Greater Leeds Area
I help businesses to create and combine speciality chemicals to make products that are sold under the umbrellas of some of the world’s leading and niche brands. Working for both SMEs and FTSEs with a diverse range of partners: from bucket chemists to leading academics and entrepreneurs to corporations, has allowed me to develop a hands-on approach to global projects and a more holistic method of doing business. I’m not the type of person who enjoys being tied to their desk. I love travelling and working with colleagues and customers in different countries and cultures to share knowledge and generate ideas. By doing this I have learned how to bring together people from different departments within the organisation and external partners to find common ground to collaborate, invent and improve. Most recently I directed Croda’s award-winning acrylic polymers platform and successfully integrated it into their global business. Now I own Sparehead - a business consultancy providing targeted business support to companies and entrepreneurs working in the speciality chemical and formulation industries. If you want to learn more about working with me, pick up the phone and give me a call (or email)
Following the completion of my project at Croda, I founded Sparehead - a business consultancy providing targeted business support to companies, entrepreneurs and brands working in the speciality chemical and formulation industries. Not all businesses are the same and I will work with you to understand your specific needs. First and foremost, that's what I do. I am here to cut through the jargon, give you honest feedback and make things happen for your business. I can work with you and your team to find, explore and exploit opportunities, extract further value from your current products and services or simply pick up those projects that are falling through the cracks.
I ran a technology start-up business for Croda, taking over from the outgoing Business Development Director to lead Croda’s newly commissioned £12mn Acrylic Polymer plant, reporting to the CTO. My main responsibilities were to integrate the technology platform with the global business and manage the profit and loss to deliver a return on investment. I chaired a steering committee that produced and implemented a commercial strategy across Croda’s global network, by building virtual teams to explore and exploit new applications and opportunities. The business launched 14 products from the award-winning acrylic polymers platform and was successfully integrated in 2017, with live products or projects in all of Croda’s focus markets and sales in 55 countries. It exceeded the budget in consecutive years, growing revenue by over 30% year on year to turnover c.£5mn and was on track to deliver a ROI in 2017. I was also involved in identifying commercial opportunities for open innovation with bio-derived feedstocks, cleaner processes and academic research, to help align the technology with Croda’s longer term sustainability and innovation goals.
After five years working for Surfachem in partnership with Lubrizol, a market leader in polymer and rheology modifying technologies, Croda approached me to help them develop their new polymer platform from their global headquarters in Yorkshire. Reporting to the Vice President of Sales and Technology, I was responsible for transferring knowledge across Croda’s global network and customer base, to identifying opportunities and connect resources and expertise in order to move the business forward. I represented the technology at conferences, customer events, exhibitions and managed relationships with top level global accounts. With global sales of c.£25mn in 70 countries, the platform launched over 25 new products in Croda’s focus markets including one that won Beiersdorf’s pearlfinder award for Innovation.
I was working for one of Surfachem’s clients, when they approached me with regard to a business development position. This coincided with Surfachem’s need to increase sales from higher margin products and the signing of a new distribution deal with a leading speciality chemical manufacturer. For me, this was an opportunity to use my experience in a more customer facing commercial role. My main responsibilities were managing and developing speciality chemical sales. Nurturing relationships with up to 13 principal suppliers by helping them to connect with customers in the personal, home and health care markets. I represented suppliers at customer events and exhibitions and managed relationships with strategic accounts, to promote and demonstrate their products in formulations that were both on trend and troubleshot problems for the customer. As a result, I built a strong sales pipeline that delivered a consistently high rate of commercialised projects, 171 in my final year alone. Between the period of 2008 to 2013 the revenue from speciality chemical sales almost doubled from £10mn to £19mn, taking the gross margin to over £4.5mn. In striving to develop my role I got involved with Surfachem's international team, supporting and travelling with Sales Managers throughout EMEA and finding niche markets for suppliers such as Evonik in Africa and the Nordic regions. I also led the implementation of go-to-market strategies for new suppliers Symrise and Aldivia and played an active role in securing new distribution agreements with Givaudan and The Innovation Company. I worked with the following supplier partners in various markets in the UKI: Lubrizol, Evonik, Givaudan, Stepan, Symrise, Aldivia, Gulbrandsen, Sudarshan, Salicylates and Chemicals, PQ Silicas, Schill & Seilacher, Novozymes and AAK.
When I was approached to join, Orean was a brand owner and contract manufacturer specialising in professional hair care. A small business under new ownership. This gave me valuable experience with entrepreneurship and the opportunity to wear many hats working directly with premium brands. My key responsibilities were managing the implementation of quality and regulatory compliance for the plant, handling 300+ product and 500+ raw materials. I oversaw the transfer of technology on to the plant, including scale up and the supervision of all first product batches. During my time at Orean I introduced over 100 new products from ten product lines, including new brands and the pioneering SPA line from ghd. Upon implementing change management projects to achieve ISO9001, ISO1400, Halal and COSHH compliance, I helped to increased competitiveness enabling the business win eight new customer contracts. I designed and implemented a database for raw material samples and documentation, that improved working efficiency and freed up valuable time that allowed Orean to develop and launch its own range of professional hair care products. After initiating and leading a project to implement flow cytometry in order to provide real time microbial batch analysis, manufacturing times were shortened by more than twenty-four hours across all products lines. This optimised our ability to respond to customer demand. In addition to this I also managed and trained a team of five new product development and quality control technicians.