Team Profiles

Unlike the vast majority of the population, Richard’s career is everything he dreamt of growing up. Admittedly, his aspirations weren’t particularly specific – he simply wanted to be the boss.

He views his role as “making it easy for others to do a good job” and as such has built an exceptional and loyal team around him at Ellis who can always be relied on to do a good job, making things far easier for him.

 Interesting fact: Richard’s career has taken him far and wide, but at the end of the day he goes to bed in the same bedroom he was born in.

Diane says that her job is interesting, varied and exhilarating, which when you consider the interesting, varied and exhilarating time she seems to have when she’s not at work is just as well. She lives in the middle of nowhere (at least that’s what a rural village close to rural Whitby suggests to me), owns six ponies and one dog, likes show jumping, Bon Jovi, African safaris, Martina Cole, lasagne and Dirty Dancing (the movie we hope).

Interesting fact: Not just content with owning six ponies, Diane trains them and travels across the north of England with her friend’s children who compete on them.

Accountants have something of a grey reputation, but it’s fair to say that John is far more colourful than this lazy stereotype would have you believe. The Cambridge born, Yorkshire dwelling, West Ham supporting finance manager likes nothing better than preparing the Ellis accounts, budgets and forecasts while listening to The Beatles, which could explain why they’re always so very, very upbeat

 Interesting fact: John is very keen on genealogy and recently traced his family back to a gang of notorious Dorset smugglers – a criminal past he kept very quiet when interviewed for the job of finance manager.

Unlike MD Richard Shaw, Danny’s youthful career aspirations never came to pass. During his school days in York he dreamed of driving trains and flying to the moon, but instead ended up working in a village that doesn’t even have a train station.

Danny is very much the man on who the day-to-day smooth running of Ellis relies and as such hasn’t been allowed a day’s holiday since he joined the company nine years ago. He does though vaguely recall visiting Italy and Scotland in the late 1990s.

Interesting fact: When not helping to build things at work Danny likes to build things at home – he recently completed a Dutton Kit Car

Andy is responsible for new product design and development at Ellis and as such needs a good bit of creativity in his locker. Which, judging by the answer he gave when asked when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? (the gist of which was a football playing cannibal who ran lots, listened to heavy metal and ate nothing but chicken parmos in the Lake District) suggests the new product ideas are unlikely to dry up any time soon.

Interesting fact: On an average Saturday afternoon, Andy and his two sons make up 0.02 per cent of the crowd at Middlesbrough’s sparsely populated Riverside Stadium.

As well as an impressive track record within the UK cable industry, Paul also boasts an honours degree in medieval history and archaeology, which makes him a great addition to any pub quiz team.

He has been with Ellis since 2010 and during that time has helped secure a number of major orders that have helped to significantly grow the company’s UK sales revenue.

Interesting fact: Paul is a local councillor for the Hough Green area of his home town Widnes, a position he has held since he was a fresh-faced 25-year, which amazingly was just 16-years ago.

Tony has worked with Ellis since 2001 and since then has spent more time in the air than the average British blackbird. When he’s not enjoying the delights of living out of a suitcase and queuing at passport control, he is doing everything he possibly can to make sure every man, woman and child on earth knows the importance of correctly specified cable cleats – a task that he seems to be doing exceedingly well at, as Ellis now exports to more than 20 countries worldwide.

Interesting fact: A former Indie music kid, Tony specifically asked for his latest company car to have a digital radio so that he could listen to Radcliffe and Maconie on BBC 6 Music while “travelling between meetings”.

As the name suggests, Isabelle isn’t from Rillington. And when you consider how much our export sales executive has moved around it’s impressive she actually remembers where she’s from. French, but born in Germany, she has lived in the North, South West and South East of France, got degrees from the University of Central Lancashire and the Business School IDRAC in Lyon, and worked in Doncaster, Wolverhampton and now North Yorkshire – if that’s not enough for the first instalment of her autobiography we don’t know what is.

Interesting fact: Isabelle is fluent in three different languages, which is quite impressive until you realise that export sales director Tony Conroy can claim 3.5 (The 0.5 being vaguely passable English)

 Dawn has worked at Ellis since the late 1990s and is the first point of contact for all customers. As such her working knowledge of the company, its product portfolio, what shipment is where and when it’ll be expected is second to none – in fact, her application to appear on Mastermind with the specialist subject cable cleats was declined because she knew too much.

 Interesting fact: Dawn’s Art and Design Diploma and childhood desire to be a high wire trapeze artist in a circus prepared her in no way for her future career.

Tony is the ground crew of our export team. He ensures all procedures are correct and that the documentation produced when securing orders is absolutely accurate. With over 30-years export sales experience he has very much been everywhere, done everything and bought more t-shirts than he cares to remember.

 Interesting fact: Despite having a career with such a worldwide outlook, Tony has never held a full-time position outside Yorkshire.