News

Nigel McGinnity

Age: 33

Job title: chief executive of Pel.

Salary: undisclosed

Work rate: 39 hour week

Relaxation: 'The business is my hobby as well, that is the sad thing. I enjoy the job so much I think about it 24 hours a day.'

Vehicles owned: Range Rover

NIGEL MCGINNITY has worked his way up through the ranks of his family firm, Pel, which manufactures shop fittings, furniture, and stadium seating.

He started at the age of 15, making sandwiches and sweeping the factory floor, and says he has progressed through each part of the business. Now chief executive, he took over running the company four years ago, at a particularly crucial time.

'A year before I took over, the business lost £ 200000 in a year. I was faced with a company which was losing £ 4000 a week, he says.

Four years later McGinnity operates one of the most profitable shop fittings businesses in the UK, with a turnover this year of £ 75m.

He has already been in the industry nearly 20 years, and devoting the rest of his working life to the firm, potentially for another 30 years, would seem a long stretch by anyone's standards. But McGinnity does not expect to be doing exactly the same thing by 2030.

'As I own the company, I see Pel as a vehicle I can do a lot of things with, depending on my drive and ambition. My ambition was to become the number one in our sector, which I have done. Twelve months ago I made a statement saying we will be turning over £ 200m in 36 months, which we will be, ' he says.

McGinnity is now looking to grow the company through acquisitions, but does not rule out merging with another business in the future,

'We are a private business, and indeed a family business still, and I think you have to look at every option available to you as your business develops' he says.