Monthly Archives: April 2012

New Chairman, Chris van der Kuyl, on the future of the Exchange

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Chris van der Kuyl, CEO of BrightSolid, was appointed Chairman of the Exchange at the Annual Conference. He’s hugely ambitious for the organisation over the next 12 months, and spoke of the challenges and opportunities facing Scotland’s entrepreneurs.

In his opening address to the conference, Chris said: “While the economic outlook continues to be gloomy it is inspiring to see so many of you seeking out the opportunities that occur in challenging times, that’s the definition of an entrepreneur, that we actively seek out challenges and change.

“Nobody got up the day that the banks crashed and did back flips, but by the end of the day, or the next morning, when we’d done all the risk assessment, most of us knew what was going on and started to think about the opportunities it would create.

“In the next few years ahead of us, in the UK and in Scotland, it’s going to be historic, we’ve got the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and some kind of referendum. The spot light will be on us, as a nation, both the UK and more specifically, Scotland. We in the Exchange need to be acting as an incredibly strong voice for the entrepreneurial community, we’ve got to look at the challenges and opportunities ahead and be debating them, discussing them and acting on a strong and coherent message that supports the growth potential of every Scottish entrepreneur in business.

“None of us knows where that is going to be, but we can be a pivotal point for that debate, encourage that debate and support us all in trying to get the best outcome. Because what do we care about? We care about a thriving environment to do business in. There are great entrepreneurial opportunities, whether they are barriers blown out the way when it comes to red tape or access to finance, and its very important we do take a strong position whether that’s with sister organisations across the country, like the RSE who are spurring on the intellectual debate or the governments of the time.”

Chris also shared his thoughts about the new Board directors, appointed at the conference.

Winning Growth Strategies – Vera Weisfeld, OBE

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From humble beginnings in the early 1970s Gerald and Vera Weisfeld grew their retail empire across the UK before selling in 1990 for £50 million.

The power couple created What Everyone Wants, with 40 stores, more than 2000 staff and annual revenues of more than £100 million.

Gerald Weisfeld is one of Britain’s outstanding entrepreneurs and was a Founder member of the Entrepreneurial Exchange. Working alongside him was his wife Vera, who had started her retail career at just 15. They worked as a team with Gerald’s buying skills a thing of legend, whilst Vera was very much the face of the company – leading with passion and flair.

Following the sale of What Everyone Wants Vera and Gerald created the Weisfeld Foundation, believing that with great wealth came the responsibility to give something back – especially to the communities that supported the business.

Their Foundation now co-ordinates work in Africa, Europe, America and throughout the UK and operates with a focus on helping people to gain and maintain greater control of their own lives; achieving a sense of self worth and fulfillment of personal potential.


Growing a business of such scale requires dedication and ambition – the original Queen of Retail, Vera will tell her story of the 20-year entrepreneurial journey she took with her husband.

Winning Growth Strategies – Annual Conference 2012

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If you want to learn how to grow and scale a business, you need look no further than the entrepreneurial journey taken by Lord Kirkham, founder of furniture and retail chain DFS.

He’ll be speaking at the Annual Conference about the growth strategies that took his furniture business from start-up to successful corporate and the largest of its kind in Europe.

Graham Kirkham, a coal miners son, was born and brought up in South Yorkshire and has lived in that area all his life. He left school and chose to start DFS, the vertically integrated furniture manufacturing and retailing business in 1969, rather than go into further education.

DFS was a flourishing private company for 24 years and a successful FTSE 250 company on the London Stock Exchange for 12 years. Having grown to be the largest company of its kind in Europe, Lord Kirkham succeeded in buying the business back from the shareholders in 2004 and in 2010 sold 100% of the shares to the private equity company Advent International plc.

He now runs a private family investment company, Black Diamond, with interests including retail parks, farming. Most recently he bought Iceland Frozen Foods in a £1.55 billion deal with Dubai and South African partners and the retailer’s management.

Lord Kirkham’s business achievements have been recognised with a number of honours – a Knighthood in 1995, a Peerage in 1999 and a C.V.O. in 2001

He spends a lot of time on pro-bono work including, Deputy Patron for the Outward Bound Trust, Chairman of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Deputy President of The Animal Health Trust.

Winning Growth Strategies

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Our Entrepreneur of the Year Colin Robertson will be taking to the stage at this year’s Annual Conference to talk about growth, the theme for this event.

And it’s his successful business growth strategy – 100% increase in turnover and 50% increase in manufacturing capacity in just five years – that has seen him win a clutch of awards for business and entrepreneurship.

Colin is also Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year and just last month the IOD Scotland named him Director of the Year. In addition, he won the coveted Scottish Manufacturing Leadership Award and has received other accolades recently on behalf of ADL for export achievement and product innovation.

As CEO of Alexander Dennis Limited, Britain’s biggest bus and coach manufacturer, Colin is responsible for 1900 people.

ADL is the market leader in the UK bus sector and is the largest British-owned business in the UK automotive sector. On a global basis, it is at the forefront of developments in the design and production of low emission heavy duty buses and it is now Europe’s leading supplier of low carbon, hybrid-electric buses that are consistently achieving 35% fuel and CO2 reductions. ADL hybrids operating in Edinburgh are achieving 60% fuel savings compared to the Volvo double decks used previously.

A qualified Mechanical and Production Engineer with an Executive MBA, Colin began his career with Cummins Engine Company before joining JI Case, the tractor manufacturer, and then moving on to Terex Corporation.

He enjoyed a meteoric rise with Terex, earning promotion throughout the business before becoming President of their $2 billion construction division. This was followed by his appointment as Executive Vice President of Global Operations, based at the company’s headquarters in Connecticut, USA, where he was part of a leadership team that turned Terex into a $9 billion worldwide corporation.

In April 2007 he left Terex to become CEO of ADL. Since then the business has increased its manufacturing capacity by 50% and seen turnover grow more than 100%. It has established itself as the western world’s fastest-growing bus and coach manufacturer and formed new alliances and assembly operations in China, North America and New Zealand.

Business Turnaround

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Nobody wants to have to turnaround their business; it’s never the plan when you startup or embark on a growth strategy that you’ll have to move into survival mode and rescue your company.

But if you’re going to turnaround your business then you want to do so with some words of wisdom from those who have been involved in successful turnarounds many times before.

At the Focus Dinner on business turnaround, Martin Gilbert of Aberdeen Asset Management and Duncan Skinner of Glencraft shared their experiences and offered some essential advice.

According to Duncan, turnaround is mostly about reinstating good business management. Both he and Martin believe leadership is key and that retaining your best people is important. You should pick those with EQ (emotional quotient) over those with IQ (intelligence quotient), since it’s easy to teach the IQ bit, but you either have or don’t have EQ.

And adopting the 3Cs as part of your strategy is also important – care, communication and commitment.

You need to have a clear vision of what needs to be done, develop a turnaround plan, and commit to both executing the plan and ensuring others both understand and commit to it also.

Identify the key growth drivers for your business and focus on them, while exploring new routes to market, opportunities to reduce costs and a renewed focus on quality of service. Review your supply chain, ensure the IT/IS is functioning and the reporting gives you the data you need to make good decisions.

Culture and communication also play a significant part in any turnaround process. There needs to be a positive attitude and belief in what you’re trying to achieve and clear and consistent communication with clients, suppliers and staff.

Business is about longevity and survival, said Martin. A long term approach is best – don’t go for the quick wins since every downturn has an average cycle of 5 years.

The event certainly touched a chord with the attendees. Key learnings from Martin and Duncan included:

“The importance of frequent, accurate and honest communication with all affected parties during times of great difficulty for an organisation.”

“That everything is possible.”

“It is all about people.”

“Lessons learned about incentivising star players and managing through incredibly tough times. The event could have been titled ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’.”

Biogs of both Martin Gilbert and Duncan Skinner can be read here

Up Up and Away – Annual Conference 2012

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If you’re an entrepreneur you’re always learning, whether you are old or young, at startup or exit stage. Which is why we run the Exchange annual conference, to give you the opportunity to learn from exceptional, inspirational and successful business men and women from across the UK.

Our focus this year is on growing your business, and we have attracted the leaders of some of the most successful growth businesses in the UK to share their experiences and give you the benefit of their wisdom.
We have Lord Kirkham, founder of furniture chain dfs which now boasts more than 85 stores nationwide, and our very own Entrepreneur of the Year Colin Robertson, chairman of Alexander Dennis. Vera Weisfeld OBE, founder of What Every Woman Wants and recent Hall of Fame inductee, will share her story of growing one of Scotland’s most successful retail empires. And all the way from Bali is brand marketing visionary Ross Smith of Mindshelf, renowned for building and leveraging the brands of SMEs and small PLCs, often through to IPO/MBO.

We’ll blog about each of the speakers and their experience in advance of the conference, first up is Ross Smith:

If you’ve ever thought that there’s something “missing” or “unleveraged” in your brand or marketing strategy, Ross Smith is the man to identify exactly what that missing element is – and get it on track.

Ross has earned the reputation of being one of the world’s most creative and talented brand strategists. He has consulted to some of the leading and emerging real estate firms in Australia and New Zealand, and also worked on the brand and marketing strategies of the businesses of four “Secret Millionaires” including the newest BBC “dragon” Hilary Devey and our own Tony Banks of Balhouse Care Group.



With a client base in five countries, Ross brings a truly global perspective to the importance of effectively and memorably communicating your brand DNA. His experience as a board director and non-exec chairman and director of a wide range of businesses in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia adds depth, vision and understanding to the internal and external challenges of his clients.



Ross also has a wealth of sales and marketing expertise gained through 20 years in the automotive sector where he worked with Ford and Nissan at board level. In addition to his consulting requests, Ross is also a regular guest speaker at international marketing conferences.
Ross is now based in Bali, from where he works work with clients and also finds time to run three Bali based businesses which include a luxury villa rental business, a luxury spa and beauty salon and a commercial 5 star laundry.

If you have serious growth ambitions for your business, then this event is for you.
Please contact kylie@klevents.co.uk if you’d like to book your place at the conference. It’s being held at Gleneagles on April 19. A gala dinner in the evening follows what will no doubt be some fascinating talks during the day.