Catering Appliance Superstore

I have a dream… and I have a plan JJ Martin (Catering Appliance Superstore) Ltd is a family run business based in Kendal.

It supplies catering equipment to the UK catering industry and now processes 1000’s of orders every day Phil Wearmouth took up the reigns as MD in 2011 and is half way to his dream of making the business one of the leading suppliers of commercial catering equipment in the UK. With a turnover close to doubling year on year this online business is definitely on the super highway, already achieving sales of £12M and the business has ambitions to see growth reach £25M+.

Phil’s view is he has not even started yet and with the support of his key people, a strong online team and great customer service staff his vision and determination is very apparent when you meet him.

From humble beginnings 40 years ago as a shop specialising in sales, spares and repairs of commercial microwave ovens the business has been through an amazing transformation. It all started with the purchase of a domain name www.catering-appliance. com and within one year the family realised its future.

Online sales were growing exponentially compared to takings over the physical shop counter. Within a year of purchasing the domain name the family made the decision to close the shop and move the operation to Phil’s mum and dad’s home in Sedburgh.

With the business now shaped as an online retailer the company grew 100% taking sales from £500K to £1M. The growth continued year on year and more orders meant more staff and with this came the growing pains of expansion from running a

With a turnover doubling year on year this online business is definitely on the super highway, achieving sales of £12M and ambitions to see growth reach £25M+ business from a family home. It is at this point that Armstrong Watson stepped in with their Blue advisory team. They had been managing the accounts and monitoring the activity of Phil and the family and knew the business needed more strategic advice and direction. With rapid growth of any business there are so many details to act on and manage and Phil recognised it was time for honest, independent advice away from the family as all were too emotionally involved.

The Blue process introduced Phil to a more disciplined approach to managing the growth, helping form achievable action plans, guidance on structure, people management, recruitment challenges and the sounding board he needed for decisions. That first decision being to relocate to larger premises in Kendal, enabling expansion in terms of physical space and wider recruitment opportunities.

Working with the Blue advisory team Phil has learnt a lot about himself, is more self aware, feels prepared for the growth ahead and has a greater understanding of his numbers.

He now feels his dream is being realised and more opportunities and choices are coming his way. Phil has moved from being consumed in the business 24/7 to finding time for his own family and recently even had a full week away from the business for a holiday and is now taking steps to have weekends off too.

In terms of business and work life balance Phil Wearmouth has identified that independent advice from an advisory team is priceless. Phil and the family have a plan, can manage and monitor delivery and are currently focusing on their aim and Phil’s dream for the Catering Appliance Superstore to be one of the leaders in the sector.

Can we help your business? Visit www.armstrongwatson.co.uk/blue or contact Dave Clarkson on 0113 2211300 or dave.clarkson@armstrongwatson.co.uk

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

University centre for college Leeds City College is transforming its College House building on Park Lane into a University Centre, dedicated to undergraduate study, professional courses and degree level apprenticeships. The College’s Higher Education (HE) offer is expanding every year, with a broad range of Foundation Degrees and an increasing number of top-ups to full BA and BSc (Hons). The courses are designed with input from employers to make sure they are relevant to today’s job market. The refurbished University Centre will provide a relaxed, supportive and adult learning environment for higher education students, away from the main body of college students, and will include individual and silent study areas, break out areas and kitchens.

Jo Tyssen, HE business development manager at Leeds City College, said: “The centre will provide tutor support, bursary and scholarship schemes, lower fees (£6,750 full-time and £3,375 parttime), strong partnerships with employers and extensive work experience opportunities.”

Dealing with the Brexit business Sheffield businesses say they need more stability, clarity and action in the wake of the European referendum. The issue was debated at the

latest Quarterly Economic Survey Event run by the Sheffield City Region’s four Chambers of Commerce and the LEP, and sponsored by RBS South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. Businesses there said there was still a great deal of business uncertainty and Andrew Denniff, chief executive of Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce, added: “Naturally, we have an unknown journey ahead as we proceed with Brexit, but businesses across the region are resolving to look upon the decision as an opportunity to draw investment and export goods and services. “Challenges may lie ahead, but businesses across Sheffield City Region have always been resilient and have a determination to succeed. What is really important right now is that local businesses maintain their confidence and drive growth in the regional economy”.

The Quarterly Economic Survey, run by the British Chambers, is the country’s biggest and longestrunning private sector survey.

“Challenges may lie ahead, but businesses across Sheffield City Region have always been resilient and have a determination to succeed”

New equity partner joins George F. White Land, property and business consultancy George F. White has appointed a new Equity Partner in a big recruitment move for the firm. Mike Young (FRICS FIQ) joins the firm with over 21 years’ experience as a Chartered Surveyor. During his career, Mike has developed a specialist range of expertise through the management and development of private and public owned minerals and waste property estates. Mike’s specialist expertise includes contract negotiation, planning and environmental assessment, strategic site appraisal and evaluation, estate management and compulsory purchase and compensation. Welcoming Mike to the business as an equity partner, Robyn Peat, managing partner at George F. White, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Mike as a Partner in the business. It’s a great coup to recruit a man of Mike’s niche talent, leadership qualities and industry expertise. His experience, especially in the land and mineral resources field, will strengthen our delivery in this growing service area and enable us to expand our client base in this sector nationally.” Mike said: “My position is a dual role. From a leadership perspective as a partner, a key focus will be developing the regional strategy as head of Northumberland and Borders. I strongly believe George F. White should be the first choice of property consultancy for both employees and clients alike. As head of Commercial Property, I will be focused on business related property including minerals, waste & recycling, industrial & manufacturing, office, retail and distribution & logistics. I’m looking forward to working closely with our existing commercial property clients while developing new clients in this key area of growth. It’s a great time to join George F. White and I can’t wait to get involved.”

Cyber crime warning to SMEs A Garforth businessman has warned Yorkshire SMEs about cyber attacks after his business took a full year to recover when it was targeted. Kevin Pease, who owns DIY hardware store Pease of Garforth, was speaking at a cyber security event co-hosted

by Talk Straight, an Ilkley-based telecoms provider “It was a major disaster for us”, Kevin said.

“We had around 48,000 lines at the time and we lost all stock information, quantity and supplier details, which were integral to our day to day running. We were in the process of upgrading our EPOS system and computers at the time, moving from Windows XP to Windows 7. It just so happened that the computer we ran the EPOS system on was still running through Windows XP and the hackers were able to break in. It was a Bank Holiday Monday and by the time we opened up shop on the Tuesday, the attack had spread to six of our eight computers. “It was devastating really – we had to buy five new computers and new tills almost overnight, but the cost to our business was far more than the purchase of new IT equipment – it’s cost us inmeasurable time and resources to research and gather all new supplier information and re-programme all our stock information.”

David Tindall, managing director of Talk Straight, said: Today’s cyber criminals will often focus on SMEs, exploiting the fact that many businesses across Yorkshire still do not have adequate protection.”

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Sheffield / Leeds / York / Chesterfield / Cleckheaton @bhpaccountants

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

A very Human story Ahead of Victoria Gate’s 20 October launch, Hammerson, the developers behind Leeds’ new retail destination, has been taking a retrospective look at the city and its shoppers at a History of Here exhibition.

Celebrating the rich retail heritage of Leeds, the exhibition was housed within the iconic 19th century Victoria Quarter arcade on Queen Victoria Street and brought together memories and images from archives and the community of Leeds, showcasing the city’s rich cultural heritage and featuring distinctive photographic portraits of shoppers captured in the city centre and their stories. The artist behind Humans of Leeds, who created the work, wants to remain anonymous, but said: “A lot of my work is very emotive, and really connects with people who love this city. The pieces are really a social documentary of the people in Leeds; their stories, their memories and their history. As my work started online initially, I was delighted to exhibit in a tangible space that people enjoy passing and interacting with in real life.”

“The pieces are really a social documentary of the people in Leeds; their stories, their memories and their history” Powerstar full of energy Energy storage expert Powerstar, based in Sheffield, has purchased a fleet of four electrically powered road vehicles, putting the company on track to have all its road vehicles electrically powered by 2018.

The investment comes as part of a wider strategy to actively reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions as a company, while continuing to develop its range of energy saving technologies. The company is also installing charging stations at its base in Sheffield. The stations will not only be able to charge all the cars in Powerstar’s fleet, but will also be available to guests and potential clients.

MD Dr Alex Mardapittas said, “We are always looking for ways to reduce the company’s carbon emissions and with the development of our own Virtue EV fast charging system, it was a logical step to invest in a fleet of electric road vehicles.”

MOVERS AND SHAKERS Ripon-based British heritage breed butcher, Farmison & Co, has announced the appointment of Michelin-starred chef, Jeff Baker, as its full-time operations executive chef. Jeff will work closely with Farmison & Co’s heritage breed farmers overseeing product development while creating exclusive seasonal recipes, designed to highlight the quality of the produce and introducing new breeds and cuts to Farmison & Co’s online home cook and restaurant trade customer base.

Jeff’s professional career began in 1983 and over the years he has worked across Yorkshire and with some of the world’s most prolific chefs, such as Pierre Koffman at Tante Claire, Christian Germain at Chateau Montreuil, as well as Brian Turner and Nigel Davis at Greenhouse, Mayfair.

Xxyuctuxyt c The chef’s culinary talents were recognised in 1995 when he was awarded his first Michelin Star at Pool Court. It was a first for the city of Leeds and, at the time, Jeff was the youngest chef in Yorkshire to receive the accolade at just 26. Jeff’s appointment marks a major milestone for the company which has experienced substantial growth since January 2016, now supplying heritage meat to Michelin-starred restaurants, House of Tides and The Black Swan at Oldstead, alongside London’s Tate Modern, Restaurant 34, Bocca di Lupo and Ducksoup.

Leading wealth manager Charles Stanley has appointed Adam Martell as an investment adviser and chartered wealth manager to its Leeds office. Prior to joining Charles Stanley, Adam worked in a team managing investment portfolios for a range of charities, organisations and private clients at Brewin Dolphin in Newcastle. Adam said: “With its emphasis on client outcomes, Charles Stanley is well placed to be the wealth manager of choice and I am looking forward to contributing to the firm’s continued success, particularly from my base in Yorkshire.”

Jonathan Baker, branch manager of Charles Stanley’s Leeds office said: “As the office continues to go from strength to strength, it is important to bring in additional expertise. Adam brings with him a proven track record in discretionary and advisory investment management and he will play a key role in maintaining our commitment to providing a first rate client service.”

Sheffield-based telematics firm The Floow has appointed Daniel Bird as its new Direct Line account Director. The move sees the former BLG Group Ltd partner manager take over from Claire Sargeant who was promoted to head of client development earlier this month after two years with Xxyuctuxyt the business.c Bird is now the dedicated day-to-day point of contact for Direct Line – a key business partner for the business - which has appointed The Floow to deliver its smartphone applications and telematics data for the DrivePlus systems. He comes with more than nine years’ experience in the industry having worked for the affinity arm of the BGL Group, providing outsourcing services for major UK financial services and retail brands including RAC, Marks & Spencer Money and Lloyds Banking Group. His role also included overseeing proposition development and insurer relationships for O2 Drive and O2 Drive Box on Board. The latest appointment for The Floow - which recently received a Queen’s Award in recognition for its contribution to innovation in the telematics arena follows a period of rapid expansion for the company; with its growing number of global insurance customers now including Liberty Mutual, American International Group, Royal Sun Alliance and the American Automobile Association (AAA), amongst others.

A business development director has been appointed at The Sheffield College. The remit for Andrew Hartley, 51, is to develop partnerships with organisations for apprenticeship and workforce development provision to match regional employers’ skills needs and support economic growth. Andrew said: “With the prospect of devolved powers, Sheffield City Region has a tremendous opportunity to become one of the leading areas in the country for workforce skills development and apprenticeships.”

PROFILE

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York Business School

York Business School joins Business in the Community

York Business School joins Business in the Community York Business School at York St John University has become a member of Business in the Community (BITC), a Prince of Wales charity that promotes responsible business This prestigious network of like-minded organisations has a commitment to enhancing the role that businesses can play in making a positive difference to society.

BITC has a large and growing membership of socially engaged organisations, including Yorkshire Bank, Aviva and Nestle UK to name just a few.

York Business School is one of only 22 university members. Members are from private and public sectors, with a UK membership of over 800 companies and a further 10,000 companies engaged in its campaigns globally. Working with BITC, members transform communities by tackling key social and environmental issues where organisations can make a real difference.

Universities play a key role in developing a new generation of business and community leaders equipped to manage the complex economic, social and environmental challenges faced by business and society. York Business School is fully embracing the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) programme, which

is having a major influence on the School’s thinking, curriculum design, research and dialogue with the business community. Ethical business and active citizenship is a core part of the curriculum.

Noel Dennis, Acting Dean at York Business School, was instrumental in securing membership of Business in the Community. He said: “York Business School has a firm commitment to responsible management education. We place sustainability, CSR and ethics at the forefront of everything we do, from our teaching and research to our dialogue with the business community.”

The School’s membership of BITC is a natural progression of the University’s long-standing social enterprise values and reinforces its commitment to furthering responsible management education. In addition to leading relevant research and sharing findings with policy-makers, business leaders and community leaders, the School aims to increase engagement of staff and students with the wider community.

“I am delighted that we have joined the Business in

“York Business School has a firm commitment to responsible management education. We place sustainability, CSR and ethics at the forefront of everything we do, from our teaching and research to our dialogue with the business community”

the Community movement. “ Noel says. “It really is a superb opportunity for us to engage with a diverse network of organisations and for us to share or work on the responsible business theme with the wider business community and, of course, learn from other like-minded organisations.

Being part of BITC will have positive benefits for our staff and students, through live projects, research and events”.

Achieving membership of Business In The Community comes just months after the University was awarded the Social Enterprise Gold Mark Holder for Business Excellence, and is one of only two universities in the UK to achieve this status, strengthening its commitment to the future of responsible business.

A: York Business School, Gateway House, York St John University, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York YO31 7EX T: 01904 876915 E: N.dennis@yorksj.ac.uk W: www.yorksj.ac.uk

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AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

Fantastic Media’s Alisdair Straughan, PR & communications director, and web developer Ash Pennington look at why content will always be king for marketing campaigns

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s ’ e c r a l e p Th ding g n hi i t e k r a m r o o p From SMEs to multinationals, the question of where to spend marketing budgets is becoming increasingly difficult.

The answer used to be: whatever achieves business goals and delivers ROI. But in today’s world of instant marketing and light-speed consumer decision-making, businesses have to start putting the needs of their customers alongside the needs of their business.

Companies pump exorbitant sums of money into advertising trying to give their customers what they want. They spend thousands on a beautiful looking advertising campaign only to find there is no cut-through. They think they’re giving customers what they want, but they’re not. A case of ‘nice landing, wrong airport’, as a wise man once said.

Life would be easier – particularly for marketers – if people liked being sold to, but they don’t.

People only engage with what’s relevant to them, which has led to the growth of content marketing – distributing relevant, personal and direct content to engage, attract and retain a target audience and ultimately get them to

purchase your product or service. It’s marketing on your customers’ terms.

Content marketing covers everything from whitepapers to blog posts and videos. And because most content is perishable – just think how quickly you see, digest and then skip content on Facebook – it has to be engaging, compelling and at the cutting edge of what is possible. Take Virtual Reality as an example. It’s an incredible way to create a truly immersive experience by providing both audio and visuals you can feel a part of, interacting by exploring your surroundings. Oculus Rift is already popular amongst gamers – but we’re seeing the same kind of approach emulated on the web.

It isn’t enough anymore to simply put together a flat, motionless page for a website and hope it gets your users excited and engaged. Users want to be able to explore, have an adventure and most importantly be taken on a journey to experience a brand. We don’t want to have to think, we want content spoonfed effortlessly into our consciousness.

Virtual reality as a form of advertising and marketing can be extremely powerful. It can provoke heightened emotional responses from your audience, provide immersion and transport people to locations they would never normally

AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

have access to.

And it is proof – if we ever needed it – that saying content is king doesn’t only mean words. There will be informal competitions in newsrooms all across Yorkshire for the worst business images, with awkward smiles and handshakes and hopefully casual stances next to new homes or pieces of machinery which have obviously kept the subject awake all night rehearsing ‘the look’.

Marketing budgets are precious commodities, often one of the first to be targeted when times are tough, so getting the perfect mix is crucial.

Video will always be in that mix - it isn’t so much a ‘trend’, as a form of media that’s here to stay for good. But you can’t ignore it because it’s such a big player within digital as a whole.

You’ve probably heard statistics flying around like ‘video can increase conversion rate by 100%‘ and we can genuinely see why. When was the last time you looked at an article and didn’t press play on the available video? How many news websites did you bounce away from after realising they didn’t have a video?

It’s natural. As a medium it’s far more enjoyable to consume content with an actual human being showing/speaking to you, than it is to be bombarded with a wall of text.

Unfortunately it’s not as easy as putting all your budget into a great looking piece of film. It’s not a case of ‘if you build it they will come’.

There has to be a raison d’etre and a strategy behind it. From Budweiser to Under Armour, companies spend huge amounts on creating

that next great piece of content, but very little thought is put into how it will reach and be received by the rest of the world. Social media is the glove to content marketing’s hand and it’s important not to confuse the two. Social media - along with other new media such websites, emails, blogs and mobile apps - are the vehicles through which we distribute content. The real power of social media for businesses is not just in the interaction it facilitates, but as a means of information gathering, tracking brand advocacy and monitoring new trends. Depending on your audience, an over-reliance on social media can be problematic. Creating a campaign for stairlifts on Snapchat is probably not going to work. In this case, content marketing is most effective as part of an integrated marketing strategy, one that includes print advertising, PR and pay per click (PPC). As part of Fantastic’s integrated approach to marketing, we’ve spent a decade challenging operational, organisational and technological norms within traditional

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businesses in an attempt to shift their marketing culture. We are now seeing a new generation of MDs that recognise technology is what drives customer experience and they understand the importance of spending money on creating relevant content marketing strategies and engaging customers on their terms.

We help them understand audience interactions and what to do next by analysing data. This drives our strategy of content creation and distribution.

In doing so, it’s possible to engage customers, achieve business goals and ROI and ultimately answer the fundamentals of where to spend your marketing budget. n www.fantasticmedia.co.uk

t the glove to conten “Social media is t and it’s importan marketing’s hand e two” not to confuse th

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Rachael Dunseath only needed to look around her own home for the inspiration to start her new business, as she tells BQ Yorkshire editor Mike Hughes There can be few stronger emotions than seeing your own child struggling. Whether it is school work, personal life or growing pains, mum and dad’s instincts will kick in and they will want to help make things better.

And that, in an allergy-free nutshell, is how Rachael Dunseath became an entrepreneur – because her kids needed her help.

She has gone from heading a team of marketing managers for the HBOS banking and insurance company to setting up Myroo (her husband’s nickname for her is Roo) in her kitchen, then expanding to her garage and now appearing on the shelves of John Lewis.

“I went off on maternity leave with Amelia (now aged nine) and was ‘displaced’ while I was away,” she tells me at the Entrepreneurial Spark business accelerator in Leeds.

“They couldn’t make me redundant because I was on maternity so my role went instead and then the banking crash happened, but I became pregnant again quite quickly, so was actually out of the workplace on back-to-back leave.”

Her own entrepreneurial spark had started to ignite, and Rachael recalls her sister Sarah telling her that she had discussed around 50 ideas over the years, including running a nursery, jewellery and stained glass and had even made her own greetings cards for work colleagues at one stage.

“Being entrepreneurial is not really in the family I think it’s just me,” she says.

“I wouldn’t change my time in corporate land at all because it gave me the discipline that is serving me well, and the conversations about margins and forecasting and my marketing background all stand me in good stead.

“I am naturally a creative person and corporate land is often not the place to be for personal creativity and ideas. Financial services is so regulated, with risk and compliance being such a big part of it, that an entrepreneurial spirit doesn’t get much of a chance to manifest itself very often.

“My daughter Freya (now aged seven) then developed childhood eczema at the same time as I had sensitive skin and I just saw a gap in the market for truly natural, gentle skincare. I had been offered the chance of voluntary redundancy

The new face of skincare and had a business idea that - at last - seemed to have legs. Some ‘back of an envelope’ number crunching showed that it had some scope so I started planning.”

“I am a massive foodie and a very keen cook, so the idea of making natural products is very similar because you are learning about ingredients and how they work together. I was Googling, getting books out of the library and making some really basic products like a bath fizz that didn’t have any harsh chemicals in it.

“I went to a shop and got some coconut oil, essential oils, sea salts, Epsom salt and other bits and pieces and started mixing. It didn’t always work out – my children remember the infamous

‘bath porridge’ I managed to make one time with ground-up oats. They are a great ingredient, but needed to be used in a slightly different way!

“I was experimenting and playing and came up with a few products using plants butters and oils that my willing guineapigs said they would use.

I then number-crunched the product prices, but discovered all the legislation required.

“But perhaps that was the making of me because otherwise I would have gone and done a few farmers’ markets and it might still have felt like a hobby, but instead I had to get all the recipes signed off by a cosmetic pharmacist and have safety assessments in place. I still did the farmers’ markets and craft fairs but with the feeling that

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

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“I am naturally a creative person and corporate land is often not the place to be for personal creativity and ideas�

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

I was doing it all properly and professionally right from the start and there was more to come.

“There were a lot of people out there doing the kitchen-table operation, but not many doing it as a 100% natural product, which is a market that is growing massively.”

For the uninitiated (your editor), the ‘natural’ line means it is all plant-based, not plant-derived which means it goes through a synthetic process in a lab to turn it into something the ingredient did not do on its own. So you can get emulsifiers which are coconut-derived, but Rachael uses only pure coconut oil where the function and chemical composition of the product stays the same.

There is an honesty and transparency here that the market appreciates and that customers with long-standing conditions are reassured by.

“There are a lot of big brands that have gone through ‘greenwashing’ where you see Camomile extract on the label, but when you look closely it is the last on the list of ingredients,” says Rachael.

“There was an opportunity here, firstly selling to family and friends and then on those markets and fairs which were really important to me and I know I would have struggled to do what I do now without that early work.

“But it was still a lifestyle business, in that I had two very small children and my husband Phil was still working long hours in corporate land. The day I registered as self-employed Freya decided to give up her daytime nap so I did the work around her and Amelia and did the fairs at the weekend.”

That meant working in the family kitchen so she could be around for the children. Trading Standards came out and approved the set-up and as soon as Peppa Pig came on the TV there was half an hour to make something before one of the girls wandered in for some cheese on toast.

“It wasn’t without its challenges, but it grew slowly and steadily and at that time I just didn’t have the capacity for it to be anything more.

After three or four years, I had a small customer base who kept coming back to me and grew

“There were a lot of people out there doing the kitchen-table operation, but not many doing it as a 100% natural product, which is a market that is growing massively.”

the product range a little. Also, the pharmacist who had approved my recipes contacted me and asked me if I would do some freelance consultancy work for him around the process of getting products assessed.

“When I decided it was the right time to step it up, I stopped doing all the little craft fairs, did a rebrand with a local graphic designer and started doing bigger shows – with help from my Bank of Dad, who happens to be a PhD Chemist as well.

“As far as fitting in the extra work was concerned, I just did. It was hairy, but Sarah came down and helped me and we made the jump and converted the garage to a dedicated space, so I wasn’t taking up the kitchen where cheese on toast might still be needed!”

Rachael’s own health problems – “I seem to have made a habit of collecting allergies” – then prompted the next big change, which was another unforeseen driver for the business, but one she was in a good position to deal with.

“Two years ago I developed a nut allergy overnight – they apparently go and return on a seven-year cycle. I felt really quite dreadful and it was only the next day that a GP friend of mine said I should really have called an ambulance.

But it gave me a lightbulb moment that no one was doing skincare products for people with allergies, so I went off to investigate whether there was any competition, and there was no one else doing it in its entirety so I came to the Entrepreneurial Spark offices with the idea.

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

“I found that there was a market, so I reformulated, repackaged and rebranded the entire range and felt like I was a start-up again, but with six years of knowledge and experience behind me.”

The whole Myroo range is now formulated for a series of allergies so a suffererer from any of them can buy any product. That ‘one-stop shop’ approach addresses the dilemma of so many mums and dads who have to scour the labels on supermarket shelves to make sure what they are buying won’t put their child at risk.

“It is a minefield, so I wanted people to know that if they have an allergy they can buy any of my products and have peace of mind,” said Rachael.

“There are so many allergies out there that I cannot say that the brand is suitable for every one, but to the best of our ability we have covered off the most common ones. We are certainly nut-free, gluten-free and dairy-free, but are actually free from all 14 food allergens and there is a fragrance-free version of every product, which is free from all 26 cosmetic allergens. We are completely committed to this now. I went full-time two months ago for the first time and Phil is starting to get involved after getting a redundancy payout and his background is e-commerce, which is quite handy to have around – and he’s a 100% increase in our staff!”

The business is still based in what was the garage, and there is still plenty of room there although Rachael has had to be out with the tape measure to make sure her boxes are the right size to fit as many as possible on the shelves. There are investors interested and a business growth plan is already in place – possibly including a standalone unit somewhere close by to allow Myroo to scale up again, and new products like an eye balm with fennel, a post-exercise massage oil and some bath and body oils.

The £10,000 she won as ‘Entrepreneur of the Moment’ at Entrepreneurial Spark is a huge boost and Bank of Dad has returned to invest again to reinforce the foundations for growth.

“We now have a little chunk of cash so the need for investment is not quite so urgent and we can focus on getting sales up. Our market is people with allergies, and problem or sensitive skin. There are no figures for that market, but the market for goods that are both natural and organic grew 20% last year, so it is the right space to be in.

“If I had walked into that room a week later, I would have missed the opportunity, so someone was watching out for me on that day” “We are a small-batch manufacturer using bain maries and hobs and people like that idea of a light touch and that each product hasn’t been through a great big factory line.”

Rachael knows that keeping that balance between homemade and scalability will be a big challenge, but she is now a ‘been there, done that’ entrepreneur who can make 50 to 100 facial serums in an hour, which sell for £30 each.

The price is high-end but competitive, reflecting the quality and percentage quantity of each ingredient, which she sources as locally as possible, including plant oils and unheard of (to your editor...) things like broccoli seeds, which are bright orange and are an emollient, helping the product glide over the skin.

The success and commitment she has shown has not gone unnoticed. Working with distributor Great British Exchange in Harrogate led to a surprise chance to get the Myroo range in front of retail giant John Lewis, which is launching a ‘Made Locally’ initiative at its new flagship store at Victoria Gate in Leeds.

“There was quite a lot of noise around our

free-from launch, and I went to see Great British Exchange and the MD loved it and said to me ‘you’re going to need to bring stock in by Friday – I’m going to pitch you to John Lewis’.

“If I had walked into that room a week later, I would have missed the opportunity, so someone was watching out for me on that day.

“John Lewis has taken about 15 of each product, and they have already given me a ‘runway’ for their British Brands concept and are quite clear about how it might work with regards to scalability, so they will have a tiered build-up and won’t just turn round in a week and say they have sold out and need another thousand.

“The challenge will come if we get three or four large retailers and it does start to build quite quickly and we start to think about a unit and a team of staff doing the making to the Myroo recipe. I would love to build a flexible model where I could give the jobs to mums and dads or carers who really want to get back into the workplace but have a young family and responsibilities to work around.

“Our core brand value is kindness – so we are kind to our skin, kind to ourselves by taking time for your family and eating well and exercising and we are kind to each other and the planet. It is exciting and really feels like we are on the cusp of something.”

That excitement will soon be spreading to her own young start-ups, Freya and Amelia. “There is no set path, and I feel quite excited for my kids’ generation because the ‘job for life’ thing is gone and the empowerment comes from not being tied to a job just because the next bonus is due. Instead, I want them to understand that success is not just money, it is about fulfilment and balance.

“I have never worked harder in my life, but some days I feel I haven’t done any actual work because it has all been such fun. I would tell Amelia and Freya to go for it – if you have a great idea then follow it, get yourself a mentor and pick up the business skills as you go.

“The poor millennials seem to be caught in the middle of all this change and perhaps are a bit lost and don’t quite know what they are, but for my kids’ generation the waters are becoming a bit less muddy.”

Those girls are blessed with a future that is a little less muddy and a lot more mummy, providing the dream combination for any BQ entrepreneur – a happy family and a growing business. n

PROFILE SPURR

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The SPURR to lead your industry When a business is looking to achieve great things, it can gain tremendous commercial value from working with industry-leading experts. Unfortunately, if you are a medium-sized company looking for support with business strategy, a personal leading-edge service is hard to find – that’s the gap in the market SPURR’s strategy consulting model fills.

Founded by former BE Group executive director Jonathan Lamb, SPURR focusses on helping business people achieve great things, through expert business strategy development and execution. This means finding the right markets for their products and services, focusing on building a sustainable competitive advantage in the most effective way, considering both organic growth and acquisitions.

Having grown businesses himself, supported hundreds of others with expansion plans and worked with the whole gamut of consulting firms, what Jonathan saw an industry that was generally

Jonathan Lamb, SPURR

“It’s a mature industry worth some £1.3bn in the UK, but too many mid-sized companies think that consulting doesn’t really understand them or their business, isn’t agile enough, doesn’t bring global leading-edge thinking and isn’t transparent” traditional in its approach to the client-consultant relationship; when it came to medium-sized businesses, he felt they were neglected.

“Many industries have transformed over the last 20 years,” Jonathan says, “both responding to technology but also adapting to new expectations about how a service should be delivered. Strategy consulting has been slow to respond. I saw that and thought the mid-market deserved something better.

“There’s a gap between start-up strategy support, which comes from a variety of providers, and support for large firms who have the capacity and capability to employ those functions internally.

Once a business gets big enough to have people running the individual functions, managing the process of growth and strategy development starts to become more than one person can handle, and whilst the MD or CEO will often oversee strategy, the risk is opportunities are missed and true capability is capped.”

After a decade of research, recurring themes which

either switched people off strategy consulting, or left clients feeling underwhelmed by the experience were evident.

“It’s a mature industry worth some £1.3bn in the UK, but too many mid-sized companies think that consulting doesn’t really understand them or their business, isn’t agile enough, doesn’t bring global leading-edge thinking and isn’t transparent,” Jonathan added.

A former MBA student at Durham University, much of Jonathan’s insight was gained during his time on the senior team at Business Link Tees Valley and as part of the winning bid team for the regional Business Link service. Working from the Fusion Hive Innovation Centre in Tees Valley, his focus now is on working with firms across the North East and Yorkshire, with a specific focus on those who are considering export markets at a particularly complex time.

“When working with businesses whose meticulous drive and focus are recognised in their industry,

you need to have a crystal clear idea of how you add value. I have de-constructed strategy consulting and challenged traditional assumptions of what clients should expect. The result is SPURR’s innovative way of delivering strategic consultancy which achieves real, tangible results that match the client’s ambitions.”

Finally, in Jonathan’s view there is also the problem of ‘beautiful but useless strategy’. “There are some well-crafted lengthy strategic plans sitting on the shelves of businesses which look impressive, but are in essence the best kept secret in the company.”

“This happens when they’re produced in isolation by ‘people in a room’, when there is little involvement from client teams and no attention to developing operational plans that turn strategy into reality.

SPURR sees its strategy service as an experience; it has to be tailored, personal and leading-edge.

“That’s the SPURR difference, and a recipe we are certain will help our clients achieve great things”.

For more information email Jonathan@spurrconsult. co.uk or call 0330 333 74 33. www.spurrconsult.co.uk

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INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

BQ has always been a passionate advocate of the education and skills pipeline that will enable the next generation of growth across Yorkshire. Gary Warke, chief executive of the Hull College Group, guides Mike Hughes through the massive changes facing the sector and the region and how his colleges are facing them head-on

Running businesses closely tied to the community in three different places presents obvious challenges, and when the three places are Hull, Harrogate and Goole it is clear that Gary Warke has his work cut out for him.

He has to not only get the Hull College Group message across to such different places and look after three communities (you might be able to put Goole and Hull in the same folder, but Harrogate...?) but also remain innovative, eyecatching and agile.

And there are big changes in his in-tray as well, just to keep things nice and busy, with the Government’s area reviews across the country bringing a torrent of mergers aimed at refocusing the sector and simplifying the regional structure.

The man leading the reviews, FE Commissioner Sir David Collins, has said the mergers could cut the number of colleges from more than 240 to about 170.

“The group model we have created here with Hull, Goole and Harrogate is now what the Government is recommending,” Gary explains,

“with a local principal on the ground at each campus to have that important stakeholder engagement with the local community and keep the local identity.

“But the biggest issue that everyone is dissatisfied about is that this isn’t a strategic solution to deliver skills for the region, because the Sixth Forms aren’t included, only the colleges. What that means is that if you wanted to see what post-16 education was going to be like in the Humber region, and look at the economic drivers moving things forward, you wouldn’t just look at nine colleges, you would look at every post-16 organisation.

“And the only reason the schools have been exempt is that it would take too long to bring then into the mix. We appreciate there is a timeline because more than 40% of colleges are posting a deficit and a number of them are being propped up, so the Government has prioritised those in the first wave.”

Another key change here is that previously the Treasury would bail out struggling colleges, but

So many lessons to be learned

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

now the insolvency rules are being changed, so if a college runs out of money in 2018 it will close.

That’s the blunt weapon being used to persuade colleges to federate.

Gary’s influence – and the model he is establishing – also extends considerably with his work as a director of the 157 Group, a membership group of colleges which requires a turnover of not less than £35m and a minimum grade 2 for leadership and management at the last Ofsted inspections.

It is a network of excellence and shared best practice, but crucially it also looks for influence on Government policy and aims to have a voice when strategy is being drawn up.

“There are some massive changes still facing us all,” said Gary, who was awarded an MBE in 2013 for services to education.

“The Sainsbury report will reshape completely what we do, so from 2019 the academic A-level route will be one route at the sixthform and sixth-form college

level, then the colleges will look after ‘technical and professional education’ route and then there will be an apprenticeship route.

“The proposal is that all the different awarding bodies out there will be based on 15 groups, so if you want to do engineering or construction, there is one route and one set of qualifications.

“That will transform what we do and everyone seems to have embraced Lord Sainsbury’s report because we have been tinkering with highquality technical education for years. There is obviously an impact in some of the big awarding bodies, but I think it creates a new level of engagement.”

We are already 600 words into this interview and all we have talked about are the raft of changes heading Gary’s way, but there is one more to come with the Apprenticeship Levy planned for the beginning of May next year. Here, all employers operating in the UK who have a wage bill of more

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than £3m each year, will make an investment of 0.5% of that wage bill in apprenticeships.

Another game-changer for Hull as one of the largest providers of apprenticeships in the country, with just over 5,000 on its books.

So, among all that legislation and rewriting of the rules, how does the actual education of Yorkshire’s aspiring entrepreneurs get looked after? This is the true strength of a college principal in the second decade of the 21st century – be a stand-out businessman whose company and its 1,300 staff adds more than £500m to the economy of Hull and the East Riding each year, while being a caring educator of 30,000 students in the same moment.

“Our view is that in a competitive market our unique selling point here is that you are buying into a career route when you join one of our colleges,” he says.

“Our strapline has been very much focused around employability, career and developing an entrepreneurship which

“Our view is that in a competitive market our unique selling point here is that you are buying into a career route when you join one of our colleges,” he says.

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INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

we embed as a key component in all our curriculums. For a lot of people student fees are playing a bigger part in their plans, so if you are paying £9,000 you are going to be much more discerning about what your expectations should be.

“These are our customers because ultimately it is a transaction for which they are paying a lot of money and the service needs to be pretty damn good. So we provide a progression pathway for your career and we are only one of five in the country where you can join us full-time when you are 14.

“So they can come to us at the sort of age when they might be disengaged from school, they can do their normal GCSEs with us but then there is a strong vocational route for them, perhaps into engineering. By a country mile we are the largest provider at that age.”

There are obvious benefits here in being able to work with young people who have only just become teenagers, bring their interest in education and work back from the brink and then guide them into the most employable sectors. That is the sort of route Lord Sainsbury is talking about, and is a world away from the short-term treatment some students are getting where achievement and meeting targets is seen as getting the piece of paper in their hands and wishing them the best of luck ‘out there’.

“You can stay with us right through to postgraduate level, as we were given our own degree-awarding powers earlier this year, so for us the seamless progression we offer from 14 to 21 is the dream way of doing it and an attractive option, and we make sure that more than 3,000 students in the 16-18 age group go out for work

“We are creating skills that will be used in new businesses for people who will go out from here and become sole traders” experience,” he says.

“And then we want to be able to get them into the world of work, for which we have brought in our Employability Skills Passport because we have relationships with more than 1,200 employers and they were telling us they couldn’t differentiate between all the people coming out of the college. So we wanted to create something that was broader than just the qualification and covered things like attitude, punctuality, communication and teamwork.”

By embedding the passport – the first to be recognised by the Hull and Humber LEP - in every full-time student’s programme and rolling it out to other providers across the region, the college is making a significant difference to the chances of its students being employed and earning the wages that lead to the taxes being paid and the homes being bought and the local economy being that little bit better off.

Among those thousands of potential employees and employers, there are many who have the entrepreneurial urge to work for themselves developing ideas the college has helped to nurture. They might already have been inspired by ideas like Platform studios, a hub and talent pool aiming to help budding entrepreneurs and start-ups in digital and technology or they might have been working with the digital hub C4DI to develop opportunities or spent time with The 1416 Job Club sending young people out into the community with live project briefs or at Hatch, a set of incubator spaces.

“We are creating skills that will be used in new businesses for people who will go out from here and become sole traders,” said Gary, who also sits on the local LEP. “I guess what this all leads to is that whether you come here at 14 or 16 or as an undergraduate, the whole strand of developing employability and entrepreneurship is an intrinsic part of the curriculum. We are not just paying lip-service to it, so if you click on a subject like engineering on our website, not only do you get the range of qualifications, you also get the careers, the typical earnings and all the vacancies in the region to completely interlink the sector.

“Hopefully, the regional job opportunities mean the Level 3 and below students will pretty much feed into the local market, while the undergraduates at Hull School of Art and Design may go to Manchester, Leeds or London. Our view is that wherever our young people have those opportunities, it would seem foolish to discourage them.

“What the city and the region is short of is Level 4 and beyond and it is about trying to ensure we retain those individuals here as well, while the challenge is making sure there are enough jobs to do that with huge businesses like Siemens, where we are now involved in the early-stage training of every employee in the factory at a new Composites Training Centre.”

The upcoming Hull2017 City of Culture programme will turn the spotlight on the region like never before and Hull College Group will be

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

competing like any other business for its share of the attention, from venues to participation, with theatres, make-up, art and design all being opened up, and a project called ‘Why the Hull Not?’ with adverts in places like Manchester and Leeds to help capture the attention and help with recruitment.

It is all aspirational, confident and innovative, like the City of Culture itself and the students who knock on the college’s doors for their next move, so Gary won’t let his colleges be the place where those aspirations fall by the wayside.

“What I have noticed during my 11 years here is that the students have quite low self esteem and they are perhaps not as ambitious as they could and should be, so we see one of our roles here as helping them stretch that ambition. One of the ways we can do that is simply by skills competitions, where we encourage our young people to be the best in their area and in the region and across the country and develop and improve self-esteem.

“We have never had anything quite like the buzz there is in the city at the moment, which is helping so much with that confidence and pride, and we have to be agile enough to work with opportunities like the culture events and investing businesses like Siemens.

“We have a separate arm of the business called HCUK Training which gives us a flexible response for firms like Siemens, Smith & Nephew and Croda to have bespoke training and build a relationship very quickly. We will meet the employer, do a Training Needs Analysis, cost it all out and then work through the delivery and impact on the organisation in terms of return and profitability.”

Part of that costing will be the manpower the college might suddenly need to staff a new facility, course or training programme. But Gary explains that the shock-absorbers to deal with that are already in place.

“We have created our own contract with terms and conditions – about which the unions clearly have their views – because to be as agile as we need, you cannot have a lecturer on 60 days holiday and teaching a certain number of hours.

So we have created our own contract with flexible terms so we might recruit them for a short period, perhaps six, nine or 12 months and they will be able to go in and make this training possible. And they are not geographically limited either, so they can be appointed across the

region, which is a route a significant number of colleges are now going down.”

Institutions around the country are also united in their concerns over the Brexit vote, with a pipeline of European grants and investment facing uncertainty. The hope at Hull is that a relationship will be resumed, but the lack of a recognised structure for it is meaning some anxious waits by the phone and an understandable reduction in commitment to long-term plans.

“The hope is that there will be projects that will guarantee funding, and that different types of funding may become available, but for a lot of colleges there was concern because with the apprenticeship funding changing and core funding eroding for the demographic situation, the only thing coming through for growth was European funding.

“My view looking at our business model is that for the next couple of years we will have something there, for 16-18s we will know about the area reviews and there is a growth opportunity with the demographic because the primary schools here are bulging so by 2020 the number of 16-year-olds starts to rise significantly.

Also, prison governors now have their own dedicated skills and training budgets so we are starting to have those conversations.”

Does this mean there can there actually be an excitement and confidence about the future for our would-be entrepreneurs across the Hull and Humber region?

“Eleven years ago I was working at a college in Cheshire and had never even visited Hull,” said Gary, now living at South Cave, with his wife and two children at secondary school and one at primary.

“I came here as deputy because I wanted to be at a large urban college with the challenges that brought. I only planned to stay three or four years, but every year from then there was something significant happening and by the time we had got to the point where I was considering moving, my predecessor Elaine McMahon announced she was retiring and I thought ‘where else would I want to work.’

“For our city and our region the investment that is coming here is significant and means we are on the cusp of something important. There will always be a need for high-quality skills and training, which we must remain focused on, and make sure we listen to employers about their

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needs and meet them with agility and quality.

“There are new markets to explore, so creativity will be a cornerstone of how we work with big employers locally and nationally and yes, it is still exciting with a significant amount of work and new growth opportunities for the group to take us to the next level now. We are an anchor institution in this region, but we have always been clear that serving Hull and East Riding was never going to sustain us long-term, so a national delivery is a key part of what we do.

“On that national theme, the 157 Group can have an influence on local and regional economies in terms of driving skills and infrastructure, and it is quite solutions-focused rather than just whingeing and moaning. It is a collective wanting to make things work better and influence government.

“We are now looking at how we can share services and create our own commercial arm so we can collectively bid in the sector and deliver policy more efficiently because we have helped to shape it. There is a discussion to be had about how big we want it to get, but we certainly want to get the coverage across the country.”

Tellingly, 157 Group was formed in 2006 in response to paragraph 157 of Sir Andrew Foster’s report on the future of further education colleges, in which he argued that principals of large successful colleges should play a greater role in policymaking.

A decade on, that is the natural goal of the country’s best education leaders, to help educate the country itself on the best way to use its most precious asset. Thanks to Gary Warke and his team, the group model has been a huge success for Hull, Harrogate and Goole, Sir David Collins’s area reviews are establishing mergers as the only way forward and the 157 Group is at the top of that pyramid, being essentially a group of the best groups.

This has all grown out of good old networking, the first conversation over a glass or a mug that leads to a realisation about shared goals, that leads to the first official meeting, that leads to a collaboration. There will be some pain along the way, and there needs to be an understanding alongside the unwavering leadership, so I hope Gary Warke stays with us for many years to come and keeps on producing Yorkshire entrepreneurs, but who knows where he could end up postSainsbury, post-Collins and post-Brexit?

SW1P 3BT perhaps? n

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Bringing hidden gems into the open Neil Geddes lives a life of unashamed luxury – for other people. Mike Hughes met him to find out why diamonds are an entrepreneur’s best friend

“I’ve handled diamonds worth millions.”

Not a bad sentence to drop into a business interview – it certainly attracts the attention.

The man doing the dropping is Neil Geddes, and he didn’t just say that as his opening line. It was part of an answer to the question I had just put to him – something along the lines of ‘how much does it cost to buy a gasp-worthy piece of jewellery?’

And he would know, being something I never even knew existed until we met at Aspire in Leeds city centre. Neil, now 32, is a Fine Jewellery Concierge, who works with private clients who want the very best diamonds and gemstones in unique settings. He will scour markets around the world, find the perfect diamond, ruby and sapphire and then have a setting designed and made as a one-off.

As well as the multi-million pound diamonds he has handled on his travels, his own pieces can command six-figure sums – or a couple of hundred pounds.

Fine jewellery is not exactly a staple of the A-level syllabus, so how does a young entrepreneur decide this is the business he will devote his life to – and why Yorkshire?

“There are a number of nuances that steered me into it, but at no point did I go into university and come out thinking I was going to be a jeweller,” he says.

“I did a business degree with a marketing flavour to it, but when I came out of uni I had an experience of working in London and I knew Leeds was an exciting place and so I knew really quickly that I wanted to live in one of the two.

“But Leeds had a bit of historic nostalgia for me in that I grew up in Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire because my dad was in the RAF, so I was around Bedale for a number of years and Yorkshire cricket was in the blood so perhaps it was in the back of my mind to return to that.

“I knew people here and I had visited occasionally and got a great feel for the city and thought ‘this

is exciting – let’s make something of it now’ and plan further down the line for a good work-life balance. But to start with I went into what is probably a very typical situation for graduates in that I didn’t really know what I wanted to do – which is often the case unless you have studied something specific like medicine or law and you know that is the route you are going down.

“So I went into the corporate world for five years working in marketing. At that stage I didn’t have a particularly great understanding or admiration for jewellery, but I was at the stage in my life where I wanted to propose to my girlfriend and I looked at the high street in general terms for good customer service in a retail environment to help me understand why I should buy this ring over that one.

“But I got a very flat experience from that and I wanted something different, so someone suggested I speak to an independent jeweller, so I found one who had been in the business all his life and had spent 20 years building up a network out in Asia, in places like Bangkok and Hong Kong, which is a global hub for gemstones.

“He had a small team, but they were all third or fourth generation gemologists who really knew what they were talking about and this particular gentleman really interested me and as we got to know each other he would show me a little more about his work and he taught me that the most important factor in the jewellery world is trust.”

Many of our Yorkshire entrepreneurs will recognise Neil’s version of that first meeting. The drive to succeed at work is in many of us, but sometimes a mentor appears, someone who you immediately relate to and want to work with and emulate. They don’t have to be ‘matched’ by an agency, as Neil did, you could find them in the next coffee shop you visit or on the next train journey to Sheffield.

“I am quite a fan of the mentoring model, learning from someone who has been there, done it and got the badge,” says Neil.

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

“The most important factor in the jewellery world is trust”

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

“I also use a mentor from a coffee background who is in wholesale, so nothing to do with the retail side. That way you can take the glamorous side out of working with diamonds and actually get to the business and you are then talking about your strategy and your value add, so that is valuable to me.”

So, back to the gemstone genius (Neil declines to name him, to protect that precious trust he has built up over the years).

“It became very transparent that on his display table were many gems to look at, but the real stars were in the drawer, and he wasn’t going to show them until he knew who I was – and that is a model that is replicated around the world.

“You can hop on a plane tomorrow, fly to Bangkok and buy a ruby. But you are not going to buy a very good one because they will sell you whatever they want. In this business you need to know who to talk to.

“I ended up buying a diamond from him for the engagement ring, which was the starting point to an interest in gemology and fine jewellery. I started learning more about the subject and then got my brain going and started wondering if I could take this somewhere even though I still had a good full-time job.

“I started to say to people that if they were looking for a piece of jewellery, give me a month first to see what I can get before you go to the shops. So I needed to understand diamonds – which are an entirely different market to gems and account for 70% or even 80% of the sales – and how to supply them while accumulating credible knowledge.”

Neil went to one of the world’s leading authorities, The Gemological Institute of America which is a non-profit group dedicated to research and education.

“I was certainly pursuing an interest, but I didn’t have a plan yet,” admits Neil.

“My advice would be that while organisations like GIA are important, there is nothing better than reading around your subject, looking at the goods and the designs being used by other people, understanding why one is better than the next.

“I would go around the top auction houses as often as possible and look at the gems and think about people like Harry Winston and now Laurence Graff who are at the very top of the tree, but haven’t done a gemology course in their life. They just started looking at their subject from

“Relationship management skills and understanding people can be taught, but you need a glimmer of excitement for jewellery” an early age.

“The shifting point that moved it all from a hobby to a business was looking around my office and seeing my peers who may have been there for ten or fifteen years and not really progressed, and alarm bells started going off.

I could have gone off and found an account manager job at Procter & Gamble or IBM, both fantastic companies, but it just didn’t interest me at all.

“I started looking at a strategy for a jewellery business and worked out an exit strategy from my current job that meant I could still pay my mortgage. I knew it was very rare for someone to start completely from scratch without some sort of family connection, or a lead into an established business.

“It was also, of course, a very niche market and after I had received my last pay cheque, I had very little savings, so I took myself off and worked at my local pub in Yorkshire and would work 9-5 on the new jewellery business and then start at the pub for 6pm until 2am. I did that for six or seven months to allow myself a bit of money to pay the bills, but at least I didn’t need an actual shop.

“Concierge companies were growing

phenomenally, and I looked at that business model and looked at the likes of Savile Row and thought I don’t need an extremely expensive shop on a high street which is saturated anyway.

I needed to differentiate myself at the same time as taking away that headache and cost.

“I wanted to go back to the Belle Époque era of the 1920s when fabulous gems were coming out of the ground and fabulous jewellery was being made by Cartier, lovingly designed to make people feel sensational and there was an attention to detail with the level of service for the customer being paramount.

While there were a few early sales of items Neil sourced ready-made, the defining moment of the first sale of a custom piece came after he had met a client who wanted diamond stud earrings for his wife. The problem was that so early on in his new career Neil hadn’t established lines of credit and the trust that he needed for payment terms.

So after getting through the doors for a wholesale diamond dealer in London, he found that they wanted the £10,000 up front. After so much planning and determination, Neil, then only 27, used a much-repeated entrepreneur’s strategy....and maxed out three credit cards.

“I didn’t tell my parents what I was doing because they would have just said ‘don’t do it’.

It was a gamble that bought me the diamonds – and I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night – but the dealer was wholesale so he said if I didn’t sell them I could bring them back for a refund, which drastically reduced the risk.

“I already had a manufacturing set-up I could go to where I could have things made, so I did that, boxed up the earrings, delivered them and the customer paid and knew he was saving money compared to jewellery houses in the area, so he was delighted.

“That was one of the early-day kickstarts, with one happy customer and a wholesale dealer who now knew I was the sort of guy who did what he said he would do.

“That means the trust is there and I can now appro diamonds, to a certain degree, so whenever I am with a client I can go and lend some diamonds to make sure they are what he or she wants, and then pay for them.”

Such a niche market is a challenge for an entrepreneur. “If you were after a new car, you could have a Ford Fiesta or an S-Class Mercedes.

Both are cars and will get you from A to B, but

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it is very important for clients to realise that I am providing a private couture service, along with the understanding that their money is going a lot further because of my low overheads.

“So let’s say a small diamond ring might be £1,500. That is a typical starting point because we are not in fashion jewellery and not in chain volume jewellery, but we are dealing with fine jewellery and that is helpful for clients to see where we are pitching our business.

“Also, I have helped a 23-year-old get an engagement ring because it saved him a couple of hundred quid, and then very wealthy people get fabulous diamonds that are also saving them a few quid for Cartier-level handmade goods.

“My competition is still jewellers in the fine sector. Some of those around Yorkshire have great pedigree in their history. You need to know that I am here, but once you do you will know what I can provide for you and why that might persuade you to come back.

“But while I am doing one deal, the competition is probably doing a thousand.”

Growth means having a number of clients in the High Net Worth range at the top of the wealth pyramid (those worth at least US$1m).

The professionals that are the foundations of the pyramid are essential, but the HNWs are an understandably key set of people. A report at the beginning of last year said there were 840,000 dollar millionaires in the UK, so a bigger market to aim at than many people, including SLNW (Surprisingly Low Net Worth) editors like me, would have thought.

Neil is still the client-facing side of the business building the crucial relationships and then working with designers and dealers that he has come to know well. He divides his time between Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and London and the counties that surround them.

“I have worked hard to create the team I have now that tick the boxes of doing things in that traditional way. With our designers, everything is hand-painted, which is very popular in Paris, and we want to be able to continue that.

“So when expansion means taking on another

person to handle clients, I think you can mould someone who has the passion and teach them the right skills. Obviously, you have to be able to sell, and from my perspective relationship management skills and understanding people can be taught, but you need a glimmer of excitement for jewellery.”

The Yorkshire market has been a good area to hone Neil’s business skills, because it encapsulates both ends of his market. There is old and new money coursing through the counties and cities, but there is also early aspiration that cannot be ignored, and a need for regular business at all levels to keep NJ Geddes running smoothly.

So that requires a presence and trust at the highest peaks of the Yorkshire wealth pyramid, where he is just as likely to be asked to explain the value-for-money side of an eye-wateringly expensive item. But at the same time, the jewellery must not be seen as unattainable further down the pyramid, so good value and awareness of quality matter just as much.

“The beauty of Yorkshire is that there is a clientele here and I love living here, but at the same time travel is easy, so I can get to my cities easily and see my clients where they are, in their offices and their homes,” he says.

“Because there will be plenty of business people who don’t have the time to do that sort

of shopping, but also some senior people or celebrities who don’t want the hassle of being seen or photographed out and about, so we take that element out of it as well.”

Quality costs, of course and Neil will regularly work with clients spending “between fifteen and fifty”. It felt unnecessary to check whether that was thousands....

“We don’t break down the price between my time or the design or the diamond, we will understand what they want and provide it at a cost of ‘x’,” he explains.

“I have held diamonds over 20 carats that are into the millions, but that is where you would be dealing with Ultra High Net Worth clients, but we have done necklaces for more than £100,000. At the end of the day, I am very aware that people can buy a house for what I am providing, but we have integrity in what we do.

“I had a London banker with a lot of disposable income as a client and we worked with this gentleman to buy his wife a diamond ring. He ended up through my advice buying one that was a little smaller and a little less money because it fitted the brief better.

“Now, down the line he might want some earrings, and will remember the way I worked.”

Neil like other BQ entrepreneurs, needs a support network, whether it is that first unnamed mentor or his wife Katie.

He says. “In the early days she kept the house and that gave me flexibility to venture out. It is very risky to leave your job and not really have another one to go to, but she was there for me when I had a gut feeling of what I wanted to do.

“I don’t think that is a particularly strong business model, but I would advise anybody to avoid treading water, because I knew when I was looking round that office that I didn’t want to reach 55 and not have progressed or pursued something I wanted to do.

“There was something in me that knew I didn’t want to be employed by someone and do a nine-to-five.”

That ‘something’ is what BQ tries to define with each interview. Neil Geddes has it. Do you? n

“The beauty of Yorkshire is that there is a clientele here and I love living here, but at the same time travel is easy”

PROFILE Let’s Grow

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Now this is a pig deal Karro Food Group’s products are sold around the UK and exported and, with help from Let’s Grow, it’s now set for expansion, as Peter Jackson reports A North Yorkshire company is bringing home the bacon thanks to a £600,000 grant which has secured nearly 300 jobs.

Malton-based Karro Food Group, a major producer of bacon and other pork products, created 197 jobs and safeguarded another 90, after securing the grant from the Let’s Grow fund.

Let’s Grow North and East Yorkshire is a Regional Growth Fund programme managed by BE Group in partnership with accountants Clive Owen LLP to support business expansion and diversification to help firms to expand their operations or to set up new establishments in the region.

Let’s Grow helped Karro expand its operation in Malton, including a major upgrade to the gammon processing line at the site and an increase in the company’s fresh pork and gammon production and slicing capability and these improvements have helped Karro win additional business with key customers. Karro processes around 45,000 pigs every week for delivery to the UK’s major supermarkets and wholesale food suppliers markets and it employs about 3,000 people across seven sites UK-wide, generating more than £500m of turnover every year.

Karro has made a significant capital investment in Malton, buying new, state-of-the-art butchery and production machinery, but as a large company they were not eligible for a grant towards that part of the investment under the current European State aid rules. BE Group senior project adviser Mike Baker explained how it was possible for Karro to obtain grant support: “We quickly realised that Karro’s workforce at Malton was made up of a high proportion of people who are classified as ‘disadvantaged workers’ under the State aid rules, especially workers from ethnic minorities and workers in a certain age bracket. We used one of the lesser-known State aid measures to award the grant based on the first year wage costs of these ‘disadvantaged workers’. This was the only way for Karro to legitimately obtain the grant support required to convince the company’s owners to finance the investment.

Under the terms of the grant Karro was to create the jobs by the end of the year, but it achieved the target

by mid summer.

Mike Baker said: “For somewhere like Malton, 287 jobs is obviously quite a significant number. The Let’s Grow investment panel saw it as a very worthwhile project to support and was very keen to support it.

“We are delighted to support Karro Foods and it’s a wonderful thing for Malton that these jobs have been created and safeguarded.’’

Di Walker, executive chair at Karro, said: “Karro Food Group was delighted to receive this major grant funding and it has made a really positive impact on our business.

“The grant allows Karro to increasingly build a British supply chain in an industry that has always been importing significantly from Europe.

“As part of a wider £1.5m upgrade to our Malton facilities, the grant has led to additional employment and training in Malton, which has had a wider positive impact on the local economy through sustainable job creation.’’

She added that major advantages of the Let’s Grow programme were its simple and clear application guidelines, as well as regular and positive communications between the initiative and the business throughout the process.

The original funding available for Let’s Grow North and East Yorkshire was £3.8m, of which just under £3.1m has been committed, creating or safeguarding about 600 jobs across North and East Yorkshire.

There is still more than £700,000 available to support further projects and, with the scheme due to end in March 2017, the fund managers are looking for more applications.

“We are still keen to receive applications for projects that could be considered,’’ said Mike Baker.

North &E ast Yorkshire

For more information call 0191 389 8434 or visit www.be-group.co.uk or email letsgrow@be-group.co.uk

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The UK’s premier business event for entrepreneurship is back for 2016, offering a brand new experience to educate, inspire and motivate early stage entrepreneurs and established business owners

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Taking place on 8 November 2016, MADE will provide meaningful, practical advice and inspiration from experts and peers who will share their views, advice and experiences on growing and succeeding in business. Be inspired. Be motivated.

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Jimmy Cregan (Pictured right) ‘Jimmy’ at Jimmy’s Iced Coffee Dorset lad Jim Cregan went to Oz after getting fed up with UK winters and fell in love with their take on ready to drink iced Coffee. He returned home and decided to make his own. With the help from his sister Sooz, their brand, Jimmy’s Iced Coffee is now available in over 3,000 stores across the UK including Tesco, Waitrose, BP and more.

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He co-founded iconic games company Games Workshop in 1975, launching Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer in Europe. He coauthored The Warlock of Firetop Mountain with Steve Jackson in 1982, writing 14 titles in the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series which has sold over 18 million copies worldwide. He designed Eureka, the first computer game published by Domark in 1984. He joined the Domark board in 1992, overseeing a merger that created Eidos plc in 1995 where he served as executive chairman until 2002. At Eidos he launched global video games franchises including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. He co-authored the influential Livingstone-Hope Next Gen review published by NESTA in 2011, recommending changes in ICT education policy. Following publication, he chaired the Next Gen Skills campaign, working with government to introduce the new computing curriculum in

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Committee, and also served as Chairman of Santander’s Asset Management and Credit Card businesses in the UK. Before joining Abbey in 2004, Keith spent 17 years at L.E.K. Consulting, where he was a partner specialising in financial services. Keith holds an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from University College, Oxford and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Keith Morgan CEO, British Business Bank Keith Morgan led the planning and establishment of the British Business Bank from January 2013, and was appointed CEO in December 2013. Prior to this, Keith was an Executive Director of UK Financial Investments (UKFI), joining in 2009 to manage the UK Government’s shareholdings in Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock and culminating in the return of Northern Rock to the private sector and the creation of UK Asset Resolution (UKAR) to manage the run down and sale of the remaining mortgages. Keith remains on the board of UKAR as a Non-Executive Director.

Keith joined UKFI from Banco Santander where he was an Executive Director of Sovereign Bancorp in the US, focusing on the bank’s retail and SME strategy and the integration of Sovereign into Santander. He was previously Director of Strategy & Planning at Abbey National and a member of the Executive

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MADE 2016 Media Partnership

appointed by Lord Young as chair of the Small Business Charter, an initiative which aims to encourage business schools and employers to get the best out of each other for the sake of the UK economy.

Emma Jones (Pictured below) Founder, Enterprise Nation Following a degree in Law and Japanese, Emma joined international accounting firm Arthur Andersen, where she worked in London, Leeds and Manchester offices and set up the firm’s inward investment practice that attracted overseas companies to locate in the UK. In 2000, bitten by the dot.com bug, Emma left the firm to start her first business, Techlocate – after 15 months, the company was successfully sold to Tenon plc. The experience of starting, growing and selling a business from a home base gave Emma the idea for Enterprise Nation which was launched in 2006 as the home business website.

The company has since expanded to become a small business community of over 75,000 people who benefit from business books, events and funding: online, in print and in person.

Enterprise Nation also presents a campaigning voice to government and the media on behalf of its members.

​Steve Bartlett

(Pictured below) CEO, Social Chain Steve Bartlett takes popular online communities and influencers and builds creative marketing campaigns for some of the biggest brands in the world. As a result, he has turned Social Chain into a multi-million pound business that has been recognised by The Drum as Social Media Agency of the Year, and Prolific North as Best Large Digital Agency 2016. Awards: 2014 Young Entrepreneur of the year (Growing business awards, Lloyds TSB), Dubbed the UK’s next creative pioneer in 2012 by the METRO newspaper, Included in the top 20 young entrepreneurs to watch in 2013 (YHP), Included in the top 10 young entrepreneurs to watch in 2014 (Flexibox), 1 of 5 Nominated for UK’s best creative brand, Student Entrepreneur of the year award 2012.

Josh Littlejohn Founder, Social Bite & The Scottish Business Awards Josh Littlejohn is one of Scotland’s most prolific entrepreneurs, and is passionate about making a difference in the world.

Co-founder of Social Bite, a chain of sandwich shops which donates all profits to charity, Josh employs a dedicated workforce which is partially made up of staff from formerly homeless backgrounds. This year will see the launch of The Social Bite Academy; the UK’s first skills and employment academy for the homeless community. Josh has made headlines in recent years by attracting big named speakers to his Scottish Business Awards, the largest and most prestigious business event in the UK. Previous speakers have included Bob Geldof, Bill Clinton, Richard Branson and most recently, George Clooney. 2016 has also seen the launch of Josh’s new charitable venture, Brewgooder; the World’s first craft beer to donate 100% of its profits to clean water projects. n

08.11.2016 Crucible Theatre Sheffield

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME 9:00 - 9:05 Welcome - To Inspiration 9:05 - 10:30 The Disruptors Learn To Behave Differently 11:00 - 12:15 Future Business Tech, Today

- Stay Ahead Of The Game 13:15 - 14:10 The World Is Your Market

- Make Sure You Grasp It 14:10 - 14:40 Building A Social Business

- Benefiting You and

The Community 15:10 - 16:20 From The High Street

To The Crowd The Great Financial Debate 16:20 - 17:00 Enter The Dragons’ Den It Could Be You 17:00

Closing - After show party

Pitch for six figure investment from key angel investors at MADE2016 All MADE ticket holders have the chance to pitch for a six figure investment in front of five key northern angel investors live on stage. All delegates will be guided on how to submit a compelling MADE Crowdfunder project to raise investment from the crowd using the global platform.

The five entrepreneurs that raise the most will receive specialist coaching and will be put forward to pitch for further angel investment and mentoring live on stage. This means that all MADE delegates can raise significant investment by attending. To find out more and to book a ticket visit www.madefestival.com.

www.madefestival.co.uk

08.11.2016 “ONE OF THE TOP 10 BEST WORLDWIDE CONFERENCES FOR ENTREPRENEURS” - entrepreneur.com

POWERED BY

CONFERENCE S T A R R I N G IAN

LIVINGSTONE Sumo Digital

STEVE

JOSH

JIMMY

Social Chain

Social Bite

Jimmy’s Iced Coffee

BARTLETT LITTLEJOHN CREGAN

EMMA

JONES

PENNY

AND

MALLORY MANY MORE

Enterprise Nation

Host

DRAGONS’ DEN L I V E

O N

S T A G E

Three of the most successful entrepreneurs from a Crowdfunder competition, which is open to all MADE delegates, will pitch their ideas in a ‘Dragons’ Den’ style event to five high net-worth angel investors.

Find how YOU can be involved at madefestival.com DELIVERED BY:

EVENT SPONSORS:

LIVE from Crucible Theatre Sheffield, UK EVENT PARTNERS:

MEDIA PARTNER:

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INSIGHT bqlive.co.uk

INSIGHT

It’s all in the mind…

bqlive.co.uk

Psychology graduate Hannah Drakard has recently joined Bolser, a digital agency based in Leeds, to gain a deeper understanding of their clients and analyse the agency’s own strategies. Here, she looks at the growing role of psychology for businesses

In business we need to utilise every tool to get our prospects and consumers to buy our products and services.

A good understanding of the psychological triggers that influence decision making is vital in getting the best outcomes. Some natural salespeople are able to intuitively understand how to influence people. For the rest of us and for businesses dealing at arm’s length through advertising and digital marketing an understanding of the principles can make the difference between a sale and no sale or a high value sale verses a lower value one.

Psychology is about understanding how and why people think and behave in certain ways. Taking the time to try and learn more about people, their social influences, attitudes and behaviours will give you a better understanding of your audience. This can then influence decisions made about the design and approach to marketing campaigns or the production of a product, including websites and apps. By asking consumers what their preferences are and what motivates them to use a product, businesses can gain a better insight into how to reach out to consumers.

If a consumer can identify a connection with a product or service, they are more likely to affiliate with this as they have a strong sense of identification. This is why it is so important to consider the psychology of consumer behaviour, to ensure repeat custom and symbolic interaction which is where people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them.

My top tip, is to read a book like ‘Influence’, by Dr Robert Cialdini which explains the psychology of why people say ‘yes’- and how to apply these understandings.

He explains the practical triggers and weaknesses that make people susceptible to sales and marketing techniques.

One of our favourites is ‘reciprocity’. When you give something to someone, they feel an obligation to return the favour. That could be as obvious as a bottle of wine at Christmas or a simple ‘tradable’ in a sales negotiation.

Studies have shown that people have contributed more when they were made to see themselves as having unique

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information to contribute. For example email messages can motivate people in an online community simply by reminding them of an opportunity to contribute. The content of the message, also plays a key part, making members of the community feel unique encouraging them to contribute.

Once you know the nature of someone’s personality you can apply such theories to brands. Some brands even use some of these characteristics to represent the brand.

It can be beneficial to consider using techniques to support certain personality traits allowing them to affiliate with a marketing campaign. For example someone with higher emotive personality characteristics will be able to relate to warming characters or a narrative that plays on emotions.

Personality and gamification can support an experience to become personalised and give individuals the sense of importance and belonging, this will then support retention with a product or a brand and increase engagement.

Gamification can be applied to many online tools to give customers a personal experience based on the way they approach games. Continued assessment of what your customers want will enable you to stay ahead of the game by adapting your approaches. Keeping customers interested in the product or service will create a larger sense of loyalty and continued interaction.

Keeping a close eye on the interaction and successes within a business will give you an insight into what customers’ preferences are. If this can be delivered to them in a fashion that requires little effort on the consumer’s part, but provides great satisfaction and surprise, it will strengthen the relationship with the brand.

Rewarding behaviours are an important psychological tool. These don’t always have to be physical or monetary rewards. Integrate rewards and positive surprises for individuals throughout to build on the existing relationship with customers. Looking at your own business and gaining an understanding of the people working for you can be beneficial from the outset.

Understanding the customer base you are targeting, and how to improve your business to suit the needs of those you are trying to target is a key element of your business plan. Make sure you don’t just stand still once you have created your plan, develop a plan with a cycle to revisit approaches based on consumer activity and feedback, so you are always learning and evolving.

I am excited by the opportunities an understanding of psychology can bring to business owners - it’s still very much an untapped tool - often dabbled in by sales people, but not understood at a deep rooted level. If you’re looking for quick tricks you might get lucky with a couple, but an educated understanding of what really makes your customers tick, to enable you to tap into their psyche when making a purchase, is a valuable asset and one to be invested in. n

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INTERNATIONAL TRADE bqlive.co.uk

NORTHERN POWERHOUSE

AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE CAMPAIGN 2016/17 BQ is delighted to announce the launch of the PD Ports Northern Powerhouse Export Awards and International Trade Campaign 2016/17 The PD Ports Northern Powerhouse Export Awards and International Trade Campaign brings together businesses from across the North to recognise and celebrate their entrepreneurial exporting achievements as well as encourage others to increase their export potential. Exporting and international trade remain central to the UK’s economic growth agenda and this campaign and export awards are about recognising those entrepreneurial,

wealth creating companies that are selling their products, services and expertise in scores of overseas markets. It is vital that we appreciate and recognise those exporters who have made the transition from great local companies to potentially world class exporting businesses based in the North of England.

Exporting continues to present an opportunity for the North of England to bring immediate and sustainable growth to its economy and with this in mind we need to pass the baton to SMEs across the Northern Powerhouse to consider exporting as a realistic opportunity for growth.

Geoff Lippitt, business development director at PD Ports, said: “As owners and operators of Teesport, one of the top five UK ports and a major export hub, we are delighted to sponsor the Northern Powerhouse Export Awards 2017 alongside BQ. “The awards reflect our firm commitment and investment in supporting further growth of exports and the associated value to drive economic prosperity across the North; exporting will undoubtedly be a major catalyst in delivering the Northern Powerhouse.

“We look forward to joining our many existing customers and other

great exporting organisations at the ceremony to hear of continued export successes and to celebrate the strength and diversity of our Northern exporters.”

BQ is a national brand recognised for celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship to help businesses succeed and grow. Encouraging businesses to explore exporting opportunities is central to BQ’s ethos and one which Bryan Hoare, managing director BQ, believes will really help stimulate economic growth.

“Having successfully delivered the Scottish Export Awards for the past three years alongside Scottish Enterprise, the economic development arm of the Scottish Government, we’re delighted to bring to you the PD Ports Northern Powerhouse Export Awards.”

“We would like to invite any business in the North actively trading overseas to get involved in the awards and export campaign to help us encourage others to increase their export potential. This is a vital time in the UK economy where we need to provide inspiration and stimulation. BQ is investing in this 12 month campaign across Yorkshire, the North East & Cumbria, and the North West to help stimulate growth and profile some of the North’s top exporters.”

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RECOGNISING EXCELLENCE IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE ACROSS THE NORTH

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ENTER NOW AT WWW.BQLIVE.CO.UK/ NORTHEXPORT AWARDS17

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INTERNATIONAL TRADE bqlive.co.uk

CATEGORIES The PD Ports Northern Powerhouse Export Awards are open to all businesses with a presence in the North of England. The award categories for 2017 include: MOST ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPORTER OF THE YEAR A company that has demonstrated entrepreneurial flair within their export strategy. This will be shown through an extraordinary approach to reaching new markets where creativity, innovation and tenacity has resulted in success.

MICRO EXPORTER OF THE YEAR Recognising outstanding achievements in export growth by a company in any industry with a turnover up to £2million. This success will be measured by growth in sales and market penetration together with the application of innovative market strategies to extend export potential.

SMALL EXPORTER OF THE YEAR Recognising outstanding achievements in export growth by a company in any industry with a turnover of £2-£15million. This success will be measured by growth in sales and market penetration together with the application of innovative market strategies to extend export potential.

LARGE EXPORTER OF THE YEAR Recognising outstanding achievements by a company in any industry with a turnover greater than £15million. This success will be measured by growth in sales and market penetration together with the application of innovative market strategies to extend export potential.

EXPORT TEAM OF THE YEAR The export team of the year award will recognise a team who can demonstrate significant added value to their business through adopting innovative techniques, personnel development measures, and successful implementation of the company's export sales strategy. It should be clear how the company has developed a team-wide approach to exporting, which may well extend beyond the company to distributors, agents and other third parties who will have contributed to export success.

E-COMMERCE EXPORTER OF THE YEAR A company that through e-commerce has increased brand awareness and recognition, expanded into new markets, increased sales and efficiency and improved customer service. The winner of this category must be able to demonstrate how they have used e-commerce and trading online to significantly enhance their export growth or potential for growth.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE ADVISER OF THE YEAR A business that does not export, but plays a key role in supporting exporters to trade overseas either directly or indirectly through providing associated services such as advice and consultancy. The professional service adviser of the year award will recognise a company that has demonstrated outstanding achievements in supporting businesses to achieve their exporting objectives. Success will be measured by the advice given and how it directly affected export growth in the companies supported.

LOGISTICS PARTNER OF THE YEAR Awarded to a company that provides outstanding customer service and innovation in supporting the export market with their delivery solutions. Success should be measured through their ability to support complex or innovative methods of distribution and delivery whilst adding value. Where possible nominees in this category should also be able to show how their business is focusing on support for new and emerging export markets.

HIGH GROWTH MARKET EXPORTER OF THE YEAR Awarded to a company demonstrating impressive export growth in high growth markets (including Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, Vietnam and Hong Kong). This success will be measured by growth in sales and high growth market penetration, together with the application of innovative market strategies to extend export potential.

PD PORTS NORTHERN POWERHOUSE EXPORTER OF THE YEAR This award will be presented to a company that has made an outstanding contribution to the North's export profile and success. Companies must have demonstrated how they have overcome their barriers when entering new markets. The winner of this award will be selected from the winners of the above award categories and announced on the evening of the awards.

ENTER NOW AT WWW.BQLIVE.CO.UK/ NORTHEXPORT AWARDS17

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Atom sees exports boom East Yorkshire’s Atom Beers is proving you don’t have to be an established business to brew up export success after breaking into 10 export markets in just just two and a half years.

Allan Rice started up Atom Beers back in 2013 with the production of four core beers, all of which paid homage to his love of science.

His desire to launch the business stemmed from his time spent working as a general manager for a small brewery in the Scottish borders.

In only six months Rice helped the brewery expand from its small in-house brewery bar to a brand supplying over 200 bars across the country.

Having spent his time commuting between his Beverley home and Kelso every weekend, Allan decided to return home and use his experience to set up his own business.

“Tempest were basically just selling at their own bar, so my brief was to get it out to other places and we went from one bar to 200 in six months,” Allan said.

“After a while, Sarah (his partner) and I came to the realisation that we could do our own thing and that Tempest possibly wasn’t going in the direction we would like to be going.

“We thought the beers were a bit bland. We thought ‘we could do this – so why don’t we’ – and Atom was born.”

As confident as he was that his experience would serve him well when going it alone, even he couldn’t foresee how successful the brand would quickly become.

“We started exporting after just six months in business when we shipped our first overseas order to Finland,” he added.

“Since then, we’ve exported to Estonia, Hungary, Serbia, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Australia and New Zealand and we’re just about to confirm a deal for France.

“We’ve made 54 different types of beer in two and a half years! We brew three to four times a week which equals around 12,000 pints.”

The deal to supply beer to Finland proved a good stepping stone for Atom but it was also a learning curve at the same time for Allan and his small team of brewers.

As an SME and a first time exporter, Allan decided to seek professional advice to advise

“We’ve made 54 different types of beer in two and a half years!

We brew three to four times a week which equals around 12,000 pints” him on future dealings with interest from other markets gathering pace.

With this in mind, he turned to the Department for International Trade (formerly UKTI) and was offered the chance to work with a dedicated export consultant.

“We were given the chance to take part in a UKTI project which provided us with a dedicated consultant for 10 weeks to focus solely on exporting. He conducted a lot of research and did a lot of the leg work that we wouldn’t necessarily have been able to do and put in different processes and implementations to help us achieve our goals.

“As well as that we’ve also worked with our local advisors who have since advised us on different markets and supported us throughout our export journey, they’ve been a huge help.”

Since this support, the company has grown into a £320,000 turnover business exporting its products to 10 different markets across Europe and Australasia.

Going forward, he has ambitious plans for the business which could see Allan and his team break into the rest of Europe and beyond.

“We’re now looking to consolidate the European Union markets before it all goes a little bit weird post-Brexit.

“The key aspect is really focusing on that so we have an easy channel to sell into. The one primary market we would love to sell to is Belgium.”

The company also has its eyes on the American market and is looking to capitalise on Hull’s City of Culture campaign which takes place next year.

“We haven’t yet cracked the US market however we are making in-roads through Raleigh, North Carolina, which is the sister city of Hull.

“We’ve been in talks with one of the best breweries in Raleigh about a potential collaboration which will see us brew and distribute each other’s beers.

“It will tie in perfectly with Hull’s City of Culture campaign and we’ll also be looking to create a collaboration beer to coincide with the celebrations.”

Atom is a perfect example of how small businesses can capitalise on the growing demand for British produce overseas and Allan has a few helpful tips for any small businesses looking to emulate his success.

He concluded: “The biggest thing I can say is be wise and research the countries you’re looking to break into. If you’re manufacturing beer, look at what people drink, if you’re a baker, look at what they eat and when they eat. A thorough background check will help you get to know your customer base before you start selling and work out the best way to interact with them.

“It can also help you decide which markets are right for your products and will help prevent you wasting any time looking at markets which may not work out.” n

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

It would be about 1978 in Preston, and Steppenwolf was playing Born to be Wild on the pub ‘jukebox’ (with real vinyl records!).

That, briefly, is my entire memory of student life on the National Council for the Training of Journalists one year pre-entry course at the town’s polytechnic. It was certainly more of a social experience than an educational leap, but it was important in starting to build the postschool version of me.

At York St John University, everything is changing – from the VC to the SU. Prof Karen Stanton is now in charge with the first 175 years of history to build on and a restructure of schools and faculties, and as Chris Bateman shows me the new Students’ Union building at the city centre campus, it is clear that the way prospective young entrepreneurs are nurtured and supported is unrecognisable from my days at Livesey House – or across the road from it....

With 7,000 potential entrepreneurs to look after – a record 2,000 of them arriving for Freshers Week – and a turnover topping £1m, the days when his job as chief executive of York St John Students’ Union might just have been making sure the bitter was on and the minibus had been booked are long gone.

“The professionalisation of the role started about 20 years ago when the union started moving into commercial services because we were able to deliver things with best value for the students but also still make a bottom line surplus to plough back into the activities,” he explains.

“About five or six years ago students’ unions started to incorporate as charities because, apart from the 1994 Education Act, there was very little wording around what constituted a students’ union – apart from the fact that it had to exist.

“To be able to show that we had good governance, in 2010 we became a charity which meant a structure, a constitution, a board of trustees and much more transparency.

“It is a lot like Parliament and being the civil servant to the politicians in that we are the continuity for strategic planning purposes and support and advise officers who help the students, through nine chairs of school that we

How to look after 7,000 entrepreneurs Mike Hughes goes a few decades into his murky past to recall life as a student – and asks Chris Bateman, chief executive of York St John Students’ Union, to bring him up to date elect and who then feed into full-time sabattical officers.”

Our talk is well timed, as Chris - who has been in the role for four years after two as the Commercial Services Manager - has just got the keys to the new SU building, a conversion of a building that housed art department studios, which will be linked by a glass atrium to two former residential blocks now unrecognisable after a lot of building work. The development has cost £2.5m, which is an unimaginable multiple of what Preston Poly would think was a worthwhile investment in the Class of ’78.

“To me it is the difference between being CEO of a private limited company and being chief exec of a charity. Rather than just generate cash to pay out dividends, you are working for those 7,000 students and you can see the return right in front of you from what you deliver. The other very rewarding thing is that the members of the charity are also your market research – they will tell you what they want and you are duty bound to deliver that and keep them satisfied.

“You only need to look at our strategic plan

to see that what they want is to be part of a community and to be supported throughout their education experience, whether that is an issue about staff numbers or library resources.

“If these concerns are raised the first thing we do at the SU is make sure we don’t go to the university to pass on problems, we go with solutions which I think is a sign of the mature relationship we have. We don’t lobby, we meet, discuss – sometimes criticise – and resolve because it is recognised that we are the best voice and point of interaction and are more likely to get an open, honest and transparent opinion of what the issue might be.”

He adds “Of the £1m we turn round as a charity, half comes from the university so we have a ‘critical friend’ relationship with our biggest funder, so we have to balance that one off whole, realising that the funding doesn’t mean we always have to do what the university asks,” explains Chris.

“We have to be conscious of how we respond to students’ needs when they might not be the first priority of the university, so a key part of

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

my role is relationship management, which the sabbaticals lead on in terms of the studentfacing perspective and then they and I are the liaison point with senior management.”

Of course it wasn’t too many years ago that he was on the other side of that student-facing perspective - but not at YSJ. “I came to York in 2001, but to study at York University – which I now keep relatively quiet about! But as a student I used to go to the York St John student nights, so probably interacted more with these students because they were more my type of person, more down-to-earth.

“I had originally come to the city on a school trip and there was a string quartet busking in the street and I thought ‘this is the sort of place I want to live’. Then when it came to choosing universities, I settled here.

“I wasn’t that involved in union activities although I was one of the founding members of the York University Wine Society, which is now part of my history as a student. I worked hard, and had to take two or three jobs while I was there to pay my way. One of those jobs was working in clubs, so I fell into that when I left York and worked for eight years for what was then Luminar, ending up managing four venues around the North of England.

“Then I suppose it was a bit of a lifestyle choice – there comes a time when it is right to settle down and find an occupation that is more rewarding and more suited to your life.

“Part of that reward comes from a lot of personal development we are there to help with, so when we looked at our bill for design work, instead we hired some design students for a good wage and it is now all done in-house.

Also, we run a licensed bar, a coffee lounge and a venue and we employ students to help run them.

“But while it is very satisfying to offer students a job for £100 or £150 a week, we will always make sure it doesn’t impact negatively on their studies. We don’t want them failing modules because they have been working four nights a week at the bar.

“This is also about professional skills and employability, with our aspiration that students’ who become highly involved with the student union will be more employable when they graduate. The journey to that is not only that we employ them, but also all the voluntary things they can get involved with. Things like sports

“One of the joys of having elected officers to work with is that they are always full of ideas about positive changes to make students’ lives better”

teams and societies don’t just exist out of magic, there is a lot of background work in governance to make sure there are democratic structures in there, with chairs, vice-chairs and treasurers.

“They are all trained and equipped with the skills they need by our own staff and then they will be armed and equipped with what they should be putting on their CVs so that they are not just students with degrees, but have handson experience you can tangibly demonstrate.

“When we were at school (said the 33-year-old) you got the crimson folder that was your record of achievement and references from your teachers and your GCSE certificates, well now we have the Higher Education Achievement Record.

“In order to populate your record, you can add credits or badges, through sports and society committees or through being trained course reps which we have for every year, with about 225 students volunteering to represent their peers.

“Then, of course, we lose our student staff every few years when they graduate. But that is brilliant because one of the joys of having

elected officers to work with is that they are always full of ideas about positive changes to make students’ lives better. It’s not like a marketing department you might have in a private company that runs out of ideas after five years – it is constantly changing here.”

The unfair challenge this approach throws out is how valuable it is to see both sides of your ‘workforce’, on duty and off. With the campus model this is more achievable because the person looking after your office environment is also one of the providers for the spare leisure time you have.

But being able to work with those two sides of a personality can be hugely beneficial in understanding the whole person. It can be a risky place as well if the lines become blurred, but if the relationship can be managed well, then everyone wins.

It is interesting to ponder how many Yorkshire entrepreneurs have attracted investment and support because of their character ahead of their qualifications.

So the awareness and skill to build personality

XYXTCRZXX bqlive.co.uk

in young people is a vital cog in the education machine, particularly if you are going to strike out on your own rather than join a workforce.

Perhaps that suggests why some of the ‘cooler’ more liberated office spaces pay off for some companies. I have seen offices that allow ping pong tables, climbing walls, hoverboards and even a meeting room that converts into a squash court, and they are full of happy and loyal staff.

The contentment level at the university has led to a silver Investors in People award which was an aim in the last strategic plan back in 2014, as part of his focus on personal development as well as academic support.

The list of other ‘shiny badge’ achievements is impressive, from increasing employee engagement from 87% in 2013 to 92% in 2015, to getting the YSJ SU ranked 23rd in the UK in 2015 for student satisfaction, winning NUS Green Impact Awards from 2012 to 2015 for an ethically sound practice and doubling block grant funding from the university from £230,000 in 2011 to £483,000 in 2015.

But there is always room to learn and Chris

is taking that a step further soon by going back into the classroom by taking a distancelearning Masters in Leading Innovation and Change at YSJ. “I wanted to go back to studying for a number of years because I like the concept of continual improvement and I am conscious that the world is ever-changing, so I will do everything I can to keep up with it. It’s like I am back in The Matrix, seeing the world in codes and numbers through the theories I am now starting to re-learn.

“In five years, I would like to think I would still be in the same sector, because in this job I am like a child in a sweetshop, there is so much more than just a bar, or an advice centre or a representative structure. It is all of that and what has driven me is that I just like to be involved in everything.

“But I work on a 3-5-7 rule. Three years is too short to move on because you haven’t learnt everything or built up a history. Five is when you start to think what that next step might look like and seven might be a move to something bigger.”

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Outside the office, family life is the balance for Chris. He married Leanne (“Mrs Chief Exec”) in 2012 and has three-year old Harvey (“Deputy Chief Exec”) and another child on the way in November. But that isn’t quite enough, of course. As well as the Masters, Chris is also an independent member of the Audit & Governance Committee at City of York Council, and the chairman of his village’s pre-school group. “I am very much a believer in family and work, not necessarily mixing the two, but I like them to come in once a month and remind people that we all have families and private lives.

Not to blur the two, but as a gentle reminder that it is not all about work. You need to come in with your game face on when it is needed, and then go home and enjoy your other life.

“Every day is different. I can plan a day in half-hour windows, with meetings, phone calls or writing, but I can’t remember the last day it actually went to plan – and I’m the guy who sits here and tells you about the importance of planning. But if you don’t plan your time, you can’t re-plan it.” n

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY Temple Green first phase completed Roads are now officially open at Leeds’ largest advanced manufacturing and logistics base, Temple Green, following Aire Valley Land LLP concluding the first phase of infrastructure works at the 165 acre development – one of the largest of its type in the North of England.

Temple Green at J45 of the M1 is the largest of the four development sites in the Leeds City Region Enterprise Zone with planning permission in place for 2.64m sq ft of developed space. The project is a joint venture between Evans Property Group and Harworth Estates. The £7m first phase of a total £9.1m infrastructure and groundworks investment programme has now completed, creating 1.2 km of new dual carriageway and the remediation of 20 acres of development plots aimed at roadside dealerships and a petrol station, in addition to Leeds City Council’s, 1,000 space Park and Ride transport hub.

Direct access to the scheme’s largest development plot is also complete. Roger Marsh, chair of the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP), said; “The Leeds City Region Enterprise Zone is a strategically important location, that I view as crucial to the LEP achieving its ambition to drive extraordinary growth to the local and national

economies. Now with the completion of the first phase remediation works at Temple Green it’s clear that the scale of Aire Valley Land’s ambition is on a par with our own and I look forward to the potential future announcements regarding occupiers to the site, who will join an already esteemed group of businesses based on the Leeds City Region Enterprise Zone.”

Oh my pod – they’re selling fast!

Environmentally sustainable ‘workpod’ office units at Prospect Property Group’s £10m, 33,400 sq ft Fountain Court scheme next to Doncaster Airport are selling fast with sales completing on three units and 50% now sold. The British

Roads are now officially open at Leeds’ largest advanced manufacturing and logistics base, Temple Green

Association of Sport Exercise and Medicine (BASEM), a membership organisation for doctors and healthcare professionals, has acquired two adjoining units covering 3,200 sq ft at the development and is due to relocate its head office there in September. Financial planning specialist Woodruff Wealth Management has also purchased a 1,450 sq ft workpod unit and is now based at Fountain Court. “It’s a superb location for us,” said director Andrew Woodruff.

“The transport infrastructure around Doncaster is improving in leaps and bounds and the Great Yorkshire Way, which links the M18 with the airport, is the latest piece in the jigsaw, opening in February this year.”

Carter Towler recruits Pulse Carter Towler has let the 2nd floor of Fountain House at 4 South Parade in Leeds to Pulse Healthcare Ltd. The healthcare recruitment agency, who has offices nationwide, has taken a fiveyear lease on the 4,995 sq ft office suite. Carter Towler’s Philip Shopland-Reed said: “Fountain House is a very impressive building not only because of its imposing Headrow façade and location at the heart of the city centre business district but also because of its proximity to the train station, commuter routes as well as shops, restaurants and bars which make it a great place to work.

Individual office suites and communal areas have all been completely refurbished and there are still suites available on the lower ground, ground and first floors.” HS Property Consulting Ltd represented Pulse Healthcare and Knight Frank is acting as joint agent with Carter Towler.

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY bqlive.co.uk

£2m new look for Greek Street The £2m refurbishment of 12 Greek Street in the heart of Leeds - formerly Aquis House - has been completed to create new Grade A office space in the city.

The seven-storey building extending to just over 15,000 sq ft was bought by Londonbased investment company Ricsion LLP from Northumberland Estates last year and Ricsion has appointed the Leeds office of Knight Frank and Harvey Burns & Co as joint marketing agents for the building.

The refurbishment work was undertaken

by Yorkshire contractors Stainforths. The office floors extend to just over 2,600 sq ft and are available to let as a whole or in part. The whole Greek Street ‘quarter’ of the city is being transformed with new bars and restaurants, together with a Dakota hotel opening early next year alongside Carluccio’s, Gusto, The Alchemist, All Bar One and The Lost & Found restaurant.

Now you can Jet2 MIPIM Leeds City Region has further bolstered its private sector support ahead of the world’s largest property conference and exhibition, MIPIM 2017, by working with leading airline Jet2.com to secure a flight from Leeds Bradford Airport to the event in March 2017.

The agreement will see the region benefit from its first direct flight to Nice for the influential property forum, something the private sector delegation has been keen to see for a number of years. It also sees Jet2.com bring forward its summer 2017 programme to Nice from

Leeds Bradford Airport to coincide with the conference. With MIPIM taking place from 14 -17 March 2017, Jet2.com will now launch its summer programme to Nice in perfect time.

The first flight to Nice from Leeds Bradford Airport for the season will take off on Monday 13 March 2017, a day before the conference begins. A return flight on Friday 17 is perfect for returning delegates. This news follows the recent announcement that the City Region has secured substantial private sector backing for both MIPIM UK 2016 from 19-21 October and MIPIM 2017; with firms including Scarborough Group International and Thorpe Park Leeds, Bilfinger GVA, Bruntwood, CEG, Extra MSA Group, Harworth Group plc, Shulmans LLP and Quod, all confirming their support.

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£2m warehouse investment Eddisons has sold a 39,000 sq ft warehouse investment at Featherstone’s Green Lane Industrial Estate for almost £2m. The building, home to NHS supplier Healthcare at Home, has been sold to Bilfinger GVA client, warehousing business Onward Holdings. Onward specialises in operating northern industrial warehousing and retail parks. Its other sites include Castleford, Doncaster, Ackworth and Scunthorpe as well as Onyx Retail Park at Wath upon Dearne near Rotherham. Junction Point, on a 2.3 acre site and with 10,400 sq ft of offices and 29,000 sq ft of warehouse space is let to Healthcare at Home, at a rent of £120,000 per annum on a ten-year term that began in 2014.

Eddisons, and Ian Errington, partner in Blacks Solicitors’ acted on behalf of the vendor.

Wates gets gateway development Developer and asset manager MEPC has appointed Wates Construction to begin work building 3 Wellington Place – the next phase of the urban quarter in Leeds city centre – which will offer 110,000 sq ft of prime office space and is due to complete at the end of 2017.

Wellington Place - a landmark development located in the centre of Leeds just minutes from the railway station and city centre - is funded by a joint venture between Hermes Investment Management, the £24.1bn manager and CPPIB, a professional investment management organisation that invests on behalf of 19m Canada Pension Plan contributors and beneficiaries.

3 Wellington Place is located at the junction of Wellington Street and Northern Street, close to the A1 (M) inner ring road and will form the principal north-eastern gateway into Wellington Place. The building will house five floors of office space, offering state-of-the-art facilities and a restaurant café lounge at ground floor level. The energy efficient project is set to achieve an Excellent BREEAM rating. Once completed, the scheme will boast a total of 1.5 million sq ft of commercial, retail, leisure and residential space and will be one of the biggest and most prestigious new city centre business quarters in Europe.

@fantasticmedia fantasticmedia.co.uk

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Buy expertise.

Buy people.

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SPECIAL FEATURE

leedsbizweek.com

LEEDS BUSINESS WEEK 17 - 21 October 2016

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LEEDS BUSINESS WEEK bqlive.co.uk

BQ’s Bryce Wilcock speaks to Geoff Shepherd, the man behind Leeds Business Week, to see what 2016 has in store the weeklong festival of business When Geoff Shepherd, the man behind The Yorkshire Mafia and Leeds Business Week refers to the week-long event as the business equivalent to the Edinburgh Festival, you can’t help but draw comparisons between the two.

Not only does the event have major blue-chip companies such as Emirates, Sharp and Google flying in to take centre stage but it also has a wide range of free fringe events, many of which are hosted by local businesses, aimed purely at supporting local businesses. It is this collaborative approach, bringing the likes of Google and Emirates in to work alongside key city stakeholders from The Yorkshire Mafia to Leeds BID and the LEP all the way through to local SMEs, which has made the event one to mark on the calendar for every Yorkshire businessperson.

Taking over the city for its fourth year, the dates for Leeds Business Week 2016 have been set for the 17-21 October. Following hot in the footsteps of the Buy Yorkshire Conference, Leeds Business Week is now the largest business week in the UK, attracting over 3,000 delegates and contributors each year. “The first Leeds Business Week took place three years ago, it was quite odd that as a city, especially one the size of Leeds, nobody seemed to get together,” said Geoff. “We decided to bring all of the different stakeholders

together at the same time and make it happen.

As a platform for learning it hasn’t got a rival anywhere in the North of England.

“You could say the event is a spin on the Edinburgh Festival. There are a number of core events we organise and the rest of them we treat as an open source platform where organisations and event partners submit proposal to host their own events. We now have over 100 events taking place this year alone.”

The inspiration behind the event stems from a similar festival which takes place in Chicago each year. Geoff added: “I saw that Chicago were hosting a business festival named Chicago Ideas Week. Chicago Administration alone put around US$20m dollars into it which gives you an idea of the magnitude of it.

“I thought, Leeds is the third largest city in the UK, it’s madness we don’t have this kind of platform here. There was a gap in the market, it was there to be done, we don’t even make any money out of it. Although it has a turnover, it’s not an easy thing to put on, it’s very time consuming. But somebody has to do it.”

The idea of Leeds Business Week is to bring the business community together; irrespective of which sector they’re from, to learn from each other, share best practices and trade information, and of course, meet new people and develop lasting business relationships.

With over 100 separate events organised throughout the course of the week, attendees can reap the benefits of seminars and workshops hosted by industry experts, as well as a range of conferences, exhibitions, product launches and master classes with global leaders.

Ranging from tips for starting up in business all the way through to advanced seminars for those interested in intellectual property, health and safety or even digital marketing, the weeklong festival has an event fit for almost every business.

This wide range of events Geoff believes provide “the perfect platform for all the different voices in the city to share ideas, share best practice, find new ways to work together and to benefit from each other’s expertise and knowledge.”

As most of the events are free of charge, Geoff calculates that the company will be giving away over 8,000 free seminar tickets to businesspeople throughout the week. A huge increase on the 5,000 it managed to host in its first year back in 2013. “In terms of the number of organisations interested in the week and the number of businesses contacting us, the growth has been

huge. The increase of the number of people getting involved hasn’t necessarily grown too much but that’s because the first event was a runaway success – we can’t just make the city bigger. “There has also been a wider uptake from city institutions. The first one for example there weren’t that many organisations involved with the word Leeds in the title but now we have the Leeds Business Improvement District (Leeds BID), the Leeds City of Culture Bid 2023, Leeds City Council, the Leeds Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), pretty much all of the major stakeholders in Leeds are now firmly behind the event.

“What has also been notable this year is that major brands have started getting involved.

Google, Sharp and Emirates are just three of the names backing this year’s event. What a great thing for the city!”

As well as the events and networking opportunities, Geoff also predicts it will have quite a big impact on the tourism and hospitality sectors as businesses from across the UK travel to Leeds for the event – which isn’t just focused at businesses in Yorkshire.

“I think Leeds Business Week will also provide a boost to the regional economy in terms of guests coming to the event from outside of the region. It may be called Leeds Business Week but its open to businesses from anywhere – we get quite a lot of people coming from further afield to attend – bringing even more businesses to Leeds.”

If you’re considering popping along to Leeds Business Week, whether to network or attend one of its 100 fringe events and masterclasses, then Geoff has a message he is keen for you to hear: “Turn up! Put your hand out and say hello with a smile on your face. It’s the same as when you walk into any room with any bunch of peers. Pin your ears back and listen and build a timetable which works for you and your business.

“The benefits of meeting people can never be underestimated. You never know, if something isn’t directly relevant to you or someone you’re talking to, it might be relevant to somebody else, you never know where an event like this may lead…”

If one thing is for sure, it’s that Leeds Business Week is sure to provide you with a great opportunity to excel your business and develop its commercial value. The majority of the events organised are free to attend, all you have to do is register your interest online. For more information on Leeds Business Week or to book your place for any of its events, visit: www.leedsbizweek.com n

PROFILE Leeds Apprenticeships Hub

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Why recruiting an apprentice is the right decision for your business Apprenticeships are one way that an increasing number of employers are choosing to invest in their workforce and equip them with the skills to drive business productivity and growth There are over 250 different apprenticeship standards, setting specific expectations and qualifications for over 1,700 professional occupations, and at all levels including degree apprenticeships. Whatever the need of your business, the role you are looking to fill, or the sector you are in, there’s likely to be a standard that suits your needs.

And employers have been taking an increasing role in the development of new standards, giving your business the confidence that they are realistic and credible qualifications that will enable your employees to help drive your business forward.

It’s not just us saying this, all the main industry and employer bodies agree:

“We want to see small firms choosing to get involved in apprenticeships, because they offer high-quality training that is truly employer-led and represents a sound investment in their future.”

Federation of Small Businesses

“Apprenticeships are good for business, and good for Britain. They provide individuals with the first step on a career and businesses with future employees and growth, in turn bolstering the economy.”

West & North Yorkshire Chamber

Obviously, the circumstances of every business are different, and you need to be confident that an apprentice is the right investment to help your business grow. The Leeds Apprenticeship Hub offers free and totally impartial advice – we are not tied to any training provider – and can help: •Let you know what is involved in recruiting an apprentice •Keep you up to date with your obligations as an employer •Help to promote and advertise your vacancies •Work with you to recruit the best candidates •Put you in touch with a suitable Training Provider to co-ordinate the apprenticeship programme •Tell you about the latest funding rules and grants that are available.

You will need to provide the following: •The apprentice’s wage which is currently £3.30 per hour (but rising to £3.40 per hour on 1st October 2016) although employers may choose to pay more •Relevant supervision and support which includes an induction and relevant on the job training •An apprenticeship agreement. This is similar to an employment contract and dates from the start of the apprenticeship We can also signpost you to other forms of support for your business. Give us a call today and find out more about how we can support you

For more information email: employment.leeds@leeds.gov.uk telephone 0113 3787003

LEEDS BUSINESS WEEK bqlive.co.uk

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Dates for the diary

BQ’s Bryce Wilcock takes a look at some of the key events making up this year’s Leeds Business Week If there was one golden nugget of advice we took from the previous interview with Geoff Shepherd, it’s that we should definitely be making space in our hectic schedules throughout the third week of October for Leeds Business Week.

With over 100 events, ranging from intellectual property to innovation, the weeklong festival of business is set to see over 3,000 businesspeople flock to venues across the city throughout the week. The seminars and workshops cover almost every aspect of every sector, but let me take you on a brief BQ guide to some recommended slots; from the biggest events to the intimate discussions you can’t afford to miss. How’s about kick starting your week with the free ‘Search Engine Marketing with Dr Roger Poultney’ event held by Leeds City College on Monday 17th?

If you can afford to take a couple of hours out of your morning to make it to the event at The Carriageworks from 10am-10.45am, we definitely recommend making it happen. It might be just the refresher you need to ensure your business is keeping up with the times online.

Alternatively, if you’d like to kick off the week after the office closes, the ‘Botanist Beer & Bonding’ event is being held at the Botanist in Leeds from 5.30am-8pm. This will help you kick off the week in true Yorkshire fashion with some warm and welcoming relaxed networking, exploring the world of ales with The Botanist’s very own Beer Guru’s who will be on hand to offer complimentary tasting sessions and let’s not forget the mini pie canapés.

Heading into Tuesday, we have a total of 31 different events to choose from throughout the day. First off, we’ll be checking out the ‘Challenges and opportunities of product development innovation’ event held by Leeds Beckett University at the Leeds Club from 11am11.45am. This event will provide a useful insight into both the challenges and benefits of bringing new products and services to market.

At midday, we have another free 45-minute event in the form of ‘How to get meetings with Chief Executives of the UK’s biggest businesses’ with The Door Opener. This session is ideal for business-to-business companies with products

and services that are sufficiently different and could be of interest to the most senior people in the biggest companies. If you’re a small business however, who isn’t yet ready to sell to the big boys, make sure you make the morning session with Entrepreneurial Spark and NatWest at 2 Park Cross Street. Grab a cuppa or a glass of water and sit back as the ever-enthusiastic Entrepreneurial Spark team give you an insight into their award-winning accelerator programmes tailored to growing and supporting start-up businesses. Another interesting one if your business is on the verge of, or planning to invest in property in the future, is an event held by PwC and property consultant Alex Goldstein, providing a fast paced talk on the Wednesday morning based around UK property investment.

Held at The Leeds Club from 10am-10.45am, this free event is definitely worth its weight in gold for those who fit the bill. Straight after the PwC event at The Leeds Club, we have a practical guide for business owners and HR managers on how to manage the use of social media in the workplace by employees and how to deal with it when things go wrong. This talk is aimed at businesses who are engaging with social media and need to understand the associated legal framework, or want to know how to deal with employees who cause issues due to their use of social media either in or outside of the workplace. This event we’re sure, no business will be exempt from.

After a busy first three days, you can recharge your batteries at the Leeds Meet & Mingle event at The Old Post Office from 5.30pm-7.30pm.

The calming atmosphere of the Old Post Office is the ideal place for you to interact with other attendees and businesses in a relaxed setting. You never know where it could lead! On Thursday morning there’s one event in particular which caught our eye: ‘Have you just fired Steve Jobs?’

The seminar is being hosted by Aspiedent and The Yorkshire Training Group at 2 Park Cross Street. Aspiedent is a community enterprise company (CIC) whose main aim is to improve the employment situation for autistic people.

The event provides a master class on this subject,

including an overview of autism, autism in business, and the benefits of employing autistic people. The next event is ideal for any business with an innovative product or service they’re looking to bring to market. Held by EIP at their Leeds office at Broad Gate, the ‘Free intellectual property advice clinic’ is in such high demand that they’re hosting the same event three times, one after another, from 2pm-2:30pm, 3pm-3:30pm and you guessed it, 4pm-4.30pm.

As the weeklong festival for business winds down, we head into Friday with one last tranche of events to choose from. The first to catch our eye was the ‘Raise your profile and build your credibility’ event being held by MacComms at the Entrepreneurial Spark Hatchery from 11am11.45am. In this session on PR, Ellie MacDonald, founder and managing director of MacComms, will offer practical tips to raise the profile of your business, and how to build credibility.

Providing a double dose of PR and communications, we then have the ‘#Enjoying Instagram’ session, again at the Entrepreneurial Spark Hatchery, delivered by Mark Longbottom from 2pm-3.30pm. Instagram is one of the world’s fastest growing social networks and is fast becoming a favourite not only among consumers for businesses of all sizes. Mark will be talking about the benefits of using Instagram for your business to increase your brands following and to generate potential sales.

Finally, drawing the week to a close, we’ll be heading to the Blackhouse for ‘Meat & Drink at The Grill on the Square’ from 4.30pm-6.30pm to not only digest our food and drink but everything we’ve taken in over the course of the week.

Held at Gusto Restaurants on 10 Greek Street, you’ll be greeted with a refreshing Bulldog Gin, accompanied by steak canapes and live music.

The ideal way to top off what we’re sure will be a fantastic week for all. And that is only a snapshot of the whole picture. With over 100 events taking place throughout the week, we’re sure there’ll be plenty more seminars and masterclasses that catch your eye. For a full list, including details on how to book and where to find them, head over to leedsbizweek.com. n

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ENTREPRENEURIAL SPARK Media Partnership

Turning a spark into a flame Lucy-Rose Walker is the new ‘chief entrepreneuring officer’ at Entrepreneurial Spark and she has ambitious plans to extend the reach of its incubation centres throughout the country One of the key moments in any start-up’s life is when the founder hands over the reins to the new boss. But with two co-founders heavily involved in the business, Entrepreneurial Spark – the world’s largest free business accelerator programme – doesn’t have to worry about the change-over.

Jim Duffy and Lucy-Rose Walker founded Entrepreneurial Spark in 2011.

During the summer, Duffy finished his role as the company’s ‘chief executive optimist’ to take on the new role of ‘head of #GoDo’, while Walker switched from being ‘chief solutions officer’ to ‘chief entrepreneuring officer’, continuing the company’s tradition of coming up with alternative meanings for the job title of ‘CEO’. “Jim’s new role will involve him training the staff in our hatcheries so that they can give the best advice to our chiclets and he will also work one-to-one with some of the most-promising entrepreneurs,” Walker explains. “It’s about harnessing what we like to call ‘The Jim Duffy

Why You Should Recruit an Apprentice

OCTOBER 19TH THE LEEDS CLUB

150:00 - 15:45

Find out about the funding that is available to help Find out what’s involved in recruiting an apprentice and how they can boost your company’s growth Hear from a small business as they describe their experiences of apprenticeships Find out how the Hub can help you recruit an apprentice from start to finish

07712 215 713 simon.hewitson@leeds.gov.uk

Effect’ – being able to assess a situation quickly and ask the entrepreneur the right question that gets to the heart of the problem they’re having.

“Part of my job over the next three to five years is to create a sustainable business model,” she adds. “At the moment, Entrepreneurial Spark is funded by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) on a rolling five-year contract, along with cash from local councils and philanthropists, so I need to look at how we turn that into a sustainable business.

“We need to do that to make sure that we continue to attract and retain talented staff to help our chiclets. Our staff are motivated by the desire to help entrepreneurs, but if we want to retain them then we also need to be able to offer them salary increases and other financial rewards too.

“My aim is to turn this into a £20m social enterprise – and I think we can do it.” Entrepreneurial Spark has grown from a single hatchery in Glasgow in 2011 to become the biggest free business accelerator programme in the world. It already has 12 sites throughout the UK and its 13th will open in August 2017 in London, while its partnership with Viridian Ventures, the investment arm of the eponymous New Dehli-based property group, has two centres in India. By the start of this year, a total of 660 businesses had been supported by the scheme, with 88% of them still trading. Between them, they’ve raised £45m of investment, have combined revenues of £85m and employ just over 1,800 people. Entrepreneurial Spark itself has grown too.

The company, which is constituted as a social enterprise, has 45 members of staff, having grown from seven workers just 18 months ago. Next on the agenda for Walker is the launch of a pilot scheme which involves delivering Entrepreneurial Spark’s support to entrepreneurs in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The hybrid model – which is being offered in partnership with Highlands & Islands Enterprise and RBS, and funded by the Scottish Government and law firm Harper Macleod – will be delivered through a mix of teleconferencing and face-to-face support.

The new scheme was unveiled recently in Inverness, with RBS chief executive Ross McEwan launching the project in the Highland capital. The pilot is initially aimed at early-stage companies and businesses that haven’t yet started to trade, although it is also open to more mature firms that are looking to kick-start their growth. Entrepreneurial Spark is also looking to develop an entirely virtual support programme, which could be delivered online throughout the world. Together, the virtual and hybrid models could help Entrepreneurial Spark to reach entrepreneurs who are not based near hatcheries. Another string to the company’s bow is delivering the Entrepreneurial Development Academy for RBS, which contributes to Entrepreneurial Spark’s work throughout the UK via its RBS and NatWest brands. So far 2,500 members of staff from the group have been given training that will not only help them to provide better advice and services to entrepreneurs but also to be more entrepreneurial in their own roles within the bank. Other companies have now expressed an interest in the company running similar schemes for them. n

PROFILE Exa Networks

(l-r) Michael Syree, Mark Cowgill, Thomas Mangin

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Exa Networks’ new headquarters, Bradford

Exa Networks, driving the future of internet technology to Yorkshire businesses Bradford-based Internet Service Provider Exa Networks has recently introduced the fastest internet technology in the world to businesses across Yorkshire, marking the beginning of a digital revolution for the county.

Founded in 2003, Exa Networks has steadily built a reputation as an expert in its industry - and this latest development is one of the most exciting in its history, solidifying its commitment to providing businesses with the most effective internet services possible.

Beginning with just six members of staff in a small office in Dean Clough, Halifax, Exa Networks has certainly experienced considerable growth in the thirteen years since its formation.

Created in the days when dial-up was considered to be a cutting edge service, Exa was founded by Mark Cowgill and Thomas Mangin when the ISP they previously worked for was sold to a company whose ethos was in antithesis to their own.

As a result, they decided to build their own network and develop the dedicated internet connections and products that businesses require - accompanied by the customer care and technical support that have earned them two customer service awards from the Internet Service Provider’s Association in the last

four years. Their dedication to being at the forefront of technology has certainly paid off as they now provide services to thousands of organisations across the UK, and are one of the leading independent ISPs to the education sector.

In January this year the company moved to their new home in the heart of Bradford. The three floor building provided much-needed space for their near fifty member (and ever-growing) team, and increased hosting of industry events - as well as enabling them to build their very own data centre.

However, despite their change of location, the company has maintained the pioneering ethos on which it was founded. From developing ExaBGP, a network tool used by some of the largest companies in the world - including Facebook, Microsoft and Google - to SurfProtect, a content filtering service used by thousands of schools every day, they are committed to building the solutions their customers need. It is because of this commitment that they developed DarkLight® - a dark fibre connection delivered by a network that is capable of achieving speeds of over 2,500,000Mbps.

Made possible through Exa Networks’ recent partnership with CityFibre, DarkLight has opened up a new world of digital possibilities for businesses in

“We’re really excited to be able to bring this world class internet service to both the city we call home and businesses throughout the region”

Yorkshire. This pure fibre connection is not limited by the traditional constraints of restricted bandwidth capacity or third party network infrastructure. As a result, a business will never have to install a new, higher capacity line, or assess if its connectivity technology is still suitable. Should they increase employee number, their use of cloud services or rich media, the size of their downloads, uploads, or anything at all, their connection can be adjusted within minutes to provide the bandwidth increase they need; on both a temporary or permanent basis.

Mark Cowgill comments, “We’re really excited to be able to bring this world class internet service to both the city we call home and businesses throughout the region. In the same way that broadband transformed what was achievable following dial-up, DarkLight can truly revolutionise what a company is capable of.”

With their expansion of DarkLight set to extend into even more cities and towns in the coming months, Exa Networks’ growth looks like it won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

®DarkLight is a registered trademark of Exa Networks Limited. For more information on DarkLight, visit www.darklight.city, or get in touch at DarkLight@exa.net.uk or 0345 145 1234

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PROFILE Together Money

Specialist lending for Yorkshire businesses Businesses across Yorkshire could be missing out on opportunities due to a lack of finance or delays in funding, warns specialist lender Together Together’s regional development manager for Yorkshire, Bob Stones, said: “There is a general lack of awareness around the alternative options SMEs have to mainstream lenders, which ultimately means they could be missing out on opportunities.

“We have greater flexibility than the mainstream lenders, and are able to act fast, allowing businesses to move quickly on a purchase or investment, and ensuring they don’t miss out because of tight deadlines.”

For businesses looking to grow, specialist finance is able to deliver the essential funds needed - whether it’s for short-term cash flow or a major investment.

Bob, who has over 27 years’ financial experience and has funded hundreds of property transactions, added: “I work with clients across Yorkshire and bring Together’s common sense approach to

us knowing that they can be assured of excellent service and a speedy decision.

“Our recent figures are testament to our success lending increased by nearly 40% in the 12 months to 30 June 2016, reaching over £1 billion, and our current loan book stands in excess of £1.8 billion.”

Bob will be hosting a seminar at this year’s Leeds Business Week. See him on October 19th at The Festival of Business at The Leeds Club or visit www.leedsbizweek.com.

the region, offering the professional sector the opportunity to enhance their offering and to receive reciprocal business.

“We have a broad network of professional introducers including accountants, solicitors, banks and financial advisors, who will refer clients to

Supporting the professional sector

Trusted partners... common-sense lending more information, call Bob on 0113 451 0523 Visit www.togethermoney.com/yorkshire for or email bob.stones@togethermoney.com

Join Bob Stones on the 19th October at Leeds Business Week for his seminar:

Supporting the professional sector

Trusted partners... common-sense lending

“When short-term funding yields long-term gains”.

Call Bob on 0113 451 0523 or sign up at www.Leedsbizweek.com/events/together This advertisement is intended for professional intermediary use only and must not be distributed to potential clients.

Join Bob Stones on the 19th October at Leeds Business Week for his seminar: “When short-term funding yields long-term gains”.

Call Bob on 0113 451 0523 or sign up at www.Leedsbizweek.com/events/together This advertisement is intended for professional intermediary use only and must not be distributed to potential clients.

PROFILE York Business School

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GARY WALSH PHOTOGRAPHY

Jazz and drama inspires creative learning

Creative approaches to leadership and management training York Business School hosts a day seminar exploring creative approaches to leadership and management issues York Business School recently hosted a day seminar exploring creative approaches to leadership and management issues. Led by the Acting Dean of York Business School, Noel Dennis, who also has a national profile as a professional jazz musician, participants from a variety of organizations across the city were introduced to leadership and management lessons using jazz and drama.

The jazz session, which was co-presented by internationally renowned jazz musician and educator – Pete Churchill, explored the process of improvisation, the mechanics of the jazz group and the links to common leadership and management issues. Participants were introduced to the ‘jazzer’ and ‘reader’ continuum, which identifies where individuals and organizations sit in relation to their levels of creativity, innovation and improvisation.

Jazzers are highly creative, innovative and improvise widely, whereas the readers stick within the parameters of a pre-determined structure, with little space for creativity and improvisation.

The drama session ‘Witches in the Workplace’ formed the central focus of the seminar.

‘You never forget how someone makes you feel.’ Maya Angelou.

Keeping staff engaged, motivated and empowered is essential to the success of your business. Continuous

Professional Development and training is a key aspect of employee management, but can often feel like an unrewarding experience for the employee, and just a ticked box for the employer.

Bespoke creative leadership workshops offered by York Business School brings a business’ training requirements to life, with interactive sessions that allow staff at all levels to work in a collaborative and experiential way. This is proven to encourage greater thinking as a team and develop creative solutions to organisational challenges.

Here at York Business School, we work with clients to develop sessions that will specifically address an aspect of their company training manual, or help improve a team’s understanding of a business objective. We will then deliver a session that will make staff feel engaged, enthused and empowered.

An evaluation report is provided, following the session.

Our ‘Witches in the Workplace’ workshop featured ‘Macbeth’ as a vehicle to explore leadership and some of its challenges. Delegates were invited to take on the persona of Macbeth and those characters who influenced or were influenced by him, on his leadership journey.

In addition, delegates were able to ‘stand outside’ of the story and be a critical friend to Macbeth, intervening at points in the action where he made

perceived pivotal mistakes or errors of judgement.

Having the opportunity to put ourselves in the shoes of others gives us a critical vantage point from which to reflect on our practice, both on a personal and professional level.

Delegates were asked to make links between the situations explored, within the security of a fictional text, and their own experiences of the workplace.

Had Macbeth been part of a more collaborative team, he may not have ended up with his head on a spike and civil war raging in his office!

The learning which delegates take away from the workshop will be as individual as their thinking and their own particular challenges in the workplace.

However, we can guarantee that they will leave with the tools to avoid a mutiny!

The experiential learning style of our workshops ensure that a delegate will reference scenarios and implement reflective practice in action, long into their professional future.

For more details about the creative leadership and management workshops contact: Noel Dennis, Acting Dean of York Business School: N.dennis@yorksj.ac.uk

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BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

Plane talking Mike Hughes meets Leeds Bradford Airport boss John Parkin to talk about rail, road and air and how to bring them all together

An immediate concern of many people postBrexit will have been currencies, and if you were heading off on holiday the scene at home may have been a little frantic, with recalculations as the pound headed south.

But John Parkin looked out over the packed car park at Leeds Bradford Airport where he is CEO and still felt confident the planes would be full.

“When the result came in I had expected it to be exactly the same but the other way round,” he admitted over lunch at Malmaison in Leeds.

“But I wasn’t shocked, even though the effect on sterling was almost instantaneous, because

I knew it was important to keep perspective on these things, even when they are big and historic events.

“If this was a business issue you would say it was a strategic disaster to allow the world’s fifth-largest economy to leave your club, and the shareholders would be sitting there in the boardroom saying ‘you’ve allowed WHAT to happen...?’

“Essentially, the UK economy is in a fairly good place and we have been a trading nation since the year ‘dot’ and are very good at it, and while the canvas is very different I still see just as many

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opportunities as risks - it is certainly interesting and encouraging that the Prime Minister moved quickly to appoint a new Minister for the Northern Powerhouse.”

With that new canvas laid out in front of him, John is as energised as ever about the future plans for his airport, with a rail link to the LeedsHarrogate line near the top of the list in his ‘Route to 2030’ masterplan, having been on the drawing board for “an awfully long time”, but promising a nine-minute route from city to airport.

Route to 2030 also includes expansion of the terminal building to deliver a two storey extension; additional investment in terminal infrastructure; expansion of aircraft stands, boarding gates and new taxiways; an upgraded airport entrance and the development of a commercial hub and hotel near to the terminal.

The plan is as ambitious as it needs to be.

“Both locally and in Westminster there is a good deal of support for the rail link,” he says.

“If you look at the rail infrastructure for the region as it moves around from York to Leeds to Bradford to Harrogate, the circle isn’t actually closed, so getting the rail line in provides for a two-stage development. Stage one takes you as far as the airport, and the stage two continues over to Bradford and we would become a station on that line.

“Then there is a matter of the relief road and

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“LBA has not had sufficient density of services and routes to persuade the airlines to come to us first” what we are working on there is how to bring those two things together so that you get the economies of scale in construction integration so that you get the road and the rail and some sort of parkway solution where we could run shuttle buses right up to the terminal, taking about three or four minutes.”

There is a clarity to the idea of completing the circle of transport around the region, and it is difficult to launch a counter-argument other than one that starts with ‘if only we had the money...’ but the biggest asset that John Parkin can bring to the debate is success.

The bigger, better and more respected and essential he makes LBA for businesses and families the louder it can demand road and rail links that can cope with numbers and attract even more routes.

“Politically, I think there will be a real desire to demonstrate transport infrastructure in the Northern Powerhouse concept and particularly as it links up with HS2 – where Leeds will be a massive beneficiary – and then HS3.

“It is high on my agenda to improve access to the airport, but in terms of things where I have absolute control my focus is still on improving the infrastructure at the airport and bringing

to Leeds the routes, flights and airlines that the public wants.

“That is about having a density of services and frequencies that allow that choice to be given to our customers – and we have made massive strides with that, particularly in the last few months when we have had Jet2 putting another 200,00 seats into Leeds and Ryanair with a similar number – and the acquisition of Monarch has brought another 300,000 passengers for us. In eight years we will have put 1,500,000 passengers on top of where we were in 2008.”

That means more than four million people – about five times the population of the city itself – choosing to start their trips at LBA. Some will have come because it is their local airport, and some because it is the only place offering their particular itinerary, but John wants as many as possible to come by choice rather than go to Doncaster, Manchester or Liverpool.

“Putting it very simply, airlines need passengers paying the right amount of fares in the right numbers to make their routes sustainable,” explained John.

“So they only put aircrafts on routes and into airports where that works – that’s just common sense. If you take a two or three decade view

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looking back, LBA has not had sufficient density of services and routes to persuade the airlines to come to us first. It is rather like turning around a superliner in that there is a lag in delivering the answer to that.

“We know that the reason why airlines are coming here is that the market for air travel in this region is very strong, but people had been flying from other airports because they didn’t find what they wanted on their own doorstep.

“So, deliver them what they need, with all those advantages of a quick and comfortable experience, and guess what happens? They stop having to drive past your airport to get to another one.

“And when you are going on holiday, it is acceptable to drive for 70 miles or more to get to your airport – but when you come back, all you want to do is get home and not spend two and a half hours on the M62 from Manchester.

So now when our customers go on holiday their first decision is to go from Leeds Bradford, and the second is where to travel to. That is the power of convenience.

“All those components are in place and we now work hard on the more micro aspects of it, like the speed we get passengers’ bags off the aircraft and into the baggage hall – our average delivery time recently has been 15 minutes. If you have parked your car in the long-stay car park, the bus is right outside the front door – and the premium short stay is 50 paces from that door.”

This convenience has been rising up the list of key factors for some years, and helps to emphasise the double role that airport CEOs like John have to master.

One minute they will be looking after traffic needs and dealing with airlines across the world to persuade them the ROI is worthwhile if they come to LBA, and then they will have to make sure that the highest level of courtesy is shown to a regular customer who needs to move his seat while making sure his pet dog has its medication travelling in the hold. That’s a varied job description, but if the customer doesn’t like the seat response or the airline decides to opt for Manchester, John takes the hit.

He agrees the debate over a third runway at Heathrow is also important to LBA’s future: “We support their efforts, and irrespective of the merits of that argument, I do find that if you take a high-level view of the UK then our

biggest ‘port’ by a distance is Heathrow.

“Does it feel right to have the biggest port in the UK full? Probably not. So what are we going to do about it as the world trades from Heathrow? The argument for expansion is compelling – not easy and not cheap, the pricetag is truly sensationa – but sometimes the best solutions will have those attributes and what you don’t want to do is the easier, cheaper thing that doesn’t do the job.

“That’s like building an extension to your house and using the wrong bricks or put it in the wrong place. You still have an extension, but no one uses the room and they just shut the door on it.

“Coming closer to home, one of the benefits of the Heathrow plan is that if it doesn’t happen, a Heathrow link like ours could be elbowed out because there is a lucrative offer to fly somewhere else and our stand could be used because there isn’t any capacity. We are

jealously looking after our slot at Terminal 5 because there is a constant juggling going on.

“If you sort out Heathrow and put the expansion in, then the pressure on small regional flights like ours goes away, and may in fact be protected in perpetuity because you take away that problem of pressure.”

It may seem a pointless question to check whether the boss of a busy regional airport is a frequent flier himself, but the amount of work to be done at the site itself means the focus for John is on getting planes into the air, not being on board them.

But the need to travel globally often enough gives him a chance to assess Leeds Bradford’s reputation among its potential clients.

“We are constantly talking to airlines on a global basis because it can sometimes take three or four years to get one to come here. Airports have to go and make the case to airlines, it’s not the airlines that come knocking on our door, so

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we have to be outward looking and run a great asset as best as we can.

“If you come to my airport at 5.30 in the morning it will be busy and if you come in at 8.30 it is less busy and if you then return, before those aircraft have got back it doesn’t seem busy at all because everything has gone. So we get those peaks and troughs through the day.”

The working relationship with local authorities is a careful balancing act and few regional airports would say they have fault-free partners in district and county councils, but Leeds and Bradford seem to be positive and aware of the benefits such a big operation can bring.

“We produce £120m GVA and jobs for 2,430 people, so it is a fairly important operation and one that never closes and those jobs for people in the region are either lower-skilled or very skilled. So when you are talking about someone doing the cleaning, or security or helping at one of our stores right through to someone who is controlling aircraft, there is a skill-set and training to get there.

“We like to create paths for people so they can come in at trainee level and see where their skills take them. There are entry-level roles in traffic control where you are not actually controlling aircraft but where you can come in and we will sponsor you through exams. But at the same time we have jobs in finance, HR, catering – just a massive array of requirements.

“We have about 450 pair of eyes and ears everywhere all the time and if you get that sort of attitude in place then things will only improve” “I always think that two things you need to get on in life are the right attitude and a capacity for work. It doesn’t matter how intellectually strong you are, if you have those and you get with the right employer, you can go anywhere and if you don’t... you won’t. If you take a really

Surf and turf in cool surroundings The day of this latest BQ Yorkshire business lunch turned out to be the hottest of the year so far, but thankfully our good friends at Malmaison on Swinegate in Leeds were the hosts and their private dining room was air conditioned to perfection, with low lighting adding to a cool afternoon. With both of us facing a busy day, it was a one-course event, but what a course it was. John opted for the Classic Steak Frites, a 250g marinated rump steak, with pommes frites, watercress and confit tomato. He asked for it to be medium rare (spot on) and to have a peppercorn sauce in the side.

To balance our menu, I went for a fish course and chose the smoked haddock fish cake, with spinach, poached egg and a grain mustard sauce. Both meals were served very efficiently and with a discretion and respect that was noticed and appreciated by us both.

As an aside, I always think it is important that high-profile hotels catering for business clients should make sure their menus have a choice of meals that can be eaten alongside lengthy conversation – so not too much complexity and not a crowded plate.

It’s a small matter, but it can make a big difference and the Malmaison staff obviously had long experience of this and for that I particularly thank them.

Situated in the beautifully converted Leeds City Tramways Office, the Leeds hotel has 100 modern rooms and suites and seven meeting room options.

Malmaison, 1 Swinegate, Leeds LS1 4AG. Tel: 0113 4260047

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mundane thing like litter – I have staff at the airport whose job it is to go round and keep the place clean inside the terminal and outside.

If I am at the airport myself and I see litter, I will pick it up. Now if a cleaner sees that, the example is powerful, and if a cleaner sees you walking past it, the example is also powerful. So it is a matter of showing people the way as well as telling them. That way we have about 450 pair of eyes and ears everywhere all the time and if you get that sort of attitude in place then things will only improve.”

The 28 senior managers among those 450 airport staff earn a particular focus from their boss, with all of them getting a one-to-one coaching session for 45 minutes for all his managers once every six months. There is no prep and no notes – just a coffee and a chat and a display of genuine interest in the people and any observations or guidance on either side.

It’s that balance again – multi-million pound investments and ten-year plans for the airport and 45 minutes for your staff twice a year. Both essential elements of how John Parkin runs Leeds Bradford Airport.

Away from the job, the phone is almost always on, but there are ways of relaxing – with travel (of course) following Sheffield Wednesday (he was born in the city 61 years ago) collecting and enjoying good wine and planning a major renovation project at his home.

“I enjoy seeing places and travelling and have done since I was a boy,” he says.

“A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were in Barcelona for two or three nights and I find it quite relaxing to walk out of our hotel and be on the old streets of Barcelona.

“And I went to Wembley for the play-off final and even though we lost, the memory that stayed with me was that there were 42,000 Wednesday fans and when the team and the manager came out after the match, no more than 2,000 had left. So, in excess of 40,000 people applauding and clapping, making a connection between players and fans and giving a vision of the heart of the club.

“Our manager Carlos Carvalhal has completely transformed the place and for the first time in 20 years I can see something happening.”

There are obvious parallels here of teamwork, inspiration, aspiration, self belief and loyalty.

Any manager of any organisation who can bring them all together can make a significant and far-reaching impact. n

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MARWOOD ON WINE bqlive.co.uk

“A rich ruby red colour, this was a wine superbly suited to the delicious meat. Without any harshness, this is a smooth wine on the palate”

MARWOOD ON WINE bqlive.co.uk

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Wool, wine and penguins Ian Marwood, Partner at Sentio Partners, samples two wines from Chile, a land of great contrasts and huge variety with many secrets for the traveller to unlock Is this a strange headline for an article on wine?

Probably, so let me explain. Over ten years ago I advised on the management buyout from a major American tobacco group of Standard Wool, a wool trader and processor with operations around the globe. Today I am a nonexecutive director of the company and one of our major processing plants is in Punta Arenas on the southern tip of Chile. We handle almost two thirds of that country’s wool clip each year and therefore have a key role in the agricultural sector supporting a large number of farmers and promoting high standards of both quality and animal welfare.

Overlooking the Magellan Straits and Tierra del Fuego, Punta Arenas is the most southerly city on the planet and acts as a gateway port for the Antarctic. However, the geographic reach of Chile is enormous with the northern region on the same latitude as Rio de Janeiro, which is why a country providing a home to vast numbers of penguins, can also produce some truly exceptional wines. Having tried a number of them my wife and I are real fans of Chilean wines, and were delighted to be asked to sample two more fine examples.

For the white wine, the selection was Secret de Viu Manent, Viognier 2014. From the Colchagua

Valley, there are seven blended varieties in the Secret range, the name referencing the ‘secret’ blend of up to 15% complementing the primary varietal. The first thing to notice is the striking label, designed by Chilean artist Catalina Abbot.

Modern and colourful there will be no missing this wine on the shelf! Once out of the bottle, the wine is very light in colour, yellow with a hint of green. On the nose there is a freshness, slightly floral but with some fruit too. However, it is on tasting that you realise what a great wine this is. Plenty of fruit with some exotic twists, you notice some citrus but with a very soft edge.

Smooth but fresh, there is lots to discover on the palate, viscous and with good volume. We tried this wine with pan-fried Seabass topped with a ginger, spring onion and chilli salad, and as always the Viognier worked well with the spice. However, this also seems an excellent wine for enjoying on a warm summer evening in the garden.

Two days later it was thick ribeye steaks on the menu, and a bottle of Los Vascos Grande Reserve 2012. With Cabernet Sauvignon dominating the blend there are plenty of blackcurrant and cherry notes, but with subtle spice to make things interesting. A rich ruby red colour, this was a wine superbly suited to the

delicious meat. Without any harshness, this is a smooth wine on the palate, my wife describing it as silky, and definitely one to put on the regular order list.

All in all two fantastic wines enhancing my already positive view of Chile as a wine producing region. We are already looking forward to next summer’s warm and lazy evenings and the chance to enjoy more of the Secrets from Chile. n White Wine: Secret Viognier, Viu Manent 2014 - Colchagua, Chile £8.99. Red Wine: Los Vascos Grande Reserve 2012 – Colchagua, Chile £13.99

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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MOTORING bqlive.co.uk

A weekend with a QP on the QT

Mike Jackson, partner at BHP, Chartered Accountants, Leeds office relives his childhood dreams in an Italian supercar

MOTORING bqlive.co.uk

Ever since I was a young boy the Italian supercar brands have excited me - Ferrari, Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo and of course, Maserati. Previously, the only Italian car I have driven was a 2003 Fiat Punto bought new as my daughter’s first car.

Sarah, aged 17 adored the car, inexplicably christening it “Patrick”. I would, at the very least, have expected it to be called Paulo! So when BQ magazine approached and asked if I would do a review on the new Maserati Quattroporte, driving it for the bank holiday weekend, you can imagine my excitement.

With eager anticipation I decide to leave the office early on the “QT”.

Collecting the car from JCT 600’s impressive showroom is an experience. They understand what their discerning customers expect in terms of service and do not disappoint. I am introduced to Stuart in his office which is like a small boardroom, the illuminated shelving displaying the various exterior and interior options available for your Maserati. What I think are Maserati fragrances are actually car care products!

The QP (as the Quattroporte is known) attracts drivers from many marks but generally it is those that Jeremy Clarkson might refer to as “petrol heads”, who will pay homage to this Italian thoroughbred.

The car starts with a large button hidden behind the steering wheel. The V6 engine bursts into life with a sound that perhaps only Maserati and Ferrari can produce. Stuart explains that, unlike some other competitors’ cars, there is no trickery on the Maserati to make the exhaust sound better than it really is.

Driving away I admire the two large blue dials in the dashboard, Maserati tridents clearly marked on them. A small computer screen is neatly inserted between the two dials. All too quickly I realise my speed is well above the national limit and turn this screen to speedometer to keep me in check!

The large central infotainment screen is intuitive to use and includes music, climate, satellite navigation, and of course hands free phone

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“All too quickly I realise my speed is well above the national limit and turn this screen to speedometer to keep me in check!”

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MOTORING bqlive.co.uk

“ I am loving driving this car! Pressing sport mode opens valves on the exhaust and the resulting note, even at 50mph, is music to my ears”

system. The test for me is how easy it is to pair my phone. This Maserati is probably the easiest I have experienced. The voice recognition system for the telephone is clear and efficient; one instruction gets you to the caller of your choice (unlike my Land Rover which goes through a series of questions before it will make the phone call).

I am loving driving this car! Pressing sport mode opens valves on the exhaust and the resulting note, even at 50mph, is music to my ears. I decide to leave the car in sport mode even sat at traffic lights, enjoying the cacophony of sound. The ZF eight speed gearbox blips as it changes down. The car is definitely a head turner, and not just because of the noise, but also for the recognisable Maserati styling and also for its size. Make no mistake, this is a large car - 126mm longer than a Mercedes S class and marginally longer than a Jaguar XJ long wheelbase. The length between the wheels is also the longest of the three, noticeable when sitting in the back. The size makes the car look

awkward from some angles, majestic from others. Front and three quarter view fabulous, but I can’t settle on the rear styling which looks more Mazda than Maserati. I think back to the fabulous rear light clusters on the old 3200 GT and wish Maserati had been a bit braver with this model.

Perhaps my biggest surprise is how easy it is to drive this car every day, making it a genuine contender to the Teutonic S Class and the sleek XJ. The Maserati sportier, more tuneful and of course more exclusive, with very few on UK roads. It is with some resignation that I hand the keys back, but at least I have had the opportunity to enjoy this Italian super-saloon for a weekend....on the QT. n The car Mike drove was a Maserati Quattroporte S, 3.0 litre twin turbo petrol V6, 410BHP. Prices start from £82,750.

Supplied by JCT600 Brooklands Ring Road, Lower Wortley, Leeds LS12 6AA 0113 2926388. www.jct600.co.uk

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.

A classic and exclusive grantourer with unmistakeable Italian design.

JCT600 BROOKLANDS RING ROAD, LOWER WORTLEY, LEEDS LS12 6AA Phone: 01132 926388 / Web: www.jct600.co.uk/brands/maserati www.maserati.co.uk

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.

Calls will be recorded for training purposes.

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TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

Armani in a city where the sky’s the limit

TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

Dubai is a man-made miracle, a city of superlative built on what was once a desert, and now one of the world’s greatest names in design has chosen it as the location for a luxury hotel To look across the wind-rippled sands around Dubai is to be struck by the wonder of civil engineering. Desert yawns endless as far as the eye can see, the landscape punctuated only by the occasional bush - used by Nomadic tribes for millennia to pinpoint water - and the odd passing lizard.

City types can here don their ghutra and play at being T.E. Lawrence, driving vintage Land Rovers, navigating by the stars, eating crispy, long-lasting Arabic bread cooked over a hot stone and learning the codes of coffee - if your host pours you a half cup, you’re most welcome, since a half cup stays warm and invites a refill; if you’re given a full cup, be sure to drink up and be on your way. If it’s Ramadan, you can break the fast by drinking the Middle East’s most popular, and deeply unexpected, drink of choice - Vimto. The more adventurous can try warm camel’s milk. You can eat camel too, as well as ride one. The ship of the desert is as much the larder of the dunes.

This orchestrated ‘desert experience’ is all the more striking back at the Armani Hotel in central Dubai - one of just two such designer hostelries, the other being in Milan - and all the more so for it being high up in the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building (at least until Jeddah completes the 1km tall Kingdom Tower).

Of course, Dubai’s passions for shopping and building are not for everyone - the view from just about anywhere, including your room at the Armani Hotel, is likely to include a construction site. This is hardly surprising in the emirate that seems to throw up a new piece of landmark architecture every fortnight or so, and which somewhat fixated on size - opens the world’s biggest entertainment park this summer, and has plans for the world’s largest Ferris wheel,

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TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

the world’s biggest airport, the world’s largest building in square footage, and, of course, the world’s biggest mall, some three times the size of the Mall of Dubai. That is already the world’s biggest. It’s all a build up to the World Expo, being held in Dubai in four years.

But these passions do drive home what a miracle of transformation Dubai represents - in just some 45 years it has turned desert into destination, teasing these silvered towers out of the sands. Small wonder the sheiks behind what at some point must have seemed like the greatest folly are now celebrated, from giant billboards to crystal-encrusted mobile phone covers.

Such is the transformation that it has encouraged global powerhouse names the likes of Armani to open here - rather than anywhere else on the planet they could choose - in order to give comfort and air conditioning to the more urban nomads suffering in the constant hairdryer heat outside. Naturally it does this in style. It is said that Giorgio himself made all of the interior design choices based on his own home - which can only leave guests to conclude that his home is a tidy symphony of brown, bronze, beige and his signature ‘greige’. On each floor three corridors radiate from a central point that marks the very core of the tower.

Armani marks this fact with a table on which stands a vase with a single orchid. The stamen is a welcome splash of colour.

It is, as it were, tres sheik - luxurious, refined, refreshingly unflashy in a place that still clings to bling, and, most attractive of all to the Middle Eastern customers who make up half of its guests, even connected to that world’s biggest mall. For them, no doubt, to stay in a fashion label hotel is a welcome extension to their fashion label purchasing. They sleep, breakfast and dine Armani, punctuating this with visits to the mall’s Armani stores and Armani cafe.

An Armani porter will even escort you there and collect your big brand booty at the end of another long day flexing the plastic.

Then comes relief in the shape of indulging other senses. The Armani Hotel offers seven restaurant, - mostly of an Italian bent - and a spa offering, for the brave, the kind of intense massage that guarantees you’ll have to skip at least a day’s retail therapy while you’re in recovery. In the lobby are Armani stores - not selling clothes but one dedicated to flowers and the other to chocolates.

Naturally the glittering, sci-fi spire that is Burj Khalifa is itself part of the appeal of staying in the Armani Hotel - with its highest restaurant,

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highest pool, highest private apartment and - who knows? - on the observation deck 148 storeys up, maybe the highest Guinness Book of Records plaque. The sheer preposterousness of the place is perhaps bested only by the fountains towards the side of the hotel. From a restaurant veranda guests can watch the halfhourly display of what can only be described as liquid fireworks, a show of sequenced sweeping, swooning and rocketing water jets to the theme of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ or a touch of Strauss. You can’t but wonder what it’s all for, this spectacle made of the desert’s most precious resource. But you can’t help being captivated like a child nonetheless.

It is, indeed, all very Las Vegas, another infrastructural wonder in the middle of a desert.

Nevada has the strippers and the booze, of course, if they’re your poisons. But then it doesn’t have this not so little oasis of Giorgio.

That alone might swing the balance. n Rooms at Armani Hotel Dubai start from AED 2,000 per room per night, subject to 10% municipality fee, 10% service charge and a AED20 per room per night tourism fee. www.dubai.armanihotels.com

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“These passions do drive home what a miracle of transformation Dubai represents - in just some 45 years it has turned desert into destination”

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BUSINESS FOCUS Special Feature

A friendly approach to business There are several key things a Yorkshire businessman would look for when appointing a professional advisor. Top of the list will be trust – that, as well as being equipped with the relevant specialist and technical knowhow that you need, your advisor acts with integrity, strives to understand you and your business and has your best interest at heart.

As well as all of the above, Ken Brook-Chrispin, former owner of Seabrook Crisps, also values “character” in the people he deals with and has stayed loyal to those who look after him at Grant Thornton - from the time when he owned the high-profile brand to his position today as the head of his family, looking to safeguard and grow the Brook-Chrispin nest-egg following his well reported sale of the company to LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group.

“I used to be in the habit of running a ‘beauty parade’ of advisors every three years and my relationship with, and introduction to, Grant Thornton started following their winning that process back in 2008. Since then Neil and his colleagues became an integral part of my team to the extent that I subsequently found I had

In the first of a series looking at the importance of business relationships, BQ Yorkshire editor Mike Hughes meets former Seabrook Crisps owner Ken Brook-Chrispin and his tax advisor, Neil Sengupta, tax partner at Grant Thornton absolutely no intention of running another beauty parade. During that time, as well as my trusted tax advisor, Neil has become one of my best friends too.

“What’s important for me is not just having excellent financial or legal skills, but having someone who will encourage me, who will challenge me and who will bring me their experience of working with other entrepreneurs and their businesses. I need someone who is proactive and won’t just say “here are five options – what would you like to do”. I want someone who is willing to recommend a course of action themselves, even if I decide against it.

What people in my situation need is for someone to put themselves in my shoes and tell me “if this was my money and my business, this is what I

would do”.

“I want to hear the downsides as well as the upsides and, as much as I can, I will listen to that advice and where appropriate I will temper it with other people’s views. I am a free thinker, skipping from one idea to another, so I need people to tell me if, in their view, I might be going down the wrong route.”

But that doesn’t seem to have happened very often for Ken – there is an instinct and a drive that have served him very well over the years, highlighted by his time at the head of Seabrook Crisps. “On taking over Seabrook, I brought in a new MD and handled some union issues affecting the sector. At that time Tony Blair and Jamie Oliver were on the attack over crisps in schools and we went from a turnover of £16m

BUSINESS FOCUS Special Feature

on the Friday to £11m on the Monday. What was most annoying was that we had been using sunflower oil for 25 years, which made us the healthiest crisp!

“But I still saw the latent potential in the business, and I went to the banks who gave me the money I needed to buy it. In my view, the company just hadn’t achieved what it was capable of and I saw an opportunity to grow it to a stage where it would at least provide a nestegg for my family.

“Bringing in a great management team and surrounding myself with a great professional advisory team certainly helped me achieve my vision, and the advice from Neil and his colleagues was a very important part of that.”

From Grant Thornton’s point of view the relationship blossomed very soon after their appointment.

“Grant Thornton’s heritage is all about working with dynamic and entrepreneurial businesses” said Neil, who had joined us for lunch in a private room at Quebecs in Leeds city centre.

“The prospect of working with Ken and Seabrook really excited us and was one that the whole office wanted to be associated with. It was important that we assembled the right team to look after Ken’s needs and that we got to know him and understand his plans and ambitions.

We certainly feel that we’ve lived and breathed the journey with Ken, and we are thrilled that he has realised what he set out to achieve. First and foremost Ken was – and is – a client, so there is that line in the sand that we will always acknowledge but from an advisor’s point of view, if you can work with and advise someone you happen to get on really well with, and whose personal company you genuinely enjoy, then so much the better!”

“I don’t think any business in Yorkshire has a crystal ball, the art in it all is to mitigate risk,” added Ken, a chartered surveyor and developer before he took on Seabrook.

“No matter how good something looks on paper, you still need the people around you to cross the ‘t’s, dot the ‘i’s and mitigate those risks. Now I am busier than I ever was and still need the guidance I have benefited from in the past. My daughter Sam and myself have always been free thinkers and problem-solvers. We are currently working on a number of exciting projects and ideas including one on bottle top technology that we have progressed quite far and on the food

side, amongst other projects, we’ve invented a groundbreaking flavouring adhesive.”

“So part of the deal when I exited Seabrook was to make sure some of our ideas went with us and that we were allowed to compete freely in the market” Such ground-breaking innovations and sharp thinking prove there has been no let-up in the family’s entrepreneurial drive and, if anything, Grant Thornton may be kept even busier with Ken’s new ambitions.

Neil commented “When Ken sold Seabrook we set up a Family Investment Company structure to efficiently manage the family wealth, protect the future Brook-Chrispin generations but also to give Ken a flexible platform from which to make whatever type of investments he wants and whatever types of business ventures he wants to explore in the future.”

“We are ready to go whenever he is with his latest business projects in terms of structuring them to suit him and his family’s needs.”

Ken is clear that his new ventures will involve the licensing of products rather than the actual manufacturing of them. He explains: “Licensing would be my preferred model now because I am 66 years old and I want to enjoy life – play more golf, more tennis and go on more holidays, but at the same time create value from my intellectual

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property and grow it so that it becomes a business commodity.”

“But I would be bored out of my brain if it was all just yachts and holidays - I just can’t stop thinking about the next opportunity and will tap into Grant Thornton’s experience for each one because I know they will protect me from a lot of things.”

His daughters Charlotte and Sam have obviously inherited the Brook-Chrispin entrepreneurial genes, but face a unique ‘checking process’ before dad will release any funds from the Family Investment Company to invest in any of their plans.

“For any ideas they have, they must create a business plan, take it to the banks and get funding offers from those banks. If they are successful then they can be assured that the Family Investment Company will make the investment,” explained Ken. “Of course, if I think it’s a great idea and the banks simply don’t get it, then I can always make that decision.”

With that sort of entrepreneurial drive in the family, it is clear that the Brook-Chrispin name is more active than ever on the Yorkshire business scene and will be a huge influence on its future – which is good news for the working relationship with Grant Thornton and a good omen for Ken and Neil’s firm friendship. n

“The prospect of working with Ken and Seabrook really excited us and was one that the whole office wanted to be associated with”

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

The role of an architect in town planning has grown from just being about the structure. Mike Hughes meets Simon Baker, who is helping breathe new life into an historic part of Scarborough

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

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A man with a ground-breaking plan For many Yorkshire towns, the market hall is older than the place itself. They were often the first signs of a community being established, with produce and goods to be traded. If the customers came in, then the permanent buildings began to sprout and a supply chain was started.

Now they are surrounded by hundreds of other shops, offices and converted apartments and have often lost their key role, but they still stand as a metaphor of a town’s progress and a reflection of its ability to capitalise on both its past and its future.

So when Simon Baker – who has just finished his term as regional chair of the RIBA – showed me behind the scenes of his team’s work on Scarborough Grade ll listed Market Hall, it was reassuring to see the appreciation he had for the building’s history as well as its potential.

Group Ginger, based at the Tetley building in Leeds, was commissioned by Scarborough Borough Council to come up with a plan for the £2.7m refurbishment and redesign of the hall, working alongside Esh Construction.

What Simon and his team has come up with is a contemporary reinterpretation of Victorian arcade architecture for a building that people will instantly recognise, but with major changes including a second mezzanine level for more shops, offices and meetings spaces.

The finished project will provide 22 ground floor units and space for temporary pop-up stalls to encourage entrepreneurs to try a pitch, and 14

new units on the upper level.

“The £2.7m investment here is indicative of a trend,” said Simon.

“Public bodies are increasingly choosing to invest in supporting independent retail businesses.

We see more and more developers investing in creating an element of theatre in the retail and leisure experience, in a drive to combat the lure of online shopping.

“Our role was to adapt and reconfigure the spaces, to make them relevant for the future. It was important to us, in approaching the project, that we didn’t alienate anyone – long-standing traders, customers or new start-ups – to help foster that sense of community that people love about market halls.

“The great thing about refurbishing and renovation is that there is a third party alongside the architect and the client – and that is the building itself.”

That skill in keeping all sides happy is a real challenge, particularly for those more established Scarborians (does anyone still use that term...?) who have a special place in their hearts for the banter and long-serving businesses that have served them so well over the years.

“It always has to be a place where people can shop economically to support their family in the age-old tradition of markets. It has to be accessible to everyone,” Simon tells me over a coffee a few yards from the hall, where work is progressing well.

He is originally from Birmingham, then studied in London and won a scholarship to go to the Architectural Association. After 12 years in the capital he moved to live in Harrogate in 2004 and work in Leeds, to follow a lot of regional projects, including working on The Deep in Hull.

“What I have always liked about Scarborough is that it is a ‘cheek by jowl’ place where there are fine buildings, independent businesses and a real grittiness and grandeur. It is that dynamic that makes it a really exciting place.

“Since I set up Group Ginger two years ago, we have been keen not to just replicate a smaller version of where we were before, but to have a turnover that created a sustainable business by doing projects that we really wanted to do.

“That means working with clients whose objectives are not driven only by commercial gain, but also by grander reasons like regeneration, community or education and who cared about

“The great thing about refurbishing and renovation is that there is a third party alongside the architect and the client - and that is the building itself”

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

the outcome. “We often focus on the theatre of the place, getting people to come and enjoy and engage, generating activity and putting that in the foreground. So we have the market, a bird hide for Yorkshire Water, Yorkshire’s Renewable Energy centre at Whitby and a large mixed-use retail scheme in the Midlands.

“But there is a synergy in that variety because the Midlands project is all about working with an existing historic town centre (Lichfield) and increasing the dwell time and making it an enjoyable place to be while complementing the old spaces with the new.”

The market contract came complete with a plan and consent from the council, but previous interpretations hadn’t hit the mark, so Group Ginger was asked to look at it and go through the tender process. One of Simon’s hallmarks that helped land the contract is a fluidity of design that means he is always interpreting and evolving ideas to make them perfectly fit the space in front of him.

“If you objectify architecture, then you start to protect the design in a way that is not permissive about how people can adulterate it,” he explains.

“There is a famous sketch by architect and cartoonist Louis Hellman which shows an architect pulling his hair out because someone has put net curtains up in his masterpiece – we’re not like that. “We like the net curtains because it shows that the occupant has adopted the space and made it their own. So we see the market plan changing, but not through us tweaking and manipulating it as we see it emerging on site, but because of it evolving through the occupation of the people. There is a balance there because the design guide gives the council some control over just how much individual traders work with those spaces, so that no one person is louder

than the others.”

“There is a way of looking at the market where the management of it is like curating a play in a theatre. The people and the traders are like actors in a big production with the market manager as the creative director day to day. They need to control things so that the set doesn’t detract from the actors on the stage – otherwise you get a Camden or Blackpool high street where it just gets bigger and bolder to surpass the guy next door.”

There may be many architects that do not believe they can afford that line of thought – only choosing the projects that have a ‘heart’ and appreciating why people might want to change them after you have left. But it makes for a very content and stimulated team back at The Tetley.

“Teamwork is really important, and Nasa talk about seven being the optimum number for a team – the space shuttle was based on seven astronauts because Nasa’s studies showed that after seven communication started to break down.

“We have a balance in the team, with people who focus on the delivery, but I look outside of that to see what else we can bring to it,” says Simon.

“In defining what the deliverable package of work is, I feel that we as architects are wellplaced to interpret and to look at the intangible benefits and value. So the success of this project isn’t that it can be delivered on budget and on time, it is in whether people come there to shop and trade.

“I think that is what architects can do, but we get measured against a definable object and the perennial problem for architects as a business is the value quantification of the intangible.

“Yes, it is a luxury to be able to look for

like-minded people who see that value and appreciate that, while we are a profitable business, the group isn’t about exponential growth and turnover it is about relationships and projects where we can offer our benefit.

“There is more than a single ‘bottom line’ for a business, and one of those multiple bottom lines is enjoyment.

“There is certainly a way of seeing the client/ architect role as much more of a partnership with a vested interest in the outcome, perhaps developing the relationship away from the service industry. Where does architecture begin and where does it end? For some it is all about bricks and mortar and what we are talking about is theatre, atmosphere and experience and then pushing that even further to make a town centre a thriving place.”

The expanding influence architects can have on the areas around their projects is well illustrated at Scarborough, with the new space attracting new businesses that will then hopefully expand and take two units, but then might look outside the hall for their next premises. The stimulation from the market hall then moves in a measurable wave across the town.

“On the ground floor it is intended that the perimeter stalls are for the traders who intend to be there for a while,” says Simon.

“But then the hall is open for a much more transitional model of trading, perhaps it will be chocolate brownies one day and Scalextric the next, each trying it out to give a mix and dynamism so it is unique each time, but with a level of consistency.”

The more work the more recognition, of course, and the experience and portfolio Simon and his team are building will no doubt attract attention and contracts further afield, although

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Scarborough may well be his perfect town, with that grandeur and excitement and streets full of magnificent buildings in need of a plan.

“We would do more markets, but we are not saying we are market specialists. However, it would be amazing to do more work here because there is latent potential and anything could happen. But there is no motivation if a project is not fun and exciting.”

One of the tests of the latest projects is when Simon, who has just turned 45, brings down the two mini-Bakers, his children aged ten and eight. They will be at the grand reopening along with his wife, also an architect, so he knows the pressure will be on...

“Any place that can be intergenerational has got to be a good place to go, so it needs to be attractive to pensioners and grandparents as well as children and families and feel secure and safe so that they will all be willing to stay there.

“A building like the market hall can’t be so focused on one group of people that it alienates others. I think a number of cities are starting to see markets as a turning point, with the discussion about food provenance and cooking and shopping responsibly by eating healthily and buying locally.

“Town and city councils are realising these are places worthy of investment – it is all there and if you can get the whole town to come together in a harmonious way it is a good indicator of the health of the town.

While Group Ginger is literally ground-breaking on St Helen’s Square, its work will also be a catalyst for two ground-breaking tech projects from the University of Hull, which will become vital to the future of the space.

Most impressively, the university is creating an online market that can host all of the traders, but with one pay point, underlining that the site is a unified community working under one roof.

And it is also building a market intelligence system to track and analyse key trends and influences, which will be an important tool for any new businesses looking at the town.

That whole package of support, investment and forward planning started with the first line on a Group Ginger notepad as the plans were first being looked at. With Simon holding the pen, the first priority will have been people rather than profit – which offers great hope for Scarborough, its residents and its entrepreneurs. n

The Scarborough conversation From the borough council, Projects Manager Alex Richards and Investment Manager Nick Taylor, who have both worked closely with Simon Baker on the market hall project, discuss the future of the area Alex: Since the days of the RDAs we have had a very high focus on diversifying our economy and attracting as much new business as we can. We had a lot of success in securing funding to put in place the infrastructure to really develop our cultural and creative sectors. Scarborough is fairly unique in that it has always been successful as a seaside resort unlike many of the other traditional resorts that have ebbed and flowed, and many are now at the nadir of their economic cycle. We have never experienced that, because we have a very entrepreneurial community here and a very mixed economy as well as a mixed social and cultural demographic, so success is almost ingrained.

We have also been a low-wage economy which has helped manufacturing stave off the worst of the recession which means that certain other sectors like leisure can be supported here. The public sector economy is very good - we are home to one of the major GCHQ centres in the UK which is planning a major expansion and we have invested very heavily in education and skills with more than £50m of new facilities being developed. But there is still a lot of work to do and our town centre is not without its problems, but our market could act as a catalyst, particularly for the retail sector.

Nick: There will be a large public space in the hall for people to ‘have a go’ for a day or two on a simple day rate, alongside ideas for a teenage market, antiques markets and perhaps specialist food markets. When we took control of it, we saw it as a massive opportunity. We were named Britain’s Most Enterprising Town in 2008 and Europe’s Most Enterprising Place in 2009, so we had a bit of a track record in making things like this work. We did a public consultation and applied for Coastal Communities Fund money in 2014. We knew we needed it grow bigger, but we also wanted it to help improve that quarter of the town. There was the main retail core further up the street and the very busy seafront at the other end, but the bit in between underperformed and we wanted to raise the ambitions and aspirations of people living there.

Alex: University of Hull got some of the funding as well for their click-and-collect and data collection system. We think it is pretty unique for a market – and any other traders in the town who want to piggy-back on to it.

Nick: We have a lot of work to do on the appearance of the town centre and get people to look at how their signage works. There also has to be more catering and we are encouraging things like gyms to set up. We want to broaden the appeal of coming here.

Alex: The town has sprawled and sprawled and is very disperse now and doesn’t function as a modern shopper would want. They have to contract, in our view, and be mixed use places of leisure. There has to be space to eat, drink, shop and enjoy quality time. For businesses and their staff, we have got well over £2bn of onshore investment in infrastructure and new jobs and £40bn offshore over the next ten or fifteen years. That is a revolutionary change in the types of higher skilled jobs and economy coming to this borough, so on the back of that we have house-building programme for around 10,000 homes, a new university being built alongside the UTC and schools all challenging themselves to deliver better education . It is our job to be the glue to make sure all that sticks together.

Nick: I have run businesses myself in the town and because we were almost getting seasonal recessions, we have always had to be one step ahead of the game.

Alex: It is our ambition to be the most highly-skilled coastal town by 2030, and that is why we are delivering new colleges, universities and courses. In terms of image, we are lumped in with the rest of the coastal resorts, and there is still the belief outside the town that that is all we are. But we are not a coastal resort, we are a very strong economic centre that happens to be next to the sea and benefits from the beautiful geography that comes with that.

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INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

New-look Venturefest is huge boost for entrepreneurs Dermot Boylan, Programme Manager for Venturefest Yorkshire, talks to BQ Yorkshire editor Mike Hughes about the expanded event and the effect it could have across the region

Dermot Boylan is proud of the strapline for Venturefest Yorkshire and knows it is a bold statement and a great aspiration for his team.

Saying this year’s event at York Racecourse on 16 November will be ‘The greatest gathering of innovators, entrepreneurs and investors in Yorkshire’ underlines how the event has changed since it was handed over to Make It York, the city’s destination management organisation, last year.

But it also sums up Dermot’s strategy this time around – to assemble a network of elements needed for new businesses to thrive, put them in one place and knit the whole event together so aspiring entrepreneurs can join in at whatever stage they need – starting up, needing finance, looking for a mentor, planning an expansion, taking on staff, wanting to export, changing a

product line... they’re all there.

“We are breathing new life into the event, which has always been a key date in the calendar for both entrepreneurs and investors,” Dermot tells me.

“It’s now under new management with Make it York and there is a vibrancy and energy around the whole day. But whatever changes we have made, our core message will always be to nurture business growth in Yorkshire. There is such a fantastic depth of skills and talent here and amazing industries growing all over the region that we want to bring them together and connect them with all the people and services they need.”

Connectivity and clarity will be near the top of the wishlist for any BQ entrepreneur, where time is precious and the need to be supported and

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

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“We focus on entrepreneurs, innovators and investors because they will always be at the heart of Venturefest”

directed is urgent. With five floors of exhibition zones, speakers, stands and seminars it certainly makes for a full day, so Dermot and his team know that a logical route through it all and the ability to ‘pick and mix’ exactly what you need is important.

“Whether a firm is just starting out or is already some way down the path, connecting them with investors – which is fairly fundamental – and people who can help them with business plans, mentoring and advice in all sorts of professional areas is vital.

“We focus on entrepreneurs, innovators and investors because they will always be at the heart of Venturefest, but around that we are bringing in incubator schemes, organisations and centres which are doing such good work all around Yorkshire to show what they might be able to do for businesses.

“It is important that, while we are presenting an entertaining and exciting environment, there is a lot of serious work going on under the surface to bring together real businesses, investors and service providers and see their ideas collide.

“We are working with a consortium of investor groups - all of them really excited to be part of the event - representing more than 70 or 80 individuals, many of whom will be in the building on 16 November. We will be giving them a portfolio of new businesses before the event so they can arrange meetings, roll their sleeves up and start working together as early as possible.”

The two showpiece Venturefest events those investors will be particularly keeping an eye on will be Pitchfest and the Innovation Showcase.

The first will see new businesses getting their moment in the spotlight to pitch for a cash prize and support package, while at the Showcase sponsors Hiscox are paying for 20 stands to allow entreprenuers to show what they can do.

What they will also find on the day includes Meet the Experts advice sessions; The Elevator – one minute pitches to investors; Google Garage; Sky Agile Masterclasses; the DTi Export Hub, which is on tour in a 40ft lorry, and four tracks

of seminars and workshops as well as plenty of networking to back it all up.

But Venturefest is not just a one-day event, and Dermot will be making sure that the ripple effect goes far and wide and becomes a wave of new businesses that can start making a difference to the regional economy.

“Sometimes in competitions like Pitchfest, the winners get a round of applause, a pat on the head and off they go without any further engagement – which is such a wasted opportunity,” he said.

“So our winners will get a £5,000 cash prize – none of this ‘in kind’ stuff that may or may not be of any use to them – but then we will tailor 12 months of support, connecting them with the right people, and making sure they get connected to the right services.

“We want to nurture them for the full year to help their business establish itself and grow and then we will bring them back in 2017 to tell the next intake of entrepreneurs about their experiences and the lessons they’ve learned.”

Sponsors have been quick to back the event, with British Business Bank and the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, Hiscox Insurance, Santander, Garbutt and Elliott, Ice Cubed Capital and University of York all on board alongside national sponsors Innovate UK and Knowledge Transfer Network.

“Those are the big names who know how important Venturefest can be and one of our great achievements at the racecourse will be bringing them together with new businesses, perhaps someone who has just come along on the day,” said Dermot.

Science City had been organising and running the Innovation Showcase part of the event when it was run by York Professionals, so knew it well and was keen to take control of the whole day, from the time the doors are opened to the big show that will close the event.

“We anticipate a lot of business being done, so wanted to make sure we gave the day a good send-off, instead of just a formal dinner. We

decided it would be much more productive to have the last hour as networking, with food, drink and entertainment included in the price of the ticket.”

The ticket also includes some big-name speakers, with the likes of Tim Leigh of Stage One, who designed and produced the 2012 London Olympics cauldron and Matthew Taylor, head of the RSA, heading to York to tap into a rich seam of talent.

They will be joined by Pip Jamieson, founder and CEO of professional networking platform The Dots, the founder of FabLab Tony Fish, Kate Russell, author and technology reporter at BBC Click, serial entrepreneur Sir Eric Peacock, Kevin Baughan, Innovate UK’s director of innovation and Clive Gilson, head of engineering at Sky Digital Platforms.

One thing that can be guaranteed is that they will meet and talk to a remarkable set of people, with the region being more packed than ever before with innovative ideas and passionate businesses, as Dermot has discovered.

“We have travelled all over Yorkshire with a series of roadshows to publicise Venturefest, and what we have found is a groundswell of young people with some great ideas and enthusiasm. There is a new generation coming through in Yorkshire, particularly in the digital sector.

“A lot of them are beavering away in their front rooms or offices and we are trying to tempt them out and come along on 16 November and at least realise there are many, many others just like them at the same stage with their own businesses and draw some encouragement from that.“We want visitors to meet, engage... and be prepared for the unexpected.” n

Sounds like the ideal checklist for Yorkshire entrepreneurs, so to book tickets go to www.venturefestyorkshire.net

BIT OF A CHAT Bill Board’s examining the news behind the headlines Students don’t mind weighting Some university courses can be really ‘heavy’ while some can give you a vital lift – but Sheffield Hallam is doing a bit of both.

The university’s Academy of Sport and Physical Activity has announced a new partnership with British Weight Lifting to help develop the future of the sport. It will undertake research projects and deliver programmes to develop the sport across the region as the city becomes a national hub for weight lifting’s governing body. Students will also have the opportunity to study to become qualified weight lifting coaches and will gain valuable experience in developing elite lifters.

PPS is really pumped up

That’s not light – it’s really heavy!

A team of Barnsley blacksmiths (who even knew there was a team of them out there?) has delivered the largest chandelier it has ever made. Nigel Tyas Ironwork, which produces dozens of handcrafted wrought iron chandeliers a year, recently completed a two-tier light fitting, made to Nigel’s own ‘Shepherds Crook’ chandelier design, measures 1.5 metres across, weighs 47kg and carries 24 candle-like LED lights. It now hangs seven metres high in the atrium of an oak-beamed former manor house in Northamptonshire. Nigel, whose business is based at Bullhouse Mill, in the Barnsley village of Millhouse Green, said: “This was a colossal one - it took four of us to handle it at one stage and we needed lots of muscle as well as skill to fashion and forge the iron hoops and fittings. It needed a good forged ceiling rose and a two metre length of chain for hanging too.”

Here’s a quick quiz for you – what big event took place in Halifax in the same year that Yorkshire-born Helen Sharman became the first Briton in space, Dances With Wolves won the Oscar for Best Picture, Bryan Adams topped the charts with (Everything I Do) I Do It for You.... and Ed Sheeran was born. Shame on you if your answer wasn’t that it was the year – 1991 – that Pennine Pneumatic Services was founded by MD Gary Whitaker. Gary marked the occasion by gathering his staff for a truly ‘Oscar night’ speech in which he told them: “From where I sit PPS people are special people. We succeed together, we fail together. We have no numbers, no airs and graces. We are one great team and there is nobody to touch us.”

Rousing stuff – here’s to the next 25.

A Black mark for litter

Make It Easy

Thomas Black, former Joint Chairman of the Keighley-based Peter Black Holdings, has made a second anti-litter film, following the astonishing success of his first two years ago.

He was fed up with the “horrible litter which is desecrating our beautiful Yorkshire countryside”, so in 2014 he made the film Don’t Drop Litter or Else!, which has received more than 153,000 hits on YouTube. Thomas, who lives in Ilkley, said: “I have been completely bowled over by the success of Don’t Drop Litter Or Else!, which clearly struck a chord with many people, so I decided it was worthwhile making a second. This one is called Don’t Drop Litter Or Else 2! Retribution Works and features the same central characters, together with some new faces. The anti-litter message is as hard-hitting as ever, and I hope the film makes it clear that dropping litter of any sort is anti-social, bad for the environment and eventually hits us all in the pocket”. To find the new film, go to bit.ly/yorkshirelitter.

Make It York, the city’s ‘destination management organisation’, is taking its tourism message right back to the first few steps visitors make into the city.

With 6.8 million visitors annually spending more than £600m and supporting 20,300 jobs, the group’s tourism arm Visit York wanted to make sure it didn’t miss a single chance to let tourists know what was out there.

They have opened a Visitor and Bus Information Desk at York Railway Station to provide both residents and visitors with all the information they need for an onward journey or a stay in the city. Customers can buy bus tickets, book accommodation and purchase attraction tickets and York Passes from 8am to 4pm Monday to Saturday.

The whole initiative will be backed up by six York Greeters who will be helping customers around the city - whether they are after heritage or hamburgers!

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EVENTS

BQ’s business diary helps you forward plan

OCTOBER 07

Quarterly Economic Survey breakfast with Doncaster Chamber.

From 8am - 10am at Vulcan to the Sky, Hangar 3, Fourth Avenue, Robin Hood Airport, Doncaster DN9 3GA. Contact rleam@doncaster-chamber.co.uk

07

Understanding Exporting & Export Documentation. From 9.30am 4.30pm at The John Smith’s Stadium, Stadium Way, Huddersfield, HD1 6PG. Contact 01484 483660

12

Supply Chain Sustainability School: Construction Supplier Day from 8:30am - 12:30pm or 2pm - 6pm at Park Plaza Hotel, Boar Lane, Leeds LS1 5NS. Contact becky@supplychainschool.co.uk

12

A unique opportunity to access business in the oil and gas activity in the Caspian Sea. From 8am - 11am at Wosskow Brown, The John Banner Centre, 620 Attercliffe Road, Sheffield S9 3QS. Contact carol.griffiths@scci.org.uk

13

Evolution of an entrepreneur. From 8am to 10am at The Quadrant, 99 Parkway Avenue, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S9 4WG. Contact Connect Gazelles on 0113 337 2001

14

MY Network Wakefield from 12.30pm to 1.30pm at Unity Works, Westgate, Wakefield, WF1 1EP. Contact 01924 311600

14

Barnsley and Rotherham Business Awards from 6.30pm at the Magna Science Adventure Centre on Magna Way, Templeborough S60 1FD. Contact diane.graham@brchamber.co.uk.

17-21

21

Hull and Humber Chamber Speed Networking and Lunch from 10.30am to 11.45am at Forest Pines Hotel, Ermine Street, Broughton, Near Brigg, Northern Lincolnshire DN20 0AQ. Contact 01472 342981

25

Buy Doncaster Business Club from 5.30pm to 8pm at The Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Brockholes Lane, Branton, Doncaster DN4 6TB. Contact 01302 640132

27

Understanding Import Processes from 9.30am to 12.30am at The John Smith’s Stadium, Stadium Way, Huddersfield, HD1 6PG. With preferential trade agreements and rules of origin session in afternoon. Contact 01484 483660

NOVEMBER 02

Yoozoom event - How to grow your business through cloud working. From 8am to 10am at Carrwood Park, Selby Road, Leeds, LS15 4LG. Contact Connect Gazelles on 0113 337 2001 10 - Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce New Member Networking from 12am to 2pm at 2 Genesis Business Park, Sheffield Road, Templeborough, Rotherham, S60 1DX. Contact 01709 386200

08

MADE16 Entrepreneur festival: Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.

Find out how you can be involved at www.madefestival.com

16

Business Growth Dinner from 6pm to 9pm at Mount Pleasant Hotel, Great North Road, Doncaster DN11 0HW. Contact Doncaster Chamber on 01302 640132.

18

How Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber can help your business.

From 12 - 1pm at 2 Genesis Business Park, Sheffield Road, Rotherham, S60 1DX. Contact 01709 386200

24

Connect Gazelles Annual Summit from 9am to 4pm at Cedar Court Hotel Wakefield, Denby Dale Road, Calder Grove, Wakefield, WF4 3QZ. Contact 0113 337 2001

Leeds Business Week, with events across the city.

Details at www.leedsbizweek.com

19

Manufacturing & Engineering Conference and Exhibition from 7.30am to noon at Brinsworth Training, Sheffield Road, Rotherham, South Yorkshire S60 1BN. Contact 0114 201 8888

19

MY Network Huddersfield from 9am to 11.30am at Cafe Ollo, Media Centre, 7 Northumberland Street, Town Centre, Huddersfield HD1 1RL. Contact 01484 483660

20

Jonathan Straight masterclass on Building a Brand from Nothing.

From 6pm to 10pm at Carrwood Park, Selby Road, Leeds, LS15 4LG. Contact Connect Gazelles on 0113 337 2001 The diary is updated daily online at

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

bqlive.co.uk

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