Terry's Story

Terry Hughes is the co-owner of Elmelin and a member of Vistage group V65. The 110-year-old company combines manufacturing expertise with innovation to solve engineering challenges. Here Terry tells us how Vistage has helped him build the business through good times and bad.

“That one day out a month to benefit from the group’s advice and support helped me work on my vision for the company.”

I joined Elmelin as MD in 2014 just after the owner retired and as part of an MBO process. The company specialises in thermal solutions for tough problems using Mica – a rockforming mineral mined globally that can be found in lots of household products. Its main advantages are that it can withstand voltages of 20-27 kV/ mm and temperatures of over 1000°C.

A lot of what we do centres on using our proprietary technology to help customers reduce their environmental impact and carbon footprint and tackle climate change. We’re currently working a lot with electrical vehicle makers on battery solutions and on thermal storage devices for homes. It’s an exciting time to be doing what we do, and I often feel like a big kid in a Lego shop that I own!

It’s thanks to Vistage that I’m now coowner of Elmelin with exciting plans for growth. When Jan Lloyd, a former CEO herself, approached me at the end of 2017 to talk about a Vistage group she was setting up, I was having issues with the board. Our chairman was an angel investor focused on the exit price of the business and our only NED, the original business owner, wasn’t prepared to invest for change. I needed a safe space to discuss company issues and explore options; a place with no vested interests and where people will tell you the brutal truth.

Focusing on the future

I joined V65 as a founding member and we quickly bonded as a group. Running a small business means you’re always in that whirlwind of having to make so many decisions that it can be hard to step out and just focus on your strategy. Having those 1-1s and that one day out a month to benefit from the group’s advice and support helped me work on my vision for the company, and establish what I wanted. While I had been part of the original buy out I was not sure I wanted to lead the next round and become a major shareholder. That’s a whole different level of responsibility.

Jan and the others helped me in that process and in 2019 I took the company through an MBO and became a co-owner of Emelin. We’re now taking the business in a completely different direction to where it was and have built a healthy pipeline of new opportunities, despite the pandemic.

“Hearing other people’s stories helps you realise we’ve all got similar challenges.”

Vistage guest speakers such as Chris McChesney and Jim Collins have also played a big part in that journey, challenging my mindset and providing me with some great models to help my business succeed. However, I think one of the things I appreciate most about coming to a Vistage meeting is the check-in where you chat not just about how you’re doing in business, but how you are in your personal life. Hearing other people’s stories helps you realise we’ve all got similar challenges, and we all help each other through them. Nobody is doing it on their own.

Of course, Vistage is a commitment, but if you can’t find that kind of time in your calendar, you’ve probably other issues you need to confront. To me that’s a sign you may not have people you can trust, or the right systems in place, in which case you need Vistage more than you think! As a consequence of going on that growth journey with Vistage I’d say my marketing is better, I’ve better people in the business and my operational focus is stronger. Vistage has helped me in so many ways.