Councillor Gary Douglas-Beet
From council estate to the boardroom, to County Hall
"I grew up on a council estate. I didn’t inherit a business, a network or a safety net. Everything I’ve built since has come from graft, and I bring that same plain-speaking, no-nonsense approach to business and to public office".
Business background
An experienced CEO and Founder, with multiple successful businesses and exits (& a few failures) covering FMCG, Design, Sales and Marketing, Business Advisory, Finance and Funding, and Equity Investment support. Since 2009, Gary has worked with 000’s of Founders to help them secure over £54m in equity, grants and Finance; built his own Angel Network of 1500 investors; and worked at UKRI Innovate UK (Exemplas) with some of the most cutting edge, UK Founders.
A life on the BEAT to
Building a Successful Business
The Sabbatical Nobody Expects
In 1991 I joined a small London T-shirt business and helped turn it into Kick Sportswear, one of the UK’s fastest-growing sportswear brands. We signed 44 football club licences plus rugby, NFL, MLB, NBA and NCAA, and sold through every major UK retailer and sports shop.
We built a sales team and distribution across 14 countries, growing turnover from £350,000 to £8 million in three years. The business sold in 1995 to US brand Nutmeg Mills for £1 million.
I then spent 12 months consulting for the sports and fashion trades, building European distributor networks and licensing deals with Disney and football clubs across the UK and Europe, generating multi-million pound deals.
Police Officer
A West Yorkshire Police Officer but sadly was not for me.
Kick Sportswear
FMCG Sportswear & Apparel Brands
Dynamite Creative
Sales and Marketing Agency
Business Shaper Group
Turnaround and Equity Investments
Singer, Compere...
Tenerife & USA
Entertainer to Councillor
The Sabbatical Nobody Expects
After Kick sold and a year consulting, Gary took a proper break and became a singer in Fuerteventura. It turned out he was decent at it. He moved to Tenerife to compere at The Full Monty, one of the island's top venues, then headed to Los Angeles. There he compered the graveyard shift at the Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory, spent time with the Malcolm in the Middle writers, and worked as an extra on Hollywood films, including Bedazzled. Not a normal five years for a businessman, but it taught him to read a room and hold an audience. Still useful in every boardroom and council chamber.
After 10 years of Dynamite Creative, a sales and marketing agency Founded by Gary in 2001, his new business, the Business Shaper Group was starting to take shape.
We were already consulting on business turnaround projects including South Norfolk Council Building Control, and working with University spin-out, to become grant and investment ready.
They were soon helping the New Anglia LEP (now part of Norfolk County Council’s Economic Development team) reach over 1200 in 12 months through their Business Roadshows.
During lockdown, Gary joined UKRI Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, who back the nation’s most promising deep tech businesses in the UK’s priority sectors: providing the funding, expert support and connections that help them start, scale and stay in the UK. He was the East of Englands Senior Investment and Finance Advisor.
Also, as National Lead for InvestReady, he developed an Investment Readiness Programme with a major Barclays Eagle Labs finding investment for 19 founders raised over £17m in equity in the short 2 years and 8 months he was there.
