Festive Focus: Bdaily catches up with the group MD of JM Glendinning

Can you introduce yourself and your business to our readers?

“I’m Nick Houghton, group managing director of JM Glendinning Insurance Brokers. We have a head office in Leeds and offices in Newcastle, Scarborough, York, Sheffield and Birmingham.

“We’re an independent insurance broker looking after all manner of customers from private clients through to multinational companies. We’ve got a team of just over 100 people and this year we celebrated 45 years in business.”

What was your company’s biggest achievement of the year?

“To celebrate our 45th anniversary we decided to raise £45k for five charities chosen by our team – and it’s looking as though we’ll smash it. From a business perspective, I’m very proud of going through the £30m Gross Written Premium threshold.

“Five years ago we placed around £10m of premiums on behalf of our clients and we’ve grown by recruiting talented individuals and building businesses around them. The key thing is that the MDs own a percentage of their respective businesses, which changes behaviour as they own a bit of the group.

“Ultimately, this helps deliver a fantastic service to our customers: our people care about what they do.”

How would you approach 2018 differently, given the chance?

“In all honesty I wouldn’t change anything fundamental. We run our business in a simple fashion: we empower great people to look after our customers.

“It would be easy to say we’d run a little faster and grow the income a little quicker, but I believe in sustainable growth to make sure we maintain the focus on the end customer.”

What are your company’s plans for the new year?

“Firstly handing some money out to our five chosen charities, which I’m really looking forward to! Beyond that, we’ll be focusing on targeted recruitment.

“There are so many ‘classically trained but disenfranchised’ insurance professionals out there working for our competitors that want to work with us and can deliver lots to our customers.”

What’s your favourite Christmas song?

“It’s got to be Fairytale of New York… a classic.”

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