Let's Get Down To Business

GAVIN JACKSON, 61, is an architect based in Henley and London and part of the Make Henley Shine team that wants to illuminate Henley Bridge. He lives in the centre of Henley and is passionate about the town and its restaurants. He owns a bike that cycled the Mekong Delta to Siem Reap for Cancer Research.

Describe your business

I have a small but passionate architectural practice that specialises in one-off residential projects. Through tenacity and attention to detail, we have a 94 per cent success rate in obtaining planning permission for our clients.

How many people does it employ?

I am essentially a one-man band but frequently expand via joint venture partnerships to take on multi-million pound projects. We recently designed an 8,000ft house in Notting Hill to become a 15,000ft house, creating an £8 million profit for our client with the planning permission alone.

What did you do before you started this business?

I was a consultant to a number of other architectural practices, including Sir Norman Foster, John Pawson, Claudio Silvestrin and Fitch Benoy.

When did you start your business?

1995.

What was your objective?

To build a brand based on a particular aesthetic and an understanding of the planning process.

Who or what influenced you?

The simple desire to be the author of one’s own destiny, be it feast or famine, win or lose.

Do you have a mentor or role model?

My father. When I was born, he was a coal miner. I know I could never work as hard as he had while still providing for his family.

What would you do differently if you could start again?

Two things — borrow and expand. People of my generation lived through the usual boom and bust but uniquely, money had never been so cheap. I should have expanded earlier into property, land, products and allied services.

How has your business pivoted since the coronavirus pandemic?

Architecture, specifically residential architecture, was one of those sectors that benefited hugely from the pandemic. A combination of people working from home, interest rates, bounce back loans, the stamp duty holiday and a London exodus fuelled a mini boom in work at people’s homes and we were adaptable and fast enough to support that.

How is your business doing compared with last year?

Growth has been exponential for the last five or six years.

How do you market your business?

Over the years I’ve had a web presence, brochures, features in magazines and books, advertised in the architectural and mainstream press and done direct marketing and cold-called. Without doubt, it has been personal recommendations from past clients that has led to the majority of new work.

What’s the best thing about running your own business?

There is an authorship, a connectivity and a liberty that comes with the territory.

What’s the most challenging aspect?

Every once in a while, we all come across people who are disingenuous and unscrupulous — that is a challenge. Also, as time passes, there are always more rules and more red tape.

Where is your business headed?

Diversification. We’ve identified aspects of other industries that can be applied to the architectural arena and will begin to roll these out over the coming year.

Do you have a five-year plan?

Absolutely, without a map you are wandering around the wilderness.

What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned?

Remain calm. Take a breath. The important things reveal themselves.

What would you advise someone starting a business?

Do it, fail, do it, fail, repeat until you learn, grow and triumph.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made?

Using a 9H pencil — it just cuts the paper.

How organised are you?

Extremely. There are time sensitive colour-coded lists, pie charts, histograms and spreadsheets organically morphing on an hourly basis.

What qualities are most important to success?

Resilience and the ability to learn and adapt.

What’s the secret of your success?

Coming from Yorkshire, there is a stubborn tenacity that drives me forward.

How do you dress for work?

It depends whether I am presenting a project to an equity derivatives trader or climbing a scaffold on site. Belstaff and Timberland pretty much cover it.

What can’t you be without every day?

Moments of silence, air, connection to the ground and nature.

Lunch at your desk or going out?

Never at the desk. Something homemade, eaten at a table looking into the garden.

Do you continue to study?

Yes, there is no option not to as planning and building regulations change all the time, products emerge and new techniques reveal themselves. It’s exciting to learn.

What do you read?

Espionage, murder mystery, dystopia and the classics.

How are you planning for retirement?

I love what I do and cannot imagine not creating.

Interview by Will Hamilton, intermediary, global marketing consultant and Henley town councillor