Profile - Bill Speirs: Manufacturing can still be the engine room of future prosperity

Bill Speirs, the new Master Cutler, may be an engineer, accountant and professor, but all his work is driven by a desire to create jobs and prosperity, he tells Peter Edwards.

JOBS, jobs and more jobs. There are many things on the mind of Bill Speirs, turnaround specialist, serial company chairman and Master Cutler, but one topic is clearly at the forefront.

Mr Speirs, the latest in a line of Masters going back to 1624, is obsessed with how the private sector can create work, wealth and prosperity for the ancient county of Hallamshire.

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It is much needed as South Yorkshire's high proportion of public sector jobs means it will be hit hard now that the Government's spending cuts have started to bite.

The engineer and accountant envisions, over time, a re-birth for the region, driven by the knowledge economy and specialist manufacturing – don't compete with the Far East on everyday widgets but on the production of specialist shafts.

If Mr Speirs' plan comes to represent a renaissance for Sheffield, then it will have been one that he very nearly missed.

It is barely six months ago that he was dangerously ill after being infected by Legionnaires' disease. He was left in a coma for three weeks after picking up the

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water-borne bacteria. What seemed initially to be just a cold worsened dramatically and he spent six weeks in the intensive care unit after "everything stopped".

Mr Speirs, chief executive of Sheffield-based company doctor ProTurn, looks in good shape today in the historic hall of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, surrounded by photographs of his predecessors, but he said he is still returning to health.

"I was seriously ill but, luckily, my body didn't stop. It was only when I came out I realised how weak I was."

So the revival of Mr Speirs, a father-of-two and grandfather-of-five, comes as Sheffield hopes for a period of renewal. The imminent end of Yorkshire Forward and the advent of local enterprise partnerships (Leps) means change is on its way, whether Steel City folk wanted it or not.

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While some bids have provoked gnashing of teeth and criticisms from Business Secretary Vince Cable, notably on the north and south banks of the Humber, the Sheffield scheme has progressed without controversy.

The part played in it by the Cutlers' company has proved that the historic organisation – made up of 450 freemen who are senior figures in the local manufacturing industry – is "not just a wining and dining club", Mr Speirs believes.

"It is very exciting and we are in the middle of massive change with Leps for the Sheffield city region. The bid is based on manufacturing.

"We are encouraging manufacturing and the creation of wealth – if you do not create wealth, you will not get employment and growth.

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"We have to create an environment where people create business and a skilled workforce. You can only do that if you

create companies that want to retain people.

"We are not going to create public sector jobs."

Mr Speirs decided to become an engineer when, aged 14, he stood on Derbyshire's gritstone edge overlooking Sheffield.

Today, as well as running ProTurn, he has a series of directorships, including at a steel and glass firm, a branded motorcycle gear seller and a food packaging business, while as Master Cutler he presides over a membership that faces a shifting series of challenges.

South Yorkshire may not be the industrial powerhouse of old but manufacturing is still vital to the region's prosperity.

Today, companies are producing advanced factory

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and electrical equipment which can be used around the world and it is here that the Master Cutler wants to see firms

taking on the behemoths of the Far East.

"If you want to compete making a widget and make millions' worth of them, there is competition from the Far East. But if you want create a product like a (specialised) shaft then the rest of the world cannot do that and Sheffield can.

"In Sheffield, we have to position ourselves that so that we are making things that people want to buy that you can make profits on."

Developing this type of work takes time, however, and Mr Speirs – who replaced James Newman – and that's why Mr Speirs has also set up the Master Cutler's challenge, using the post to encourage entrepreneurship in the region.

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He also wants to use closer links with Yorkshire universities as a way of tapping into the existing set of skills.

In this way, he echoes Keith Burnett, the Vice-Chancellor

of Sheffield University who speaks of using Britain's

capacity in science and technology to bolster its economy.

At a time when it is fashionable to knock undergraduate degrees and their economic impact, Mr Speirs stresses that higher education is not just "academia for academia's sake" but the launch pad for making money for the country.

This is borne out of years of experience, having been appointed as a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Sheffield in 1988, with the responsibility for executive management programmes, where he developed turnaround techniques.

His experience of turning around struggling businesses goes beyond universities, however, having been in the industry since he was 22 and having set up ProTurn 15 years ago.

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The firm, which is based in Sheffield, is often called in when client companies suffer problems with cash flow or their funders, have seen their key markets decline or find themselves with operational problems.

The amount of time it spends with a business varies from

case to case, with 18 months the uppermost limit, and Mr Speirs said most of ProTurn's work comes from recommendations, particularly when banks have made sizeable loans and begin to want them back.

"There are five banks in the UK, they know what ProTurn does and ring us up and ask us to come and help."

The firm hires associates for each job and has worked

with businesses across a range of sectors, such as in aerospace, manufacturing, travel, recruitment and agriculture.

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The same problems come up time and again and that may be why there is no trade secret to turning around companies. Simply having a tight focus on what a company needs to carry on trading next week, next month and beyond is at the heart of it.

"It is having the experience of recognising the key issues that want to be resolved. Far too ofen people are dealing with peripheral issues.

"If you take anyone into accident and emergency with a heart attack they deal with that, and not an ingrowing toenail.

"It is a critical focus on what needs to be done to save the business.

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"Second is what market you are in and you provide services to satisfy that market and allow growth.

"It is going in, smelling a business and getting on with what needs to be done – very often the solution is simple."

Mr Speirs' work may have been driven by tackling similar company problems for many years but his spell of ill-health, and the time spent recovering, has re-inforced many of the basic lessons of life.

"I have a talent and I can walk. I lost it when I was in hospital and I had to re-learn a talent I didn't realise I had.

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"One of my themes is how do we give people the skills to exercise their talent?"

WILLIAM BLAKE SPEIRS

THE CV

Title: Professor at Sheffield University and Master Cutler.

Date of Birth: 26.02.46

Education: Derby School, Birmingham, Sheffield Hallam and

Manchester University

First Job: Graduate Engineering Trainee at Lincoln Diesels

Car driven: Volvo XC90

Last book read: Don't have time

Favourite holiday destination: Australia

Most proud of: Dry stone walling.