I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I started young.
In 1982, I made headlines in regional and national newspapers when I had the idea of converting my fishing flies into high fashion earrings. The business name? Hookers. They sold in hair salons across the country.
Age six, I was breeding and selling rabbits, and by 11 I was learning magic tricks to perform at children’s parties. The fishing fly tying business I ran while I was at university paid for the deposit on my first house.
After university, I went to work for Proctor and Gamble in Newcastle and spent the next four years learning marketing, before moving to join Deloitte, as a Management Consultant.
The winning idea behind HomeServe was to remove homeowners’ worries about unreliable tradespeople and big repair bills, by offering plumbing and drainage cover for a small annual fee. Needing investment, I pitched this idea to every water company in the UK, until finally one said yes. HomeServe was formed as a joint venture with South Staffordshire Water in 1993
HomeServe now has over 8.5 million customers worldwide and membership policies are still at the heart of what we do. We’ve expanded into heating, ventilation and air conditioning and match homeowners with a huge range of trades, through our Home Experts businesses: Checkatrade in the UK, Habitissimo in Spain and eLocal in America. Working with our new owners at Brookfield, we aspire to become a market leader in residential infrastructure.
I am now Chairman of HomeServe EMEA and Home Experts and have time to devote to my lifelong passion for entrepreneurship. Through another business I founded, Growth Partner, I want to help more of the 100,000 medium sized businesses in the UK reach a valuation of £1 billion. If we can double the number of large businesses in the UK to over 15,000, we can make a significant difference to the health of the UK economy.
Through Growth Partner, I am investing my own money in a small number of businesses and working with many more to share my experience of the growing pains, near misses and eventual success that come with creating a successful business. I sum up what I want to do in two words: inspire breakthrough.
Fastfix was the precursor to HomeServe, an emergency plumbing business we set up in Newcastle to help homeowners with plumbing and heating emergencies.
HomeServe lost £500,000 in our first year and we almost didn’t make it. By the time we sold HomeServe to Brookfield Infrastructure in January 2023, the company was worth £4.1 billion.
Vital statistics
Born: September 1964 in Huddersfield, a Northerner to the core
Family: a daughter and two sons
School: Royal Grammar School, Newcastle
University: economics at York
Homes: Nun Monkton in Yorkshire and Marylebone, London
Hobbies: skiing, squash, swimming, running
Downtime: supporting Newcastle United