Lancashire Business Stories

Chris Houghton on Building Eventura: A One-Stop Global IT & ERP Partner Chris Houghton discusses Eventura as a one-stop IT and business systems partner supporting warehousing, distribution, and manufacturing firms with infrastructure, hardware, and ERP implementations, including multinational rollouts across nine countries, with most customers UK-based and growth from a Malta office. He recoun...

Lisa Kennery on Growing Pierce: People, Acquisitions, Technology and Advisory Lisa Kennery, partner at Pierce with offices in Blackburn, Bolton and Tottington (Bury), discusses her career path from payroll and HR into an operational, people and integration role, joining Pierce 13 years ago as payroll manager and becoming a director/partner nearly seven years ago as the firm grew from about 55 to 1...

Chris Burn on Building CSRB: From Retail and Sales to GDPR, Privacy, and Comedy Writing Chris Burn discusses his career path from early jobs and retail management at Tesco and WHSmith while studying marketing at UWE Bristol, to a sports marketing research placement, phone sales, and an 18-month market research role for MGM in Las Vegas. He later spent 10–13 years in field sales, worked at Wybone (...

Helen Dimmick on Building Ainsworth Jewellers into a Destination Store Through Expertise, Community and Charity Helen Dimmick, a jewellery specialist, gemologist, diamond grader and jewellery historian, shares her career path from volunteering and an office junior role at Phillips Auctioneers (now Bonhams) through Bentley & Skinner and Tiffany & Co. to owning four stores via a management b...

Dave Faulkner Cross on Building PW Direct: From Stock Control to Online Signage and Real-World Growth. Dave Faulkner Cross shares his career journey from struggling with exams but thriving in practical YTS training at Iceland, progressing to management roles at Tesco before redundancy funded nearly a year backpacking in Australia. Back in the UK he worked across supermarkets, then joined his uncle...

Krishan Mistry on Building AVM Solutions: From Retail AV to Scalable Workspace Tech and Software Krishan Mistry discusses his entrepreneurial background rooted in his immigrant family’s businesses in Bolton, studying engineering/software at university, DJing and producing 35–40 published tracks for adverts, then returning home to work in the family nightclub/function venue before starting AVM Solu...

Rachel Gill shares her career journey from early part-time work to financial services at Newcastle Building Society, studying marketing, training as a mortgage adviser, and working in estate agents, The Woolwich, and broker firms before launching her own brokerage (Aspect Mortgages) 22 years ago after completing a business plan course. She describes the challenges of being solo for three years, hi...

The Absolute Journey: Business Insights with Chris Hodgen Chris recounts founding Absolute in Bolton after working in marketing at Reuters in London, launching on 5 October 1999 with interactive CD-ROM “business cards” before the internet and using a European license to win major clients (e.g., Fujifilm, Honda, Mattel, and 2.3 million “PokeRoms”). He describes early portfolio-driven growth, work i...

From Bid Writer to Managing Director: Tom Sander-Daniel onGrowing Thornton & Lowe and Winning Public Sector Work  Tom discusses his career journey from studyinggeography to joining Thornton & Lowe as a bid writer eight years ago and becoming managing director last year, supported by leadership training (including ILM) and experience gained as the company grew from around 10–15people to abo...

Lisa Brady on 18 Years of Perfect Recruitment: HospitalityRoots, Diversifying After COVID, and Building Relationships   Lisa Brady discusses her 18-year-old recruitmentconsultancy, Perfect Recruitment, based in Chorley and operating mainly acrossthe Northwest, providing temporary and permanent recruitment. Originallyfocused on hospitality, the business diversified after COVID into constructionand,...

Carolina De Almeida Kennedy discusses her path from working in a students’ union and a mental health charity to business ownership, including an earlier side business selling brownies. She began volunteering at puppy classes, was mentored into dog training, worked in the field for several years alongside a job, reduced to part-time in 2024, and launched her own full-time business, Chewing with Riv...

Preparing Your Business for Exit: Shareholder Agreements, Value Drivers and Due Diligence with Nick Whittle. In this Lancashire Business Stories Business Experts episode, Brabners partner Nick Whittle discusses preparing businesses for succession and exit well in advance (often 3–5 years), focusing on building asset value and reducing risk. He explains why bespoke shareholder agreements act like a...

From Rugby Injury to AI Readiness: James Briers on Building Intelligent Delivery Solutions James Briers shares how a hamstring injury ended his semi-professional rugby league path and led him from a Ford engineering apprenticeship into IT automation and quality assurance, including work at Microsoft in Reading, before contracting and then co-founding Intelligent Delivery Solutions (IDS) in March 2...

Matt Tomkin on Entrepreneurship Lessons and Building Tao Digital Marketing Matt Tomkin discusses his path to business ownership, from streamlining operations at TV Video Direct to telecoms roles and founding Comms Consult, including major projects like We Buy Any Car’s drive-through valuation and bonded 3G connectivity. He later launched sportswear brand VO2 Sportswear, which grew rapidly but was...

Jim Cheetham Potts discusses his journey from a nine-year local authority drainage engineering apprenticeship in Stockport to private contracting for water companies, moving into bid marketing and tendering as quality-based procurement grew. After seeing inconsistent bid-writing quality and small subcontractors treated poorly by large contractors, he identified a gap and, following a company reorg...

Our guest this week is Philippa King Smith. Philippa shares how a love of physics and a careers day led her into mechanical engineering, graduating in 2001 and gaining early business experience at Rochdale firm BCH Coates before moving into pharmaceutical and operating-theatre air technology and later technical sales. Family life prompted her to seek work that kept her closer to home, leading to a...

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