This Is Tees Valley This Is Tees Valley - Issue 1 2020 | Page 6

WORDS: JOANNE BARRETT
PICTURES: CHRIS BOOTH
Further growth is the Resolution
for This Is Tees Valley publishers
I
READ
ALL ABOUT IT
t’s probably safe to say that the duo behind
successful publishing firm Resolution
Media have the ear of some of the most
influential businesspeople in the region.
With a stable of successful print products,
from the authoritative Tees Business
magazine to high-end glossy Tees Life,
Dave Allan and Martin Walker have also
driven well-respected networking events for
business leaders.
They are also the force behind numerous
initiatives designed to celebrate and promote
the wealth of talent and opportunity that
exists across their home area.
But when they started out with a plan to
create a positive news platform for business
through a brand new print publication and
online site, they admit they were met with
more than a few raised eyebrows.
Comments like: “You want to launch a
print publication in this day and age?” and
“Nobody wants that kind of thing anymore,
it’s all about online these days,” were readily
offered up but, say the pair, they knew the
model they had developed just had a certain
something.
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Fast forward five years and the proof, as
they say, is in the pudding.
Resolution has gone from strength to
strength. The Tees Business and Tees Life
publications sit on the coffee tables and
in the boardrooms and business hubs of
everybody who is anybody everywhere
across the region; ditto for Wear Business,
their newly launched model designed for the
Sunderland and Durham area.
The networking events associated with the
brand are in the diaries of business leaders
and industry champions and the awards
ceremonies devised, hosted and promoted
through the likes of Tees Business are sell-
outs.
And there’s much more to come. Having
cemented the roots of a successful venture,
Dave and Martin have already embarked on
ambitious plans to reach out to other areas of
the country with the same model.
“The issue that kept coming up was that
our part of the North-East, the Tees Valley
area, was often overlooked in favour of the
bigger commercial centres of Tyneside, for
example,” says Dave. “That’s what businesses
were telling us.
“We could see there was a gap in the
market and we could see there was a positive
appetite out there for a publication.
“The driving force was the market research
we did before launching the publication.
We spoke to companies and asked for their
views – and the responses we got back were
overwhelmingly positive. Of course, it’s one
thing for someone to say they like the idea,
and another for them to actually put their
hand in their pocket and back it.”
The pair already knew each other before
they set out on the Resolution journey;