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The good lieutenant

17th November 2011
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Page 12, 17th November 2011 — The good lieutenant
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Keywords : Pall-ex, Forklift Truck

Adrian Russell, MD of Hilary Devey’s Pall-Ex, tells CM about what’s next for the network, keeping members close and what it’s like working for a Dragon

Words: Chris Druce / Images: Graham Richardson

“YOU MUST NEVER lose empathy for your membership, because without them you’re nothing,” says Adrian Russell during our meeting at Pall-Ex’s Leicestershire hub in Ellistown, Coalville.

The company moved to its new £12m home in 2003, having started off in 1996 in Wymeswold, based in a former wartime aircraft hanger. Russell, who joined in 1997 as operations director some 10 months after it started, recalls it consisted in no small part of portable buildings, portable toilets and a small opening in a hedgerow for hub access.

“My irst day was interesting as I had to deal with alleged drug dealing between a forklift operator and truck driver, and meet with the chairman of the parish council who was upset that drivers were trunking through his picturesque village as our landlord didn’t have the correct usage permissions.” The growth of the business led to a move to the Northamptonshire village of Gotham (inspiration for the Batman comics) and a former British Gypsum warehouse and disused mine in 2001.

Having been in from pretty much the beginning working in a small team – Russell casually mentions that in the irst ive years at Pall-Ex he was on a forklift truck every night loading trucks – the Wolverhampton-based MD, who thought he’d become a teacher or archivist after university, is irmly grounded. This despite the business he runs now forming a 96-member strong international network, pushing £80m in turnover and handling in excess of 9,000 pallets a day at its main hub.

“It’s been a privilege as you don’t often get the opportunity of being in at more or less the start of a business in the vanguard of a successful new sector,” he says. “I spent decades as a manager in transport trying to keep the brackets from the monthly accounts.”

Fighting talk

Russell has more than 30 years’ experience in distribution and logistics, with a large chunk (17 years) spent at United Carriers Group. He irst met owner Hilary Devey in the early 80s at a company called Scorpio. “I was the national operations manager with about eight depots. Hilary came in from Tibbet & Britten as national sales manager and we fought like cat and dog. I used to win the arguments back in those days,” jokes Russell.

Scorpio was ultimately sold by owner United Carriers, and after various roles at the group, Russell left in 1991 to follow a former MD to now-defunct Rapide in Yorkshire. He was general manager and a minority shareholder. The Palletways member [and later Pall-Ex member] initially did well, growing from around £1.5m annual turnover to £4m before the bottom fell out of the textile market.

The experience of working in a small company again after so many years at a big player with all the support functions that brings, was the perfect refresher ahead of Pall-Ex. On meeting Russell you’re left with the impression that this hard-won experience at the operational sharp end, and his down-to-earth nature are the perfect foil to Devey’s lamboyant persona. He talks of her with respect and affection (he gave Devey away at her March wedding), and while he readily agrees that the platform Devey’s TV appearances provide the industry are invaluable, he doesn’t let the business’s growing media proile affect the day-to-day.

He is at pains to point out that Devey remains very much involved, irrespec

tive of her other commitments, phoning daily when unable to be there.

This level of focus will need to be maintained by all if Pall-Ex’s ambition to build a one-stop 15-country strong European pallet network by 2015 is to be realised. With the network’s Romanian franchisee due to launch within weeks, joining Italy and Iberia, Pall-Ex wants to achieve its target within the next four years. “Sending freight to Madrid is [in principle] the same as to Margate or Edinburgh. We want to say to members you can sell to these guys, and you can offer this service, and simply as well.”

The plan is bold but, in Russell, Devey has clearly found the perfect second in command to make it happen for the network and its members. n


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