Manufacturing magnate Dawn Gibbins challenges James Caan

by Melissa Hancock - Real Business - Thursday, 24th April 2008 -

James Caan’s recent remark that the UK can kiss manufacturing goodbye has raised hackles. Dawn Gibbins, who has just sold her flooring company Flowcrete for £35m, is the latest to pour scorn on the dragon: “I challenge him on this because I think women will revive manufacturing in the UK.”

“He’s being a typical bloke isn’t he? Just looking at the bottom line all the time. Well, I believe there’s a feminisation of society going on,” says Gibbins. 

“Women today are very ethical, and already you’re seeing them say we want British manufactured clothes and a local supply chain. We don't want to be responsible for a carbon footprint trailing all the way from China to the UK.”

Gibbins is confident that women’s ethical and environmental conscience will spur on the growth of a lot more small manufacturers across the UK.

“James’ comment could be fairly applied to mass manufacturing but not to niche manufacturing. The UK has a killer combination of innovation and manufacturing and because we’ve got those two together, we’ve created a niche of high-value. I've always said that innovation is the catalyst of success and it will be in this case as well.”

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