Man with a mission has ambitions for Scotland

THERE was a time when CBI Scotland chairman Melfort Campbell, OBE, felt physically sick before every social or business gathering, so great was his insecurity.

A severe dyslexic, who grew up in an era when that was no excuse, it would take business success and the advice of Sir Jackie Stewart to convince this Dundee University drop-out that there was nothing to fear. Campbell (50), does not play this up himself, but it sounds as though creating an international business in Scotland was easier than battling through this problem.

"It was far more than shyness, it was a profound lack of confidence. I really hated talking to strangers and a room full of them was hellish. Jackie was a great help - he advised me that every one in a room full of 100 strangers will have a fascinating story, your job is to find what it is."

Like other successful entrepreneurs who underperformed at school due to problems with writing and reading - AmberGreen and We Entrepreneurs' Richard O'Connor is another example - Campbell feels strongly that the link between dyslexia and business success is worthy of further exploration, not least to encourage school kids who may now be suffering as he did.

Campbell is now one of the most accomplished, indeed inspirational, public communicators in the Scottish business world, as he divides his time between CBI duties and world travels as director of the 14 million Imes Group, an international company specialising in maritime lifting equipment.

His speech at last year's CBI dinner, exploring the "Scottish enigma" of a talented country blighted by lack of common purpose between business and politics broke through the fug of post-prandial self-congratulation with a finely argued blast at the low-standards culture of Scottish public life.

Why so little entrepreneurial activity from a relatively well-educated populace? Why such a taboo about harnessing private school success? Why so little commercial exploitation of scientific excellence? Why so little curiosity as to what business can teach our politicians?

In short: how do we make the Scottish whole worth more than the sum of its world-class parts? Scotland won't make it, he suggested, unless business is invited to contribute knowledge, expertise and resources earlier and to a level far beyond that already considered.

As an introduction to CBI Scotland's "business manifesto" for next year's crucial Holyrood poll, it was a frank but non-confrontational message to Scotland's insecurely procedure-obsessed political leadership. He put it more elegantly, but the CBI's message to policymakers is clear - stop wasting Scotland's assets and Scotland's time, and let us in on the ground floor of policymaking.

Richard Lambert, director general of the CBI and a former editor of the Financial Times, who works with Campbell on CBI national committees, such as the one examining the government's Comprehensive Spending Review, says: "I'm a very big fan. Not only is he an extremely good speaker, but he has terrific credibility from building up a business under his own steam and taking it international. He's a real player and our members respect him enormously - he's energetic, committed and we are lucky to have him."

Now halfway through his chairmanship - where his role is to engage with the membership, and bring their feedback to the organisation's governing council - Campbell can spend more time articulating the cause of business after stepping back from hands-on management of the Aberdeen-based Imes Group, which he co-founded.

He started the firm in 1985, amazingly when his confidence was at a new low after prematurely exiting Dundee University - he was working as a jobbing crane operator on North Sea installations.

"I was working on cranes offshore, just to earn a bit of money, and I noticed that there was a real problem load-testing cranes. I spotted something that needed to be done that wasn't being done. I met my business partner, Ian Stewart, and we discussed how we were going to do it, someone helped us put together a business plan, the banks thought it was great and we went from there."

Now with branches in Holland, the US and Australia, its growth has come "in spurts", many of them connected to big contract wins with the oil and gas industry (about 35 per cent of turnover), defence clients (45 per cent) like the Royal Navy, the Royal Australian Navy and the US, marine shipping and various utilities.

Campbell, whose father was a peripatetic Royal Marines officer turned Aberdeenshire farmer, is now firmly rooted in the North-east, and is a passionate proselytiser for Aberdeen as one of the key entrepreneurial centres of the UK, with its stock of dynamic growth businesses and "incredible" ability to seize opportunities.

Geoff Runcie, director of the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, calls him "a North-east statesman".

He adds: "The Imes Group is typical of a successful niche player in an economy of niche players, and he is an innovator and an encourager of innovation. He speaks well, he has a very good personal presence, he's tenacious and well informed and he's well connected in the business sense.

"Even better, he is more than prepared to stick his head above the parapet on controversial issues. The best example here is the WPR [Aberdeen's controversial proposed by-pass, the Western Peripheral Route]. As you can imagine, there was a lot of waffling and nimbyism on this subject, all the usual stuff that comes with a big infrastructure project. Melfort has been quite emphatic about the strategic need for this route, and that kind of clear direction is very useful."

As CBI Scotland has its manifesto wish list in order of importance - infrastructure, training, business rates, planning - Campbell too has his own "pet" priorities of research and technology innovation, which to him highlight the agonisingly small but seemingly unbridgeable gap between Scotland's intellectual assets and the fulfilment of their promise.

"It's one area in which we could transform the Scottish economy."

He has drawn attention to Scotland's excellence at scientific research, and our "disastrous" record at converting it into value-add for the economy. To plug that gap would be the first piece of a plan to get this economy going.

In Campbell's view, Scotland excels at "supply push" - educating talented technicians and scientists - but what politicians and bureaucrats don't yet understand is the need for "demand pull" via procurement policies.

Working in the USA has taught him the extent of the Scottish bureaucratic attitude problem.

"In the States if a client, like the US navy, has a technical problem, they issue it as a challenge to the marketplace and wait for a company to convert it to a workable solution. They then work to protect the companies' IPR [intellectual property rights] and help it find other outlets for that.

"In Scotland, it's completely reversed. We suggest a solution to a company in commercial confidence. They pinch your IPR and put it out to public tender because they feel they have to.

Otherwise, perhaps with his own negative experience with education in mind, his main pre-occupation is the gap between Scotland's best schools, which he argues produce the best educated youngsters in Europe, and the "very long tail" of poorly educated kids, giving us a "horrific" functional adult illiteracy rate of 20 per cent.

Conceding that it is "far from PC", Campbell's advice to the state's educational establishment is to "swallow some political pride" and seek more advice from the private school sector about how centres of excellence are created and run.

While there remain many in the Scottish Parliament who would die in the last ditch rather than concede that Scotland's private-school sector should have more of a role in creating a more can-do country, Campbell, the former "school dunce", is now well placed to sell the idea of raising the standards of the bottom 12 per cent, not lower the standards of the top 12 per cent.

An optimist, as all successful entrepreneurs are by definition, Campbell sees signs that the ice of Scotland's class-based resentment is melting, as the realisation dawns that Scotland plc will need to draw on all its best assets in the looming battle to stay competitive.

With his ability to turn his own experience into pragmatic prescriptions, vigorously expressed, Melfort Campbell will be in the front line of attack.

MELFORT CAMPELL OBE

Why locate your business in Scotland?

Because it's competitive, challenging and stimulating environment with easy access to world-class business people making it easy to develop world-class ideas. The disadvantage is being distracted from concentrating on customers, growth, new markets by red tape impediments in my way. This used to get me down for half a day a month, it's gone up to three days.

Your vision for the Scotland or the future?

One where quality of life is earned and deserved through the generation of our own wealth. Real quality of life comes with self respect, its vital we all feel a sense of self worth and achievement. Its all about acquiring the right attitudes in education, business and industry. I'd like to see Scots learning to respect success, diversity, different and even opposing views.We need to learn to admire success, and to want success.

Independence or part of the Union?

Too much of the independence debate betrays a "little Scots" mentality. I can't see how changing the constitution now will enable Scotland to meet its potential, its more likely to take us backwards.

Best business decision?

To set up my own business, not on my own, but with some absolutely top people.

Worst business decision?

Not following my instincts.

Outstanding ambitions in business?

To create a world-class, high-integrity Scottish based engineering company, not necessarily big league, but exemplifying what Scotland does best. It is a great time to be in business, but I still suffer from those three days a month, sometimes more!