Carl Ennis, Divisional Managing Director, Siemens Energy Services

May 24 2010 by John Hill, The Journal

Carl Ennis may have a passion for sports cars and motorbikes, but he may also soon be heading work on one of the region’s biggest green energy schemes. John Hill met the boss of Siemens in the North East.

THERE'S a major competition bubbling away right now, and for once it doesn’t involve a phone vote.

In a few months, manufacturing firm Siemens will reveal the location of its £80m wind turbine factory on the east coast. Both Tyneside and Humberside are hungrily clawing at a pinata that could contain up to 700 jobs directly and 1,500 more in the supply chain.

So does North East Siemens executive Carl Ennis have any inside knowledge as to where this prize is headed?

“We’ve had the guys up and made them make a proper assessment of the opportunities here”, he says.

“I can be an annoying pain in the posterior when I put my mind to it. I think we’ve given it a good old crack and they’ll make a decision that best fits the business.

“It would be a shame if it didn’t come up here but I don’t think it would be the end of the world, as there’s still the investment in a training centre here.”

Ennis is managing director of Siemens Energy Service Fossil, which provides technology for low-carbon fossil power generation and raises the efficiency of coal and gas power stations. The supply side of the business is based at the former CA Parsons factory in Shields Road.

Ennis is also a company ambassador for the North East and was appointed chairman of the region’s Business in the Community leadership team. But he’d been a business leader in the North East for a few years before he opted to become a resident. When the company offered him his first North East role, at Siemens Transmission and Distribution in Hebburn six years ago, he initially chose to commute to the job from his home in the North West.

He says: “I know every little bump on the A1. I started off thinking I could do it from Manchester, but after six months I ended up coming up four or five days a week.

“To be fair, I only moved my family up here about a couple of years ago. It took a little while to convince them, but now my wife wishes we’d done it earlier.

“The thing I noticed about the area is that everybody was very welcoming. I thought at first it was because they had to be nice to me because I was the MD.

“It’s like living in a big town rather than a large city. I know a lot of the business leaders in the North East whereas in the North West it was more difficult to do that. My wife found exactly the same. You can fit into the community very easily.”

The company employs 800 at the Newcastle site, including 120 full-time engineers. Siemens has a UK workforce of 17,000 in the energy, industry and IT sectors, as well as a global network spanning over 190 countries. But Ennis believes that, for North Easterners, there’s often no place like home.

He said: “We have a very stable workforce. Staff turnover is at a much lower percentage than the industrial average.

“I’d like to think it’s because we’re such a good employer and I’m a nice man but it’s mostly because people are very comfortable in this environment.

“One of the benefits of working in a very large organisation is the experience of working in other environments, but I find the number of people from the North East who are prepared to leave is very small.

“People in Manchester tended to be much happier to relocate. In the North East, they seem to get comfortable in the closely-knit community.”

Movement has been a feature of Ennis’s career so far, whether it’s upwards or onwards. Born in Rochdale, Ennis found himself drawn to life as a car mechanic, but instead joined switchgear manufacturers Whipp and Bourne as an apprentice aged 16.

He said: “I’m a real petrolhead. I was always working on my father’s cars, which were always breaking down despite my best efforts.

“People suggested I take up an apprenticeship instead and it was frightening. Apprenticeships were quite brutal then.

“You were given unpleasant tasks to do on a regular basis. There were hours and hours of tedium, grinding the heads off bolts for a day.

“I’m not sure it taught me anything other than to be patient, but it does give you life experience.

“I think you get to see lots of things on the shop floor that someone from university wouldn’t get to see.

“As a manager, you also know what the cons are and it gives you a far better insight.”