About Tim
From £18 a week testing pumps to building, growing and selling international businesses — and starting again at 50.
I Didn’t Start with a Business Degree or a Grand Career Plan
I left school at 16 with two O-levels.
My first job was at a commercial pump manufacturer, earning £18 a week. Every morning I took a train and a bus to get to work for 8am, clocked in, and spent my days connecting newly manufactured pumps to tanks of water to check whether they leaked.
I later managed to get an office job as an accounts clerk
I hated it.
But my office happened to be next door to the sales team. I watched them coming and going in company cars, earning commission and clearly enjoying a very different working life.
I remember thinking: “That’s for me.”
So I went back to studying in the evenings, completed an ONC in Business Studies and started my Institute of Marketing exams. I passed seven of the eight modules — law defeated me — but discovered that I loved learning about sales and marketing.
That changed the direction of my life.
Discovering Sales
My sister was working in the personnel department at Chevron and helped me secure an interview.
I was offered two jobs. One involved restocking petrol stations with the products sold in their shops. The other involved supplying fuel to ships around the world.
I chose the ships.
That decision introduced me to marine fuel — or bunker — broking and began a career that would eventually take me around the world.
South America
After Chevron, I joined Bunkerfuels UK and trained as a broker. Five years later I was approached by an American company, Trans-Tec, whose new London operation was struggling.
They flew me to New York for an interview with the owners in their Fifth Avenue apartment.
They offered me the job.
I asked for double my salary, a company car and a directorship of the London office.
They agreed.
I flew home the next day on the same British Airways aircraft I had travelled out on. The cabin crew recognised me and asked why I had only stayed in New York for one night. When I told them I had gone for an interview and got the job running the London office, the captain congratulated me over the aircraft PA and I was brought a complimentary glass of champagne.
It was quite a journey from testing pumps for leaks at £18 a week.
Backing Myself
Trans-Tec was a tough business. I was told very clearly that if I didn’t earn my salary within my first three months, I would be sacked.
Every Friday we reported our results to New York.
It was demanding, but I learned an enormous amount. I brought substantial business into the London operation and helped make it profitable.
Then I began thinking:
“I can do this for myself.”
At 27, I borrowed £20,000 from Abbey National to start my own company.
While still working for the Americans, I found premises, signed a lease and prepared my new office.
Then one day I handed back the office keys and company credit cards, parked the company car, got into a taxi and went to my own office.
Premier Marine Fuels Ltd was born.
I repaid the entire bank loan in the first year.
I became a shareholder, board member and Vice President of Wilhelmsen Premier Marine Fuels, with responsibilities including London and Singapore.
Wilhelmsen subsequently acquired my remaining shareholding and, after continuing with the business for a period, I decided at 50 that it was time to leave the oil industry.
I had enjoyed an extraordinary career, but it was also highly stressful and involved constant international travel.
I felt I still had another career in me.
Starting Again at 50
The inspiration for my next business had begun many years earlier.
My eldest daughter was born with Down syndrome and brought enormous happiness to our family. But I also remember a time when attitudes towards people with special needs were very different.
During one family holiday, I became very aware that some other families seemed uncomfortable around us because we had a child with special needs.
I never forgot that.
I decided that if I ever had the opportunity, I wanted to create somewhere where families like ours could enjoy a wonderful holiday without ever feeling different or unwelcome.
That idea eventually became The Emerald.
My wife Brigitte and I moved to Cornwall and initially looked for an existing high-end self-catering business to buy. We couldn’t find what we wanted, so we bought a farmhouse near Truro with around five acres of land and decided to create it ourselves.
I had no experience of property development.
But business had already taught me that you don’t need to know everything yourself. You need a clear idea, good people around you, sound judgement and the determination to see it through.
You Can Have Luxury and Be Green
Our proposition was simple: you can have luxury and be green.
I wanted guests to enjoy beautiful, comfortable accommodation while much of the environmental technology quietly did its job in the background.
We used exceptional insulation, triple glazing, solar gain and renewable technology to reduce the amount of energy the buildings needed.
We installed around 120 photovoltaic panels to generate much of our own electricity. This helped us run the holiday accommodation and a heated indoor swimming pool while keeping a major operating cost under control.
We also drilled our own borehole to a depth roughly comparable to the height of Truro Cathedral, giving the site its own water supply.
The development achieved the Government’s highest Code Level 6 sustainability standard and was later featured as a Guardian Sustainable Business case study.
For me, it reinforced an important business lesson: the best ideas often work twice — once for the customer and once for the economics of the business.
Listening to the Customer
Building The Emerald was only the beginning. The business evolved because we paid attention to what customers actually wanted.
We originally decided not to allow dogs. We quickly realised how many people taking self-catering holidays in Cornwall wanted to bring them, changed the policy and never looked back.
When we wanted more bookings in the quieter months, we added hot tubs. Rather than simply cutting prices, we improved the offer.
We added two luxury en-suite shepherd’s huts, obtained a wedding licence so couples could take over the estate and marry overlooking the lake, and continually looked for ways to make better use of the assets we already had.
Living on site also taught me an enormous amount about customer relationships. I enjoyed talking to guests, recommending places to visit and helping when somebody needed something. The trick was never to be intrusive — simply to make sure customers knew that if they needed us, we would go the extra mile.
That approach helped us build strong repeat business.
It reinforced something I had already learned in sales: winning a customer is only the beginning. Look after them properly and they will often come back.
Building, Growing
and Selling
Premier Marine Fuels grew into a substantial international marine fuel broking business. I built a team in London and opened my own office in Singapore — still one of the achievements of which I am most proud.
The business took me throughout Europe, Asia, North and South America and Russia. It taught me about selling, negotiation, customer relationships, managing people, taking calculated risks and making decisions under pressure.
Eventually, I began planning my exit.
That led to a merger with the marine fuels business of Wilhelmsen, one of the world’s major shipping groups. The combined company operated from London, Oslo, Singapore and Cape Town and handled around 8 million tonnes of marine fuel annually.
Different Businesses. The Same Fundamentals.
Marine fuel broking and luxury holiday accommodation could hardly be more different.
One involved ships, oil companies, international markets and deals around the world.
The other involved families, holiday houses, dogs, weddings, hot tubs and children collecting eggs from our chickens.
But the fundamentals were remarkably similar.
Understand your customer.
Sell something they genuinely value.
Build strong relationships.
Know your costs and protect your margin.
Employ good people.
Keep looking for opportunities.
Adapt when the market tells you something has changed.
And when you make a mistake, put it right.
Every business is different. The fundamentals of a successful business aren’t.
One More Chapter
Sadly, I lost Brigitte to cancer.
The Emerald was something we had created together and, although I continued running it afterwards, it was never quite the same without her. Eventually, I decided to sell.
For a while I concentrated on my family and enjoyed having more time to play golf. I have also been fortunate enough to remarry.
And I still enjoy the golf.
But somewhere along the way — probably on the golf course — I realised something.
Golf was enjoyable, but it wasn’t enough.
I missed business.
I missed sales, meeting people, solving problems and spotting opportunities.
More importantly, I realised that after everything I had learned from building, growing and selling businesses in two completely different industries, I still had something useful to offer.
I won’t pretend to know your industry better than you do.
What I can bring is decades of real commercial experience, an independent pair of eyes, a willingness to ask the questions that need asking and a genuine enthusiasm for helping business owners sell better, strengthen customer relationships and grow profitably
I realised I still had one more chapter in me.
Helping other business owners grow theirs.
