Serving the Teesside Business Community | 21
Looking to America - Claire believes
Lexonik is set for huge growth in the USA.
“It’s funny because my sister-in-law texted
to congratulate me after winning the award
and said, ‘You’ve found your thing’,” Claire
adds.
“And I do feel that way - I’m so incredibly
passionate about us because the results are
so remarkable. The people who we have found
to be the most resistant to our programme at
first end up being our biggest advocates.”
Lexonik employs a predominantly female
staff of 25 at Boho Four Gibson House in
Middlesbrough, which is set to increase
by another five in 2019, plus a team of 50
teachers around the country.
The Lexonik programme is also used locally
in various innovative education trusts, and the
business is digitising at the moment, while
there are also plans to transfer it into other
languages, as well as English.
Claire credits her older brother, local
businessman and charity leader Andy, as being
a constant guiding light in her life, and she
shares his passion for going the extra mile to
raise money for deserving causes.
She has run the New York Marathon twice
and did Edinburgh this year, and even turned
her 50th birthday party into a fundraiser for
Teesside Philanthropic Foundation at Andy’s
charitable Middlesbrough restaurant, The Fork
In The Road.
“Although I’ve worked away and live half
Claire outside Lexonik’s
Boho Four base.
an hour down the A19 in North Yorkshire,
I’m like so many other people from
Middlesbrough,” she explains.
“I love my hometown, it’s a fantastic place
with some amazing people and opportunity,
and I just want to help as much as I can.”
Claire manages to juggle her hectic
worklife with single parenthood to her
12-year-old daughter Lwle.
“It’s hard to stagger everything, but I’ve
been really lucky because I’ve got fabulous
family and friends and I’m quite good at
multi-tasking,” she admits.
She even finds time to run her own book
club, despite confessing to doing more
Claire’s Tees Businesswoman
of the Year Award.
wine-drinking than talking about books with
her friends, and is confident that there are
several more chapters still to be written in
the Lexonik story.
“It can get very tiring as we do long hours
and a lot of travelling, and I do have to make
sacrifices, but it’s all worth it,” she adds. “I
hope my daughter appreciates that one day!
I feel incredibly fortunate to be involved in
something with unlimited potential which can
really change lives.
“And I truly hope that my Tees
Businesswoman Award adds to our ability to
break into new sectors and affect more lives
even sooner than we had envisaged.”