Huge leap of faith pays off for skydiving Chris

May 6 2008 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

When Chris Peacock turned his back on sky-diving he threw himself into running the family business. Now managing director at Peacocks Medical Group, the adrenaline junkie tells Andrew Mernin he has his sights set firmly on expansion.

As a former skydiving champion Chris Peacock is used to throwing himself into the unknown. But perhaps the biggest leap of faith he has made in his life was to give up his dream job in the Florida sun to join his dad’s business in Newcastle.

Ten years ago, the North Easterner had transformed his adrenaline-fuelled hobby into a career and was working as a skydiving instructor in Florida.

By day he’d hurtle towards the ground from a plane thousands of feet in the air and by night he’d relax with a beer in the evening sun with his fellow skydiving-addicts.

Then one day a phone call from his dad on the other side of the pond upset the status quo and changed his life forever.

His father had been approached by a potential buyer for his business Peacocks Medical Group – a century-old supplier of specialist orthotics such as footwear, braces and callipers.

"My dad said he needed to talk to me seriously about the family business as he’d been offered the chance to sell it.

"He said he would teach me how the business worked and one day it would be handed down to me but I had to make a decision immediately because he had to decide whether to sell it.

"I’d worked there as a kid but to me it just wasn’t what I wanted to do, it wasn’t very cool, and it didn’t hold much interest to me.

"But when he phoned, something stirred in me and I knew as soon as I put the phone down I was coming home and I’d be leaving Florida within a week or two."

When Chris landed in a sleety Newcastle Airport dressed in sandals and shorts, his decision to leave the Sunshine State seemed like a huge mistake.

"I think I was in tears when I landed in Newcastle and was trying to climb back up the airplane’s steps."

However, there was more disappointment in his new role working alongside his father.

"I remember coming back thinking I was the saviour of the business, my dad’s phoned me up and pleaded for me to come home and I’m going to be sitting in an office driving the business forward.

"After a week I asked my dad what I would be doing and he handed me a broom – my first assignment was in the storeroom.

"I couldn’t believe it. I expected my own office but, in retrospect, as he rightly said, I had to understand the business and gain the respect of the workforce and couldn’t just be handed a position at the top."

Chris spent the following 10 years working through the company’s various divisions and it was only last June that he was appointed as managing director. The 33-year-old insists, despite common misconceptions about family businesses, he has had to battle his way to the top on merit and not his name.

"Being in a family business has a lot of pressure for people and there’s a stigma that it’s an easy ride, but that’s the absolute opposite from what I’ve experienced.

"I’m absolutely convinced that had I chosen another career I’d be in a higher position and be more wealthy than I am now – I don’t doubt that for a second."

Such was Mr Peacock senior’s desire to make Chris earn his place at the helm of the business, when the post for managing director eventually became vacant, no favouritism was shown to his son.

Chris says: "An external adviser was brought in to interview for the post of managing director of the group to push the issue of succession because there was no guarantee that I was going to be managing director and my father never promised it to me."

Today Chris sits at the top of the business while his father, Colin, is the company’s most senior consultant.

The firm continues to go from strength to strength and has completely transformed itself from its original set-up.

It initially opened in the 1850s making cutlery and scalpels, but changed to its current line in the 1920s as thousands of wounded soldiers returned injured from the First World War.

Despite having spent the last decade fighting for his right to lead the company forward, Chris has no regrets over his career, although he still looks back fondly on his skydiving days.

In fact, after leaving Florida he went on to become three times British champion of the daredevil pastime.

His love affair with the sport was born out of a chance encounter on a drunken night out as a student in Bradford.

A girl he met in a bar challenged him to go skydiving the very next day.

A whip-round among his mates for the cash to pay for the jump ensued and at six o’clock the next morning a hungover Chris was bundled into a van bound for an airfield in Lincolnshire.

"I did my first jump that day and loved it so much I did two more jumps that weekend.

"People always say skydivers have a death wish but I actually I see it as a life wish as you are experiencing things that you otherwise wouldn’t.

"The beautiful views and the freedom are unparalleled in any other sport I’ve tried."

Now, with more responsibility on his shoulders, skydiving takes a back seat to running the family business.

"Pursuing new opportunities for the business is a real fix for me and a replacement for the adrenaline rush I got from skydiving," he says.

With an eye on tough times ahead in the healthcare sector, Chris is currently trying to strengthen his business through diversification and acquisition.

According to the managing director, labour costs in his very niche form of manufacturing are high while the price the NHS is willing to pay for supplies and services is relatively low.

"The NHS has been screwing the industry down for over a decade now, prices haven’t increased in real terms anywhere near to the cost of inflation."

The company remains in good health, however, and the man at the helm believes he can double annual turnover to £20m within five to seven years.

"I’m looking at growing the business through mergers and acquisitions and we are currently growing at around 15 to 20% a year. My mid-term goal is to get to £20m. We were in very detailed talks about an acquisition earlier this year which would have got me at least half the way there and it’s a very achievable goal and one that will make us a very profitable and thriving business."

That acquisition ultimately collapsed but the business will continue to seek out new opportunities to diversify its portfolio.

"We are looking at businesses that will allow us to spread the risk by supplying to different NHS departments and sectors."

Over the last two years the company – which is the largest privately-owned operation in its sector – has been striving to take its specialist diabetic shoes to China.

The firm has an MOU with Shanghai’s Number Six hospital and is working alongside the Newcastle General Hospital’s diabetic centre to train Chinese doctors to take measurements for the bespoke shoes.

Peacocks is also waiting for the go-ahead to open a manufacturing plant in China to supply the specialist shoes – although the project is currently being held up by administrative issues over the training of the Chinese doctors.

While Chris’s’ mission to the Far East has not been easy, if the long-term project eventually comes off, both the Newcastle business and China’s growing diabetic population will reap the rewards.

"None of the board wanted to go to China as it was before the market had opened up. I thought that was ridiculous so I said I would go to see how far we could get.

"What I quickly discovered was that there wasn’t really a provision for the escalating diabetes problems in China. Huge investment was going into China for the treatment of diabetes but they hadn’t looked at our specialist area of shoes and insoles to prevent ulceration.

"The principle is to drastically reduce amputations in China which are growing massively among diabetic patients and the race is on to get the training there so we can make a difference as soon as possible.

"According to the World Health Organisation nearly half the amputations in China could be prevented by the provision of a multi disciplinary foot-care – it’d be a heck of a thing to reduce amputations by half in Shanghai and there’s a real desire to make this the first diabetic foot centre in China."

Questionnaire

What car do you drive?

Audi A4.

What’s your favourite restaurant?

The Seafood Restaurant, Padstow/Il Forno, Tynemouth.

Who or what makes you laugh?

My best friends/slapstick comedy.

What’s your favourite book?

Anatoli Boukreev – The Climb (epic Everest account).

What’s your favourite film?

Out of Africa.

What was the last album you bought?

The Hoosiers.

What’s your ideal job, other than your current one?

Skydiving or windsurfing instructor (somewhere warm!)

If you had a talking parrot, what’s the first thing you’d teach it to say?

Seize the day.

What’s your greatest fear?

Sharks when I am windsurfing on holiday. (Damn that Jaws film!)

What’s the best piece of business advice you have ever received?

Delegate when you can.

Worst business advice?

It’s not possible.

What’s your poison

One for the road.

What newspaper do you read, other than The Journal?

The Times/Men’s Health/ windsurf magazine.

How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?

£0 but free food at a Thai restaurant in Bradford.

How do you keep fit?

Running, volleyball, windsurfing, climbing, running back from the pub when I’m late!

What’s your most irritating habit?

Sorry?

What’s your biggest extravagance?

My sporting equipment.

Which historical or fictional character do you most identify with/ admire?

Edmund Hilary.

And which four famous people would you most like to dine with?

Ben Stiller, Cameron Diaz, Edmund Hilary, Desmond Tutu.

How would you like to be remembered?

As a great friend, husband and father.

PAGE TWO: A look back at the growth of Peacocks Medical Group.