By Steve Dyson
Jason Wouhra is the main face of the Institute of Directors in the West Midlands. He’s also busy shaking his family’s traditional business up for major expansion. Steve Dyson reports.
Just fifteen years ago, the last thing on Jason Wouhra’s mind was a career with East End Foods, his family’s ethnic spices and cash and carry business. “I’d just graduated with a Law degree from Stafford University and wanted to be a barrister,” recalls Wouhra, now aged 37. “But my dad said: ‘Why? I’ve been working all my life and have built this business up, and now you’re going to go off and have your own career somewhere else?’”
The father-son discussion intensified when East End Foods lost an important salesman and a cousin had to move to the ethnic foods side. Wouhra was persuaded to manage the firm’s cash and carry depot in Highgate, Birmingham, on what he initially thought was a temporary basis. He says. “I’d been stacking shelves in school holidays from the age of eight or nine. It becomes part of your blood, and I understood my dad wanted to build a legacy. But I was still thinking I’d become a barrister, and for a while had a place on hold at Lincoln’s Inn. I even took a part-time Masters in Law.”
He eventually gave up on his barrister dream, but realised the importance of his “external” activities. He says: “Education broadened my horizons and gave me a different way of thinking.”
This led to Wouhra studying to become a Chartered Director of the Institute of Directors (IoD) – “I thought if I’m having a career here, I’ve got to get a bit of business nous” – and he achieved that status aged just 26, the IoD’s youngest ever.
His role at East End Foods was growing, and the company’s turnovers were exceeding £100m by 2009. Meanwhile, his links with the IoD continued, and he soon became vice-chair of the Young Directors’ Forum. Then, nearly three years ago, Wouhra agreed to become chair of the IoD’s West Midlands region. Wouhra has improved the profile of the IoD, with membership growing to more than 2,000. His term ends in April 2016, but he’s already been asked – and is seriously considering – staying on for another three years.
Wouhra says: “The networking and friendships I’ve made at the IoD have been really important professionally. It’s a learning organisation, teaching people about governance, professional development, what it takes to be a good director, and how boards can ensure things are hunky-dory. Good governance equals good business.
“We’ve also brought the IoD’s Chartered Directors courses back to Birmingham [Wouhra had to go to Loughborough for his], and we’ve moved into the new Library of Birmingham, because it’s important that we’re seen to be part of the city, and being in that iconic building reinforces that.”
Wouhra doesn’t baulk at criticising local government for its “lack of vision” which has seen the West Midlands come second to Greater Manchester in the race for devolutionary funding. “Manchester’s far smaller, way smaller than Birmingham,” he says, “but they got their act together and saw the big picture, helped by a strong leader. Leadership is not necessarily about detail, it’s about bringing people together to see the vision – then firing people up about it.
“That’s the issue for some in greater Birmingham – like the Black Country, and Coventry and Warwickshire – who just don’t seem to understand that if we all get together the power of the region is huge. London’s a country within a country. Birmingham’s warmer, more friendly, and easier to network. There’s a lot to be said for this city, but we’re going to fail if the leadership, the politicians on the councils, don’t pull together.
“Whatever the terminology, whether it’s Greater Birmingham, the West Midlands or whatever, do foreign investors wanting to build factories and employ our people really care? Of course not. To them, they just see it as Birmingham, and they’re not bothered what it’s called. And that is where the leadership becomes quite weak, caught up in the small stuff.
“The people from India and China wanting to invest millions care about the skills available, people’s employability and the region’s work ethic.”
Wouhra describes how until recently “historical figures like Matthew Boulton and James Watt were still celebrated as Birmingham’s transformational, industrious leaders”. But now he feels new names are finally coming to the fore: Paul Faulkner, chief executive of Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce; Paul Thandi, chief executive of NEC Group; Sara Fowler, EY’s senior partner in the Midlands; Andy Street, John Lewis’ managing director and chair of the Greater Birmingham LEP; and Stuart Towe, chair of the Black Country LEP.
“The important thing is that we’re all friends,” says Wouhra, “we all get on very well, and there’s no ego thing. We can help with this new age, and it does help to say we’re all speaking with one voice. It gives the region more influence.
“The IoD has a pretty powerful voice. And with all those partners, in the next 10 years we can make this city a powerhouse, creating a formula where we can push for the best for the region. That will come from devolution, but we’ll have to work for it, and the councils will have to come together.”
Wouhra warns that now Sir Albert Bore, Birmingham’s city leader, is standing down, Labour’s local councillors need to “quickly but carefully” elect a replacement. “Hopefully they’ll choose the right leader,” he says. “Someone who’s powerful and strong. I don’t want to knock Albert Bore – he’s done a lot for the city, and I feel bad he’s been pushed. But whoever the next leader is, they need to really think about our city and region, the massive growth we’re seeing, the need to increase the profile and make it world class.”
Meanwhile, Wouhra’s also pushing for change at East End Foods. The business was formed in the late 1960s when his uncle, Tony Wouhra, came to Wolverhampton from Delhi, India, soon followed by brothers Trilok, Jasbir (Jason Wouhra’s father), David and Don.
The Sikh siblings started a basic grocery business, selling eggs and chickens door-to-door to other Indian immigrants. They initially came to the UK for their education, paying for that by delivering to customers in the evenings. But when their own father passed away, the young men realised they needed to work full-time to send money home to support their family.
By 1972, they incorporated their growing wholesale business as East End Foods, and moved to Birmingham’s “more lively market” with its growing ethnic customer base. The company’s headquarters now stands on the former HP Sauce factory site in Aston Cross, Birmingham, from where annual turnovers have doubled to £200m since 2009.
Employing nearly 400 staff, the company is owned equally by the five Wouhra brothers’ families, with various sons forming a second generation of operational management. Jason – the IoD’s Wouhra – is now operations director of the Aston and Highgate cash and carry depots, and company secretary overseeing all HR and legal issues.
Wouhra says that “family respect, hard work and some really good staff” has helped things run smoothly for 40-plus years, but he says: “We’re at the stage where we’ve got to look at the company as a corporate entity, and consider bringing in some external strands. There’ll be some resistance from the family, but I think it’s time to move on.”
His ideas have been prompted by what he’s seen in the outside world. As well as the IoD, he’s on Aston University’s development board, is a non-executive director at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust and ran the Library of Birmingham’s advisory board. He’s also on Birmingham City Council’s Child Poverty Commission, and in October raised nearly £70,000 for MacMillan Cancer Support at a charity gala dinner.
Wouhra, who lives in Sutton Coldfield with Daali, his chartered accountant wife, says: “You carve out little chunks of time for these things, because if you’re inward-looking you can only achieve so much. It’s helped my thinking on how we should be developing to push East End Foods forward.
“We need a succession plan. Already the second generation is operationally leading the business. The first generation’s still there, and very active. But we need to move on and up. The export market for ethnic foods is huge. We’re already in 40-ish countries and have even sent small amounts of spices to India!
“Globalising the brand is an aspiration. On the cash and carry side, our three depots are all in Birmingham. We need to expand to London, East Midlands, Manchester, Bradford – wherever there’s a good ethnic retail conurbation. There are mergers and acquisitions opportunities as well. We could double in size again in the next five years. But that will take a different strategy. We’re very much hands on, which is good at this level. But we’re starting to stretch. We might have to bring people in at a senior level. It’s the family’s decision to make, but that’s my view.”
And reading between the lines, that means there are going to be some interesting boardroom meetings at East End Foods in the next few months.
Source: BQLIVE | By Steve Dyson