CEO MONTHLY / ISSUE 11 2023 15 Mar22259 Next-Level Business Leadership For a long time, Stephen Twiss’ dream was to start his own group. Thus, Lakeshore Leisure Group was born in 2019 – but now, the exciting chapter of leading this business has drawn to a close. Recognised as our Most Influential Leisure Brand CEO 2023 – UK, we speak to business leader and non-executive, Stephen to learn more about his extraordinary career so far. What was your vision for Lakeshore Leisure Group? It’s a vision that I’d developed over eight or nine years whilst in senior executive roles within the industry. I had a real utopian view of how it could be done in terms of product, team, and guest experience. That vision was to create an enviable and innovative medium-size UK holiday resort group that filled a gap in the market. We wanted to offer an eclectic and alternative mix of accommodation in relaxed rural and lakeside settings that allowed holidaymakers and lodge owners to truly escape the urban. Realising a vision alongside amazing people is the most satisfying part of leading a business. To have built something from scratch that you have imagined really is an incredible experience. How did you identify the correct sites to develop? At the time, there was a lot of new investment coming into the sector; subsequently, the market for resorts and holiday parks was super competitive, so the challenge faced by myself and my investors, Kings Park Capital, was to find value in an overvalued market. This led me to search for under invested or operationally challenging businesses, as well as existing greenfield sites and leisure sites that we could develop or diversify. In essence, we sought the opportunities that others would dismiss and developed them into a product and brand that the rest of the industry would take notice of and covert. For this reason, we were focused equally on both retail and corporate PR which had a big impact on the overall success of the project and investment. Recently, both you and your investors experienced a successful exit from Lakeshore Leisure Group. How was this process? What are your biggest learnings from it? The potential to sell the business came much quicker than expected, with the first approach coming just two and a half years after our initial site acquisition. As mentioned, I attribute this early interest to our commitment to sharing our journey and success with the industry, creating a strong reputation for quality and innovation. There was a huge amount of work, and as a management team, you are performing dual roles. Therefore, the most significant take away from this experience is the need to maintain focus on the business’s strategy and vision. A sale is never guaranteed, so it’s crucial to keep your team and yourself aligned with the company’s core objectives throughout any sales process. What have been the key drivers in your senior career journey? I would say that I’ve always been ambitious, challenging myself with career decisions that were not necessarily the obvious path. I also have a real passion for innovation and creating change, in particular having innovation and your point of difference as the key drivers in a strategy. When coupled with sound business practice, great people and intelligent funding, the results can be incredible. It’s this principle that led me to start Lakeshore Leisure. How did you integrate that sense of passion into your culture? In simple terms, we focused on fairness and engagement, as when a team feels fairly treated and is truly engaged there will be higher levels of performance. From my experience, if you’re leading a business, it’s unreasonable to expect that everyone in the business will have the same level of attachment and engagement as you. However, without a sense of purpose that drives a unified culture, I don’t believe people can or will do their best work. When a team understands the vision and feels passionate about something that is beyond their direct financial gain, commercial success becomes a wonderful bi-product, almost an inevitability. You currently hold two nonexecutive positions; how are you adapting to this board advisory work? The experience with Lakeshore was so incredible that I’m now highly selective, focusing on projects that hopefully ignite the same level of passion and enthusiasm in me – whether in the capacity of a CEO or serving on advisory boards. I have the opportunity to take a more expansive view of challenges and projects, offering valuable insights and posing critical questions that can either solidify the business’s thinking or chart a better course forward. The ability to influence and shape the company’s strategic decisions in this way is extremely rewarding. These roles also provides a degree of flexibility and freedom, allowing me to explore a wider range of opportunities and engage with different organisations. The networking aspect has been great too; this is already leading to investment opportunities and larger projects that I will have more direct or executive influence on. NED work is certainly different, but equally fulfilling, and I’m excited to continue making a positive impact on companies in this way. Feb23472
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