From breakfast cereals to the world of publishing was my career path (yes no obvious link) where I was sales manager for a book and record club working for a large German publishing house. Redundancy, when the company pulled out of the UK resulted in entering the recruitment industry where I worked first, for a large national agency and then for an independently owned recruitment business that had a franchise division. This was my first experience of franchising (a word that I’d heard off but hadn’t a clue what it meant!)

I progressed from providing field support to Training Manager and eventually Franchise Director. It was in this role that I became active within the British Franchise Association (bfa) serving as a Regional Chair, a Board Member and The Chairman of the Franchise Group for Scotland. I have also achieved QFP (Qualified Franchise Professional) status via the British Franchise Association which attests to my knowledge and experience.

Having arrived at my current role within The Franchising Centre I feel that I have come ‘home’. My aim is to help my clients achieve their goals by being honest with them and delivering a good service (just like all those years ago at Weetabix).

I do not profess to know as much about their businesses as they do, that is not my role. I will however firstly tell them whether I believe that their business is capable of developing a franchise offer and if so, I will make sure that we give ourselves the best chance of attracting franchisees. My 28 plus years in franchising has helped me gain the knowledge to guide clients through what can be a daunting task.

Outside of work I live in Gloucestershire with my wife Lesley who is a retired School Head and we have two (supposedly) non dependent sons. My outside interests include the theatre and musicals (I could fabricate a whole list here but that would be dishonest!). Truth is I enjoy what I do and gain pleasure from seeing my clients succeed, hobbies can wait!”