The region is such an exciting place to be at the moment and the future is looking bright.”
FEATURE
Reunion- ITS CEO Andrew Mills previously worked with Tim for seven years.
“ Also, the office is just 10 or 15 minutes from the beautiful North Yorkshire countryside, which is very similar to the landscape I’ ve come from up in Aberdeenshire.
“ And then there’ s the openness and friendliness of all the people here,” he added.“ For instance, on my first proper visit I was looking at potential places to live and when I was standing in front of an estate agent’ s window, two or three people came up to me and started chatting!
“ They were telling me how nice the place was and about things that were happening here – I just instantly felt welcome and thought,‘ Yes, I’ m quite happy to relocate here’.”
Tim’ s move stemmed from an initial conversation with the CEO of ITS, Andrew Mills, who joined the company in 2023.
The pair were well known to each other having worked together for seven years at a company where Andrew was CEO and Tim was general manager.
“ He and I kept in contact,” explained Tim.“ He’ s done an awful lot in helping me with my career as I’ ve moved into more leadership and board roles.
“ Andrew got in touch earlier in the year to say there was an opportunity coming up and would I be interested in being in the mix for it.
“ The more I learned about the role and the more I learned about ITS as a business – its growth potential, and the region itself, what we could get involved in – the more I was excited.
The region is such an exciting place to be at the moment and the future is looking bright.”
“ The more I spoke to Andrew and others I really wanted to give the role serious thought. Getting back into systems integration project delivery within energy, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, which ITS does a lot in, was extremely appealing.
“ Pharmaceuticals or life sciences is relatively new to me, and it was quite exciting to think,‘ I’ ll get my teeth into these critically important sectors and understand how that works’.
“ And then there are ITS’ s growth ambitions. Andrew said to me he is looking at significant growth each year aligned to our position and expanding addressable markets, growing through both acquisition and organic growth, and asked if I would come in and help make that happen.
“ In my first week we did our first acquisition as part of the growth journey and it’ s been non-stop since then.”
As a business, ITS takes different technological systems and makes them work together to deliver solutions for a customer’ s specific needs.
The main areas of focus are life sciences, pharmaceutical, energy and nuclear. Across those sectors, ITS has teams that specialise in digital technology and others that are dedicated to control systems, robotics and validation within the pharmaceutical sector.
ITS is also heavily involved in regulatory compliance training and pharmaceutical life sciences customers use the firm to train their staff to make sure they are compliant with all the relevant regulations.
And then there is ITS support services, including customers who are part of the UK’ s critical national infrastructure.
The job and the company have lived up to expectations, confirmed Tim.
“ There are three of us who are directors and we’ ve all been with the company for less than two years, so it’ s a new team at the top,” he said.
“ We’ ve also got a good management team at the second layer and an incredible group of talented engineers we work with who have hugely impressive skills and capability.
“ We have the opportunity to make ITS really special and I am so excited about the future.”
The voice of business in the Tees region | 51