Category: Speakers

Alban Denton, Managing Director of Loch Duart Ltd, was the speaker at the Club’s AGM evening on April 5 2017 – the best attended in many years.

Loch Duart Ltd is one of the world’s leading producers of premium whole fresh Scottish salmon. Alban is also Non-Executive Director of Suttons Group, the international transport and logistics group.

A graduate in Agricultural and Food Marketing and an MBA, he has delivered profit growth and restructuring as well as organisational and cultural change in a variety of food manufacturing and agricultural businesses over more than 26 years – from Kettle Produce and Grampian Country Food Group to Warburtons and Loch Duart Ltd.

Alban also has retail experience in both store operations and buying with Marks and Spencer having started his career managing the brand’s flagship Food Hall at the Marble Arch store.

He explained the importance of sustainability in fish production before going through Loch Duart Ltd’s background and its transformation from 30 staff producing 1,800 tonnes of fish in 1999 to 115 staff who’ve delivered its transformation to 5,000 tonnes in 2016.

Rave reviews

He then talked the rapt audience through Loch Duart’s USPs – including low stocking density, rotation scheme, natural cleaning, feeding priorities and top Omega 3 concentration – before explaining how they tackle sea lice and the key link between welfare and taste.

The result is a list of rave product reviews from top chefs (Gordon Ramsay, Raymond Blanc and Rick Stein) and food critics as well as being sourced for Royal events.

One of Alban’s key themes was how the success has been built through getting the local community energised by the company’s mission and helping it share in its success, collectively and individually – one staff member received rapid promotion after he identified her ability to play a key role at a higher level.

He also shared a very candid appraisal of what makes Loch Duart different, how he helped steer it through an existential crisis as well as its progress in the last 12 months and priorities going forward.

Finally, Alban answered questions on a variety of topics, including how it gets its salmon to chefs around the world ready for them to cook 48 hours earlier than its competitors.

For more information about Loch Duart Ltd, go to www.lochduart.com/

Bonnie Hacking is Enterprise Adviser in the Careers Centre at the University of St Andrews and teaches in the School of Management. She was the speaker at the January 2017 breakfast meeting of the Club.

Bonnie is passionate about people and provides skills training, coaching and advice to entrepreneurs. She’s worked with entrepreneurs who’ve built children’s homes in India, sold bicycles online, provided temporary summer storage for students, manufactured food items and a whole variety of web-based ventures.

Bonnie is also a Director with Enterprise Educators UK and University Adviser with Enactus UK.

Prior to joining the university, Bonnie was Management Development Officer for Oxfordshire County Council and People Programmes Manager for the Unipart Group of Companies.

In an interactive workshop involving the audience, Bonnie led Club members and their guests through the importance of leadership, particularly in the uncertain times we face and for SMEs. You can download Bonnie’s Powerpoint presentation here.

First, Bonnie asked the participants to consider people they thought have demonstrated exceptional leadership and identify the behaviours, characteristics, skills and traits they have in common before going on to talk about why leadership matters.

Research findings

Bonnie explained that BIS Research Paper 211 “Leadership and Management Skills in SMEs: Measuring Associations with Management Practices and Performance” published in March 2015 looked at the performance effects of a set of leadership and management dimensions in 2,948 SMEs in England with between five and 250 employees.

The dimensions considered were:

• Leadership skills – motivating and influencing others and delegating work
• Entrepreneurship skills – identifying customer needs, technical or market opportunities, and pursuing opportunities
• Technical Skills – expertise in a technical or functional area, developing technically superior solutions
• Organisational Skills – organising resources, co-ordinating tasks
• Strategy formalisation – the extent to which there were formal processes in place for planning and setting strategy
• Strategy responsiveness – the extent to which strategic planning was adaptive in response to new information from a wide variety of sources including employees
• Strategy centralisation – the extent to which strategic planning was conducted by a small group or an individual. Human Resource Management best practices – selective staffing, investments in training, variable compensation, employee ownership, performance management, information sharing and employee participation in decision-making

The research found the associations between skill sets, management practices and performance effects were:

• The skill sets most consistently and strongly associated with good management practice and SME performance are entrepreneurship skills and leadership skills.
• Across all firm types and contexts, the entrepreneurship skills of top managers are positively and significantly associated with turnover and productivity.
• Leadership and entrepreneurship skills are positively related to strategy formalisation and responsiveness – key drivers of performance and growth.
• Strategy formalisation is positively associated with turnover while strategy responsiveness is positively associated with firm growth.
• Best practice strategic management is also related to the implementation of best practices in human resource management (HRM) – which are in turn, positively and significantly associated with turnover and productivity.
• Skills differences are more important than structural (e.g. industry sector) and contextual factors (e.g. ownership, age and size) for explaining the ‘long tail’ in implementation of best practices.

Which businesses can gain most benefit from improved leadership?

Bonnie then explained that the research found:

• The overall impact of leadership and management skills on firm performance tend to be particularly strong for firms with between five and 19 employees.
• The impact of HRM practices on performance is strongest among businesses with between 50 and 99 employees.

Bonnie went on to explain the fundamental bases of different leadership theories (Slide 9) and how vision, inspiration and momentum make up the essence of leadership (Slide 10) before discussing the aspects of leadership (Slide 11), how an effective leader uses their skills, qualities and behaviours in the context of the organisation and their staff (Slides 12 and 13) to get results.

Leader or Manager?

Next Bonnie handed out three cards to each attendee with leadership and managerial tasks on them and challenged them to see if they could swap them with others in order to end up with three describing effective leadership. She then revealed the ones which are required for leaders and those needed by managers (Slide 15). The difference between the two roles was summed up with a quote from James Colvard’s Managers vs. Leaders: “A manager takes care of you where you are; a leader takes you to a new place.”

Bonnie then challenged the participants to consider questions about their own leadership and management practice (Slides 17 to 19) before sharing recommended free online resources to further their learning and development (Slides 20 & 21).

Finally, in answering questions, Bonnie said research has shown personal leadership qualities aren’t fixed and can be developed. Also the leadership style used to manage each individual subordinate should vary based on their needs while keeping in mind the need to manage their performance.

For more information about University of St Andrews, go to www.st-andrews.ac.uk

Professor Verity Brown, Vice-Principal (Enterprise & Engagement) at the University of St Andrews was the speaker at the November 2016 evening meeting of the Club.

Verity is a scientist, first gaining a BSc in Psychology before going on to earn a PhD in Neuroscience from Cambridge University. She added an MBA while on secondment to the pharmaceutical industry for four years.

Professor  Brown joined the University of St Andrews in 1993 as a junior lecturer and has risen through the ranks, holding prestigious international research fellowships and various management positions within the University. Two years ago she became one of the Vice-Principals, with responsibility for Enterprise and Engagement.

In her talk, “How does a Modern Ancient work?” she described how the University of St Andrews is organised, managed and run.

Among the enlightening facts she revealed were:

• The University had 8,420 students as of the 2015-16 Semester 1, of which 6,763 were undergraduates. 43% come from outside the UK.
• It has very happy students – 97% rated themselves happy in 2015 and the University was ranked top in Scotland for student experience in the 2016 Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey and named University of the Year for Teaching Quality in the 2017 Good University Guide.
• The University came top in Scotland and 14th in the UK for the quality of its research publications in the UK Research Excellence Framework in 2014.
• The Guardbridge biomass plant is a finalist in the 2016 Scottish Green Awards.
• Only 38% of the University’s income comes from tuition fees and education contracts. Other major sources include funding council grants (21%), research grants and contracts (20%) and other operating income (20%), which includes things such as student halls of residence for students and conferences as well as university shops.
• In 2015-16, 55% of the University’s non-pay expenditure of £63.5m was with SMEs, of which around £6.35m was spent locally.

Professor Brown went to outline the many ways in which the business community can work with the University. These include:

• Bidding for supplier contracts via the Public Contracts Scotland portal or the In-Tend e-tendering system.
• Advertising employment or internship opportunities via the Careers Centre, or using it to connect with students to raise awareness of your business or conduct market research.
• Ordering work from its Print & Design Unit.

• Commissioning organisational process and change advice from St Andrews Lean Consulting. See the September 2016 breakfast talk by its Director, Mark Robinson, for more details – https://businessclub.standrews.co.uk/2016/09/27/mark-robinson/
• Holding or attending conferences at the University.
• Receiving specialist advice from the Playfair Consultancy Group – where top students get practical experience in subjects such as marketing by working on 10-week projects for SMEs and non-profits on a pro bono basis.
• Contacting the Business Innovation Manager at the University’s Knowledge Transfer Centre for help contacting University researchers about solving business challenges as well as funding via a voucher scheme.

Verity also described fun ways in which people in the town can interact with the university, including its annual festivals, many of which began as University initiatives, membership of its Sports Centre, and taking short courses through the Open Association.

While answering questions, Verity mentioned the vision for the Guardbridge Energy Centre site including the Sustainable Power and Research Campus – which will allow around 300 staff to be based outside the town centre alongside SMEs with whom they may work on projects.

For more information about University of St Andrews, go to www.st-andrews.ac.uk

Allan Bowie, President of NFU Scotland, was the speaker at the Club’s October Breakfast meeting.

He farms in North-East Fife and Clackmannanshire with his wife Christine and son Callum, majoring on growing cereals. The area farmed extends to about 850 acres on contract farming agreements.

Allan spoke to Club members and guests on the impact of Brexit on the rural economy and other issues affecting local farmers.

The points he made included:

• He is “pretty upbeat” about Brexit and believes we can do better outside the EU if we address non-EU-related key issues such as food security and explaining to British consumers that UK farmers can supply more than the 61% of food currently being sold in the UK but consumers need to ask for more homegrown food from the supermarkets.
• He fully expects existing EU regulations to be retained by the UK until at least 2020.
• We need to address where agriculture will get the willing workforce required for field work and processing if controls on migrant workers, including those who’ve been settled here for many years, get stricter – because British people don’t want to do it, even though it pays more than the National Minimum Wage. If we don’t, the result could be more food being imported unnecessarily.
• The requirement for non-UK workers extends beyond fields, a large percentage of the workers in the centralised retail distribution network are foreign nationals.
• We need to address the issues of trade tariffs and quotas, but this should be seen as an opportunity as well as a threat – if whisky exporters, for example, can reduce the 180% tariff for whisky imports to India by even 30% they could increase sales significantly.
• There are opportunities opening up for our farmers from Brexit – for example if feedstock for animals currently bought in from an EU country becomes more expensive, it opens up a potential market for British farmers to supply it instead.
• We need to invest in promoting British food more, putting the red tractor symbol and Saltire on packs has an effect but more needs to be done especially if a non-UK alternative is priced cheaper. Something like an app to allow customers to see which dairy products are the most ‘farmer-friendly’ would help farmers benefit more from initiatives to allow all consumers to make informed choices.
• Consumers need to be better informed so they can understand the importance of quality food with a known provenance being grown in UK and demand this from supermarkets – not just cheap food, as the horsemeat in burgers crisis had shown. If something like that is being sold very cheaply we need to ask why.
• The NHS could benefit greatly from more healthy food being eaten that has been grown here in the UK. There is a huge potential market out there with benefits to all.
• Food waste created by perfectionist specifications on size and appearance of produce needs to be reduced, alongside more education on how people cook food so the health benefits can be fully enjoyed.
• Farming needs to do more at explaining what it’s doing on issues such as animal welfare and acting as a steward of the countryside.

For more information about NFU Scotland, go to www.nfus.org.uk

Mark Robinson, Director of Lean at the University of St Andrews and Managing Director of St Andrews Lean Consulting Ltd, was the first breakfast speaker of the Autumn/Winter 2016 term at its September 21 meeting.

Mark has delivered Lean facilitator training, facilitated Lean Rapid Improvement Events and led the establishment of Lean Teams in institutions including The Scottish Parliament and in a number of universities in the UK, Ghana and Malaysia to Canada and Australia.

A New Zealander, he explained to members and guests how his career prior to arriving in Scotland in late 2003 – in a number of management roles in the New Zealand public sector – provided many examples of processes which were far from effective or Lean and drove his desire to fix them and others.

For example, while working in education he encountered a form in a filing cabinet which had been transported without question from the original building to the new one a number of years before. It was from the 1940s and detailed the correct procedure for fitting headlight shrouds to a car during wartime. Or the time delay from filing a trademark application to receiving acknowledgement of its receipt – two years.

So, when asked in 2007 to join the University of St Andrews Lean change initiative, he jumped at the chance.

Mark explained the basic principles of the Lean approach to continuously improving organisational processes set out from Slide 14 in his presentation, which you can view here – https://prezi.com/097x0q2eadtn/st-andrews-business-club-21-september-2016/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

In summary, Lean is about having “the right people continuously searching for the simplest and smoothest process in order to meet customer needs perfectly”. In order to achieve this, he and his colleagues have frontline staff map their existing processes in a blame-free environment of mutual trust and then generate ideas for how to move to a perfect set of processes which add value, are necessary and are free of the 8 Wastes (Slide 20) – Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over-production, Over-processing, Defects and Skills.

The 2 Fundamentals (Slide 18) – Continuous Improvement and Respect for People – and the Five Principles (Slide 19) underpin the approach and are used alongside a variety of tools and techniques, some of which are shown in Mark’s presentation. The Lean Project Process Overview is shown at Slide 29, with an example of a finished Lean process flowchart at Slide 31.

Potential obstacles include The Wall of Excuses (Slide 34). They are overcome through structured questioning from the Kipling Checklist (Slide 22).

For more information about Lean, continuous improvement and St Andrews Lean Consulting Ltd, go to its new website at www.standrewslean.com

Rhonda McCrimmon, BID Manager, BID St Andrews was the speaker at the November 2016 breakfast meeting of the Club

Rhonda has a strong background in financial and event management – having worked as an accountant with Fife companies Carters Accountants, Craig & Rose and SRUC Elmwood before spending four years as a financial accountant at the University of St Andrews, including work on capital projects.

Rhonda told Club members and their guests about the many things BID St Andrews has accomplished since the Board was elected by levy-payers in November 2015.

She first explained that the aim of BID St Andrews is to harness the power of the global brand of St Andrews for the benefit of local businesses and the community. Through the BID a series of projects and services are creating a more vibrant business environment focused on delivering an enhanced customer experience and reputation for the town.

The BID is managed by a dedicated Board of 10 volunteer representatives from levy-paying businesses and two local councillors plus the BID Manager, Rhonda.

The compulsory business rate levy is paid by qualifying businesses whose premises are inside the BID area and is collected on BID’s behalf by Fife Council. By the end of October 2016 £129,000 of levy income had been collected – 87.6% of the amount due. The balance is mainly accounted for by businesses paying it via payment plans.

BID’s grant income of £35,000 to date is on-track with the business plan target. It’s also received ‘in kind’ support from several businesses including Thorntons Solicitors and The Old Course Hotel (£1,930 of free meeting space) and University of St Andrews (£20,000 of staff time, accommodation, office, meeting and function space).

Photography Festival

Reviewing the highlights of what BID St Andrews has done with those resources, Rhonda first went over the key facts of BID’s first major event – the 1^st St Andrews Photography Festival, which was held from August 1 to September 11:

• 18 Exhibitions (13 hosted by local businesses) were attended by approximately 2,500 people.
• 40 events (talks, workshops, demonstrations, artists evenings, etc.) drew a total of 874 people.
• PR achieved 70 media spots on radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, social media and the Web locally, nationally and internationally over three months and reached at least four million people. The festival gained a 3-star rating from The Scotsman.
• Overall cost £35,000 – £10,000 grant funding from Fife Council Area Budget and Strategic Events, £10,000 from BID as per Business Plan, £15,000 University of St Andrews (via ‘In Kind’ Support).

The next photography festival will take place over four weeks in September 2017.

Land Train

During July 2016 BID also for the Land Train to return for a trial summer week after a well-received run during the 2015 Open weekend. The route linked the sights of St Andrews and showcased the town.

The train proved popular with both tourists and locals. As a result it will return at Christmas and BID is in talks about an extended run in Summer 2017.

Clean and Green

One of the main themes of the BID Business Plan, as a result of feedback from levy-payers about their priorities, are the Clean and Green projects. Rhonda summarised progress on each of these:

• St Andrews in Bloom: BID planted the seeds of a five-year programme of support for St Andrews in Bloom by working with St Andrews Links Trust to provide 10 planters for St Andrews in Bloom to put up in Market St. As result of this and other initiatives in horticulture, sustainability and community engagement, BID St Andrews won a Gold Medal in the Beautiful Scotland Awards, which will raise the profile of St Andrews as a visitor destination. BID has plans to widen the scope of the Bloom collaboration in 2017.
• Seagulls: BID commissioned a scientific survey of the problems related to seagulls from University of St Andrews. Its report is expected in late-November 2016.
• Clean and Green Team: Funded by Fife Council & BID, a ‘Clean and Green Team’ has been created with delivery partner St Andrews Environmental Network (StAndEn) to recruit Employability volunteers to tackle issues such as litter and the proper disposal of recyclable items from student flat clearances. Supervisor David Angus was appointed in October 2016 and a flatbed truck purchased.
  David is liaising with Fife Council to address town centre issues such as bin discipline, street sweeping frequency and quality, ‘A-boards’, on-street storage of items by businesses (e.g. beer kegs in lanes), removing defunct roadworks signs and sand bags, alternatives to ashtrays on tops of bins not emptied frequently enough, flyers and sign cable ties and refurbishment or removal of BT phone boxes.

Festive Celebrations

Rhonda went on to explain the various initiatives BID has lined up to help the town maximise the economic benefit from the Festive Period this year by raising the profile of St Andrews as a Christmas destination:

• A St Andrews Christmas Guide is being created with free advertising for levy-payers and at a small charge to others. It will be distributed in the region and as far as Broughty Ferry to bring Christmas shoppers into town.
• The Land Train will return for a week in the run-up to Christmas, running a shorter route around town.
• A Santa’s grotto will be created at The Byre Theatre.
• A Christmas Day Out will be held on December 17, including carol-singing and storytelling at Holy Trinity Church and Christmas characters and Christmas Tree stilt-walkers around town.
• BID has provided £2,500 sponsorship for the Christmas Lights Switch-On event on November 26, which will include entertainment from Donnie Munro and Skerryvore.

BID has agreed in principle to take over the organisation of the Christmas Lights event from 2017 and will explore possible options with a stewardship team from The Old Course Hotel in early 2017.

Early 2017

Rhonda next outlined two of the events planned for early 2017:

• Burns Festival: This event will be in January 2017 and will include a family ceilidh at The Scores Hotel, a poetry reading and poetry open mic night with StAnza at We Are Zest and a poetry workshop hosted by StAnza.
• St Andrews Fashion Festival (STAFF): Unlike the existing student-run fashion festival, STAFF will be open to all. It will be held at The Byre and include a Schools Academy of Fashion. Fringe events around all kinds of fashion will be held. Rhonda asked anyone interested in participating to contact her.

Online Marketing and Promotion

Finally, Rhonda’s presentation explained that BID is exploring options for its online presence and is developing a strategy for marketing and promotion including:

• Exploring options for a cohesive tourism strategy for St Andrews in collaboration with other groups.
• Exploring options for innovative marketing strategies including emerging social media platforms.
• Free town wifi – in talks with University of St Andrews and BT.
• BID has recently refreshed its website and will be using this to keep levy-payers and other stakeholders up to date.

Answering questions from attendees, Rhonda said which events would become annual fixtures would depend on the KPI performance of each,

Rhonda also confirmed that BID is keen to engage with all groups in the community and would welcome more involvement from levy-payers.

For more information about BID St Andrews and for contact details, go to https://bidstandrews.co.uk/

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Kallum’s Story – Accelerating Acorns into Oaks

Award-winning Fife entrepreneur Kallum “with a K” Russell was the final business person in the 2015/16 season to share ‘My Story’ with members of St Andrews Business Club at its April breakfast meeting.

His LinkedIn profile says: “I am passionate about marketing, entrepreneurship and all things local. I connect people, places and things. I enjoy challenging the norm, the mundane and the accepted. Put simply, I make things happen and enjoy doing it.” His CV backs that up in spades.

Since graduating with a First Class MA in Management with Marketing from Heriot-Watt University in 2011, Kallum has:
• Worked with two start-ups in Edinburgh
• Launched a networking group for Dunfermline
• Created a marketing consultancy aimed at helping small businesses
• Been a local radio presenter
• Founded a local events website
• Started a 3D printing business
• Become a member of the Fife Area Board for Young Enterprise Scotland
• Co-founded Fife business accelerator Acorn Enterprise with Liberty Business Centres owner Jerry Alexander – who thought his ‘business accelerator on the High St’ idea was so good he decided to back it and give it premises
• Been listed in this year’s Sunday Times Maserati 100 Index – for Britain’s most successful philanthropists, investors, mentors, advisors and ascending entrepreneurs supporting the next generation of business talent
• Learned many lessons from the failures he’s had
• Never given up

Acorn Enterprise is dedicated to growing Scotland’s startup business culture. It’s already worked with 75 “Acorns” (participants) and of those who’ve completed the programme 75% are still trading and growing. And expanded into Acorn Business Bootcamps – teaching graduates how to start their own businesses, rather than become employees.

The last theme is key to his personal mission – to grow Scotland’s entrepreneurial culture and ecosystem as the existing education system – based on the industrial model designed to produce employees for ‘jobs for life’ careers in large organisations – is broken. And get people past the fear of failure that holds them back as well as promote the idea that not every business has to be globally scaleable.

Kallum shared with members two key messages:
1. You can achieve ANYTHING you want to!
2. Life begins at the end of your Comfort Zone

His Top 5 lessons:
1. Go Networking
2. Get A Mentor
3. Understand and Develop Yourself
4. Start with the End in Mind
5. Enjoy What You Do!

His favourite quote is: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” If you don’t, he and his Acorns will!

Acorn Enterprise can be found at www.acornenterprise.co.uk