Currently working as a business consultant for Liverpool Ventures turning investments into commercial enterprises for ‘Early Stage’ and ‘Start Up’ companies. This is very varied work from commercial and business management, marketing evaluations of the products, services and inventions, due diligence work, commercial and sales and marketing support. In roles as Non-Executive Director, Chairman or Consultant in the North West of England.

Started Redten from scratch to design and develop innovative touch screen products. In 2003 we won the Merseyside Innovation Award for Technology and a DTI Smart award. Employed 21 people and the turnover increased from nil to £2.5 M in year 3 with profit of £150K.

The company was sold to Watford Electronics Ltd in September 05. I remained MD for 9 months and generated £1.8 million in sales (with 2 large orders for £1.1M and £420K). In that time I designed and developed 4 new world class products. Integrated the company into the Watford system and installed and implemented new group accounts system.

•Product Development: Designed and developed all company kiosks, based on customer requirements and new technical developments. Resolved technical issues during the design and prototype stages. Source, negotiate and develop long-term relationships with suppliers. Liaise with customers and sales team to modify current products or develop new products to suit their applications.

•Finance skills: Developed budgets and forecasts. Negotiated with landlord and designed and installed the fit out of new premises. Negotiated with Banks and VC’s for funding. Setup and ran Invoice Financing.

•Production: Project managed production schedules, customer orders and support partners to ensure delivery and installation on time. Developed ‘Lean’ manufacturing techniques for continuous improvement in production.

•Leadership: Lead from the front, and responsible for staff recruitment, training and development.

•Marketing & Sales: Main company salesman running the sales team, setting prices and invoicing the customers. Planned all the marketing campaigns, web site and the literature.

•IT, Accounts, CAD: Responsible for all IT services in the company, including Email, Web site and web access, system, backups, production scheduling and applications. Installed and developed Accounts system and whole paperwork process.

•1979 Imported AMSECO an American panel based range of systems furniture, to compete with Herman Miller and Steel Case.

•1981 Developed a Computer Aided Design 2D office planning system (early stages of AutoCAD). Created a system for producing accurate plans of a customers office requirements by trained all the sales staff to measure office and produce an accurate design brief. This changed our customer base to large Blue-Chip companies, such as Marks & Spencer, Open University and HSBC. 1987 we developed 3D images and animation followed in 1990 and full rendered images in 1995

•Appointed a Director in 1985.

•1988 Designed Teamwork 1 with cable management range. It became our principle range for the next 10 years. 1990 Developed Teamwork 2 and Reception desking with Teamwork 3 following in 1993.

•1992 changed roles to Marketing Director and developed the chaotic 196-page company catalogue into the industry guide to office furniture, 21 editions over 9 years. Analysed and re-structured our customer database and reduced it down to 48K with considerable cost savings in paper and postal charges.

•1999 persuaded my fellow directors to sell the business to EFG Group of Sweden.

Employed to solve production problems, reorganise factory layouts and develop and improve systems. Worked my way out of this job within 12 months