Emma Parkinson had no desire to follow her grandfather, father and uncle into the steel industry until a surprise job offer changed the course of her career.
She was working for a recruitment agency when one of her clients, Barrett Steel, asked her if she was interested in a role. “They basically said, ‘You’ve got something. We don’t know what it is, but we like you and want you to come and work for us’,” recalled Parkinson, now 36.
She would have to start on the bottom rung of the ladder and work her way up, but Parkinson, then in her early twenties, leapt at the opportunity to join the Bradford-based firm, which supplies steel for constructing buildings and industrial facilities.
Beginning as an administrator in the sales team, she learnt who the key customers were and how things could be improved. By the time she left in 2018, she was running her division. Stints at other companies in the steel industry followed, but Parkinson had designs on building her own company — the only way she was likely to own a slice of the pie.
“I felt like I’d reached my ceiling. In this sector generally, directors and shareholders are older, white males. And my face didn’t fit for that. They were very happy for me to do a great job for them, but I wasn’t going to see any personal progression and being so ambitious, I needed more.”
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In 2019, Parkinson started Chesterfield-based International Energy Products, which makes steel components for use by a wide range of companies, from oil and gas to renewables and automotive. She took the plunge after spotting a gap in the market for a provider offering shorter turnaround times and better customer service. “One thing I noticed when I came into this industry was that it’s
quite normal for everybody to give a really bad service and be really late at delivering everything,” she said.
“It’s an unpredictable industry at times because when you’re making things, it doesn’t always go to plan. But because of that, there was almost an acceptance that this was OK and normal. Straight away, I thought: ‘There’s an opportunity here — just be better than the next person’. Because they’re doing such a poor job, it wasn’t hard to achieve that.”
Her company’s novel approach to customer service has helped turnover to jump from £380,000 in its first year of operations at its base in Sheffield to more than £7 million in the year to March, with a pre-tax profit of £329,000 — placing it at number 37 on this year’s Sunday Times 100 ranking of Britain’s fastest-growing private companies.
Parkinson has 28 employees, is targeting sales of £15 million this year, and is the sole shareholder after buying out her investor two years ago. She isn’t bashful about her desire to create wealth after growing up in a single-parent, working-class family.
“Being from quite a humble background, the biggest fear is that you are always on the breadline,” Parkinson said. “For somebody whose parents own their own home, for example, there is an element of financial security, whereas I never had that.”
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This is one of the reasons that Parkinson decided against going to university — “much to my mother’s disappointment” — after having originally been keen to pursue a career in law.
“My mum said, ‘Right, if you were going to university, I would have supported that. But if you’re not, then you need to get a job and go and find your way in the world.”
After applying for jobs “en masse”, Parkinson had a temporary job in administration before getting her break in recruitment.
“I’m the type of person that always takes on work beyond my responsibility, and I probably interfered in work I shouldn’t have been dealing with to offer my help and support. Because of that I saw quite quick progression, securing promotions and gaining experience.”
It was while working for a recruiter, Stafforce, that she got the job offer from Barrett and made the move into steel. But if she ended up in the industry by accident, she is now its most fierce advocate.
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“There was an attitude of ‘We don’t want that dirty industry in our backyard here in the UK’. But looking at the global economic turbulence at the moment, it’s vitally important that the UK has the ability to produce its own steel.”
As a young woman in an industry dominated by older men, Parkinson says she has never let that difference stand in her way. “The industry does require a thick skin; that goes if you’re male or female. It’s still a bit of a rough-and-ready sector,” she said.
Her first step was to be a supplier of raw metal to machining companies, being the middleman between steelmaker and machinist. With a £200,000 investment from her husband’s boss, Gary Fletcher, in a deal struck in the local pub, she bought an automatic bandsaw for £14,400 and learnt how to cut the long rods supplied by the raw material makers into manageable sizes for the customer.
Then, she decided to move into machining the parts herself, buying the big, sophisticated machines that turn a client’s drawing into an actual metal part.
“It meant we went further up the tree to the end users,” she says.
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While “maybe a couple” of her old machinist clients’ noses were put out of joint by the move at first, she says there was still plenty of machining work to go around. She now has four £150,000 high-tech computerised machines making parts for clients ranging from the automotive to green energy sectors.
With no family money to fall back on, finding finance has been an issue, Parkinson said. She went to Fletcher after being repeatedly refused a loan by her bank. “They’ve not supported us in that way. We’ve banked with them and I’ve had an award from them but that’s as far as that relationship has gone, unfortunately.”
Fletcher took a 60 per cent stake, which Parkinson bought out after refinancing in 2022 using a loan
from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, which is backed by the government’s British Business Bank economic development agency.
She is now developing a number of new businesses including one doing 3D printing of metal parts. Parkinson wants to be able to offer a full range of products and services to her international client base. About 60 per cent of sales across the group are now to overseas customers but she says that she’s had to hustle hard to persuade European Union companies to trade with a UK supplier post-Brexit.
“They just didn’t want to face the complexity of the situation — there might be some significant bills for taxes and duty and they didn’t know what the scale of the paperwork was going to be,” she said.
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Despite all of the challenges of running a fast growing, international business, Parkinson says she tries to maintain a semblance of work-life balance. “For me to be great in the business, I need to be mentally well and so my health is paramount. I do a lot of work to make sure I’m fit and well because you just won’t last ten minutes otherwise. It’s an incredibly testing business for anybody to take on — you’ve got to be on top form to be able to handle that.”
High five
My hero … my mum. She always strove to improve herself as an individual and never let barriers hold her back. She also taught me to believe that the sky’s the limit and there’s nobody I admire more.
My best decision … to give away shares in the new businesses. Given that International Energy Products is largely me and me alone, it’s really nice to have somebody else in those businesses, looking after the day-to-day.
My worst decision … I don’t tend to regret anything. If I make a mistake, then I see that as a learning and a positive experience rather than a negative.
Funniest moment … I have a golden labrador called Milo and because he makes everybody so happy we’ve decided to make him our “chief morale officer”. He has his own LinkedIn page, and a necktie with his job title. And now we have these cuddly teddy labradors that we take to exhibitions and loads of people try to get one.
Best business tip … get used to problem-solving because it is a never-ending
process.
