Tanya Garland, Managing Director, Cool Blue

Dec 1 2009 by Jez Davison, Evening Gazette

Tanya Garland's a cool customer. As chief of one of Teesside's most successful PR and marketing agencies she kept her head when the business was swept up in the Northern Rock collapse. Jez Davison discovers how she turned it around in the second of our series of interviews with Tees Valley finalists in the recent North East Business Executive of the Year Awards.

But drive and determination are typical Garland traits. Her older sister, Chey, runs a business employing around 2,000 people at call centres in Hartlepool, Stockton, Middlesbrough and South Shields.

Their mother Jean ran a pub in London’s busy Soho for 25 years and their father, Stan, was a market trader who gave Tanya her first taste of commerce as a teenager working on his fruit and veg stall.

“He would let me choose a line and then work out how much profit I could make that day. And if I sold it all, he’d allow me to keep the money. We were expected to work hard for our pocket money.”

Born in Middlesbrough, Tanya grew up on Teesside before moving away to study English.

But she was keen to return to her roots and sharpened her creative talents at two North-east design agencies before spending seven years at Fiona Bell & Co PR in Middlesbrough.

There she managed accounts for chemical heavyweights DuPont and BP but in 1999 decided to branch out on her own to apply her skills in other sectors.

“I was doing a lot of crisis management and environmental reporting. I wanted a bit more creativity and variety.”

Within weeks of starting Cool Blue she won her first client - Middlesbrough retailer Barker & Stonehouse, which is still with her today. By 2001 she had six staff after winning further work on the back of referrals.

Gradually she landed bigger multi-national accounts, winning a three-way pitch against two London agencies to develop a Europe-wide social media-based training programme for consumer goods giant Unilever.

Now with more than 50 clients on her books, she has no desire to build a big agency, “only a very good one” that will remain firmly entrenched in her home town.

“There’s no point in having a massive turnover and a tiny profit. Biggest is not always best.”