Tyneside and Northumberland Business Executive of the Year
Winner: Andrew Esson, managing director, ContiTech Beattie Ltd, Ashington
UNDER new ownership and Andrew’s leadership, a business once endangered is now instead a market- leading provider to the oil and gas sector, specialising in hoses and hose assemblies, couplings and other systems.
Andrew was appointed in 2004 after a career of 18 years with the Weir engineering group in Glasgow. He has since guided ContiTech Beattie to a point of more than doubling its exports to £23m in three years. He expects to see its turnover more than double from £28m to about £60m by 2016 with the help of a booming market and a leaner business model.
Formed in 1960 as Beattie Hydraulics Ltd and focusing on the North East’s coal-mining sector, the firm now manufactures carbon steel hydraulic hose fittings and employs 97 people, including 82 in Ashington, 14 in Aberdeen and one in Singapore.
The firm operates as part of Continental AG, the world’s largest manufacturer of non-tyre rubber-based products. The company climbed 41 places to 180 in this year’s North East Top 200 and has numerous awards recognising its visionary management and shrewd investments in products, process and staff.
It has more than doubled its “delivery on time targets” to 85% in a year. Andrew is married with two young children and lives in Whitley Bay.
Runner's-up:
Michael Dickson, managing director, M.I. Dickson Ltd, South Shields
MICHAEL’S business, which he was pitched into at the age of 14, is already distinguished as this year’s National Family Business of the Year in the £5m to £25m sales range.
His family’s history in meat purveying goes back to 1830. The company had a great reputation for its pies, sausages and saveloys in the region and it is one that the Dickson family, with Michael at its head, has grown to be a modern business with nationwide sales.
When Michael’s father died suddenly in 1966, he had to combine his schooling with helping his mother and sister to continue the South Shields business. Despite further family misfortunes and some difficult trading times, he has grown the business to run 20 shops and employ more than 200 staff. It is no longer just a traditional butcher’s shop chain but sells a wider range of food. It has also forged deals with supermarkets which is seeing the products being sold around the country and is planning a £1m expansion of its factory to meet demand. His sons and daughters also work in the business and the firm recently won the title of Best UK Family Business, Northern England and the Midlands Region, in the Coutts Prize for Family Business 2009/10 awards.
Peter Slee, managing director, Spark Response, Gateshead
THROUGH his recognition of opportunity in telecoms technology, Peter has shaped Spark Response into one of the nation’s six major customer contact and order-fulfilment services. The firm recently announced a crop of contracts and ongoing partnerships worth more than £30m over the next four years.
It serves both shoppers and major firms. Peter joined the business in 2003 as a director, bringing experience from a variety of careers – including banking, in which after some New York experience he set up TSB’s first 24/7 telebanking. He was also a regional operations director for Comcast and deputy managing director of Hartlepool-based Garlands Call Centres.
He became managing director of Spark Response after three years with the business, and has since then overhauled its operations, restructuring sales and marketing, reconfiguring space and investing heavily in technology. Peter is Sunderland born and bred and has a very strong charity ethic.