- PODCAST -
This episode brings together two leaders from established North East family businesses.
We chat to Nadia Johnson, a fifth-generation member of Ringtons, the tea company famous for its doorstep delivery, but maybe less well known as a manufacturing brand serving the Ringtons brand and many private label providers. A Director at Ringtons since 2023, Nadia now leads on technology, people and culture, commercial customer relationships and retail.
We’re also joined by Dr Tom Shanks, a third-generation member and Director of one of the North East’s best-known taxi companies, Blueline Group. Tom’s doctoral research explored innovation and disruption in the UK private hire and taxi market, building on Blueline’s history of innovation, including being one of the first taxi companies to deploy radio dispatch systems.
This episode explores what it means to join a family business several generations down the line. We pose questions like how do family firms preserve their legacy while adapting to new times? How do they handle technology, succession, brand, customer expectations and new competition? And what can the wider North East economy learn from businesses that think not in financial quarters, but in generations?
Together, Nadia and Tom discuss how their family businesses have adapted across generations, markets, technology, customers and shocks, in order to survive and grow.