20 faces of UK franchising

What Franchise showcases some of the leading names in the industry

John Davies, managing director of FASTSIGNS

John’s responsible for all aspects of the FASTSIGNS’ franchise business, including the key area of development. From the initial enquiry from a perspective franchisee, he ensures their suitability for a FASTSIGNS franchise, assisting new franchisees with financing, locating premises and supporting them up to their successful opening and beyond.

Before joining FASTSIGNS in 2015, John worked within the franchising industry for 11 years, overseeing the growth of a franchise network to over 45 centres. During this period, he also personally owned two franchises operating within a specialist retail sector.

Having experienced both sides of a franchise business, John understands the needs of franchisees while they’re managing their business and can identify when they might need support and advice.

Clive Sawyer, managing director of Business Options

Having built a reputation as one of the leading franchise consultants in the UK, Clive and his company have been helping businesses to franchise in the UK and internationally for over 15 years.

He’s also founder and CEO of the Encouraging Women into Franchising group, a not-for-profit organisation focused on helping women become involved in franchising.

Clive is a regular speaker at a wide range of franchise events, including British Franchise Association seminars, national franchise exhibitions, chambers of commerce events and franchise seminars run by the high street banks.

He’s written three book on franchising - How to Franchise Your Business, 20 Most Asked Questions in Franchising and The Essential Women’s Guide to Buying a Franchise.

John Pratt, senior partner at Hamilton Pratt

The UK’s leading franchise lawyer, John obtained his law degree from Oxford University and successfully completed a doctorate in comparative law at the Université d’Aix-Marseille.

Before starting Hamilton Pratt in 2004, he was managing partner at Pinsents, one of the largest law firms in the UK.

Hamilton Pratt has a team of seven lawyers exclusively undertaking franchise related matters and represents nearly 40 per cent of the full members of the British Franchise Association.

Until recently, John was the legal adviser to the British Franchise Association. He’s currently chair of Euro Franchise Lawyers.

John is the author of Franchising: Law & Practice, the UK’s textbook on franchising, as well as other publications, and lectures on international franchising throughout the world.

He’s also chairman of a group of franchise businesses that includes Kall Kwik, Recognition Express, ComputerXplorers and Techclean.

Tom Portesy, president and CEO of MFV Expositions

President of MFV Expositions for more than 15 years, Tom added CEO to his title in 2009.

He oversees a staff of professionals who organise The Franchise Show and Franchise Show Ireland, as well as three leading franchise events in the United States. Tom’s also active in many international franchise events operated by MFV and its strategic partners, as well as being responsible for the global network of partners involved in MFV’s international online business.

Working closely with the International Franchise Association and many franchise associations around the world, he’s been a panellist and moderator in numerous educational seminars and symposia.

Prior to joining MFV Expositions, Tom owned an advertising and PR firm and was a founder and group vice president of an instant printing franchise.

Pip Wilkins, chief executive of the British Franchise Association

With 18 years’ experience in the franchise sector, Pip has worked her way up within the association, gaining insight from all areas of the business and the franchise industry. She’s well known and highly regarded in franchising for her dedication and depth of knowledge.

Pip regularly speaks at conferences and seminars both domestically and internationally, as well as writing on franchising matters for national, local and franchising trade media. She’s also a judge for the annual bfa HSBC Franchisor and Franchisee of the Year Awards.

Pip represents the UK at both the European Franchise Federation and World Franchise Council. The bfa has grown to be one of the largest franchise associations in Europe and one of the most successful in the world.

Dan Archer

A franchise specialist with over 18 years’ experience, Dan has worked with a number of now well established franchise brands and over 350 franchisees.

Over the years he has been active within the British Franchise Association, holding a position on the board of directors from 2008-2014.

Dan was a founding member of The Franchise Seminars, a series of educational events aimed at helping people to understand franchising and encourage it as a route to business ownership.

His own personal experience of the care sector for both his paternal and maternal grandmothers brought about a desire to change the industry. This led to him joining Home Instead Senior Care in 2011.

In 2015, he joined Promedica24, Europe’s largest live-in care provider, to help develop the UK division of the franchise.

Matt O’Neil, head of partner recruitment at Expense Reduction Analysts UK

Originally from a science-based technical and sales background in polymer technology, Matt was one of the former business owners and sales director of confectionery delivery and vending franchise brand Snack in the Box.

He has extensive experience in the franchise industry, having personally recruited the lion’s share of the SITB franchise network during his time there, before he sold the business in 2009.

Matt now heads up all aspects of partner recruitment for Expense Reduction Analysts UK, a white collar procurement specialist franchise.

During his time there, each year ERA has been consistently selected by HSBC and the British Franchise Association as a finalist for the prestigious title of Franchisor of the Year.

Matt also organises, runs and presents the 16 NatWest franchise seminars around the UK and is used extensively for public speaking and training events by HSBC, NatWest and the bfa.

Suzie McCafferty, managing director of Platinum Wave Franchising

Having over 17 years’ international franchising experience, Suzie is a well known personality in the franchising world.

She’s been a judge for the British Franchise Association’s Franchisor and Franchisee of the Year Awards and is the current chairperson of the Scottish Franchise Forum. Platinum Wave is also the joint sponsor of Scottish Franchise Week.

Having built her printer cartridge business from a single retail shop in Edinburgh to a network of over 70 franchised outlets across six countries, it’s fair to say Suzie’s consultancy comes with an authenticity that’s hard to match.

Prior to founding the bfa accredited franchise consultancy firm, Suzie was the franchise director and a board member of national recruitment franchise Select Appointments.

In 2016 Suzie was retained as managing director of Select and says she’s delighted to be a franchisor once again alongside her consultancy work at Platinum Wave.

Vicki Mitman, associate solicitor, Birketts LLP

Vicki has a particular specialism in franchising, licensing and brand protection and advises existing and prospective franchisors and franchisees. 

For franchisors, Vicki assists with the protection of trade marks, preparation of franchise agreements, franchise resales, dispute resolution, international franchising and provides advice on the British Franchise Association’s accreditation process and code of ethics. 

For franchisees, she advises on the terms of a franchise agreement and related documentation, and assists with selling or buying franchise businesses.

For several years Vicki has been an active affiliate member of the bfa and is now the bfa’s affiliate forum chair. She also chairs the East Anglia regional meetings of Encouraging Women into Franchising. 

In 2015, Vicki achieved bfa Qualified Franchise Professional status and also won the EWIF Young Woman in Franchising award. She’s recommended by Legal 500 (UK 2016) and is listed as an ‘associate to watch’ by Chambers (UK 2017).

Chris Roberts, director of Franchise Finance

A British Franchise Association Qualified Franchise Professional, Chris previously had a successful banking career and was an associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers.

Franchise Finance arranges finance for franchises, prepares business plans and runs business and financial training courses and workshops through its Business Training Academy.

The company is an affiliate members of the bfa and has a 95 per cent success rate in raising finance for its clients.

Chris has prepared hundreds of business plans and helped franchisees and franchisors to raise millions of pounds. He works closely with the main lenders in the franchise sector and delivers a range of seminars at franchisee conferences, bfa and industry events and regularly contributes articles and blogs to the various sector magazines and websites.

He also teaches a variety of financial courses and undertakes detailed business health checks.

Louise Harris, franchise director of Wilkins Chimney Sweep

Louise’s husband Peter bought and operated Wilkins Chimney Sweep, which was founded in 1895. Together they franchised it in 2010 and now have 15 franchisees. 

Louise was previously a franchisee, buying her Medics On The Move franchise in 2006. In 2016 she was appointed to the board of the British Franchise Association as an associate member representative. She also chairs the membership committee.

A co-chair of Encouraging Women into Franchising from 2012 to 2013, Louise won the organisation’s New Woman Franchisor of the Year Award.

Wilkins Chimney Sweep won the Franchise Marketing Award’s Best Franchisee Marketing Support Award in 2014 and franchisee Richard Bryan was named as the bfa’s Microbusiness Franchisee of the Year in 2016.

Mark Scott, director of franchise development at NatWest

Since joining NatWest in 1982, Mark has gained a wide range of experience within the small business sector, having managed the bank’s small business advisers in the City and West End, as well as relationships with national organisations, parliamentary groups and Business Links in previous roles.

In 1992 he became an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Banking, now the Chartered Bankers Institute.

He joined the NatWest franchise section in 1998 as senior franchise manager. He was appointed as Head of the NatWest team in December 2002, a role he undertakes today for the RBS Group. 

In 2005 he was appointed to the board of the British Franchise Association for a two-year period. 

Mark is a regular speaker at seminars for prospective franchisees and franchisors. He was one of the first people to gain the bfa’s Qualified Franchise Professional award.

Brian Duckett, chairman of The Franchising Centre

Over a period of 40 years in franchising, Brian has been a franchisee, franchisor and adviser to businesses wanting to franchise domestically or internationally.

He spent 10 years as a director of the British Franchise Association, during which time he was instrumental in the development of standards for professional adviser membership and the introduction of the Qualified Franchise Professional programme.

His team of more than 20 franchise practitioners is Europe’s leading firm of franchise developers, recruiters and trainers and works with associates in more than 40 countries to move franchised brands around the world.

Brian regularly writes for national and international franchise magazines and websites and has spoken at franchising events on five continents. His current focus is on helping franchisors to recruit and develop the best talent for their businesses and getting all parties engaged in the process of franchising.

Nigel Toplis, managing director of The Bardon Group

The Bardon Group’s stable of franchises comprises Kall Kwik, Recognition Express, ComputerXplorers and Techclean.

Starting his franchise career with Kall Kwik, the specialist high street print and design business, Nigel was managing director until he left in December 2002 to join Recognition Express.

In 2006, Nigel added ComputerXplorers, which provides ICT education to 3-13 year olds, to the group under a master franchise arrangement from the American owner.

In January 2012, he took on the master licence for Kall Kwik from the US, thus returning to his franchising roots, and in July 2016 added system hygiene franchise Techclean to The Bardon Group portfolio.

Nigel has written three books on franchising, was previously chairman of the British Franchise Association and is a Fellow of Lancaster University.

Andy Brattesani, UK head of franchising for HSBC

He has 30 years’ experience working in various disciplines in retail and corporate banking and has been with HSBC since 2008.

Andy’s extensive knowledge of UK franchising has not only enabled him to develop the HSBC UK framework to support business growth in the sector, but has seen him successfully lead the expansion of the bank’s franchise model internationally.

The British Franchise Association’s Franchisor of the Year and Franchisee of the Year Awards are put on in partnership with HSBC.

Steve Bolton, founder of the Platinum franchises

Author, mentor, entrepreneur and founder of the Platinum franchises, Steve left school at 16 with no qualifications, made his first million by the time he was 30 and lost it all by the time he was 33.

Having learned some painful, but valuable lessons from this experience, he quickly made his wealth back again and founded the Platinum group of companies in 2007, with a vision to help as many people as possible achieve greater wealth, health and happiness.

Platinum now has a combined annual group turnover of £40 million and has enabled more than 350 franchise partners to transform their lives through property investment and online retail.

The Franchise partner network owns a portfolio of assets exceeding £250 million in value, which consists of residential buy-to-let property and uniquely branded retail product lines.

Stephen Hemsley, executive chairman of Franchise Brands

In addition to being executive chairman of Franchise Brands, Stephen is also non-executive chairman of Domino’s Pizza.

Having originally joined Domino’s as finance director in 1998 when it was still a private company, he led Domino’s to an IPO on AIM in 1999, before being appointed CEO. During Stephen’s near 20-year association with Domino’s, the company has grown from a market capitalisation of £25 million to around £1.7 billion and from around 100 to over 1,000 stores across the UK, Ireland and Europe.

Franchise Brands is a group of international multi-brand franchisors with a combined network of over 450 franchisees in 12 countries. Its current principal brands are ChipsAway, Ovenclean, Barking Mad and Metro Rod.

When it was founded, Franchise Brands’ vision was to create a group of franchise businesses that could benefit from sharing the same central support services, allowing the management of these businesses to focus on expanding their networks and supporting franchisees.

Carl Reader, author of The Start Up Coach and co-owner of dennisandturnbull.com

Carl is a leading small business adviser and author of The Startup Coach and The Franchising Handbook.

He currently runs a multi-million pound turnover group of businesses and is highly sought after as an international keynote speaker. Carl regularly contributes to newspapers and magazines all around the world on all aspects of starting and running a business.

Ranked in the City AM Top 100 Entrepreneurs, he has advised thousands of businesses, including many household names. He has been recognised in the Accountancy Age 35 under 35 and was ranked number five in the ICAEW Economia50 list of influential sources of finance news and analysis.

Ian Christelow, co-founder of ActionCOACH UK

Having watched his father’s business fail as a child, Ian understands the devastating consequences of business failure.

When he came across the ActionCOACH brand in 2001, no one really knew what a business coach was, but Ian could see it was the cure for the blight that kills nine out of 10 UK businesses inside their first decade of trading.

He and his partner, Julie Wagstaff, have spent the last 16 years growing the franchise in the UK to over 150 franchise owners, becoming the most successful out of over 70 ActionCOACH countries.

This is a result of the support structure of over 60 UK-based team members put in place for the franchise network, investing £250,000 in an exclusive lead and client generation centre and developing strategic alliances with many other companies to introduce thousands of business owners to the solution.

His ultimate goal is for ActionCOACH to become a household brand and the go-to place to grow your business successfully.

Richard Holden, head of franchising, Lloyds Banking Group

The longest serving head of franchising in UK banking, Richard has 35 years’ experience in the sector.

He was instrumental, working alongside Pip Wilkins at the British Franchise Association, in the development and introduction of the highly successful Prospect Franchisee Certificate programme, which educates potential investors in the benefits and potential pitfalls of becoming a franchisee.

The Lloyds Banking Group franchise team has grown in recent years and their commitment to supporting the UK franchise community remains as strong as ever. Last year saw the bank tripling its lending to franchisees over the previous year, supporting the bank’s wider commitment in helping Britain to prosper.

Richard remains passionate about supporting people with their franchising journey and using his knowledge and experience to help them build successful businesses that will contribute to the growth of the UK’s economy.