Serving the Teesside Business Community | 25
“The chamber’s raison
d’être is to share with
its members, and
potential members, what
opportunities there are
out there and what are
the key challenges”
Mike takes over from David Laws as NECC
president in the chamber’s 200th year.
“When I rejoined Elta in ‘88 it was a
£300,000 business, but by 1990 we’d
grown it to £3m. We recently celebrated
the 25th anniversary of Nifco, and in 2017
we’ll celebrate the 50th anniversary of this
business being on Teesside.”
Eaglescliffe-based Nifco has invested
£32m in the last three years and is targeting
to have 1,500 staff by 2025 and hit £200m
turnover.
Matthews says a large portion of
that success is investing in training and
development. And he’s taking that philosophy
into his new role as NECC president.
“The chamber’s raison d’être is to share
with its members, and potential members,
what opportunities there are out there and
what are the key challenges,” he says.
“One of the things I major on is the
promotion of skills. Not only to fill the
skills gap, because for sure there’s a skills
shortage now and we’ve had them before.
It’s just to help companies and help our
membership understand that without the
right skills, we’ll never achieve our full
potential.
“We’ve got over 70,000 businesses in the
North East, the chamber represents around
25-30% of employed staff in the North East.
Our role is to assist them with information
on what will enhance their business and their
prospects.
“What we’re also trying to do, which
we’ve always tried to do, is to improve the
prospects of the North East.
“Apprenticeships is something we’re really
pushing at the moment. One of the tools
for that is Apprentice Greats, a new NECC
publication. It’s a collection of about 200 of
some of the current successful business
leaders, who all started off as apprentices.
“Included in that is Kevin Fitzpatrick,
managing director of the largest
manufacturing business in the North East,
Nissan, which contributes about £7 billion to
the local GDP. If you look at Nissan’s senior
management team, a lot of them came
through as apprentices. A lot of our senior
management team at Nifco did as well - 11
out of 13 actually.
“As I travel around in my European role
with Nifco, you’ll find it’s a very common
pattern. They start off as tradesmen,
craftsmen and now they’re managing the
companies. Germany is one of the most
successful engineering, manufacturing and
car-making countries in the world, and right
at the heart of that is their recognition and
investment in skills.
“We all know that for many generations in
this country, tradesmen have never had the
recognition they deserve. In Germany they’re
celebrated, as they are in Spain and Poland.
They’re not given that level of recognition
here.”
Matthews admits he was surprised to
be offered the NECC presidency role, but it
was one which he was delighted to take on,
despite his commitments.
“To be president in the 200th year is quite
an honour,” he says. “The chamber hasn’t
had a manufacturer as its president for
quite some time. And it’s quite ironic, when
you look back 200 years ago and see the
chamber was established by industrialists
and businesspeople in the region, trying
to make the region better - and numerous
famous names, household names, have been
involved over the last 200 years.
“Also, there hasn’t been a Teesside-based
president for quite some time, which I think
is another reason I was approached to take
on the role.
“I was a bit shocked and surprised to be
approached, but essentially I’d like to think I
represent what’s good about manufacturing
at the moment.”
And with that, Matthews turns again to
his biggest passion. Not Norman Tebbit, but
apprenticeships. He insists Nifco’s success is
down to investing in tomorrow’s talent, and
other businesses should follow suit.
“For Teesside to succeed and become
stronger, we need more employment,”
he says. “We have a lot of back-to-basics
philosophies. We take on apprentices,
we train and develop people. We’re not
suffering the same sort of skills shortages,
because we’ve promoted ourselves and are
a regionally, nationally and internationally
recognised company.
“We’ve taken it from a serious lossmaking business, post-credit crunch, with
sales reduced to £16m in 2008, to a £100m
business by 2018.
“I always refer to that Norman Tebbit quote
because it can relate to a lot of things - young
people looking for work, salesmen trying to
sell. But the young people are out there, they
could be ready-made for work, we just need
to engage with them and invest some time
into them.
“There’s always a lot of frustration and
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