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He first moved to Bath in 1990 to play for Bath Rugby and to study structural and civil engineering at the University of Bath as a sports scholar . After moving away to London in the mid 90s , Iestyn came back to Bath in 2001 for wider business reasons and to take up a role as Director of Rugby at the University , covering all aspects of coaching and performance .
Iestyn started Iesis Group in December 2007 , initially as a consultancy business , and given the prevailing economic environment taking work wherever he could find , which included financial restructuring work with RBS and Barclays , together with setting up an
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office in Sierra Leone focusing on heavy civil engineering infrastructure projects .
He set up the property development business ( now known as Rengen ) in 2010 . The company initially bought three sites in Bath and Bristol and created a portfolio of student housing . As a result , Rengen was then able to invest in a further portfolio of seven properties across the region .
Now the company has a £ 250 million portfolio and has offices in Bristol , Bath and London employing 100 people .
Speaking to The Business Exchange about his learnings on the pitch that have helped him to succeed in business , Iestyn said ,
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“ There are three things you need to succeed in sport and business : personnel , culture and a game-plan .
“ You need to surround yourself with talented people , all working together towards a common goal , and your people will create the culture you need to succeed . With the right team and the right culture in place , you need a clear and cohesive strategy and use your combined skills to execute it .
“ It ’ s the same for sport and business . It has taken me 14 years to get exactly the right team which has generated the right culture . People turn up to win and you need the appropriate strategy and game plan .
“ The most important lesson I pass on from my playing and coaching days is attention to detail and the importance of a self-checking mechanism ”
“ Everyone needs to strive for excellence and everyone needs to strive for attention to detail . Look at everything from a critical perspective , no matter what position you play , to work for the benefit of the entire team .
“ This collective self-checking mechanism is vital . You can ’ t rely on one or two people in an organisation to make sure everyone is doing
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their job . Each team member needs to know their role and it is their responsibility to make sure they execute it effectively .”
Iestyn believes Bath ’ s sporting clubs and businesses can learn from each other , and that sport and teamwork has an integral and growing role to play within the city .
This is evident through Rengen ’ s support of the local community . The company is the main sponsor of Team Bath , a sponsor of Bath Rugby Foundation and a supporter of Bath Sea Cadets . It also provides scholarships for university students .
Iestyn added , “ Success breeds success . People want to be associated with success and sports teams have the ability to lift the whole city . Success makes people happy to go to work , creates identity for the city and improves our working culture .
“ This needs to come from a grassroots level and it won ’ t work unless you have a ground-up philosophy . You need to generate success through the local community – get people used to being competitive and winning . This will help to bring commercial success .
“ Everybody deserves the opportunity to see how good they can be and there is a huge number of benefits to being involved in a successful team in business or in sport .”
For more info : www . rengendevelopments . com
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10 www . tbebathandsomerset . co . uk |