When Peter Robinson played with his brothers as a young boy , building camps in the woods and climbing the trees of Dalton-le- Dale , a small hamlet in County Durham , the world of work and careers was a far off place and one he didn ’ t really contemplate in those carefree days of childhood .
Peter is from a family of teachers – his parents , aunts and uncles were teachers and maternal grandfather a schoolmaster . His dad ’ s father was head accountant at Murton Colliery . The predestined career for many in those days was working down the pit .
“ Dalton-le-Dale had a church and no shops at all , just a pub that is now boarded up ,” said Peter , sitting back in his chair at Jacksons HQ in Preston Farm Industrial Estate , Stockton .
“ I was born in County Durham , grew up there , and spent my childhood , doing the “ 50 things in the woods ” they now say all children should do . It was great , looking back on it , albeit I suspect I have rose tinted spectacles these days .”
Peter is a football fan , although admits he was not a very good player during his school years at Easington Comprehensive in the early 80s , so he hit the books instead .
The 50-year-old said : “ I was the kid who was lousy at kicking a ball and not too much better at any other ball sport , either . I went to a footballing school too , which produced players for Newcastle and Sunderland , who were in my class . So that ’ s really what the physical education lessons all revolved around .
“ I was good at academics , not sport , so I decided to work hard on what I was good at instead . I did well in O-levels at school , very well in A-levels and went on to study law at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne .
“ I have to say I didn ’ t have a strong idea of what I wanted to do at 18 and was considering a history degree .
“ I did know I wanted to keep my options open as long as possible , though . I reckoned that a law degree would exercise my brain just as much as history but give me a wider career choice so I opted for that . Doing work placements while doing my degree made me realise I liked the professional side of it and so I decided I would pursue that . Not exactly a calling , but a deliberate , considered decision .”
More than 25 years ’ experience from working for leading corporate firms on Tyneside and Yorkshire have followed , gaining a huge amount of experience on a wide variety of deals and in a wide variety of sectors .
He also had a period working for a boutique venture capitalist – learning the inside track – and running his own business before returning to a regional firm in 2016 as a corporate partner .
Peter has now taken over as head of corporate and commercial at Jacksons from Tony Wentworth , who himself has stepped into the position of managing partner following Jane Armitage ’ s decision to retire from the role .
“ When Tony and Jane approached me about the opportunity I was interested and quite excited about the role ,” said Peter .
“ It was clear to me that Jacksons had worked on their culture , business model and succession planning over the past few years and had built a partnership of people with different professional backgrounds and different ideas . It seemed a place where new approaches would be listened to .
“ I have a lot of business experience , and I have seen what works and what doesn ’ t work in private practice . I liked the idea of the new challenge and was attracted to a firm which embraces and listens to new ideas .”
Peter ’ s expertise lies in working closely with clients to become their trusted advisor , to be their commercial sounding board and part of their internal commercial team .
He specialises in company and business sales , acquisitions , investment and private equity and shareholder arrangements generally , among other things , and he particularly enjoys working with owner managed businesses and businesses starting up .
“ I like to roll up my sleeves and understand a client ’ s needs , to get down in the ditches and fight for them if they need to , or to get the deal done with a minimum of fuss and noise if they want that .
Peter adds with a smile : “ I started up my own business too and learnt a lot of from that – it gave me first- hand experience of what I ’ d been advising clients on for years !
“ The corporate team at Jacksons has been helping regional and national businesses for many years .
“ It ’ s a case of building upon that base , developing the corporate service offering and actually letting people know what we can do , what we already do .
“ As a business we have some incredibly long-standing client relationships which speaks for itself about our overall approach .
“ It ’ s all about personal relationships at the heart of things , probably even more so after the last 16 or so months of enforced isolation and virtual reality . People buy from people .”
But having spent so long in the industry , his latest move had to feel right . It does .
Peter says : “ The vibe is that we are a very open , receptive culture here . It is an exciting time to be joining Jacksons and an exciting time for County Durham and Teesside .” So has he come full circle ? Peter laughs : “ I ’ m not sure the scawny boy with scraped knees and soaking wet from plodging through the local beck would agree with that . But I can say that I was born in County Durham , schooled there , went to university in the North-East and had clients all over the region , the country and the world .
“ Now , it ’ s good to be here in the Tees Valley , and to be able to help local businesses . We ’ ve been privileged to be able to do that for almost 150 years now , and are looking forward to the next stage of the business ’ growth .”
For further information about Jacksons Law Firm check out jacksons-law . com .
The magazine for Aycliffe Business Park | 23