The Yorkshire Mafia

David Agar

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

A:
1. Real solutions to equity gap funding.
2. Cross county transport, especially to the regions airports.
3. The weather.

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

A: Those who consistently show their enthusiasm, commitment and integrity. They are in the minority!

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

A: Best: Follow what you truly believe in, and never accept rejection.
Worst: Always listen to professional advisers.

Q: What do you most enjoy about your work?

A: Turning ideas into reality; building a successful team and watching them excel; the people.

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

A: Biggest achievement – building 2 successful multi-million pound businesses
Biggest mistake – not always following my gut feelings

Q: How do you relax?

A: Having an extremely inquisitive young son always help to keep me grounded and forget about work for a while! A glass of red also helps.

Q: What’s on your ipod?

A: Beatles, Stones, Smiths, Aretha, Otis, bit of Bob, T.Rex, Bowie (pre 75), Rumer…and more Beatles.

I originally came across the Yorkshire Mafia completely by accident. But being a proud Yorkshireman I was intrigued and immediately investigated further. It quickly became apparent to me that the values of this organisation were sort of altruistic yet totally supportive of ‘doing business’ either within Yorkshire or with Yorkshire people. I thought this was a great concept, and one that I personally felt happy to both contribute to and potentially benefit from. You could say it’s networking, but with a (major) difference. It’s most definitely not one of those many ‘in your face’ networking organisations who, let’s face it, exist for their own benefit. I’m a firm believer in you get out of something what you put in. And to this end the YM is ideal. I went to a York drinks evening to see if it was as good as it seemed. It was. Met with Geoff Shepherd and had a good chat – even that didn’t manage to put me off! And as for the 2011 YM Conference in Leeds – what a totally first class, stunning, original event!!! And those are just some of the many reasons why the YM has my full support.

David Agar