PEOPLE 10 MINUTES WITH:
What is your current role and how long have you been doing it? My current title is sales director – Trade at Showerwall, a new role created by the business after our acquisition by Bathroom Brands Group last year. I moved into the role at the start of 2025 and prior to the acquisition from IDS my role was national accounts manager.
What does your role entail? I have responsibility for all sales through our trade channel, which includes builders and plumbers’ merchants and independent retailers. A great part of my role is the blend of managing some of our key accounts, as well as a team of area sales managers – so it’s a mix of supporting our customers and our team to grow and develop.
How did you get started in this industry? As part of my Business Studies degree at The University of Bradford, I completed a placement year with Twyford Bathrooms in their marketing department, where I would return to work after graduation.
What roles were you doing before? Most of my career has been in the bathroom and kitchen sectors, selling through merchants and independent retailers. I started my career as a product manager, moving into sales via national account management. I spent 13 years with Bristan Group, ran Heritage Bathrooms for five years and was sales director for three years for independents and buying groups. I was also sales director at Sensio Lighting and worked in national accounts for IDS.
GARETH GRIFFITHS Sales director – Trade at Showerwall
What would you like to achieve in the role? The Showerwall brand has huge potential for growth and as part of the Bathroom Brands group I really feel I have the backing and support to achieve it.We’re aiming to build a best in class sales team and a business that challenges the established market leaders. We’ll do this through a design led approach, backed by the best product choice for consumers and installers and outstanding customer service.
What have been the highlights of your career so far? Being crowned Supplier of the Year by Wolseley in my first major national account role and achieving the first ever £1m sales month with them during that time. My proudest moment was the turnaround my team and I achieved with the Heritage Bathrooms business including a complete re-launch of the brand.
What are the main issues at the moment? I think the increasing lack of skilled labour is a major concern for the industry, coupled with the need for new housing and the infrastructure to support it. There is also a massive issue to be addressed with regards to sustainability and in particular waste on construction sites. For merchants, we’ve unfortunately seen numerous stories of branch closures over the last 12 months, which point to a wider challenge as a result of changing purchasing habits and the growing competition built around customer convenience.
If you could make one major change to the industry right now, what would it be? I think we need to make the industry more attractive to new people – there isn’t a silver
bullet solution for this, but it is a shared responsibility. On the same point, sustainability is something we all have to work together to be more focused
on.There are some causes bigger than competition so maybe we could share the experience, insight and skills we have at our disposal to collectively address those.
What piece of advice would you give yourself if you could go back? Spend more time thinking about what you really love doing and build your career around that. You spend too much time working not to enjoy it!
What keeps you busy at the weekends? Mainly family and sport. I have always been a massive sports fan whether that be playing or watching football, cricket and rugby. I will normally be ferrying my son around to various things or he and I will be watching our team, Derby County. I also enjoy playing the guitar and am trying to re-learn keyboard.
What’s your favourite book or film? It’s way too hard to pick a favourite – I love sports biographies and always read at least of couple of the William Hill Sports Books of the Year without fail! My favourite series of books recently has been Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz. I love all the Harry Potter books too! I love the Rocky films but if I were to pick a single film it would probably The Shawshank Redemption.
If you could be a superhero, which super-power would you choose? That’s a tough one. I have always wanted to be able to run fast but I quite like the idea of being able to teleport through time. BMJ
ON THE MOVE
MKM Building Supplies, has appointed Dave Castle as its first-ever Chief Operating Officer. Reporting to CEO Kate Tinsley, Castle brings over 20 years of experience in the building materials sector, most recently as Group Chief Commercial Officer and managing director of BSS at Travis Perkins Group.
H+H UK has announced its appointment of Julian Davies as director of operations. Responsible for overseeing the entire production process of H+H aircrete across the company’s UK sites, Davies’ focus is on: health and safety, process efficiency, and maintaining robust, reliable factory operations.
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STARK Building Materials UK has announced that Dean Pinner has joined the group as managing director (Contracts Division) for Frazer and Minster, having worked in the building materials supply industry for 35 years. He was mostly recently managing director of Keyline, the specialist civils division at the Travis Perkins Group.
Keylite Roof Windows has appointed Ross Telford as its new Head of Marketing, to lead the ongoing development of Keylite’s marketing strategy across the UK and European markets. He joins Keylite following senior marketing roles at AG Paving and Building Products, Breedon Group, Creative Composites and JP Corry Builders Merchants.
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net May 2025
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