Interview with Anna Blackburn, Managing Director at Beaverbrooks Beaverbrooks has been a family business for over a century. Can you share the story behind its founding and how it has evolved over the years? In 1919, three brothers, Isaac, Harry and Maurice Adlestone moved to Belfast and started Adlestones, now Beaverbrooks, with just a suitcase full of jewellery, silver and dreams. 106 years on, we have 89 Beaverbrooks Group Stores across the country, a 1,100-strong team and the same family at the helm, with Chairman Mark Adlestone OBE (grandson of Isaac) overseeing the business and myself and the senior management team overseeing the day-to-day running.
We are proud of our heritage and the business is built on strong family principles, values and a mission to ‘enrich lives,’ which means making a positive difference to the world we live in. Anna, your progression from a graduate trainee in 1998 to becoming the first female and non-family member CEO in 2013 is inspiring. What were some pivotal moments in your leadership journey and how have they influenced Beaverbrooks’ direction? I was proud to become the first non-family member and female CEO of Beaverbrooks in 2013 and then non-family member and female member of the board when I was promoted to Managing Director in 2018.
Beaverbrooks has a fantastic culture of developing our people and creating the environment to thrive, providing training and development opportunities and focusing on promoting from within where poss.