growth spotlight


The Thames Valley GROWTH SPOTLIGHT


Sandra Sassow: CEO and co- founder SEaB Energy


Based on the Southampton Science Park at Chilworth, tech-business SEaB Energy was formed by Sassow nine years ago to help improve global carbon reduction by the development of waste-to-energy technology. SEaB has a team of 22 and manufactures its own award-winning and patented products called Flexibuster and Muckbuster.


“From start-up to scale-up, you have to be creative to find the money, and persistent enough to make sure it actually shows up as cleared funds in your account.


“Funding for the company was not always easy and cashflow can be extremely tricky. Together with a strong board of advisers, I established a financially solid base for the global growth that SEaB Energy is currently experiencing.”


Sassow now manages an ethnically diverse team of engineers, developers,


sales and admin people. “Hiring the ‘right’ team as you grow is difficult and getting it wrong is seriously frustrating and costly for the business. We have learned from our many mistakes along the way.”


Under Sassow’s leadership, the company has managed to develop,


commercialise and patent unique green-tech appliances that have the potential to globally disrupt both the waste processing and green tech sectors.


“We actively protect and strategically plan our next steps technically, financially, and commercially. My active role in both designing and promoting the systems, along with my team’s invaluable support, has led to both the company and the technology being globally recognised and praised.


Due to the high profile achieved by SEaB’s technology, Sassow spends a lot of time promoting British technology at international forums – “Which sometimes makes me think I live in a plane.


“We work hard, we play when we can, and we are definitely striving to make a difference. Every week brings a new success and a different challenge, and my company’s growth and success would be impossible without my amazing team.”


Dan Hook: senior director, business development, ASV Globals


This exciting and innovative south-coast company based in Portchester is a designer, builder and operator of unmanned and autonomous marine systems vessel technology and the ‘SME of the Year’ winner at the 2017 Solent Business Awards.


“ASV Global was launched into a developing market. The use of robotics within autonomous surface vessels was still new and only prevalent among early adopters. This meant we didn’t just have the usual challenges of a start-up company – cashflow, recruiting, business process and engineering –


but also the need to stay flexible as the market developed.”


However, within just eight years the ASV team has delivered more than 90 systems to 40 customers across 10 countries.


“I would put a lot of our success down to good communication and listening to customers in the early phases of the company. We regularly reviewed our technical roadmap and product specifications to make sure they lined up with what our customers were saying.


“Open and regular communication was part of our culture from the start, not just in the sales and marketing team but the whole way throughout finance, engineering, administration and support.”


18


businessmag.co.uk


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – MARCH/APRIL 2018


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