Nick Herbert: 2 Months In

Following on from our biog of new Sales Director Nick Herbert, we thought we would catch up with him two months into his role to see how he has settled in: What have you gleamed from the last 2 months of working at BGB? Both good and bad? One of the stand out takeaways from these first few weeks getting embedded with the One BGB team is the outstanding talent, skills and passion we have in the business. Coupling this with our current product and technology capabilities, the opportunity for growth is vast. There’s clearly a lot of invested emotion and passion in the business – and as we harness this to support the long term growth strategy, we’re going to do amazing things. Are there any changes you are looking to implement immediately? Getting the new One BGB structure working across the 3 sites and within the Sales and Marketing team. Focusing on continuous reinforcement throughout the business of our drive to become a sales led organisation, and everything that entails – throughout the business. In terms of hard changes, I’ll be implementing a more readily visual representation of our opportunities pipeline and sales funnel, to better visualise where we need to be focussing our efforts and attention and where short, mid and long term opportunities lie. And Long term? As I promised to the organisation on 2nd May, my number one focus is to develop a long term sales strategy that will take us into and through the next 3-5 years. This will undoubtedly drive a number of changes as we deploy and implement that strategy and detailed plan, so to answer the question – watch this space! Have there been any pleasant surprises you hadn’t realised before your tenure? I knew that the cultural aspect of the business was held high, but the drive from David as CEO of the importance of culture and supporting behaviours is overwhelming in an extremely positive way. It is a fine example of how to correctly approach this often overlooked aspect in a business. Are there any actions or learned experiences from your previous roles that you intend to introduce to the team at BGB? Our market (well certainly the wind market) is not so dissimilar to the automotive industry – we’re dealing with a limited number of key turbine OEMs (like the limited number of car OEMs) as a tier 1 supplier and then also as an aftermarket parts supplier. So the way I managed those accounts and grew those large global automotive OEM accounts is something I’ll be looking to for what can be applied to us, our industry and our customers in Europe and globally. What’s been your the toughest challenge so far? With this being my first career role outside the automotive industry, a challenge for me is understanding a new industry sector, market place, customer profile and product. However, there are a number of similarities between some of our customers and those I am used to dealing with in the past so there are some familiarities there. Have you found anything a lot easier than first thought? Integrating with the BGB team. I’ve been made to feel very welcome by everyone and this has made my first few weeks considerably easier. I already feel part of the BGB family and look forward to where we can go together We'll be catching up with Nick again as he completes his 6-month tenure and his plans for the future of BGB.