Insulate Magazine Issue 18

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When you’ve left a market leader like British Gypsum,
were you only have to approach the door you don’t even
have to knock on it they open the door for you whereas
in Isover even with specification, trying to get
through Librarians to get specified you’re knocking on
the door, knocking on the door and the answer they give
you is you don’t need to come in. British Gypsum can do
this for you, they’re specifying your
insulation anyway, but it was a
complete turn around.
And leveraging a whole other skillset probably? I’d say
as well, because you’ve been in that British Gypsum (BG)
bubble as a market leader and then somebody in high places
has decided that you were the team that were going to be
able to go from BG into Isover. Obviously you were going
to leverage contacts because that is what everybody does,
but it’s a different skillset getting products into store than it
is when you are BG because obviously they’ve already got
that.
Yes that’s right, and the key to us as Saint-Gobain and as
Isover it needs to be working still far more closely with
British Gypsum, because they can get our products specified
and if we are not holding onto their coat tails we’ll
be left behind again. The relationship is building again
although it was always there it’s just that we didn’t have
the correct infrastructure but I think that will change
now.
Would you say that your retirement is coming
too early or too late?
Well, do you know I think it’s coming at the right time
for me as I’ve said I’ve worked for British Gypsum,
Kingspan and Isover for around about thirty years, much
of that time Colin I’ve been away from home, so not
seeing my family growing up, it’s an opportunity now,
although I’ve still got a young family, I’ve been married
for a long time, but we’ve got a young family.
Sian had a very good job working for Michael Heseltine,
she was number three in his business, in market publishing
she was training his son to take over the business as
well so she had a fantastic job, so we said why don’t you
concentrate on doing that, lets not have any children at
the moment, build a bit of a purse if you like, we bought
a house in Swansea in 20 years ago, lovely house looking
over the bay and we are down there, it’s just great for me
with this opportunity,
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