FSB Sales Conference 2021

Dave is a proud FSB member and our host for the Sales Conference 2021.
 
During his glittering career as an award-winning MC, Dave has worked with the Royal Family, members of the government and a host of celebrities, industry leaders and VIPs from the world of business, television and sport.

He is also a presenter with the BBC and can be heard reporting on football matches and contributing to sports shows on local UK radio stations.

Dave is a familiar face at FSB events and we know you will enjoy his warm and engaging style.

 

Mike Cherry has been an active FSB member for more than twenty years and was elected National Chair of FSB in March 2016. He chairs the Board of Directors as well as the General Meetings of the membership of FSB and is responsible for the management of all aspects of the organisation. He is committed to ensuring the voice of small firms is heard at the highest levels and regularly meets with the Prime Minister and Business Secretary.

In his previous FSB roles of National Policy Chairman and Policy Director, Mike enjoyed enormous success leading FSB’s campaigning and parliamentary programme for almost a decade. His leadership helped FSB achieve an unprecedented number of victories in making the voice of small businesses heard within Government, and has helped make FSB a key representative within Government for small businesses across the UK.

Mike understands the demands of small businesses. For more than 40 years, he has run a successful timber and manufacturing business, W.H Mason & son in Burton-On-Trent.

Mike is passionate about not only helping small businesses flourish but also helping develop skills for the next generation. To that end, he is a keen supporter of apprentices and believes small firms are key to helping boost the number of apprenticeships. He also supports programmes to help ex-offenders and former service personnel get back into the work place.

Kevin Hall has managed the external sales force for FSB for the past 6 years, joining as Head of Sales in 2015 prior to his appointment as Director of Sales in 2018.  He works as part of the Senior Management Team with responsibility for member recruitment operating through a team of Regional Sales Managers who in turn manage a network of Self Employed Membership Advisors.

Prior to joining Kevin held various senior management roles predominantly within the Automotive Aftermarket Sector latterly with Unipart Automotive in the UK for over 20 years which formed part of the global Unipart Group. Kevin was responsible for managing a multi-site distribution network across the UK covering Logistics, Sales and Operations servicing a network of national and independent garage networks.

Kevin and his wife Julie have been managing a full house renovation project on a rural property with a 250 year history near Lancaster, the original plan was to complete the project within 18 months but has taken more than two and a half years so far with the impact of the pandemic. He now hopes to complete the project by the end the year. His current ambition is to complete a lap of the Nurburgring in less than 8 minutes. 

Julie Lilley has worked for the FSB for over 22 years, having been head of various departments prior to her appointment as Chief Operations Officer in 2010 and then Chief Executive in 2018.  She works with and advises the Board on operational matters whilst ensuring the Directors strategic vision is delivered via her team of ten Senior Managers. 

On leaving school, Julie was self-employed owning and running her own business.  A few years later she moved to the Middle East for 14 years, primarily working for the Royal Oman Police, where she was responsible for the management of several retail outlets supporting the oil installations in the dessert and key cities.  Latterly, having studied classical Arabic, she led a department in Special Branch.  She returned to the UK to further her education and completed her MBA in 2004. 

Julie lives with her husband and together they enjoy walking with their Welsh Terrier, gardening and watching motor racing. 

Tina McKenzie joined FSB’s Board in April 2021 as UK Deputy Chair, Policy and Advocacy.

Prior to that, she spent more than three years as Chair of the Policy Unit for Northern Ireland, during which time she took on a pivotal lobbying role through the Brexit negotiations, including meetings with Prime Ministers, the Taoiseach and senior EU officials. Tina has also been a champion of business throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and has had widespread media coverage to call for improved business support packages.

After graduating from Ulster University, where she recently appointed as a Visiting Professor of the Business School, Tina went on to pursue a successful international recruitment career, working with some of the world’s largest blue-chip companies. After returning to Northern Ireland 2013, she established Staffline Recruitment as a start-up throughout Ireland, taking the company from a standing start to a turnover of £150 million within five years. She has won a number of awards, including UTV Business Eye’s Business Personality of the Year in 2018 and the Belfast Telegraph Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.

Tina also served as the NI Director of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation between 2013-2016 and as the European Ambassador for Women’s Entrepreneurship Day in 2016. In 2017, Tina was appointed as Honorary Consul to Finland in Northern Ireland.

Tina’s extensive experience of running a multitude of companies brings invaluable skills to the board. Her dedication to improving people’s lives through employment and acting as a firm advocate for business drives her commitment to FSB’s ethos and its members.

I am a chartered accountant and since qualifying have spent the past 20 years in work focusing on operational, commercial and strategic finance.

I spent 8 years with a large accountancy practice, KMPG, supporting and advising clients of all sizes (from entrepreneurial SMEs at the start of their growth journey, right through to large established PLCs) on projects including; obtaining finance, acquiring for growth,  disposing of non core businesses and a range of other strategic developments.

Around 12 years ago, I moved into senior management roles within businesses in the insurance and financial services sector. In those roles I focussed on delivering strong financial control and reporting, whilst supporting the operational & commercial development of those businesses.

I have led the Finance team at FSB for 6 years.

Chief Commercial Officer Caroline Lavelle has been with FSB since 2018, responsible for marketing, partnerships, national events, First Voice and our products and services for members. Over the last 20 years of her career, Caroline has focused on delivering innovative products and technologies for small businesses, to allow them to compete and thrive, both as a small business owner herself, and prior to FSB as Chief Digital Officer at Yell.

Following a career in Customer Services, CRM, Marketing and Data Science with leading organisations such as the Co-op, Manchester Airports Group, DWP and McCann Erickson, Roger joined FSB in January 2020.

As the Director of Membership, he is responsible for Customer Services, Member Experience, Member Retention and Telesales.

Juliette Brown, Head of Partnership & Events: Juliette joined FSB in January 2015 and she heads up FSB’s third party partnership relationships and the Commercial events team. Juliette’s events team have been instrumental in establishing the FSB Celebrating Small Business Awards into one of the leading business awards in the UK as well as securing sponsorship with global companies such as Google in support of our award series. Outside of FSB Juliette is a married mum of 1 and enjoys spending time with her family horse riding and at the gym.

Paul Wilson joined FSB in April 2021 as Policy Director. He oversees all of FSB’s policy development work and research in Westminster, lobbying on behalf of small businesses across the UK.

Prior to joining FSB, Paul worked at the Law Society as their Director of Public Affairs, where he was responsible for the Society’s domestic and international influencing and media work. He also has nearly a decade’s experience of leading policy teams within the UK Government, covering areas including international negotiations, climate change, energy, trade, regulation, and skills.

Dave has been Campaigns Coordinator at FSB since November 2020, so just a newbie compared to many colleagues. Dave has now become FSB's Marketing Manager, on secondment, until the end of the year. With over 20 years’ experience in small and large businesses across the UK travel and tourism industry, Dave has passionately developed and managed innovative and effective strategic and tactical marketing and communication campaigns. Dave has worked alongside Wallace and Gromit on Visit England’s ‘Great’ campaign and Yoko Ono, during the rebranding of Liverpool John Lennon airport. Dave has a love of music, covering genres from Reggae to Rock, and, as a dad of five, enjoys running a family taxi service during his spare time.

With 13 years’ experience in FSB in various roles, I currently have deputy responsibility, working closely with the department Director Karen Durcan, on the  effective management and strategy of 50 field staff working remotely across England.

I also work closely with other departments to support the delivery of national policy, campaigning and commercial projects by incorporating the local priorities and needs of our members.
 

Currently running a limited company contracted to the FSB since 2015, along side three other businesses including a residential property portfolio which I started in 1987 and continue to manage and grow.

Self employed from the age of 21, as a business owner myself, I have over 30 years’ experience across diverse sectors including sales, marketing, business start-ups and franchises, with a wide range of business knowledge, experience and skills.

I have run companies involved in the double glazing industry, debt management services, construction industry and soft furnishings retail and installation as well as working for a national DIY company managing their kitchen and bathroom sales and installation.

Working with people, building teams and thinking outside of the box are three things that I love, along with the motto ‘don’t bring me the problem – bring me the solution!

My name is Hemant Kalidas (happy to be called Hem!) and I joined FSB as the Regional Sales Manager for the Midlands Region in 2014.

My sales career started out at grass root level selling utilities door to door where I quickly developed my sales and people skills. Having started out at the bottom, I understand how a sales team functions and what is required to have and keep a highly motivated and productive sales team.

I am very proud to be working for a not for profit organisation that supports the small business community and I admire all the lobbying it continues to do that makes such a difference to small business owners.

LCpl John-James Chalmers, “JJ”, is a former Royal Marine Commando who has served on operations in Afghanistan.

A qualified teacher, he joined the Royal Marines Reserve in 2005 whilst at University and transferred to regular service in 2010. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 where he served on the frontline in Helmand Province. His team were in close liaison with the Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police Force as well as re-building relationships with civilian communities. He was wounded by an Improvised Explosive Device an "IED" whilst on foot patrol; in a blast that claimed the lives of two of his friends.

He woke up a week later in hospital, in Birmingham, where his recovery and rehabilitation began.

JJ has been through hundreds of hours of surgery and has endured months of specialist rehabilitation throughout his years of
recovery.

Since being wounded he has lived his life to the absolute fullest regardless of his disabilities. Aside from relearning almost every function for his 'New Body' he has also taken up as many new opportunities as he can, like learning to Scuba Dive and competing in the Invictus Games in 2014.

As Captain of the Trike Cycling team, a team made up of Recumbent and Hand Cyclists; which brought home 8 medals, JJ has also personally won a Gold and Bronze for Recumbent Cycling and a Bronze in the 4x100m track.

As well as competing JJ has been featured in the BBC1 Invictus Games primetime documentary which gave him his first taste of TV. He now is forging ahead with a Broadcast career and has gone on to present The Anniversary Games, Superhumans, coverage of the IPC in Doha and National Paralympic Day all for C4. 2016 saw JJ return to The Invictus Games in the role of an Ambassador telling his story at the opening ceremony plus reporting and punditry for the BBC. JJ was recently an integral part of the Rio Paralympic studio presenter team on C4; hosting over thirty hours of daily live coverage.

Away from Sport JJ is part of the BBC ceremonial coverage team covering events such as Remembrance Day and The Lord Mayor’s Show. The People Remembers saw him co- presenting alongside Sophie Raworth, a daily week long BBC1 series honouring the heroes of war on the home front and on the battlefield.

For Radio Five Live JJ headed up their IPC coverage and hosted the well received documentary To Helmand and Back.

His other credits include The One Show, BBC Breakfast, Wild Escapes, The Pilgrimage, BBC Scotland’s Getaway series and reaching the Quarter Finals of Strictly Come Dancing on BBC1.

2021 has JJ showcase his crafting and design skills on Money For Nothing for BBC1 as well as presenting across both The Olympics for BBC1 and The Paralympics for C4; the first disabled presenter to do so.

JJ is a Patron for Help For Heroes and an Ambassador for The Invictus Games. He travels the country giving inspirational talks and motivational workshops to schools and businesses. 

Rob has joined the Commercial team in August and will be leading on the social media strategy for the organisation as well as implementing the Communications Hub over the coming months. Having run a leading social media agency in Manchester since 2010, Rob will now be sharing his extensive experience with FSB.