Working Day: Chris Shirling-Rooke

May 21 2008 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

CHRIS SHIRLING-ROOKE is a director at Harn & Co, the business development company based in Liverpool’s Exchange Flags. It works with companies, with a general remit to drive revenue, through measured market and company development.

After serving his business development apprenticeship in the Middle East, in particular Iran for two years, prior to a similar length of time at Trinity Mirror and a period as business development manager at St Helens Rugby League Club, he was brought on board at Van Harn & Co last year.

4.30am: I’m up needing to prepare for a 5am conference call with Iran (they are five hours ahead). I’m representing one of our new clients, Impact Aluminium, in negotiations for raw materials from that region. Director John McDonough calls just before 5am, closely followed by his fellow director, Tony Harford, and then Tehran patches through.

I’m not in the office much today, which is a pain especially now I’ve had the bar put in. We’re done in about half an hour, so time for a quick run, just a couple of miles, I’m not that fit, and then home for a shower and off to work.

7.30am: Breakfast in town with Griffith and Armour’s Financial Services managing director, Paul McGuckin, to update him on our work with them opening up and developing new markets.

We’ve introduced G&A to a number of beneficial opportunities and clients over the last six months especially focused on their Benefit scheme He gives me back-chat over my non-existent golf ability – literally non-existent.

9am: Meet my operations director, Alan Latham, at the airport (we have a small project in Aberdeen which is handy because that’s where Alan lives). As well as representing a number of national and local clients, we also have our own ongoing projects within the city and elsewhere.

10am: Alan and I pop over to law firm Brabners Chaffe Street to see David Horton, to discuss the viability, both legally and financially, of one of our ongoing projects (can’t say too much at the moment).

12.30pm: Catch a train to London with Ian Jackson (managing director, Community Initiatives) for our first regularly planned monthly meeting with BT, specifically the BT Heroes of Sport. On the journey down, we discuss sponsorship issues and, in particular, expanding the events team to handle the increase in traffic since BT confirmed their support for the 60,000-visitor event in Manchester in October.

Ian brought us on board last year during the initial conception of Heroes of Sport, which is set to be the North West’s biggest community sports event. This is great to be a part of – stressful but great.

4pm: Meeting with Colin and Ian from BT.

We discuss the agreed package, as well as some of the time-sensitive issues, including the national teaser campaign and a number of regionally worldwide record attempts, all designed to heighten interest and support for the BT Heroes of Sport 2008.

We’re all done by 5pm, which is handy as I have one more meeting in London

5.30pm: I make my way to Camden for my last meeting and a bite to eat with Karen Gutmann, marketing director of Korova Corporation (owner and operators of, among others, Circo, Geisha and Raven in Liverpool).

We discuss Korova Corp’s focus and recent success within the corporate market, that we’ve been very pro-active within, and in particular our corporate partners scheme, which is designed to offer a range of benefits for our business members.

These would include a preferential ticket and corporate service for the most prestigious events in Liverpool such as Diana Ross and Duran Duran, business networking, and private corporate parties. There is so much opportunity in the city at the moment for so many companies, it’s about choosing carefully and investing wisely into this vibrant market.

7.15pm: I’m back at Euston and boarding my train back to Lime Street. I’m knackered and I treat myself to a large gin and tonic, kick back and look forward to getting home.