CEO’s Profile

1964-1971 Went to Nenham School, Bedford and gained 5 ‘O’ Levels. 

1971 Moved to Clacton on Sea and worked for Magnet Building Society at the Head Office until 1973. Arranged mortgages for Peter Noon of Herman’s Hermits, this loan went pear shaped and had to re-poses after a very short while. Also arranged mortgage for a Mr Valentine Card (no word of a lie). He purchased a property in Felixstowe. You will not believe that I also fixed a loan for a Mr Robin Hood, he moved to Sherwood Drive in Nottingham.

1973 Left Magnet for branch experience with Britannia Building Society. Over next 11 years rose to Assistant Manager. Had dealt with every conceivable problem from the water system breaking down to having a major motor cycle accident where I managed to put a brick through my shin and severed a tendon in my left leg. I was in a plaster cast from chin to crutch. This became very anti social and was filled with talcum powder to douse the odour. The cast lasted for 13 weeks but after only 9 weeks I was back at work still in the cast.

In 1984 I was head hunted by an insurance company to set up a mortgage department. I had 22 associates working for me. This was very popular, so much so that in 1988 the head hunters were out again, this time for an estate agency. I set up one of the first ‘in house’ financial consultancies. The consultants were based in each of the estate agency offices. This gave a combined client bank of over of 2,000,000 potential clients. I and my associates were able to sell to the majority of those clients and have found that those clients would speak to me and thank me for my past endeavours in helping them find their dream home.

In 1988 I had the opportunity to buy a car sales, car repairs and petrol sales business. This proved to be successful, so much so that I purchased a second garage. This time specialising in M.O.T’, car repair and car sales together with new car parts. The company motto was ‘think cars, think us’. 

I had a partner at the time who decided to ‘do a runner’ with all the company monies. This lead to the business going under.

1993 Nothing daunted, I went to Colchester Institute and studied for an H N D in Hotel Catering and Institutional Management. This took 2 years hard study where I learnt my way around a computer. I am still learning and finding new things that can be done all the time.

1995 After the course I found employment with Pizza Hut. The only vacancy was in their Birmingham restaurant. As I had been out of work for 2 years, I could not turn this opportunity down. Fortunately, my mother-in-law lived in Warwick which is only 30 miles from Birmingham. I stayed at Birmingham until 1994 when I managed to get a transfer to their Brentwood Restaurant. I climbed to Assistant Manager and became a ‘roving’ trouble shooter for the company, I was sent to the likes of Basildon and managed to ‘iron out’ the problems that the company was having at that location.

2000 After 5 years with Pizza Hut, I thought it time to move on again. This time to being a multi-drop delivery driver. This continued until December 2006 when I had a massive Multiple Sclerosis attack and was forced to retire from work completely.

In September 2007 went on a ‘training’ course to become an ACCESS AUDITOR. This course was run by Disability Essex. It was a 12 month course but was condensed into 13 weeks. I passed with the top marks for the year and can now complete an Access Audit for anyone who deeds/requires same. Also I can run Disability Awareness courses.

Philip Hawkridge