EDITOR INTERVIEW
In conversation with...
Nigel R Bottom, Managing Director, Witham Group
Where were you born and where did you spend your early years? I was born in the City of Lincoln, UK in the maternity hospital which is about 500m from the site of our Witham Group HQ. I am married to Ali, and have two girls, one at University age and the other a couple of years younger enjoying 6th form at school. I grew up in Lincolnshire and enjoyed many different sports and my local young farmers club.
What did you want to be growing up? At school and into college life, I played a lot of football, ending up at Norwich City after playing the lower leagues for Lincoln United and then Lincoln City youth teams. I guess I never knew properly what I wanted to be, if not a professional footballer, but after realising I wasn’t good enough to be at the top level to go pro, thought sales looked good as you got a new car every other year and freedom to express yourself.
Education – where did you go, what subjects did you choose and why?
I was formally educated at local comprehensive school and then Agricultural College (it was converted to a university while I was there, but I still call it a college!) where I completed a Diploma in Business and Finance.
Where and when was your first job, and what did you like and dislike about it? My first official job was where I went to work experience in my final year at college. They offered me a job in my second week, but I still had a term left at college. I convinced them to keep the opportunity open and joined the Grain Trading business helping to and then overseeing the transportation / haulage side of the business. However, at 14 years old, I worked my school holidays (for £1.00 per hour!) at the then, Witham Oil & Grease Co. How legal this was is unsure, but I enjoyed the work, learning the basics and of course a bit of pocket money!
56 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.176 AUGUST 2023
How has career mapping led to where you are now?
When I worked for the Grain Trading Co., I felt my career had plateaued and I had grown into a cul-de-sac. I mentioned this to my then Managing Director, and he somewhat agreed but didn’t want me to leave. However, in the time of contemplation, an opportunity came up at Witham Group to work within the sales and operations office. I worked here for a few years, before being given the opportunity to join the sales team as the junior. It was soon clear that my enthusiasm to get on was producing some good results and I was keen to take on a larger area for myself and help more customers. I soon rose to getting a full-time sales role and my own trading areas. It was then that a senior sales executive left the business to retire and in the same moth our sales manager decided to move onto pastures new and left the oil industry. So, this left myself and only a newly appointed Sales Exec. with only a few years to go in another geography and my father (then Sales Director).
We were fortunate to appoint a couple of excellent brand-new faces to the team immediately, and then one more, and soon the team looked very different, with youth and enthusiasm. I then became Sales Director at 21 years old. After a few years, there was not a job in the company I had not had experience in or helped support. The existing MD and my father retired and I took on his role and appointed a new Sales Director from the sales team. This is pretty much where we are today, but with a team of nine sales executives covering the whole of the UK and Ireland. The business has grown more in the past 15 years or so than it had in the past 50. Not because of me, but because of our great team.
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