entrepreneurs 23
Pictures by Angus Thomas
You also encourage your team to fundraise for charity
Yes, we have the Webmart Charitable Trust, which is partially funded by our profit share scheme, and we also do a lot of sponsored activities. So far, we’ve given over £250,000 to charities, which is great.
You have an impressive list of awards, how do they sit with you?
Winning awards not only validates your own approach, it gives you a new cohort of people to talk to. Once you have peer recognition a staggering amount of people will take you into their confidence, share information and be willing to listen to you.
Are you still very hands on? I’ve always been involved in strategy and
consulting, but I’m effectively taking a bit of a semi-sabbatical right now. We’re structuring Webmart into teams to drive the business forward and grow to the next stage, so I’m spending time looking at management models and doing some research, talking to people outside our “eco-system”. Paul Seaborn, our deputy MD, is leading the change and I’m supporting him and the management team. April 1 will be our new financial year and that’s when it all happens.
What will you do next?
I’m working on a new software business with Paul, which is very exciting. Right now though, I’m training two or three hours a day for an Ironman contest in Mexico on March 30 – I’ve been training throughout the winter and needed some sunlight.
Will the Ironman be a first?
Yes, although I did a half Ironman in October and I’ve done other things like climbing the highest mountain in Antarctica and running the ice marathon in Siberia. I generally do one daft thing a year, so this will be it and it will be for charity. Afterwards my brother and I are taking two Harley Davidsons to California for 10 days, so that will be fun.
Are you a keep-fit fan?
I believe if you have a healthy body then you generally have a fully operational brain and you’re more capable of better ideas for a longer period of time and able to do a better job. We have a gym here and I try to encourage everyone to have a healthy lifestyle.
You are on the Advisory Board for the School of Technology at Oxford Brookes University and also involved in the Barnsley Economic Partnership. What do you get out of 'giving back'?
I think generally, universities don’t engage well with the business community, so I work with Oxford Brookes as much as I can to help them
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – FEBRUARY 2014
understand what businesses want and it also gives me a greater understanding of what they are doing.
I’m very proud of growing up in Barnsley, it’s 30 years since I left and it’s still a very deprived area with unemployment of 40,000. I was given the opportunity to work with the council as a business ambassador and I provide support and mentoring to try and help improve the quality of life for people there. People shouldn’t have to leave the area to make money, Barnsley has a great workforce available at a fraction of the cost of other parts of the country and we need to attract inward investment and development.
Webmart has an office there and I love going back. There are a lot of opportunities to improve. We’re looking forward to the Tour de France going through in July and ASOS is developing a new operation there, so things are happening, which is very exciting.
And finally…you’re clearly a history fan and have even become a non-executive director of History Today magazine. Tell us more.
The publishers are a client of ours, they know I am interested in history, so I took up their offer. Historical figures have always resonated with me much more than contemporary ones, most of whom I think are very transient, with the exception of people like Sam Walton (Walmart founder), who didn’t let success go to his head, and Warren Buffett, who I believe has a simple view on life.
There have been some fantastic leaders through history, names like Rayleigh and Frobisher. People think history is dead but they’re missing a trick – it gives us such a different perspective; it tells you why we look at the world the way we do. For example, we think 3D printing is new, yet the ancient Egyptians created a similar technique, and we can learn so much.
Details:
webmartuk.com www.businessmag.co.uk
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