Setting new standards

Cheshire Life, November 2002

The concrete industry is a macho one.  But Dawn Gibbins, MBE is the boss of a Sandbach concrete company with a £27M turnover.  Her family motto of “I strive until I overcome” may be the secret of her success.

When I spoke to Dawn Gibbins, MBE, she had just retuned from a business trip to Kuala Lumpur exploring possibilities in the Tiger economy.  Men in suits?  Endless meetings?  Not quite.  Dawn’s international sales team also spent time on an island in the South China Sea – and even found a few hours to go snorkeling.

That’s because the 44-year-old boss of the Flowcrete Group plc believes that work should be fun as well as very hard graft.

“I believe in a can do culture, and I employ positive people” says the chairman and co-founder of the concrete flooring company she started with her late father 20 years ago.

At the beginning of October, over 250 staff and friends enjoyed a lavish birthday bash at the Shrigley Hall Hotel and Country Club.

“It was a way of saying thank you to everyone for helping us succeed.  I never though we would grow from nothing to be the European leader in the field with a £27M turnover.  Now it’s our mission to lead the worked” says Dawn, still one of the few women in a notoriously macho industry.

“Things haven't changed that much over the years, I recently thought I would start a “women in flooring” group.  There were basically only about five of us in the country” says Dawn, who is mum to teenage daughters Michelle, 14 and April, 12.  Her husband Mark, who she poached from Shell International, is also a leading player in the company.  It’s not for nothing that he family motto is “I strive until I overcome”.

She agrees that concrete is not a field with the sexiest of images; “Everyone thinks I deliver concrete in big trucks”.

But Dawn has dozens of blue-chip clients, including Nokia in Shanghai, Wyeth in Singapore, Roche Pharmaceuticals in Argentina, L’Oreal in Belgium and the UK’s new high tech “Baby Jaguar” car factory at Halewood, Liverpool.

The man who started it all was her late father, Peter, although Dawn’s mum was apparently instrumental in suggesting Dawn add her business acumen to his scientific skills.  “It all happened one evening over dinner.  My father was about to sell a formula to Marks because they needed special floors which could cope with sugar residue.  Instead we decided to set the whole thing up ourselves.  In the early days we focused on factory floors, now we offer designer floors for the retail environment, there’s a lot more aesthetics to it”.

Today Flowcrete’s headquarters are in Sandbach and the company has 15 offices around the world, 130 employees and world-class manufacturing operations spanning three continents.  It has a scientific team of 10.  The company recently took over Swedish firm Perstorp Construction Chemicals.

Since its launch, Flowcrete has received a clutch of awards, including five DTI awards for innovation.  In 1994, Dawn was the youngest industrialist ever to be awarded the MBE for services to industry.  She was a finalist in the Veuve Clicquot businesswoman of the year award in 1995.  An she is also an honorary companion of Manchester University.  Not bad for someone who left school at 18 with a couple of A Levels.  “I believe in learning by doing” she says.

Dawn is always open to new ideas which she thinks will work well.  In a joint venture with Manchester Business School, the keep equestrian showed top business people how horse whispering could be used as inspiration for managing people.  It is, she says a culture of kindness rather than fear, which she chooses to employ.

“A friend of mine says the MBE stands for Making Business Enjoyable” she laughs.

Dawn usually works about 60 hours a week which she reckons is standard for high-fliers like herself – but she still finds time to collect her daughters from school in Macclesfield.

“I think it’s important during the teenage years to spend as much time with them as you can.  I collect them from school and help with their homework”.

Like most women in business, she spends a lot of money on clothes “I have to look the part, but that does’nt always mean designer labels.  I pick up an awful lot of nice things on my travels abroad, Chinese silks, that short of thing”.  Dawn is also a keen cook and loves planning menus for dinner parties with friends.  Amazingly, she also finds time to look after the five guinea pigs, four dogs, two cats and sunry chickens that share the family’s home outside Congleton. 

Then there’s the recent whitewater rafting with staff, and the charity abseil she braved down the Piccadilly Hotel in Manchester for the NSPCC.  “Mine is very much a get up and go sort of nature” she says simply.  It’s no wonder this woman is so successful.

Editor's note: Inspirational, motivational speaker dawn gibbins can be contacted at dawn@dawngibbins.com