Peter Stewart

Practical Business Improvements

Director and Business Agility Coach at PBI

I joined PBI at the invitation of Gary Downs the MD. Gary and I have known each other for over 35 years and have worked together in various business endeavours for over 15 of those years. 
My role as Operations Manger is a combination of managing the team behind the scenes and client facing deployment activity.
The PBI Team have are a hand-picked bunch, experienced and highly motivated so the management of them is very light touch. The COVID situation has however changed things quite significantly for PBI both internally in relation to the way we operate and in client facing deployments. We have had to evolve our processes to accommodate higher levels of remote / cross regional working. Although we have experience delivering Value Stream Maps, Kaizens and Campaign Rooms with some participants not in the room. The switch to 100% remote was a challenge but one we responded to very quickly. We have developed our methods to accommodate the changing world.
My initial deployment with PBI was with the BP’s Clair Ridge in support of the 2019 Campaign. The objective  of the 2019 campaign was to lift performance to another level using lean and agile working methods. The Campaign exceeded all goals with: HSE Zero Reportable Injuries, achieved a 24% increase on plan with Cumulative Productivity highest on record.
My second deployment was the CGLP Project in Baku which required the implementation of a cross-regional Campaign Room and various improvement work-shops,
I learned during this period that regardless of how good and professional the team you’re working with, there’s always room to improve and don’t underestimate the extent of that improvement. I also reminded myself that despite the new environment that the tolls work anywhere if applied correctly and with the appropriate rigor.

Operations Manager & Continuous Improvement Coach

Grapevine

Business Advisor

Sustainable Business Improvement Ltd

Continuous improvement and Leadership coach focusing on lean and agile ways of working.

Director

Cocoon Environmental Safety Ltd.

Myself and my business partner acquired KMS Ltd in 2004 with a view to diversifying the business. In 2004 we established Cocoon Environmental Safety Ltd to focus on Water Treatment within the commercial sector, specialising in the use of specific products. I headed this part of the business and established a client base within the Housing Association sector. 

During this period we completed a Best practice Environmental Option study for a Nuclear Industry client and conducted product trials within the Oil & Gas industry in Canada.

Volopa

My involvement in Volopa was initially as an investor in a start-up but I quickly found the requirement to undertake the role of Operations Director. This was my first involvement with financial technology / fintech and it was a steep learning curve, as the company was and FCA regulated company. The IT developmental phases were delivered using SCRUM frameworks and Lean and Agile ways of working in general.

During this period I managed the operational development of the organisation to deliver leading foreign exchange bank to bank and payment card services and multi-currency pre-paid MasterCard for international travellers and for business branded MasterCard products. 
During my time in Volopa I found myself challenged considerably, particularly with investors whilst managing a complect and evolving operation. It all came together in the end and the company continues to evolve into something rather special. 

The company re-located from Glasgow to London and the team had grown in strength considerably. I therefore decide it was time to bow-out and get back to my core skills within Continuous Improvement.

Director Of Operations

Compaq Computer Corporation

I started in Compaq as a Production Manager but was quickly promoted to Operations Manager of the Server Division. I had full responsibility for delivery, quality and cost with my responsibilities including Engineering. 

I was responsible for the initial implementation of a Continuous Improvement Team, operating across all the divisions within the plant. Although the concept was not new to Compaq, the speed and pace at which we implemented change was. A full-time team was established and continued to deliver Kaizen events and major projects including set-up reduction, cellular manufacturing, cycle time reduction and other CI initiatives.

I was deployed to the USA New Jersey in a trouble shooting capacity and Leadership Coach to assist with a site supplying the UPS. This was a difficult period as there was resistance to change and from what was perceived as out-side interference. I learned that although my direct and no-nonsense approach delivered results, that taking everyone with you on the journey is as important. The quality and out-put issues were completely resolved within a 2 month period. 

I left Compaq soon after the HP buy-over to take up the challenge of running my own businesses.

Operations Manager

Donprint

I joined Donprint as an Operations Manager to establish a department for screen printing and was given a budget and a free reign to purchase the equipment and facilitate training for all the staff from the out-set. 

I utilised my full Lean skill-set in setting out the processes and used Value Stream Mapping and Kaizen events to build the foundations. I implemented a cellular process with strict manufacture to order and zero WIP Levels. All set-up’s were optimised across all processes. We quickly broke into the market and were supplying tha major Computer Manufacturers Compaq and IBM.

I learned that my skill’s were indeed transferable and that my Lean Manufacturing background was a considerable advantage. I left as I was invited to apply for a job I just couldn’t refuse.

McGavigan Limited

I rejoined McGavigans Automotive Products and was quickly part of our transition from conventional to cellular manufacturing. I then managed Business Unit’s supplying parts for Audi and Ford as well as a few other large players. I was responsible for end to end delivery, cost and quality. 

By this time, we were operating fully in a Lean environment with Kaizen and other improvements work-shops used to drive out waste and improve processes in general. I used set-up reduction methodology on many occasions to target manufacturing processes. I continued to learn quickly and develop my skill-set with Visual Management and War Room’s becoming part of daily life. At that time our Production Director called it his Sunrise Meeting as it was held first thing in the morning.
McGavigan’s manufacturing excellence was recognised nationally and internationally at that time and I was proud to be part of that excellent team.

I left as I was offered a position in another organisation who were looking to set-up industrial label printing using Screen Process for the Computer Industry. The blank canvas was too good to resist.

Business Unit Manager

British Army

I left civilian life for something more exciting and got it, I joined the Parachute Regiment and quickly learned a whole lot about myself, people in general and what can be achieved when the chips are down. 
When I think back to that period what strikes me is the fact that the key skills learned were completely transferable to civilian life. Skills relating to people, motivation and that fact that there’s no replacement or substitute for being fully prepared, the 7P’s apply to everything in life, you’d need to ask me what that means if you don’t happen to know. 

I left because I was more of a home bird that I realised and missed that and my family more than I expected and wasn’t sure it was a life that suited a married man.

Soldier

I joined McGavigan’s straight from school and served a 3 year apprenticeship as a Screen Process Printer. At that time the company was just becoming involved in Automotive products, I was privileged to be part of that exciting journey. We became the biggest supplier of printed speedometers tachometers and gauges in general for the automotive industry world-wide. 
I was initiated into Lean Manufacturing by the Nissan and Toyota Supplier Development Teams and was quickly running my own events as a junior Manager. I manged the Print Department almost straight from becoming fully qualified due to my training ability on new equipment. McGavigan’s was an excellent place to work and learn and was a sound base for my career. I left looking for something more exciting and a complete career change.

Production Manager

The older I get the more I value honestly and integrity, people who give an honest account of themselves and their situation. Isn’t that always the best way to start a conversation?

As for me, I did okay at school but didn’t really apply myself fully, it wasn’t until I started work than I got serious, completely focused on being good, being efficient at whatever I was asked to do. As an Apprentice Printing Technician my education started in the photographic and stencil department. I was quickly getting through a day’s work with time to spare, so asked “what do I do when I’m finished”, the Manager shrugged his shoulders and said, just sweep-up and keep the place clean. I spent so much time doing that, they called me Sweep! I’ve been called a lot worse since.

I’ve always been focused on the here and now, never planning a career path or working towards the next move. That’s not really been a conscious decision it’s just the way it is, I get passionate about the job, the journey and that seems to serve me well. I haven’t applied for a job since my first one when I was 16 years old, I've always been invited. 

My personality suits my profession, I do like a nice process, for data and logic to be applied to situations. All stacked up and thought through nicely. It still baffles me when others ignore the data and make uninformed decisions! Even people who should know better and their number appears to be growing, or am I becoming a little more critical, there’s a thought! 

Always the fit guy in the crowd, accustomed to saying to my friends, “if fitness is important to you, you’ll find the time.” Now I’m struggling to find the time much to their amusement. I do still make an effort but the endurance stuff I used to do will probably stay in the past.  I do have some nice war stories about those days though. 

I do love my dogs and currently have three Frenchies who keep us busy almost all of the time. Like most things in life, “you get out what you put in” and I get lots from them. They teach me as much as I teach them. Dogs can tell us all a little about trust and how to earn it, there’s no fooling them.

Over the years my sense of humour has landed me in trouble, I take after my mother and just can’t resist lobbing in a comment or finding something particularly funny and losing it and I mean completely losing it. That’s a burden worth bearing, all things considered 😊

That's my story, what's yours?



Eric Doyle  (F.ISP)

Consult Crux

We set up Crux to help organisations access and grow in their new Digital Commercial worlds.

The Digital Twin of your sector is in build mode, the access point for you and your team for this new commercial world is through the strategic application of Social Media through Digital B2B Influence.

Building meaningful connections  - Turning that connection into Leads and Sales, recruitment and growth.

A modern take on commercial processes, a fresh approach to business growth.

We started this journey because we wanted to do something that we loved and are passionate about. We wanted to connect and work with interesting people from all types of industries and help them get to the Crux of the matter… creating connections and building relationships that will transform your commercial outlook.

As the way we work continues to move deeper into digital, at Crux we believe change is an opportunity to learn and grow.

We provide a people centered approach to help you transform your commercial activity to digital, end to end, across the whole business. 


Let’s connect...

Founder / Digital Commercial Consultant

Making a connection with people in a room is important.  Whether its a keynote speech, facilitating strategy workshops or hosting an event.  Its all about the connection and keeping people interested.

-Do you want to start your session with an impactful keynote?
-Do you want to be able to relax and join in with your team at a strategy session and need someone to run the session?

Whatever the event, In here to help you and have a range of talks that should fit your bill, ranging from:

-The Digital transformation of business
-Digital B2B Influence
-Modern Sales and Marketing
-High impact business communication
-Strategy and planning
-Creating digital communities
-Resilience
-Leadership

Id love to connect with you and find out more about your speaking needs.

Speaker / Facilitator / Host / Moderator

The Crux Cast

I started The Crux Cast as a way to stay in touch with good people doing good things in business via Social Media.

Its a relaxed, conversational podcast with the innovators and changemakers.  Everything from start ups, to new Tech. People who think differently and do differently!

The idea is to allow you to see behind the profile and get to know the guests a little more.

Good people doing good things in the world!

Video Podcaster

OGV Energy

OGV Energy Live is the longest running monthly energy sector live streamed podcast.

Each month we run the live show on a specific energy sector theme (in line with OGV Energy magazine).

We have headline speakers, usually representing an industry body such as Renewable UK, NZTC, Scottish renewables, OEUK etc.

We then have a range of guests representing organisations that are active in this specific business area.

We close with a review of markets with Westwood global and the EIC.

The show typically had 350-500 live viewers and 1000+ total watches across the globe.

Host of OGV Energy Live

The OGV Studio

Good media makes people visible, great media makes them the leaders in their sectors...

We believe that media is the fuel that powers every organisation commercial engine, from large multinational through to new start ups.

We believe that getting it right is important for revenue, recruitment and investment.

We believe that its time to do it differently...

Great media should be accessible to all....and it all starts with developing a strategy that delivers what you need. A strategy that moves with you as you grow.

We give our clients access the Digital Twin of their sectors so that when you get there your team know exactly what to do to build influence, own the digital share of voice and create meaningful connections with people that can help your business.

Everything we do is designed specifically to increase your commercial interaction in your sectors...

Who are the leading Technical and Commercial Digital influencers in your sector today?

The fact is...it should be you and your team.

Digital Media Strategy and practical application designed for you, your company, your markets...your sector.

From light touch to taking the full load...THE OGV STUDIO team are here to Energise your Media.

Managing Director

DLA ignite

Behind the curtain...

As a business leader heavily involved in Sales, Marketing and BD, I could see there was a change in the wind in early 2017, clients were changing how they interacted with the supply chain.  I found that cold calling, emailing and advertising were beginning to prove inefficient, something was changing.  The change was the shift to social selling...

I read and researched more into this and things began to come clear.  I needed more clarity and wanted to find the best source of information.  

We believe that social media is the best tool for organisations to communicate with their audiences.

Staff, customers, prospects, investors, potential hires whoever it might be it seems these days that everyone is on social media (or accessible through it) and with every passing year they are spending more and more time engaging on these social platforms. Despite this, very few businesses have been able to gain success with their social media activities.

Fear, lack of understanding, lack of direction or application, difficulty in changing people’s habits are often cited as reason for this. However, the fact remains that for the first few businesses to get it right the potential rewards are outstanding.

We have taken our extensive consulting expertise in solving the problems involved in using social media and turned this in to a series of programmes to tackle specific business issues.  These programmes are predictable, repeatable and reliable.

In essence, we help our clients create a Social Media Strategy and deploy that across various functions within the organisation in a safe, appropriate and effective way.

My role at DLA was to help individuals and organisations realise what they want and need from Social Media through Strategy, skill and rigour.

It all starts with building meaningful connections....

Social Selling Coach - Strategic Social Media Specialist

Pipetech Operations UK & Pipetech International AS

Unblocking the blockage...

I joined, Private Equity backed, Ramco Tubular in October 2016 as a consultant.  My role was to assist in the Market Analysis and development of a specific product that one of their group member companies had designed.   The company was Pipetech, and I set about getting under the skin of the product and associated market opportunities.  I spent a significant amount of time going between the Aberdeen and Stavanger bases, it was great to be back In Norway, which had become my second home.   I completed my analysis and presented a position paper outlining to the Ramco board, what I felt should be done.  This was accepted, we set the plan and started work.

In early 2017, I was asked to take over as Managing Director of Pipetech.  This was an interesting challenge as the company required a full restructure, reset and relaunch.  The initial challenge was to work out 'why' we do what we do, 'how' doing that makes us interesting to clients and 'what' we do differently.  Im a big believer in the Simon Sinek 'start with why' model and have seen amazing company transformations when its applied and 'lived'.

Everything hinged on what the markets told us, this involved us knowing more about our markets.  Then came the strategy development which led to a restructure an rebranding.  We changed out internal and external perception of what we were.  We defined what set us apart from the competition and really pushed this in the market , this was an area we could take the lead.

So, with new structure, new culture, new image and a clear market focus...we went to work.

We took the company into new territory: geographic, sector and market.  The machine started to kick in.  Project wins, unseating competition and developing new ways of working.  

During my time as MD of Pipetech, I also served as an Executive Director on the Board of Ramco Tubular at group level.

All good things come to an end...

RAMCO Tubular Services

Executive Director, Board member (see above).

Executive Board Member

SCD consult

Going it alone...

After my experience at Aquaterra Energy, I decided to take some time out of the corporate world and set up a solo Consultancy.  I knew that my skill set and experience would be of use to SMEs and I found a niche assisting Private Equity organisations grow small businesses, quickly finding traction.

I focussed on delivering fixed cost Sales, Marketing & PR and Business Development support with absolute flexibility.   I offered to assess a clients 'sales engine' and help tune it.

This consultancy didn't really get off the ground as I won my first project and after 3 months was asked to take over as MD of the company I was consulting for...

I did get a taste of the consultancy world and enjoyed it.  I vowed to return  at some point but, for now had to focus on the new MD role (see above).

Aquaterra Energy Ltd

Venta Icenorum...

A head-hunter from Korn Ferry contacted me in my last weeks at Oceaneering, asking if id be interested in meeting the MD of an Oilfield services company based in Norwich.   The MD had recently been appointed and was looking to 'do something special' in Aberdeen.  They were privately owned at the time, had ambitious growth plans, a good spirit and seemed to have some interesting market opportunities and plans, I was interested.

I was inspired by the MD’s vision and admired his history.  I knew and understood the products and services from my history in drilling and subsea.   

The company did some work in Aberdeen but didn’t have a presence there.  They had recently acquired an office in the West End of the City and needed someone to run and grow it.  I joined as General Manager is May of 2012 and began the build.

I applied all of my learning to date.  Starting with the TAM analysis (it always does..), speaking to clients to see what what they felt about our sector, repacking our message and growing a capable team.  

We began to take work from the competition and establish a name for ourselves, we were growing and had a great team.  The stand out moment for the team was us winning the Catcher drilling template project for Premier Oil, a game changing project which was delivered on time and on budget.

I went on to take over as Regional Director for Europe and became a Executive Board member of the company.

We were on track, doing well in the market and taking share.  Out reputation was growing and we were doing things differently and being noticed.

The MD that hired me into the company left in the Summer of 16, I left pretty soon after him.

Regional Director - Europe

General Manager - Aberdeen

Oceaneering Asset Integrity

Crossing borders...

I was introduced to AGR by an Executive Search company.   I met Aage Landro the Exec VP and was impressed by his focus and vision, I joined in the Summer of 2011.  Prior to my start date, Aage invited my wife and I to the Summer party in Bergen to meet the team.   We travelled over to Bergen an attended the open air concert, the team were great.  This was a friendly and open bunch of professional people, welcoming and caring. 

A few weeks after the party I was off to Bergen for the first of what would become regular trips. I fell in love with Bergen and miss going back there.

We specialised in pipeline inspection, which was great as I could pull from my IMR days in Acergy, I knew this space well.  We developed unique systems with third parties and took them to market, we broke into Offshore Wind and began to grow the business.

I had several roles in this company but it never felt overwhelming, we had lots of great support and the culture was strong.

I joined to help square up my region in preparation for exit.  The process began in the Summer of 2012 and our company was purchased by Oceaneering.

At the time, I didn't see a career path for myself at Oceaneering, I stayed for the handover and transition and left 3 months after the sale.

Country Manager UK - Managing Director of AGR Integrity UK - VP Sales & Marketing

All I could think about at school was Music and Art, academia came later in life. 

I played the Trombone, loved painting and was sure I would head off in that direction as a profession but, my parents put their foot down and insisted that I "get a trade first, and then do that arty rubbish later”.

So, off I went, a spotty, misunderstood ‘New Romantic’, to be an apprentice electrician in heavy construction, refineries and eventually, offshore.

Since then my journey has been an interesting one, moving from Technical, Health and Safety, Quality, Sales, Marketing and Business Development, General Management, Senior Leadership and now 'end to end' business transformation through Social Media.  Everything I have done professionally has linked together to bring me to where I am today, I'd love to tell you I planned it this way...

Building meaningful connections has been a thread running through my life.  People who know me will tell you I am a social person, sometimes too much.  My Primary 4 report card said, “Eric works well in groups but not so much on his own”, Mrs Borland got that right.  So, it’s fitting that today I spend my professional life transforming individuals and organisations to become successful through Digital Media and Business Storytelling
  
I love a challenge.  When one of my friends suggested we head off to the Sahara Desert and enter the Marathon Des Sables in 2013, I jumped at the chance...why not? 

I realised how much of a terrible error I had made when I turned up at the start line in Morocco for 6 marathons, in 6 days, in near 50 degree heat…I made it to the last day and collapsed without finishing. So, I went back in 2015 and did it properly, my MDS medal is one of my dearest possessions and the amazing people I met there are life-long friends. 

👆I gave a TEDx talk on that very subject, you can find the link in my featured content section, but I must warn you about the feet!  You'll know what I mean if you watch it....(apologies in advance!!)

To find me at my happiest would mean you’ve found me on a mountain with family and friends, either flying down a track on the mountain bike or on skis, for me there is nothing better. 

Music and Art are still a huge part of my life, check out my Instagram 'hoodathunkpictures’ - don’t be too harsh.!

I run a Digital Influence training company with a difference by day and I'm a wannabe member of Queens of the Stone Age by night...

We are based in Aberdeen, Scotland but can work with you remotely anywhere on the planet.

This is a little part of me, I'd love to hear about you...

taplio

The Battle

Peter Stewart

Eric Doyle (F.ISP)

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