Young Business Person of the Year
Sponsored by Newcastle University Business School
Sara Davies, founder and sales director, of Crafters Companion, Coundon, County Durham
AFTER setting up Crafters Companion three and a half years ago, Sara Davies, 25, finds herself a television personality with a thriving business on both sides of the Atlantic.
Her company sells its materials and advice for craft enthusiasts on screen, online and through retail outlets. It runs a popular online club for them too. Her on-screen appearances both in the UK and the US are on shopping channels so she makes profits even as she appears.
Her talent for innovation and her personality drive the business, which she started after spotting a niche in the market during a work placement.
She set up the business while simultaneously studying management, information technology and language at York University. Despite the strain of her double life, she was acclaimed top student on the course and emerged with a first class honours degree.
In what has become a family business, she now employs around 20 people. Her father is the other major stakeholder, her husband the managing director and her father-in- law an employee. The company turns over some £2m, and she attributes the success to regular market research.
RUNNERS-UP
Tom Hick, director and head brewer, Allendale Brewery, Allendale, Northumberland
Tom Hick, 29, has revived brewing in Allendale, and done much also to bring the only pub at Catton village back into existence. His brewery, started in 2006, supplies more than 200 pubs, restaurants and shops across the region. His parents bought the pub, which had closed nine years before and restored an important social centre to a parish that once had 17 licensed premises.
Tom Hick, for his enterprise and success was recently named Young Rural Entrepreneur of the Year by insurance broker Lycetts and The Field, against 49 other contenders nationwide.
So he could launch his business he borrowed from his father who, in turn, mortgaged the family home. But since then Tom has paid back most of the loan. The brewery and pub together now employ 20 people.
The son of a VSO volunteer, Tom Hick was born in Papua New Guinea and studied zoology at Bangor University in Wales. Realising he might not find suitable work in Northumberland, where he wanted to settle, he gained a micro-brewing MSc from Sunderland University then went on from there.
Martin Rosinski, chief technical officer, Palringo, Cramlington, Northumberland
Talented engineer Martin Rosinski created Palringo to make and sell his own adaptor for mobile phones and now he hopes to increase the three- year-old firm’s turnover to £100m over the next three years.
The business is based around the electrical software expert’s invention – an advanced instant messaging system that will connect anyone anywhere on practically any electronic device. A push of a button, for instance, can turn mobile phones into walkie-talkies.
His is the first device of its kind which works with most makes of apparatus. Rival products are designed to work only with equipment made by the same company. And Martin says the biggest challenge was harmonising the devices.
Palringo, which is backed by local venture capital, is currently working with Apple to produce a pay-for premium version.
Martin is from a Polish family of engineers now settled in Ponteland in Northumberland. He studied electrical and electronic engineering at Newcastle University, and by 2006 he had already won five electronic design competitions.
He also works with his father in a Cramlington business developing an early warning system that will prevent costly breakdowns in wind turbines – a system which again calls for Martin Rosinski’s knowledge and growing technological expertise.
:: Click here to see an image gallery from the North East Business Executive of the Year awards
Share
