Vanessa Olver has happy, vivid childhood memories of the Barking-based family company Holloway Products Ltd, which makes veneered doors and panels.
She remembers frequent get togethers in the trade, where the drinks cabinet at the office was opened up and there was a room full of people.
In those days there was little inkling she would follow her father’s footsteps into the company. It was, and to some extent remains, a male-dominated industry.
Vanessa started with a secretarial career, qualifying at Brookside Secretarial College in Cambridge and then working as a legal PA. Her unexpected recent involvement at Holloway came when her father, managing director Mike Olver, asked one of her sisters to try the role of sales rep. Vanessa, a mother of three children (aged five, eight and 14), decided to give it a go instead.
“I saw a doorway that hadn’t been there,” she said. “I felt ready for a challenge; there was this challenge on my doorstep and all I had to do was to push a button.”
Her father, whom Vanessa describes as a “phenomenal” businessman, gave her targets to meet, including gaining FSC/PEFC certification, updating the company’s brochure and sorting out the website. She also took over the problem of recruitment and managed to attract four or five staff in a jobs campaign.
“I feel I have found my place,” she said. “There were times in the first six months when I could have walked away. I was a woman in a man’s industry. It’s a big shock because women do things differently.
Different approach
“I am not a wallflower. I have a vision for the com-pany and I think that’s a challenging thing for the men to get their heads around. I have had to be different but I have my father’s support 100%.”
However, she does not want to make assumptions because it’s her father’s business. “You do not earn respect that way,” she said.
Vanessa admits to being driven. “I represent a proper modern woman that works full time. I would find it difficult to stay at home looking after the kids. I have to juggle everything – karate, swimming club…”
She said she has no wish to conform to the power dressing image of female business executives who seek to appear more masculine maybe in an effort to be taken more seriously in a man’s world. “I am a 33-year-old woman and I like to look like a woman and still be able to come to work and sit in the office. I do not feel like I get taken any less seriously because of it.”
She thinks the industry doesn’t realise the benefits that women can bring, but hopes this will change in the next 5-10 years.
Vanessa’s father Mike, who was previously at Shadbolt, started the business in 1983 by buying Holloway Group’s veneering business. It is only in the last five years that he has taken his hand off the wheel.
Customer base
Holloway now serves a wide variety of customers, including developers, builders merchants, joineries, boatbuilders, specifiers and from time to time the public. Recent contracts include a penthouse apartment in Battersea and the Barclays headquarters. Turnover is expected to nudge £2m in 2008.
Vanessa has high hopes for the company’s future but is fed-up with scaremongering newspaper articles prophesying doom and gloom.
“If homeowners are thinking about doing an extension and they read about a recession coming they’re going to think twice about doing it. Holloway lived through a recession in the late 80s and early 90s and managed to survive. It was awful; apparently the telephone didn’t ring. But my father kept all his staff, rode the storm and came out the other end.
“Hopefully, we have learned from past experiences and our government will not allow it to happen again. As a company all we can do is build our reputation. If things do go quiet, I will be in my car and talking to people and getting the business in.”
Her many ideas to take the company forward include running the factory around the clock, and building a lower cost, higher turnover business with further use of hi-tech machinery. Another idea may be the reopening of a joinery department.
“At the moment we cater for the bespoke high-end, but there is a large market for the cheaper doors. There are things which are worth looking into. I would not like to see Holloway Products stay as it is.”
She thinks training is a big issue confronting the industry and it’s a subject she has discussed with Barking Council. “There are a lot of timber industry companies in this area, so why aren’t the schools looking at that?” Woodworking, she added, did not seem to feature highly on the curriculum anymore.
Vanessa was recently joined at Barking by her brother Adrian, who played rugby for Harlequins and Saracens. And with experienced directors Bob Alcoe and Mike Hill also in the team, the future looks bright.
