The Yorkshire Mafia

Chris Woodhead

Q: If you could improve anything in the region what would it be?

A: I work out of my home base in the Yorkshire Dales so my first priority would be super fast broadband to enable real time video conferencing on demand.

Q: Who or what has most influenced you in your career?

A: Andy Lamb (City Manager, Provident Mutual) mentored me during my first management role and has been a great influence. Tom Nies (founder and President of Cincom) is an inspirational leader who believes anything is possible… and he proved it by building Cincom with a few hundred dollars and a card table into a worldwide corporation.

Q: What are the best and worst pieces of advice you’ve ever been given?

A: The best advice is that life is full of windows of opportunity which open only briefly; the choice is yours, you either step through the window and grasp the opportunity or settle for the status quo and never know what might have been.

I can’t remember ever listening to or paying any attention to bad advice – why would anyone do that?

Q: What do you most enjoy about your work?

A: Meeting and doing business with people from a wide range of countries and different cultures.

Q: What’s been your biggest achievement/biggest business mistake?

A: I consider my biggest achievement to date is building the team which has turned CiBA (our division of Cincom) into a multi-million dollar business – from finding the market space to developing and selling the software solution. Just like everybody I have made lots of mistakes along the way; the trick is to learn from them and move forward.

Q: How do you relax?

A: Walking my dogs in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales – I have an Italian Spinone and a Tibetan Terrier – sometimes my walks even take me to the local pub!!

Q: What’s on your ipod?

A: An eclectic collection from Acker Bilk to Wings – and I am a long term Leonard Cohen fan!

LinkedIn is a great professional network of like-minded people which enables me to keep in touch with contacts all around the world easily and in real time. I especially like the Yorkshire Mafia because it provides all the advantages of a large virtual network with the real world opportunity to network face to face; I believe only a “locally” focussed group can do this effectively. I have found the forums useful, have made contact with new partners and have attended a round table on social networking in business. I look forward to increasing my participation in the future.

Chris Woodhead