Richard Fairclough

Sales and Marketing; Business Start ups based in East Midlands UK.

Richard was trained in Sales and Marketing in Unilever and J.Lyons and Co. before the desire to “work for himself” took over. Much to the consternation of his peer group colleagues at the time he resigned one Monday morning and took the plunge, only to regret he hadn’t done it years before.

Starting with others they formed the Purchasepoint Group Marketing Services Company which they developed very successfully working with high profile clients including Ford, DHL, Lever Bros, Johnson and Johnson, British Airways and Toyota with offices in UK, Scandinavia and USA.

Richard therefore gained a thorough in depth understanding of sales and marketing from both sides of the fence across a variety of companies and their widely different products.
Eventually Purchasepoint was sold to Lopex plc where Richard, as a main board Director had the experience of taking the company public.

For the past 10 years, Lopex having been sold to Havas in France, Richard has relocated to the East Midlands and has concentrated “putting something back” by Mentoring primarily to start up situations. Initially with the Prince’s Trust, but more recently with other organisations including Cambridge and Lincoln Universities. He also has helped prisoners about to be released from Lincoln prison to start up on their own.

As a consequence of his mentoring activities he has extended his experience into grant and matched funding and crowdfunding a bewildering field for emerging entrepreneurs to understand.

His main attributes are an ability to engage and understand quickly a mentees needs. He has learnt to listen, sometimes challenge but always to offer sound advice, encouragement always with good humour.

And by the way Richard is obsessed with cricket so not available during big matches at Trent Bridge!!