Board Profiles

Julian Winch (President)
General Manager, Snap-on Finance UK Limited

Julian has been in senior management within a global corporate for over 20 years, principally involved in the credit industry. He has a wealth of general experience dealing at all levels.

“Sitting on the board of the Chamber for the past few years has been both rewarding and interesting. It gives me an opportunity to help support the local business community, but in particular as a group we are aiming to strengthen the organisation for the overall benefit of its members.”  Julian also volunteers his time to a number of other institutions locally.

Steve Robinson (Vice President)
Partner, Assurance, Grant Thornton UK LLP

Steve is an audit partner for Grant Thornton based in Northamptonshire. He has worked for Grant Thornton for 23 years, with the last 11 years being spent as a partner in Northamptonshire. He became a Business Link Northamptonshire director in April 2001 and following the formation of East Midlands Business became a Northamptonshire Chamber of Commerce Director.

Steve is Chair of the Finance Sub Group and has recently become a Chamber Vice President. He is Chair of Northants Prohelp, delivering free professional advice to charities in the county. He has a wife and three young children.

Richard Arnold
Partner, Quality Solicitors Wilson Browne

Richard joined Wilson Browne in 1972 and has worked in every department of the firm – Family, Private Client, Residential Conveyancing, Litigation and Commercial. Richard has regularly presented seminars on employment law and insolvency, his two main areas of specialism. Since 2006 he has been the Chairman of Wilson Browne’s Board of Management and has also served his term as the Northamptonshire Chamber of Commerce President from 2006 until 2008.

Ian Beattie
Managing Director, Knights of Old

Ian has worked in the transport industry for over 21 years; ten of which have been with Knights of Old, Kettering. Having now established himself as the Managing Director, he is determined to continue the company’s growth through innovation, efficiency and a strong ‘team ethic’.

Since starting with the company in 1999 Ian has witnessed the company’s change from a regional haulier into a nationally recognised brand. Having gained a BSc in Transport Planning and an MBA from Loughborough University, Ian believes that training his staff and keeping them motivated enables the company to remain profitable and strong within the transport industry.

Dr Ian Brooks
Dean, Northampton Business School, The University of Northampton

Ian Brooks was appointed Dean of the Northampton Business School (NBS) in 2004. A graduate of the University of Nottingham, he enjoyed a successful teaching career in the UK and Dubai before studying for a full time MBA (University of Bath, 1990: distinction). He became a Lecturer in Strategy following a brief role on the project team establishing Brooke Weston CTC in Corby. Published widely in international peer reviewed academic journals, he gained a PhD in 2003. Northampton Business School has a £13 million plus turnover, is rapidly growing and has around 25% of the University's students (over 3,000). With profit centre responsibility, NBS is pursuing a three pronged strategy of enterprise support and delivery, vocational relevance and internationalisation in its programmes. He was co-founder of Matters of Fact and will shortly establish a community interest company/social enterprise on behalf of the University of Northampton.

Chris Chater
Career Paradigms

Chris inspires business leaders through development programmes. His coaching business, Career Paradigms, is particularly successful in helping realise the potential of senior executives taking up new appointments. In partnership with Graham Speechley, Chris also runs a series of flourishing Business Leaders Groups.

The flagship programmes, The NLG groups, are specialist leadership forums for CEOs, MDs and Senior Partners from different sectors and business sizes. Through facilitated sessions, group members share experiences with trusted peer group colleagues, address specific problems and learn from top speakers. As a result, they make better decisions, gain confidence as leaders and become more profitable.

Mark Darnell
Director, Home Instead Senior Care

Mark commenced his working life with Grant Thornton Chartered Accountants in Wellingborough in 1976, then moved to R Griggs Group Ltd (Dr Martens) as Group Financial Controller. He was promoted to the Main Board in 1993 as Group Commercial Director after a period as Group Company Secretary. He remained in that position until 2004, and also served as Managing Director of the wholly owned subsidiary Dr Martens Sports & Leisure Ltd, and the Griggs financed Rushden & Diamonds Football Club for 12 years from 1992 to 2004.

Following redundancy from Dr Martens Mark returned to full time financial and commercial roles and was appointed General Manager of Aspers new casino in Northampton in 2008. Mark was presented with an opportunity to own his own care at home business in mid 2010, working with a family friend with 37 years’ experience in care management. Mark decided to buy into the internationally franchised Home Instead Senior Care operation where he is primarily responsible for business development and financial control.

Rachel Mallows
The Mallows Company Limited

Rachel runs two Northamptonshire based businesses with a regional remit, providing training, mentoring, project management and consultancy (The Mallows Company Limited) and PR and event management (enthusepr Ltd).

Rachel is a director of Northamptonshire Chamber, East Midlands Business Limited, and the trading subsidiary for The Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation, a charity funding a cure for spinal cord injury.

Kevin Shapland
Partner, Media Outcomes

Kevin set up Media Outcomes in 2002 after a successful career in the Metropolitan Police Service. During the latter part of his police career Kevin moved into marketing and PR, project-managing a number of successful, award-winning campaigns aimed at helping the Met to reach out to a variety of different audiences.

Having identified a gap in the ability of police forces to engage with their diverse range of stakeholders on a proactive basis, Kevin created Media Outcomes to help to fill that void, by building and improving relationships between the criminal justice sector, the media and the public. In his spare time, he sits on the board of Northamptonshire Crime Stoppers and is a Governor of his local school. 

Rob Purdie
Managing Director, Campaign Solutions

Rob is managing director of Campaign Solutions, a marketing communications agency in Corby. In addition to his commercial responsibilities Rob is a non-executive director and ambassador of Northamptonshire Enterprise Limited. Prior to owning his own businesses Rob enjoyed a 20-year career in corporate sales and marketing working in senior positions with Granada and Pirelli before moving to the agency sector designing, deploying and delivering high performance CRM programmes. Rob has been a member of the Marketing Society for over 20 years and is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing.

Married with two grown up daughters, Rob was born and bred in Corby and is an advocate for Northamptonshire as a great place to live, work and play.

Paul Griffiths (Chief Executive)
Northamptonshire Chamber of Commerce

Paul is Chief Executive of Northamptonshire Chamber. He makes sure that the Chamber's Members, which employ over one third of the county's workforce, have their voice heard at local, regional and national levels and that Members can take advantage of extensive networking opportunities and savings on essential business services. Other responsibilities include maintaining relationships with county and regional stakeholders in order to progress county initiatives and ensure Northamptonshire is one of the best places to do business in the UK.

Paul is a qualified accountant with an extensive business background at senior level, in both finance and general management roles. He has a diverse background covering manufacturing, software development and publishing, hospitality and financial shared services.