Jonathan Neame Shepherd Neame
Company year of founding: 1698
Location: Kent
Turnover: £167m
Number of staff: 1,700
Generation of interviewee: 13th
the business and know that we can always do better. One of the challenges is that our shareholding base can get fragmented, which is not a problem but does make the communication challenges harder. With the benefit of hindsight, what advice would you given yourself when starting out in your career in the family business? What, if anything, would you have done differently? I used to think that business was about product and assets, but it’s not. It’s about people. Knowing that, I should have found different ways of communicating with people. Because effecting change isn’t easy, and it’s felt a lifelong journey to get the business where it is today. But nobody teaches you about people skills. They teach you about numbers and balance sheets, not people.
What is the most challenging aspect about being the custodian of a family business… especially one that’s more than 325 years old? Growing it! Growth is challenging in any consumer facing business, and it feels like there have always been headwinds for most of my career. On the other hand, the marketplace is changing the whole time, which creates both challenges and opportunities. What keeps me awake is not the burden of being custodian but the excitement of wanting to grow the business faster. What are you most proud of about your family business? The DNA, which you see in our people. New people are joining all the time, and they respond positively to our open, friendly, welcoming community that brings out the best in people. People are empowered to be themselves, which in turn helps them to perform well. At a personal level, I’m particularly proud of the way we’ve built our pub estate. In the past 30 years, we’ve sold something like 250 pubs and bought 150 in that time – that’s a huge amount of property activity – and our pub environments
and the way we connect with our communities are now fundamentally different. Was it always assumed you’d work in the business? No, I first qualified as a barrister and worked in the City for four years. I was always conscious of what the business might offer me, but I wanted to pursue another career first. As I got older, I became aware of what a rich business environment Shepherd Neame is, and coming into the business appealed to me more and more. All businessses are tough, and as a NextGen I felt I needed to bring something to the party. I felt it was important to build up my own workplace confidence, and get to know my strengths and weaknesses. With my career ahead of me, I wanted to make sure I had built strong foundations before coming into the business. If there was one thing you could change about your business, what would it be? My general philosophy is never to rest on my laurels, so I look at all parts of
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