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As chief executive of Norwich Union Insurance, 43-year-old Simon Machell is responsible for all aspects of Norwich’s largest private sector employer.
NUI has premium income of £6bn and almost 22,000 staff, including about 2,600 in Norwich. The business includes Norwich Union general insurance and the RAC and offers a range of services from insurance to driving lessons.
Mr Machell joined Norwich Union in 1994 and has enjoyed a spectacular rise through the company. He held a number of senior positions in finance and claims prior to taking on the role of customer services director in 2003. This included responsibility for NU’s developing offshore operations in India.
Following NU’s purchase of the RAC for £1.1 billion in 2005 he was appointed managing director of the RAC and tasked with integrating the business into NU. Prior to joining NU Simon spent two years as a consultant with Ernst & Young in their financial services practice in London. He previously held positions at Legal & General, where he started in the group audit function and then went on to be the finance director of one of the estate agency subsidiaries.
His career looks set to go to new heights as, in the next few weeks, he will leave his post at NU to take up a new role as director of parent company Aviva’s Asian operations. Based in Singapore, he will be responsible for Aviva’s key locations including India, China, Taiwan, Australia and Malaysia.
Mark Hodges has enjoyed a rapid rise to become chief executive of Norwich Union Life, the UK long term savings business of insurance giant Aviva.NU Life employs 2,800 people in Norwich, with more staff at its base in York.
Mr Hodges was appointed in April last year, which subsequently proved a record year as sales of life and pensions products grew 31pc to £13.6bn. NU Life’s operating profits rose 26pc to £744m as Aviva announced overall headline operating profits of £3.2bn.
Mr Hodges is a qualified accountant, and has an MBA from Cranfield Business School. He moved to Norfolk when he was 10, and worked for Larking Gowen and motor dealer Edmonsons before joining Norwich Union in 1991. He was involved in the acquisition of the London and Edinburgh Insurance Company in 1997, the demutualisation of Norwich Union in 1998, and the NU/CGU merger in 2000.
Mr Hodges was finance director of Norwich Union Insurance (NUI) from 1998 until May 2005, and was closely involved in the £1.1bn purchase of the RAC. In May 2005 he was appointed managing director of NUI, but was swiftly promoted to his current position in 2006. Married with four children, his interests include rugby, golf and Norwich City Football Club.
Robert Carter is chairman and managing director of Drayton-based construction group RG Carter, one of the leading family-owned businesses in the region.
The business was founded in 1921 by Mr Carter’s grandfather, George. Mr Carter represents the third generation of his family to run the firm, having taken over in 1974 following the death of his father, Bob Carter.
This year’s Sunday Times Rich List estimates his fortune at £172m, up from £130m the previous year. That reflects the continuing success of RG Carter, which last November announced record pre-tax profits of £18.2m for 2005, up from £13.7m a year earlier. Turnover rose from £236m to £289m.
The group has about 2,100 employees within a number of different businesses. Its interests include construction, development, the manufacture of doors and windows, and electrical and mechanical contracting. RG Carter is the main contractor for Norwich Theatre Royal’s current £10m modernisation project. In recent years it has also built The Forum, the new refectory at Norwich Cathedral, and the Jarrold Stand at Norwich City Football Club.
Rooney Anand joined Bury St Edmunds-based brewing and pubs group Greene King from Sara Lee and was appointed to the board in 2001 as managing director, Greene King Brewing Company.
He was appointed chief executive of Greene King in May 2005.
As managing director of Greene King’s brewing division he led the division’s strong financial performance and a steady increase in production at the Bury brewery.
Greene King’s three core brands have seen volumes continually increase, against the backdrop of a declining real ale market in the UK.
Before joining Greene King the 41-year old worked in the food industry for 13 years.
Most recently he spent five years with Sara Lee Bakery UK, the £80m bakery subsidiary of US-owned Sara Lee Corporation, latterly as managing director. Prior to taking on that role in October 1999, Rooney was general manager retail for two years, and before that was marketing director. Before joining Sara Lee, Rooney spent four years with McVitie’s. He has a BSc (Hons) degree from Bristol University in construction management and an MBA from the Aston Business School.
Richard Samson is chief executive of the East of England Co-operative Society, the region’s biggest independent retailer with 220 stores, turnover of more than £400m, and more than 5,000 employees in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.
Its interests span food and department stores to funeral parlours, opticians, pharmacies, petrol forecourts, motor dealerships, travel agencies, jewellery shops and a dairy. In May it announced trading profits up 5pc to more than £9m for the year to January, 2007. Members will share a £4m dividend. These results partly reflect an ongoing £40m expansion programme which continued in February with the acquisition of Anglian Convenience Stores, comprising 20 outlets in and around Norfolk.
Mr Samson became chief executive in 2004 of the Ipswich and Norwich Co-Operative Society, which in October, 2005 merged with the Colchester and East Essex Co-operative Society to form the East of England Co-operative Society. Mr Samson started as a trainee manager with the Scottish Co-operative in the 1970s.
By 1995 he was chief executive of the Coventry & East Mercia Co-operative, later the Heart of England Co-operative Society. In 2000 this was the first retailer in the world to donate 100pc of its profit from selling cigarettes and tobacco to local good causes.
Richard Jewson is one of Norfolk’s most influential business figures, and has been involved with some of the region’s most successful companies in a career spanning four decades.In September, 2004 Mr Jewson succeeded Sir Timothy Colman as Lord-Lieutenant of Norfolk, the Queen’s official representative in the county.
Mr Jewson joined the board of Archant, formerly Eastern Counties Newspapers Group, in 1982 as a non-executive director and became chairman in 1996. He is currently chairman of EastPort, the company established in 2000 to develop a new port for Yarmouth and serves as pro-chancellor of the University of East Anglia.
Mr Jewson is also a director of a number of companies, including Norwich-based retailer and property company Jarrold, Temple Bar Investment Trust and Irish builders merchants Grafton Group.
His distinguished career has also included spells as chairman of property group Savills and deputy chairman of Anglian Water Services Limited. He was also chairman of Octagon Healthcare. His business career began at Jewson, the timber and building merchant, which he ran for 12 years, becoming managing director, and then chairman, of its holding company, Meyer International until 1993.
Mike Kimberley is credited with reviving Norfolk sports car manufacturer Group Lotus following the death of founder Colin Chapman in 1982.
Now he has ambitious plans after becoming group chief executive for a second time following the resignation of Kim Ogaard-Nielsen in 2006. Mr Kimberley is overseeing a five-year plan to include the launch of three new models, the stepping-up of car production from 4,000 to 8,000 vehicles a year, and a drive to quadruple the size of the engineering business. Group Lotus announced 200 redundancies last September, but still employs about 1,100 people at its Hethel headquarters.
In May, 2007 parent company Proton completed a financial restructuring of Group Lotus to wipe out debts of more than £60m. Group Lotus had previously reported losses of £17.7m for the year to the end of March, 2006, up from losses of £6.7m in 2005.
Mr Kimberley’s first association with Lotus spanned 22 years. He joined in 1969, became managing director of Lotus Cars in 1976, and was group chief executive from 1983 to 1991 after Chapman’s death. He later worked for other leading manufacturers including Lamborghini, but returned to Group Lotus as a director in 2005.
The Bernard Matthews story began back in 1950 with one man, 20 turkey eggs and a second hand incubator.Today the company is global, with an annual turnover of more than £400m and employing about 7,000 people worldwide.
By 1952, Bernard Matthews was producing 3,000 turkey eggs at his Norfolk home and decided to leave his insurance job and move into turkey farming full-time. Three years later he bought a derelict mansion and 36 acres of land. Great Witchingham Hall, near Norwich, now restored to its former glory, remains the headquarters of the company.
Ten years after its start-up, the Bernard Matthews company had become the biggest, most successful turkey manufacturer in Europe. After being floated on the stock exchange in 1971, the company reverted to being a limited company with ownership returning to the Matthews family. The company has had to contend with a difficult few months since the outbreak of bird flu at one of the company’s farms in Suffolk, with sales yet to recover fully.
For many years Mr Matthews has been actively involved in Norfolk life, supporting a number of good causes including the Caister lifeboat and the Duke of Edinburgh’s awards scheme. He also helped the county pay tribute to its favourite son Lord Nelson by funding a series of new road signs which welcome drivers to Norfolk – Nelson’s County.
David Sterry, a chartered civil engineer with 37 years’ experience in the construction industry, has been chief executive of May Gurney for six years, having joined the company in 1996.
He led a management buyout of the business in 2001 and has been responsible for transforming the prospects of the company, massively increasing turnover and profits through winning major contracts and selective acquisitions, including the purchase of South West utilities business TJ Brent in 2004.
Under his leadership the company has been transformed from a business relying on fixed price contracts, to developing long term partnering agreements with customers. Last year he led the successful flotation of the business on junior stock market AIM and the company was named Barclays Business of the Year at the EDP Business Awards 2006, the first company to win the title a second time.
Mr Sterry was made an OBE in 2005 for services to civil engineering specifically in the areas of partnering and innovation, for which May Gurney has set industry standards.
John Fry joined Norwich-based community media group Archant as chief executive in 2002.
Archant, which publishes the EDP, is the leading family-owned regional newspaper group in the country, producing four daily regional newspapers and more than 75 weekly titles. Archant also owns three magazine companies, which between them produce about 75 titles and the company also publishes around 120 websites.
Archant has expanded its operations under Mr Fry’s leadership, the major acquisition being the purchase of 27 weekly newspapers from Independent News and Media in 2003. The titles included the Islington Gazette, the East London Advertiser, the Barking & Dagenham Post and the Kentish Times series. In early 2005, Archant acquired two magazine publishers Romsey Publishing Group, which became part of Archant Specialist, and Highbury Local Publications, which became part of Archant Life and Archant London. Earlier this year Archant focused its activities on England with the sale of its Scottish titles for £11.2m.
Mr Fry was previously chief executive of Misys Banking Systems, a supplier of software systems to the banking industry. The 50-year-old, who is also a non-executive director of Start-rite, started his career with Procter & Gamble, working in Belgium, Germany and Italy. After completing an MBA at Insead, he joined Bain & Company as a strategy consultant, before moving to Dun & Bradstreet.