Transcript Industrial-Dinner-feedback

Industrial
The Landmark Hotel
Weds 20th June 2012
GUEST FEEDBACK
GUEST FEEDBACK
”Many thanks for such an enjoyable dinner and evening last night.
I had not expected to sit next to a Cranfield alumni (Robin Palmer) from my own year. We
had a lot of catching up to do!
I made some excellent connections (Equistone Partners, Duff and Phelps) and renewed
some past associations (Rutland). I will let you know if anything comes from these contacts.
It was an excellent venue and once again, thank you!”
Ian Parker
“I would just like to thank you for an extremely useful evening yesterday. The Venue was
ideal, and the format worked well. Unfortunately, I had to leave immediately after the panel
session to catch a train, hence I thought I would drop you a quick note this morning.”
Paul Nash
“Just wanted to drop you a note to thank you for the invitation to last night’s Industrial Sector
Dinner.
I had a great evening, able to interact and make new network connections.
The evening was professionally run, but had an informal air which allowed guests to
communicate.
Please also pass on my thanks to Simon too.”
Carl Bullock
“Thanks Emma for a very enjoyable evening.
Could you send me the contact details for :Chris Hodges
Charles Elkington
Tom Lightowler
Christopher Darlington”
David Pearson
“Many thanks for your note below.
I had already dropped a note to Simon in order to thank him for the invitation, but I am sure
that thanks are also due to you for all of the arrangements and organisation - the true
indication of a well-organised event is always when everything seems to run like clock-work
and nobody notices. This doesn't happen by co-incidence so well done!
I enjoyed the evening.”
Geoff Spink
GUEST FEEDBACK
“Simon - many thanks for inviting me to this excellent event. It was an extremely interesting
and enlightening evening.. Look forward to hearing from you again soon, should a suitable
assignment arise.”
Ken Smith
“Thanks for an enjoyable evening - I certainly found your guest list to be very relevant to what
we are doing at DC.
I will send over a list of our sub sectors so you know what areas we are focusing on but, in
short, between the subsectors we cover most of the Industrial space!”
Andrew Cunningham
DC Advisory Partners
“Thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed the informal networking opportunities as well as
the debate.
I would appreciate contact details for Mark Flain of Alcatel South East Asia. We had agreed
to meet but I had to leave early.”
Raj Rajagopal
“Thank you for the invitation to last night’s Industrial Sector Dinner.
I had a great evening, able to interact and make new network connections.
The evening was professionally run, but had an informal air which allowed guests to
communicate.”
Carl Bullock
“I greatly enjoyed the dinner and managed some useful networking. As usual there was
insufficient time to meet all those I would like to have spoken to! I wonder whether you might
consider emailing the attendees details some days before such future events so that one
might "plan one's networking campaign" in advance?
I found the discussion very interesting. Eric Lewis' observation that those of us brought up in
the corporate world significantly undervalue our worth to the PE world, struck a chord!!
Altogether a great occasion - I hope I may be invited again sometime. Meanwhile let's keep
each other posted about any "Motion" developments.”
Brian Newman
GUEST FEEDBACK
“James / Paul - Thank you again for the invitation to yesterday's event, which was most
valuable.
Ken - it was good to meet you.
and Simon / Emma - thanks for organising and hosting such a good networking opportunity
for us all.
I now have some more business cards and intros to follow-up, so my network expansion
continues !
Meanwhile, I'm still looking for the right full-time CEO/MD position, so please continue to
keep me in mind for anything in the Consumer Products or General Manufacturing sectors,
and location can be anywhere in UK.”
.
Neal Mernock
“Thanks. I enjoyed it. Please let me know when the next one is.”
Rob Carroll
Catapult Venture Managers
“Your team have beaten me to it. I just wanted to make contact quickly (so forgive an
emailed thank you) to say how much I enjoyed dinner on Wednesday evening. Brian
Newman was excellent company for the first part of dinner and I will be seeing more of him
locally, and Jamie McComasky and David Mackenzie equally enjoyable company later on. I
would love to have the chance to steal 5 minutes on the phone with Raj Rajagopal, who had
to leave during the panel discussion, and Alan Wilson, who was not able to make it at all: is
there any way you could see if it might be possible to tee this up, without major
inconvenience to you or them?
On the other matter we touched on, I would be delighted to 'cast an eye . . ' and get back to
you with any feedback, but will leave this with you to act on when you wish.
Finally, a possible recruitment opportunity: I have a friendly relationship with a firm of NW
accountants with a surprisingly vigorous and capable corporate finance team for their size. I
saw them yesterday and they have an incumbent audit client, rather boffin-driven, operating
in the area of pharmaceutical testing and diagnosis, whose business has gone into vertical
take-off as a result of some proprietary cleverness in the area of clinical trial measurement
and testing. The business will this year generate £1.2m EBITDA on sales of £1.8m and my
friends at the accountancy firm are convinced that with a cable CEO the business could
grown by at least one order of magnitude (if not more), but it needs an industry based CEO
and the two owners need to extract some capital to derisk and allow themselves the
confidence to let it fly. With a CEO candidate in place, but perhaps not yet appointed, this
would be a perfect package for PE firms who like and understand the pharma
market. Would you be interested in finding a way to tap into the Directorbank network to
identify suitable candidates, and see if there was a viable way to work with the accountancy
firm and their client to advance this? At this stage, it is an idea, not a firm requirement, but
nothing ventured nothing gained. I would be happy to put you in touch if you can see some
possibilities.”.
Marcus Moir
GUEST FEEDBACK
“Many thanks for inviting me to this informative and engaging event.
The networking was of a very open and useful nature, and the discussion forum shared
some valuable perspectives on the current state of business.
I was also able to talk with Ken Brotherston briefly, and his shared perspectives are very
relevant for me.
I would be pleased to have some contact details for Mark Flain and Ken Smith, with whom I
talked but did not acquire those details.
Bruce Paxton
Thank you for inviting me last night. Good group of guests, good format, very good
networking.”
Mark Hammond
Caird Capital
“Unfortunately we didn’t get to meet last night, you did look rather busy. It was a very well
organised event and toughly enjoyable. Thanks for inviting me.
Dave Murray
PS did you make any progress with Ken wood?
Simon
It was a very useful and enjoyable evening on a number of fronts. Thank you very much for
the invitation.”
Ian Edmondson
“Many thanks for these two email addresses Emma.
I found the networking particularly interesting, and have two further meetings as a
consequence. Whether there will be arising opportunities from those remains to be seen!”
Bruce Paxton
“Thanks very much for the evening, it was a pleasure to attend and it has help me make
some good contacts.
The evening discussion was also very interesting.
I hope to be able to share in future events.”
Mark Flain