Profile - Gerard Toplass: Taking a dive into business and leisure has proved an education

DIVERS know that a taste for adventure must be tempered by an awareness of risk.

Nobody wants to come to a murky end because they didn’t carry enough oxygen.

Gerard Toplass has explored some of the world’s most spectacular wrecks, including SS Thistlegorm, which was sunk by German bombers off Sharm El Sheikh in 1941.

Mr Toplass has studied its eerie cargo of motorbikes, trucks and guns which were intended to boost the Allied war effort.

They lie on the sea bed, in almost perfect condition, as if time has stood still.

Mr Toplass brings a diver’s spirit of endeavour, combined with deep-rooted prudence, to his business ventures.

Under his leadership, Hull-based Claughtons has profited from the boom in school investment driven by Tony Blair’s mantra of “education, education, education”.

In recent years, Claughtons has been transformed from a “modestly performing” business into a significant player in the educational furniture and refurbishment sector.

He’s braced for the impact of public sector cuts and is determined to support a new generation of East Yorkshire entrepreneurs.

Outside work, he’s happiest diving into clear, deep water.

He recalled: “My first dive was in Turkey six years ago. It was so good to see such a variety of marine life in their natural habitat.

“I have continued my diving education. We have dived all over Europe, the Red Sea and the Caribbean.

“Diving in St Vincent in the Caribbean this year probably surpasses the Red Sea. It was absolutely fantastic. The reef was outstanding and the dive sites were beautiful.”

An accountant with an entrepreneur’s eye for opportunity, Mr Toplass has been the managing director of Claughtons, since he led a management buyout in 2008.

Four years ago, he realised that schools would be spending their cash on facilities and furniture, instead of computer systems, in future.

Claughtons has played a big role in improving the quality of the furniture, classrooms and laboratories at local schools.

On Mr Toplass’s watch, the business has moved to bigger premises and found clients beyond its traditional East Yorkshire heartland.

Hull received a boost from Labour’s £55bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme, which was controversially scrapped by Education Secretary Michael Gove last summer.

Spending on school buildings rose from £600m in 1996-97 to £6.8bn in 2009-10.

This vast building programme was not without its critics.

Last month, Labour’s school building programmes were branded “cumbersome, bureaucratic and generally a waste of money” in a report compiled by Sebastian James, the group operations director for Dixons.

But Mr Toplass is keen to highlight the social and economic benefits of the BSF programme.

It helped to increase his company’s revenue from £1.2m in 2008 to £3m in 2010, and the company is on course to reel in turnover of between £5m and £6m this year.

It’s also helped to provide work for staff who lost their jobs when major employers in Hull’s caravan industry went bust. Claughtons has 28 staff and hopes to hire up to 30 more, drawing on the traditional strengths of Hull’s workforce.

“When I first got involved in Claughtons, it was a lifestyle business,’’ Mr Toplass said.

“I took the core principles of the business and scaled it up. Over the past two years, we’ve really looked to push out the geographic reach. We’ve spread across the M62 corridor all the way to Liverpool.

“We’ve recently won contracts in the university sector in the north east.

“We are having success with traditional education customers, schools and colleges and we have also won some prestigious BSF work in our region.

“We were extremely saddened by what happened in the caravan industry. There are skilled and semi-skilled people who have got real opportunities in our business.

“I’ve always been interested in business. I decided to start as an accountant because I saw this was a great way to get to know a wide range of businesses.”

After working for KPMG in Hull, his first move into the corporate world came with a placement at Devalit, a Scunthorpe-based automotive parts supplier.

“I worked as financial controller and was offered a job by the MD, so I moved into industry,’’ he said.

“This exposed me to other business disciplines, such as sales and marketing, human resources and general management.

“Devalit was sold on to LINPAC Mouldings, so when an opportunity rose in 1996 to join a fledgling computer business in Hull, I jumped at the chance.”

The company, Chisholm Computers, grew from three staff to 100 in nine years, while revenue over this period soared from £400,000 to more than £15m.

He recalled: “The expansion was built on a mixture of organic growth and acquisition, and the business became a leading supplier in education hardware and software in the North of England.

“We had an ICT solutions business, a software business and also an infrastructure business.

“We sold it in 2005 to Azzurri Communications as part of their growth ambitions, and we became part of their £150m revenue business.

“I stayed with Azzurri for two years through a secondary buyout with PPM, and then decided to leave and pursue other ventures.”

Apart from his interest in Claughtons, Mr Toplass has invested in I am Learning, an education software provider and Sypro Management, an online project management software provider for the construction industry.

He added: “My plans are to continue to grow all these businesses, and we will look to achieve successful exits when the time is right.”

But how will Claughtons’ stellar performance be affected by the Government’s cuts in public spending? Couldn’t this harm his growth plans?

“We try to work out where the funding is going,’’ he said.

“We’re finding a lot more money is going back into refurbishment.

“We’re changing the way we market and adapt our proposition and will ensure that where money is still being spent, we’re able to give them the best bang for their buck.

“We’re lucky to be in an environment locally where there’s a lot of opportunity over the next three or four years.

“BSF in Hull is here to stay. We’re going to continue trying to take our story further afield.

“Hopefully, by the time the country comes out of recession we can be in a position to capitalise on that across the UK.”

He’s a supporter of For Entrepreneurs Only, a networking group established last year that offers mentoring and advice for fledgling businesses in East Yorkshire.

“There’s about 60 of us,’’ said Mr Toplass. “We talk about real-life entrepreneurship – it’s not just business studies from a book.

“You learn from meeting successful people and talking to them about their experiences. I’ve learned more from my mistakes than my successes.

“It’s the mistakes that help you change the way you deal with things in the future.”

Gerard Toplass Fact file

Name: Gerard Toplass

Date of birth: April 27, 1969

Title: MD Claughton Office Equipment

First Job: Apart from a Saturday job at BHS, it was as a trainee chartered accountant at Dutton Moore Atkin Gilbert in Hull

Education: Hymers College in Hull, Humberside University – Accountancy

Last Book read: A Journey – Tony Blair

Favourite holiday destination: Sicily. It is relaxing, warm, with great food and I have family there

Car driven: BMW 5 Series

Favourite song: Anything by the Stone Roses. A great song is Mersey Paradise.

What are you most proud of: My children, Olivia, aged 12, and Daisy, who is 11