The Shawston group has grown substantially during recent months. In December 2020 Shawston announced the acquisition of a minority shareholding in the UKs leading fire fabricator R Tindall Fabricators Limited. And in early March 2021 the merger of Shawston Holdings Limited with Evalve Limited in a share exchange plus cash deal was announced.
Consistent with Shawston’s model for building a fully sustainable business and to continue growing the group in a controlled way, Shawston are delighted to announce the appointment of John Blackburn to the role of Group Managing Director.
John joins Shawston with a strong history of senior leadership roles with ten years at MD level. Most recently John worked as Group Managing Director at Coram Group UK, a leading specialist in the manufacture and distribution of shower enclosures, wet rooms and shower pods.
Rob Davenport, CEO and founder owner said: “This is a new position for our group, but it is also the culmination of a long and gradual transition of passing-on the baton for the day-to-day operational business to the next generation of Shawston’s leaders. We have been focused on building our leadership team since 2015 and John is the final piece of our ‘2015 to 2020 vision’, which has been punctuated by one year due to Covid. We are now on track with our new five year vision, and it feels amazing to be working with such a talented and dynamic management team and over 130 co-owners”.
Following the appointment of John as Group MD, Rob will move into the full-time position of Executive Chairman. Rob will continue to work full time within the enlarged Shawston group and the time liberation that John’s appointment brings, will allow Rob to focus more on strategic projects within the wider group. This will include creating key customer value from strategic supply chain management, alongside continuing to mentor some key Shawston leaders.
Rob’s founder colleagues, Graham Wilkins and Mark Dyer, will continue to work full-time within the senior leadership team. They will be incredibly busy supporting John and the team with this transition, alongside having total focus on supply chain and inflation management. They will also be supporting recent acquisitions working with Rob and continuing to always place our customer needs at the centre of every decision.
The entire Shawston team are excited about the business’ prospects and the growth opportunity Shawston inward investment plans will deliver. The team are all looking forward to lockdown ending soon, and getting back to life and business as usual.
