A HEALTH expert is seeing her business expand from working with some of the North East's biggest firms to high-profile businesses around the world.

Rumana Zahn and her team of advisers has worked to help individuals live more healthily for 20 years and increasingly she is working with businesses to improve the fitness of their staff.

“I have been with people who run small businesses more and more. They often find they neglect their own health and don’t balance their lives with too much stress and not enough exercise or a healthy diet.

“And it is the same with larger businesses which don’t realise that if they don’t help staff look after their health then they will have a workforce which has less energy and is less able to work as well as they can.”

After working with firms such as Johnson Matthey in the North East, the boss of Newcastle-based Rumana Health is making contact with businesses in the Middle and Far East to win business.

“I wanted to grow the business and realise its potential. While there is a good market here I realise there are limitations at the moment as companies have less to spend.

“Businesses in the UAE and Asia seem quite receptive. It has been interesting to build contacts using Linked In and Skype to find new clients.”