Prestigious Young Businesswoman of the Year award for the boss of Peterborough's Industrial Signs

A determined businesswoman who took over the running of the family firm at 25, fought her way through a male-dominated industry, increased company turnover, managed it through Covid-19, and became a mum, has won a prestigious award.

Laura Cooper-Jackson (30) who is managing director of signage manufacturer Industrial Signs, in Challenger Way, Edgerley Business Park, Fengate, has just been named Young Businesswoman of the Year at the Great British Businesswomen’s Awards.

She said: “I’m over the moon. I’m so happy and really delighted to win.

“I didn’t think I had even one percent chance of winning.

“The people I was up against came from the likes of Google and Amazon - all massive blue chip companies and we’re just a tiny, family-run business that my dad set up 30 years ago.”

Born in Peterborough District Hospital, Laura grew up in Werrington and attended Ken Stimpson School and spent about seven years living and working in Dubai before a change of circumstances brought her back to the UK.

She said: “It coincided with my dad wanting to take a step back. I was a group sales manager, it was very glamorous but I chose to trade in my high heels for a hard hat when I moved back.

“I was very corporate minded and brought all of the textbooks, you know, ‘Running the family business for dummies’ - I really thought if I did my research and read all about it I’d be able to walk straight in and hold my own.

“I quickly realised that life isn’t like a textbook and I was met with a bit of resistance.

“Obviously I was the boss’ daughter, had lived abroad, and some of the staff had seen me grow up. I had a real task on my hands and I think I underestimated how difficult it was going to be, especially with it being quite a male dominated environment - both customers and colleagues.

“I had to get into the nitty-gritty and start from the bottom. I made the teas, cleaned the toilets, I physically manufactured the signs, spent a day in each department really getting to know everybody, went out on the front line and met the customers and had to learn it all.

"What I thought I knew I had to forget and start from the beginning.

“I made quite a few changes because the way the business was run a little bit old school - we still used fax machines, still had one central email address for the whole business and we posted out all our invoices instead of emailing them. It just needed updating a bit.

"Just as I finally felt I was getting somewhere and developing my own team, getting them on board and showing them I was bringing in some kind of value, Covid-19 hit.”

The pandemic was huge challenge for all businesses which were suddenly faced with the need to enforce social distancing for their staff with some having to close completely and most only able to watch as orders plummeted.

Laura said: “We quite literally went from having an average of 60 to 80 orders a day to - on our lowest day - two orders.

“So I furloughed all the staff, mum (Karen) and dad (Colin) came back into the business with mum picking and packing in the warehouse while dad was manufacturing all the signs and I was doing everything in between.

“As we mainly manufacture health and safety signs, we won a couple of contracts with the NHS for the local hospitals, so all of a sudden we went from having no orders to picking up quite quickly.

“One by one we managed to get each member of staff back and gradually we were back to full capacity before we knew it.

“We put all of the profit margin back into the business and invested in doubling our footprint and began to rent the unit next door and have now made it into one large warehouse, which allows us to manufacture products in bulk. It means we are more competitively priced and have a quicker turnaround, so it was a kind of blessing in disguise although we didn’t see that at the time.”

Having successfully got through Covid-19 and also overseeing a rise in the company’s turnover and recruiting extra staff, Laura realised she had a new challenge when she and husband Nick were told she was expecting a baby.

She said: "Lockdown meant we had to cancel our wedding twice, so we knocked that on the head and decided to focus on the business and then I discovered I was pregnant and I gave birth to a boy, Jensen.

"Now it is a case of trying to do five days of work crammed into three or four but always being on call and trying to juggle mum-life as well.

She added: “But one of my missions this year is to launch a podcast, ‘From the boardroom to the playroom’.

“It is comical how on a Monday I can be immersed in ‘profit and loss’ figures or presenting the ‘big picture’ and the next day singing ‘Ring, a ring, a’ roses' at a baby playgroup.”

While the last five years have been a tough challenge, the business started by her father, Colin Cooper, in 1992, has risen to new heights.

Turnover has increased from £1.2 million a year five years ago to just shy of £2.6 million while the 27-strong workforce has grown to 30.

For the next year, Laura says she is determined to ensure the business achieves a £3 million turnover and is delighted to be working in her home city.

She said: “Peterborough is a brilliant place, especially with the opening of the university. I think in five years it will be a very different city.”