Three weeks into the role, new UK & Ireland Managing Director Lisa Whitfield is settling in and getting to know people across the business. We caught up with her to ask how it’s going and her priorities for the future.
How does it feel to be leading Ideal Standard in the UK?
Ideal Standard and Armitage Shanks were brands that I was familiar with all the way from my early school days right to the present day and I’m now on day 13 with the business and I am excited about the opportunities for the business to grow. It has been great to see that Dave has done an incredible job of steadying the ship in the wake of many external challenges such as the pandemic and the energy crisis last year. l will now take the baton and build on that foundation to grow the UK & Ireland business and make it an even better place to work.
The welcome I’ve had has been so warm from everyone at Armitage and Hull and from my peers across the European business too. I am really looking forward to continuing to meet the team in the coming weeks and months.
Where do you see the opportunities for growth at this point?
There are always opportunities for growth and we owe it to the brand to continually keep looking but two areas that stand out in the early days are the DIY and e-commerce channel that Ollie is leading; This channel is continuing to grow in the UK and Ollie and his team are making us so much more available to the consumer at home and taking advantage of the fact that people know our brands. We will continue to focus on growth in this area.
The second area is expanding our footprint in London in terms of the architecture and design community and nurturing those relationships with architects to ensure we’re top of mind whenever anyone is specifying a product.
Through all of this, though, the focus on the number doesn’t go away. While we think about how to grow the business and make it a great place to work, we have to retain that laser focus on delivering our commitments on the numbers.
You’ve worked for other big brands in your career. What are you most proud of from your working life?
About seven or eight years ago, Newell Brands decided they wanted to demonstrate to the board of directors that they could grow brands internationally. They decided a good place to do this was in the UK with stationery brands which included Berol, Parker, Sharpie and Paper Mate. This resulted in a project called “double writing”, the reason being that we wanted to double the size of this part of the business and over the course of four years we achieved that.
We collaborated with our customers, we invested in the market and led the category. It was an enormous task and it was hard work but we built an incredible team all aligned on the mission. I can remember walking into supermarkets at the Back to School period in July and the stores were full of our brands, and I could really see the impact of all the work we had done.
What are your early impressions of working here?
If anything my expectations have been exceeded. I’m genuinely even more excited 13 days in than I was before I joined the business. The passion at Ideal Standard is so evident – it’s in the DNA of the business and that’s so exciting because we can nurture that. The market environment remains tough but we need to take more share of that market and I truly believe we have the products and people to do that.
I’m excited to meet more people and there is lots more of that in the coming weeks. I’m approachable… please feel free to reach out to me and drop me a note or invite me for a coffee.
Find out more about Lisa in her personal profile here.