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The Business Interview: Elizabeth Charlesworth, owner of Bakeaway Pizza
One year ago, Elizabeth Charlesworth quit a high-flying career in the digital TV industry to set up a pizza shop in Wendover.
At the time, she was sales marketing director of BT Vision but the married mother-of-three was becoming increasingly aware of the toll her long hours in London were taking on her family.
"I was commuting all hours, getting home at 11 o'clock, midnight, and there comes a point when you have to make a choice- for a woman anyway," she said. "I realised I had to either maintain that or increase it or I had to change."
With the 'hankering' for her own business growing, Mrs Charlesworth made the impulsive decision to take on a unit in Back Street when it came on the market in early 2008.
"I had a pizza place in mind but it was very fledgling', she admitted.
The 44 year old quit BT Vision in March 2008 to set up Bakeaway Pizza, which is unique in Buckinghamshire as it sells freshly made pizza bases and toppings which the customer then bakes at home.
"There's a gap in the market for healthy pizzas," she said.
"When I came to think about it, virtually everyone loves pizzas but the choice is relatively limited in that you can get something from the supermarket which is perhaps not desperately appetising, is part-baked and squashed, or you can order one in and it turns up luke-warm and is not the healthiest. It just seemed such as obvious product."
But despite her confidence in the concept, she admits to questionning herself whether she was doing the right thing.
"I didn't doubt that leaving that lifestyle was a mistake because of my family but of course I had doubts," she said.
"It is scary when you have had a big career for so many years, it is like letting go of the side of a swimming pool for the very first time and you have to back yourself.
"I remember reading once about entrepreneurialism and starting your own business," she continued.
"The advice was do something you know, so having been in digital TV I decided to do pizzas!
"It is a big learning curve. The principles are the same- a good product with a good launch plan in place- but the product is entirely different."
Bakeaway opened just before last Christmas.
And despite the recession, customers flocked to her store to try the new concept, leading to some initial teething problems.
"We were very busy to start with and ran out of dough, which was a nightmare, because with fresh produce what you have got is what you have got for the day.
"It was painful," she said.
Mrs Charlesworth funded the shop with her own savings, but will approach the banks when she is ready to expand the business by rolling it out to more branches.
And despite her lack of experience in the food industry, a bank manager could not fail to be impressed by her CV when they consider any loan application.
Having grown up in Wendover (she was born in the house she currently lives in) and attended Aylesbury High School, she went to the University of Southampton where she studied French and German.
From that point, her progression up the career ladder was extremely calculated.
"I knew I wanted to get into the world of (marketing) agencies but everybody was trying to do that," she said.
"I thought how the guys at the top of the agencies now got into it in the 60s (when it was still growing).
"I thought what's going to be the next big thing? At that time telemarketing was very small and I found an agency wanting an account manager and I joined it.
It was very logical. It was not something everybody wanted to do then but I knew it was a growing industry."
Her first big job was working for Cable and Wireless specialising in a telemarketing role. She then got approached by Sky, which was looking for someone to manage their call-centre in Scotland.
"It was a long time ago when Sky was just analogue and had three channels, it was a small operation then.
"I joined it because I thought it seemed interesting from the Scotland link rather than thinking I would end up working for the number-one brand in the UK and grow with it from a humble marketing manager."
During her decade working for Rupert Murdoch, Mrs Charlesworth rose to become head of sales and marketing for product launches, the most significant of which was Sky Plus and Sky Multiroom.
She then became general manager of Freeview, overseeing its role-out to millions of households which decided to go digital with the free service before joining BT Vision in 2006, where she helped launch the company's digital service.
Since stepping down from BT, Mrs Charlesworth has continued to be involved in digital TV in a consulting role for Canal in Scandanavia, 'helping them to re-align their business'.
The role does involve frequent travel during certain periods of the year, but she is still at home with her teacher husband, Stig, and their three sons, Harry, 11, Alfred, 6, and Hector, 5, a lot more than she used to be.
"My children are so much happier," she says. And just as her new business has allowed her to spend more quality time with her children, so she believes the product that Bakeaway offers will allow other families to also come together.
"There's so much importance in getting the family around the table in my view- getting people eating together. It is a very important element of family life in society."
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Friday 25 May 2012
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