PEOPLE
10 MINUTES WITH: DIONNE ALLARD
Branch Director, Heating Plumbing and Parts Supplies
What is your current role and how long have you been doing it?
My current role is Branch Director at Heating Plumbing and Parts Supplies.
We opened on 5th November 2018 and I love every second.
What does your role entail? My main role is making sure we are providing our customers with first class service and competitive pricing every time they deal with us. We are focussed on building trading accounts and our relationships with our customers is at the centre of everything we do.
How did you get started in this industry? My dad has been in the industry since he was 15 years old and he had a vacancy in Galashiels which I was meant to cover for a few months after leaving my previous role and almost 9 years later I am still working in an industry I love.
What roles were you doing before and how did they prepare you for this one? I was a police officer before I joined the Plumbing and Heating industry. I began in the industry by running a bathroom showroom in Galashiels then moving on to Loanhead. I am always eager to learn and push myself, so I started to migrate towards the trade counter and learning about heating, pipes, fittings and spare parts. This is where I learnt how important it is that our customers have quick and first class service every time.
I then moved to an area manager role covering Bathroom Showrooms in Scotland and Northern England. During this time I done leaderships courses, diversity projects and attended Ashridge Business School. A lot of these were focussed around females within the industry, which I am very passionate about.
After having my daughter a local role became available running a branch. I was keen to get operational experience and get back to being close to customers, as I new this is where my strengths were.
What would you like to achieve in your role?
My aim is for Heating Plumbing and Parts 10
Supplies to be the trades first choice in our local area and for us to be known for our first class customer service. I am also passionate about Females within the industry and would love to be an advocate for females in the industry or looking to join the industry.
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
This would definitely be starting up Heating Plumbing and Parts Supplies Ltd and being involved in many projects and courses to promote and develop females within the industry.
What do you see as the main issues for builders merchants and for the construction industry at the moment? I think females offer a different thought process and bring a great set of strengths to any business and within any industry. I think our industry is missing out on great talent and I would love to see more females coming into the industry and being promoted within the industry to create a more diverse work force.
If you could go back to the start of your career, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Always support females within business and incredible things can happen. Never become part of the crowd always strive to stand out.
Football, rugby, cycling, golf or gardening – which one’s more likely to keep you busy at the weekends? I work a lot of hours during the week so the weekend I love spending time with my daughter and husband. We enjoy going to the zoo, parks and walking our cocker spaniel.
If you’re at the bar – what are you drinking?
Gin and Tonic or White wine
What’s your Favourite film? The Shawshank Redemption or my guilty pleasure is Disney films. BMJ
ON THE MOVE
• Emma Moore, who’s headed up the Finance Department at Teknos GBI for the past five years, has been appointed Managing Director. She takes the helm
from Michelle Alcock who has relocated to the USA to run and develop Teknos USA.
• Häfele UK has appointed Natalie Davenport as its new Head of Marketing. Davenport joins Häfele after four years running her own business consultancy
firm and brings over 20 years of building industry experience to the company.
• Dr Fariz Khellaf has been appointed as Technical Director at Sensio Lighting. Heading the company’s future product developments
with a goal to position Sensio as the leading Lighting brand in the UK market.
• SR Timber has
appointed Mark Parkes as Trading Manager as the company gears up for continued growth in 2019.
Parkes joins the company after serving
in the Parachute Regiment for 14 years.
• W Howard has ap- pointed Phil Tissington as its new Group Opera- tions Director (UK). Tissington joined the company on 4th March, taking responsibility for UK operations cover- ing health and safety,
quality, manufacturing, warehousing and logistics. Before joining W. Howard he spent four years as Operations Direc- tor at Renold Gears, a manufacturer of chain, gears and couplings, also based in Manchester. He has also enjoyed pro- duction roles at NOV Mono and Minky Homecare Products.
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net April 2019
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