London-based Karen Gallagher has a varied and interesting business background. Starting her first business 25 years ago, a structured finance asset management boutique. Having spent over 25 years in senior posts running and streamlining various businesses, the serial entrepreneur has decided to turn her hand and her experience to mentoring and coaching. She attended her first Meet a Mentor event in December.
During the early stages of establishing the asset finance business a substantial UK bank went into Administration bringing with it a number of computer leasing companies. Karen seized the opportunity and proposed to the Administrators that she could mange these asset portfolios on an agency basis. This strategy was very successful and lead to her rolling out this model for other leased assets, including cement mixers, high performance cars and even a flotilla of war torn sailing boats. This transitioned into the opportunity to manage businesses during administration, whilst a buyer could be identified. She would be placed within a business, which could be anything from a hospitality enterprise to a leisure business.
“My brief could be to run a business to see what its potential was, or to run it for sale but I would always go in and offer crisis management skills. It’s about constantly reviewing and prioritizing the key actions that will keep the business ignited. Better to make a decision and get it wrong than to make no decision.”
Simultaneously via Administrator Partners, she had been introduced to a number of their clients, private investors who engaged her for investment appraisal, investment monitoring and executive mentoring roles, with their own investment portfolios. These were successful business with growth agendas.
The sheer diversity of businesses Karen worked within equipped her with a broad knowledge base – a great asset for any mentor. Later, Karen bought a business of her own, the 100 year old Boughton Group, a fourth generation family firm in distress. This UK manufacturing designed and produced transportation systems for the waste industry, airport fire fighting vehicles and military trailers. 10 years later she acquired a skip loader manufacture, identified for it’s synergy of production processes and customer base, and merged this business with Boughtons. Although the entrepreneur had no experience in the field and was entering a very male-dominated world, she found her gender could work to her advantage:
I felt able to go in and say ‘I don’t know anything about manufacturing. I know about cash flow and forecasts, budgets and capital expenditure, and I certainly know about profits.’ I was open about it and this interdependency helped to create co-operation and trust from the off. Whilst I was a venture capitalist, I was empathetic to the predicament and fears of the employees, many of who were related. I wanted to save the business and not just put it into liquidation and buy out the good bits: I think all of that that helped enormously.” After 2 intense years this business was restructured to the extent that annual turnover was reduced from £18m to £8m and £3m losses returned to a consistent £750k profit.
However, Karen became increasingly aware of how challenging it can be to run a business when you've also got commitments at home:
“When I bought the business I didn’t have children and I could work a 7 day week. After children I tried to work part time, but in reality this equated to working full time over 3 days. Every week I would travel to each factory, Burton upon Trent and Devon, do a day’s work, drive home, get home at 10pm and there’d be filthy cricket kit and half-finished homework to deal with.”
The huge demands on her time with the added weight of a double family bereavement and the burgeoning economic crisis prompted her to rethink her future:
“I was firefighting in every direction. I considered that perhaps and intense career drive was feasible before I had a family, but perhaps now incongruent in my value system?’ I’d owned the business for 14 years. It had done me well but I decided it was time to get out.”
Since then, Karen has done some property development and begun an MSc in Executive Coaching with a view to exploring how her background and new skills can support SMEs. Her broad experience across a wide number of SMEs has taught her that a flat management structure is often inevitable. For the owner manager this can be isolating, challenging and time demanding. She could provide a sounding board, a thinking partner and an aid to fine tuning the essential skills.
With experience of both running her own highly successful business and dealing with all sorts of crises within other businesses, Karen is incredibly well placed to offer insightful mentoring:
“Crisis management teaches you to reflect on why a business has failed. Often it’s something as simple as cash and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong. The business plan is sound, there’s the potential for profit and the people are highly motivated but they miss the dynamic nature of basic housekeeping. Unless you’ve been in a senior management position, you don’t get to see the global picture. And that’s why SME mentoring is interesting – you’re dealing with people with great ideas and the single mindedness to enact upon them, who all of a sudden must activate and or acquire the technical skills to run a business.
Karen has already established mentoring relationships with two SMEs. One of her mentees runs a business selling on-line and pop up, first and second edition prints and original artwork, with a specific location or theme .The other has developed an urban bicycle family with unique and revolutionary safety features. Karen can offer her expertise and guidance on strategy, manufacturing, funding, marketing and sales to these two relatively new entrepreneurs and she’s keen to get started. Speaking about the bicycle business, she says:
“It’s a really exciting, innovative idea. Something that really inspires you makes it much easier to be enthusiastic and I have total admiration for anyone so creative and dedicated to their dream, it’s infectious.”
Coaching opportunity for a new or growing business:
As part of her postgraduate studies Karen is seeking volunteer clients for a series of one to one coaching meetings. Executive coaching is a dialogue between the client (business owner or aspiring business owner) and coach to enhance the client’s business performance by developing their innate abilities and reflecting on any thinking blind spots. In the context of the IOEE, coaching could be very productive for;
- Leadership development.
- Self-understanding.
- Transitioning from employment to self-employment.
- Challenging self-limiting beliefs to business development.
- Returning to enterprise after a career break.
Karen can be contacted on [email protected]