Greg’s on a Roll After Scooping Emerging Talent Accolade

Greg Phillips, managing director of North East Bakery, has been honoured by his peers at the Entrepreneur’s Forum’s glittering annual awards ceremony.

The ceremony has become a popular feature to round off the annual conference – this year entitled Inspired6 – and recognises the cream of the region’s entrepreneurial talent.

Greg took the Emerging Talent award for overseeing the expansion of a firm that has been on a roll in recent years.

Greg, who started out working for his uncle’s sandwich business in Newcastle before forming North East Bakery in 2004, has grown the company considerably after investing in a 20,000sq ft facility in Newburn and retail outlets across the region.

His hunger for success had already seen him the title of Face of Entrepreneurship 2009 as a result of winning last year’s If we can, you can Challenge for the Evening Chronicle

Greg said: “I have to thank the Entrepreneurs’ Forum because it has been absolutely brilliant for me. When I first started coming to these events I was quite nervous, but the Forum has created some brilliant opportunities for me and I have met some fantastic people.”

His new company chairman, Stephen Silvester, added: “Greg is a real home-grown talent who defines entrepreneurism. If I was advising anyone thinking of starting their own business, I would tell them to look at what Greg has done.”

Continuing his expansion of his retail bakery brand, Nichols, Greg has just opened a new flagship store in Durham city centre.

The shop is the first of two new-look Nichols stores with the second shop set to open in Eldon Square, Newcastle, in June. Together they will create 16 new jobs.

The new stores bring the company’s total number of shops across the North East to 14 and the company, founded only five years ago, now has a total workforce of more than 140 .

Catching up with Greg about the re-branding process, he said, “When we moved in to our new bakery (the former Milligans site in Newburn) we wanted to re-engineer the business in terms of product, brand, people and processes. Our objective was to create an infrastructure within the business that could sustain significant growth and to create a brand that was relevant and significantly differentiated in a competitive marketplace.

“We upgraded the IT systems, analysed the cost base and looked at every single product within the range. We put people in the right places, harnessing the wealth of knowledge and skill we had in the business and provided a strategic direction that everyone could buy into.

“The next step was to make the changes in the business customer facing and this began with the development of the Nichols brand. We conducted extensive market research so we could understand our consumer and our position in the market.

“The ‘look and feel’ of the stores was vital to us, focusing relentlessly on creating and emphasising our point of difference – our hand crafted, real food.

“In a competitive industry brand image is of huge importance and we strongly believed the Nichols brand would allow us to realise the potential of the existing sites we had and also allow us to take the business into new markets and locations.”

Speaking frankly about the impact the fast expansion of the business has had upon his lifestyle, Greg says, “I work seven days a week but I have quite a lot of energy fortunately and I really love what I do which I think is very important. I won’t say it doesn’t feel like work because obviously at times my patience is tested.

“Fundamentally though, I get up in the morning and look forward to the challenges that lay ahead of me. There are more people in the business now so I’ve been trying to empower them and delegate roles a lot more, and the only way we can take the business forward is by having good people around us.

“Fortunately I never get that Sunday afternoon feeling where I think, damn I’ve got to go to work tomorrow. Money isn’t the driver at all, it’s seeing what we can do with the business, and driving to work in the morning and seeing a car park with 50 cars parked. We employ 140 people in the North East, and that gives me a lot of pride.”

Women into the Network launch North East Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for 2009.

As the North East Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Awards enter their tenth year, driven by the new independent Women Into the Network Ltd, they are set to host the biggest and best Awards yet.

If you are a woman who has set up or taken over an independently owned business, or you know a woman who has, WIN urge you to come along to one of this year’s sub-regional launch events to find out more.

Discover the new categories open for nomination; hear about the entry process; find out what the judges are looking for, be inspired by previous winners and the impact winning has had on them; and of course gain some valuable contacts.

Durham

Date: Thursday 25th June 2009 (12.15 – 2pm)
Venue: Radisson SAS Hotel, Durham

Speakers: Dinah Bennett, WIN Ltd
Donna Wilson, Logistics Teesside (Winner, Susan Dobson Award for Entrepreneurship 2008)
Lisa Forster, angelfysh Search Engine Marketing and angelfyshhosting (Winner, Best Newcomer 2008)


Tees Valley

Sponsored by Teesside University

Date: Friday 26th June 2008 (12.15 – 2pm)
Venue: Centre for Enterprise, Teesside University, Middlesbrough

Speakers: Catherine Kearney, University of Teesside (Judging Panel)
Lilian Mains & Jacqui McQueen, Zodiac Training Ltd (Winners of Women in Technology or Innovation 2008/ Runners Up, Susan Dobson Award for Entrepreneurship 2008)
Sue Archer, Archer’s Jersey Ice Cream (Runner Up, Rural Woman Entrepreneur 2008)


Northumberland

Sponsored by The Mailing House Group

Dates: Thursday 9th July 2009 (1.15 – 3pm). Places limited to 40.

Venue: The Mailing House, Cramlington

Speakers: Fiona Cruickshank, SCM Pharma (Judging Panel)
Ann Maddison, Simonburn Tea Rooms and Bed & Breakfast (Winner, Woman Rural Entrepreneur 2008)
Amanda Galbraith, Pebbles Gallery & Art Cafe (Runner Up, Best Cultural and Creative Business 2008) TBC


Newcastle TBC


For more information and to book your FREE place go to www.womenintothenetwork.co.uk - members should login and go to ‘Members Calendar’, click on ‘Launch of the North East Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Awards’ (choose your preferred regional event) and click ‘Book Online’ at the bottom of the page. Non-members go to Events Calendar on the home page. Alternatively you can contact Lisa Crombie by email - lisa@womenintothenetwork.co.uk.

Please note that these events replace the usual ‘Nomination Events’. Places are limited and booked on a first-come-first-served basis (a £10 cancellation fee will be charged for cancellations made within 48 hours of an event).

300 Inspired At Annual Conference

The boss of one of Britain’s biggest banks has called on North East entrepreneurs to play a key role in pulling the country through the recession.

Barclays Bank CEO John Varley also said the banking giant remains keen to lend to small business leaders despite the ongoing credit crisis.The chief executive insisted that the bank’s acceptance rate for credit applications to businesses continues to be high, in a video interviewed broadcast at the Entrepreneurs’ Forum’s annual business conference at the Gateshead Hilton.

After warning that the worst of the recession is still to come, he said: “Right at the heart of economic stability and regeneration is risk taking by entrepreneurs. There’s nothing more important than for young entrepreneurs to continue taking risks.

“[In terms of lending to small businesses], the success rate for applications is over 70%, and if you look at the broader community of businesses the success rate for credit is over 90%.”

Meanwhile Thursday’s event also played host to former Dragons’ Den investor Richard Farleigh who told of his experiences, rising from humble beginnings in Australia to running a hedge fund in Bermuda so successfully that he could retire in his 30s – before returning as a “business angel” investor.

"I mostly feel like a coach, a talent spotter now,” he said, adding that the BBC’s Dragons’ Den show had been a force for good for those wanting to launch businesses.“It’s been fantastic. It’s brought USPs, patents, gross margins and that sort of talk into people’s homes and gives people thinking of starting their own business a reality check,” he said.

Martin Lightbody, Scottish Entrepreneur of the Year and CEO of the Finsbury Food Group, told the 300-strong audience: “There are going to be opportunities now. There will be weak players who fall by the wayside, so aim to be the best and be passionate about what you’re doing.”

Explorer Pen Hadow told of his intrepid adventures, which included an historic solo trek from northern Canada to the North Pole in 2003 – and urged entrepreneurs to apply similar daring to their business operations.

He said: “We all have our playzones, where we feel comfortable and relaxed, but we also have new frontier zones which are more ambitious – and that’s where I was for the whole of the North Pole project.” “You need to run on adrenaline to keep yourself going forward and facing situations with substantial degrees of risk.”

Superkrush Films Magical Museum TV Ad

Newcastle film and commercial production company Superkrush has joined the likes of Oscar-winning directors Steven Soderbergh and Peter Jackson by using a cutting edge ‘Digital Cinema Camera’ to shoot a ‘magical’ TV ad for the new Great North Museum.

The former Hancock Museum, which closed its doors to the public in April 2006, has been transformed into a world-class visitor attraction as part of the £26 million Great North Museum project.

The TV commercial shot by Superkrush Film, will be aired across ITV Tyne Tees and Border for a six-month period from Monday 11th May and features a girl who is preparing the night before for the grand opening of the museum.

If we can, you can member Chris Taylor, producer at Superkrush, which was commissioned directly to do the advert, said: “We have produced the commercial with the theme of the 2006 Ben Stiller movie ‘Night at the Museum’, where all the museum exhibits have come to life.”

“The main character is a girl who is frantically trying to have the museum ready in time for the opening by putting the reptiles back in their cages and tidying up the mess made by the life size elephants. It is like a fantasy land where the museum has come magically to life.”

The advertisement also features many of the museum’s big attractions such as a life-size T-Rex dinosaur skeleton, an miniature interactive model of Hadrian's Wall, displays showing the wonder of the animal and plant kingdoms, mummies from Ancient Egypt and a planetarium.

The commercial was shot using a revolutionary RED ONE Digital cinematic camera, and Superkrush is one of only 20 companies in the UK that has invested £50,000 in the equipment.

Superkrush intends to share its RED camera with the launch of a new service called Steadi-Red. It will rent out the camera plus give training and workflow support to ad agencies that can use the equipment for feature films, commercials and music videos.

“The Red One camera is much more like a film camera, than a DV camera, and needs great support staff, that is why we have invested heavily in training staff and have bought an ‘A-team-style’ van that carries all our equipment and prepares us for any situation or condition. As one of 20 owners of this Red One camera, making us a real specialist in digital cinema in the UK.”

“Other owners include Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh, who used it to shoot the Che Guevara biopics, and Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings, who actually has four of them.

“The Great North Museum advertisement was the first time we were able to really use the RED camera to its full effect, as it allow us to use the latest CGI in the animation and gain reliable, quality, high speed recordings.” Chris said.

When the new museum opens on Saturday 23 May 2009, it will be a flagship visitor attraction incorporating collections from the Hancock Museum and Newcastle University’s Museum of Antiquities, the Shefton Museum and the Hatton Gallery.

Other TV commercials that Superkrush have recently filmed include Royal Quays Shopping Centre, Newcastle Building Society and the Centre for Life.

You can read more about Chris' journey with Superkrush by reading his If we can, you can story