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A flooring specialist, the boss of a fashion business, the creator of virtually indestructible earbuds and the man behind a taxi firm that has been snapping up rivals left, right and centre are through to the finals of the 2021 LeicestershireLive Business Executive of the Year Awards.

This year鈥檚 finalists attended a pre-awards drinks reception at the new 拢100 million Space Park Leicester, for a chance to meet the sponsors and judges and explain what makes their companies so good.

The judges will pick the eventual category winners in the next few weeks prior to the actual awards night at the Leicester Tigers Stadium on Thursday, November 4.

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Categories include executives in a small, medium and large business 鈥� one of whom will be named overall business person of the year 鈥� as well as a non-executive business person of the year, young business executive of the year and tech executive of the year.

A lifetime achievement award will also be given to one highly regarded business person at the black tie awards night.

The drinks reception was compered by Claire Mac from Leicester event agency Kreative Group, and guests were welcomed by Marc Reeves, marketplace publisher, Midlands & Wales at LeicesterhireLive and BusinessLive publisher Reach plc.

Professor Philip Baker, Pro Vice Chancellor, Research & Enterprise at awards headline sponsor the University of Leicester also welcomed guests and explained why the city and county have such a strong entrepreneurial spirit.

Jason Ashby, founder of 海角视频 Flooring Direct is a finalist in the large business category, up against Brian Duffy, chief executive of the Watches of Switzerland Group, and Jon Jorgensen, chief sales officer at Loughborough-based business software specialist Access Group.

His business, which is based in Hinckley Commercial Park, is one of the biggest online flooring retailers in Britain and sells everything from wooden floors to laminates, vinyl flooring and underlays to the public and trade.

Mr Ashby said he was now expanding into selling carpets in his bid to hit 拢1 billion of turnover.

He said: 鈥淏y the age of 21 I realised you could make money having fitters working for you so I had five teams running up and down the country installing for me.

鈥淏y the age of 28 I opened my first shop which was great for a couple of years then started to struggle and had to close down.

鈥淲e had 拢500 left in the bank and decided to go online which was the next growth area.

鈥淥ver six or seven years we grew to 拢16-17 million and continually self-invested. We decided to move everything to our own brand and take more control of the products and the margins and supply chain.

鈥淓verything that comes in is sustainably sourced and we have grown 100 per cent over the last two years and taken staff from 85 up to 200 people.

鈥淲e managed to get to 拢50 million revenue self-funded but we did take investment on from BGF [described as the 海角视频鈥檚 鈥渕ost active growth capital investor] because we wanted to accelerate growth.

鈥淧eople buying online through Covid really accelerated that so we decided to speed things up ourselves and took more investment on and this year we will do 拢70 million.

鈥淲e have a 12 per cent share of our category which we dominate with the exception of B&Q, who have a 15 per cent market share.

鈥淲e鈥檝e just invested in carpet cutting machines and that鈥檚 a market that鈥檚 three times bigger and we expect to have the same market share with that.

鈥淗aving our own brands and being direct to customer keep all the middle men out of the way so we are in a very, very strong position.

鈥淲ith the way the home improvement market is going in the 海角视频 we are targeting 拢1 billion by 2030, which we will achieve, in a whole market that鈥檚 worth 拢40 billion.鈥�

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