INTERVIEW
SUMMER 11
the Glasgow Boy who’s Got Talent
He left school in Scotland with no certificates and became a champion dancer but now owns a fast widening group of firms bedrocked by education and job training. Still only 30, David Harper tells Brian Nicholls how it has come about His laughter fills the glass and chrome reception area even as he enters HarperCo offices apologetically telling how a traffic snarl-up has delayed him. Effusive David Harper, a Glaswegian whose cheerfulness must be cherished in these trying business times, could brighten even worst-case scenarios. He’d have been a soul-lifting MC aboard the Titanic for example – coaxing couples to last-waltz on its listing ballroom floor, former dancing champion that he is. His nimbleness is evident more in his head
BUSINESS QUARTER | SUMMER 11
than in his toes now as he leads Tynesidebased HarperCo to £10m sales in its first decade – and maybe £100m by 2014, though he doesn’t underestimate the challenge. The workforce has just risen by 42 to 100 though, and he’s relying on a mixture of growing the existing businesses, diversifying their products, and making strategic acquisitions and partnerships. HarperCo already prospers diversely. It can hack bureaucratic procedure down from 12 weeks to one day, for example. And its skills in training and consultancy can
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draw clients such as Asda, Harrods and DHL. No Titanic this, despite its motley management crew. Besides, Harper the former UK Latin American dance champion, there’s group finance director Mark Hargreaves – novelist, erstwhile male model, and chartered accountant who hates numbers but was a notable managing partner of Grant Thornton in Newcastle for some years. There’s contracts manager Graham Howard, fast-rescue and lifeboat coxswain, one time safety manager of a Norwegian cruise >>