Fizzco’s Operations Director Russell Brown tells his story of how he went from warp and weft to tinsel and baubles.
In 1994 having the responsibilities of a young family and a mortgage, I found myself running a textile weaving facility during the day and travelling to shopping centres at night to install Christmas for KD Decoratives, who at the time were the market leaders. After a couple of seasons installing Christmas with them on a part time basis, I was offered a full-time position as Senior production manager. In the 12 years I was there I gained an enormous amount of knowledge and understanding of the business.
In 2008 my experienced in this niche business was recognised by Austrian based company MK Illumination. They wanted to expand their product offering into the UK shopping centre market, which they had very little knowledge of.
Having reached the ceiling of my career at KD, I was looking for a new challenge when I received a call from Mr Gordon Whitehead, sales manager/poacher!! at MK. We met for a coffee at a service station on the M62, and within a month I was boarding a plane on the way to MK’s production facility in Slovakia.
I continued learning and building my knowledge of the UK and now European shopping centre market. I was happy to share my knowledge with my colleagues across many countries, and at the same time building a strong installation team.
2012 STOP – TAKE STOCK OF WHERE YOU ARE!
I have just spent the last 4 years helping a company achieve great success and building an installation team with no experience to industry professionals. Why am I not doing this for myself???
After a great deal of ‘what if’ planning, I took the plunge and left MK to forge a working relationship with Fizzco. After convincing Fizzco that working with Shopping Centres would be a positive move for them. I started the whole process again, but this time having some ownership. After 8 years we are now a market leader in commercial Christmas, with the premier installation team in the UK.
Looking forward into 2021, exciting things are happening!
We thought, why not use the skills and resources we already have and create a brand-new service to offer our clients. Hence Fizzco Maintenance is born. Fizzco Maintenance offers professional high-level commercial cleaning and site maintenance services to businesses throughout the United Kingdom. We specialise in high-level cleaning services, including exterior and interior high- level cleaning, and offer ground maintenance solutions, all-access cleaning, and flexible, bespoke site maintenance management services.
