Annual Company Meeting 2024 - Responding Not Reacting
Shortly after the end of every financial year, our head office team gathers to look back on the past 12 months, whilst considering plans for the upcoming year. This year some key changes to our strategic leadership team were announced...
Responding not Reacting
Rapid Clean was founded back in 1999 and it has gone from strength to strength over the last 25 years. One of the keys to that strength, is observing the need to make changes before it becomes an essential requirement. In other words...responding rather than reacting.
The first major change to our leadership team, is that Jeff Whitton, co-founder and Managing Director, will be stepping aside to become Chairman of Rapid Clean. This new role will allow him to look at the bigger picture of the company, connect with external organisations, and focus on the future strategy.
Our current Operations Director and co-founder, Paul Claxton, will be stepping into the role of Managing Director. This of course leaves space for someone to take on the leadership of our Operations Team. There was no need for us to look externally for this role to be filled, as we have a wealth of highly experienced people within our current team. We are pleased to announce that Eddie-Lawrence Kalule has been appointed as Head of Operations.
Eddie has worked for Rapid since the very early days. He was first employed as a cover cleaner, quickly moving into the role of Contracts Manager. In 2018 he was promoted to Operations Manager, and has made an incredible impact in this role. Most importantly, Eddie represents us well and reflects all of our company values - Respectful, Focused, Passionate and Honorable. Eddie will oversee our entire Operations Department, taking it to the next level.
Finally, our sales team has evolved many times over the last 25 years. In recent years we moved away from telemarketing, focusing our attention on marketing, whilst encouraging natural growth through nurturing current customers. We needed someone to step in and oversee this whole department, so Suzanne Whitton has become Head of Sales and Marketing. We are confident that Suzanne is the right person to bring these two departments together.
Time for Some Fun!
With so many people in our operations department working at various locations around the country, our annual company meeting is also a rare opportunity to catch up and have some fun together.
We started the day with a game; mixing up departments and challenging them to create the tallest tower. Two caveats to this:
- only tools to be used were scissors, a single marshmallow, string, tape and raw spaghetti;
- every three minutes, the leader of the challenge had to change.
The winning tower measured a whopping 1.2 metres and managed to stand alone without the need for human support! Congratulations to Table number 4.
It was fun to see the usual competitive sides come out, but also the different leadership and strategy styles.
Gathering as a whole team at least once a year, is a priority at Rapid Clean. We have an incredibly strong team of people currently; we look forward to going from strength to strength as an organisation.
