Commerce chief shows his killer instincts Ron Hewitt: Chief

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Sep 25, 2005 | by Ian Fraser

A GLASGOW-born novelist, whose main character is a Home Office forensic psychologist on the trail of a serial killer, serving as the chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce (ECC)?

It sounds bizarre, but Ron Hewitt, who took over the reins at the chamber earlier this year, writes novels about a murderer of paedophiles in his spare time.

His first, The Saw Man, is to be published soon, with the actor Robert Lindsay writing the foreword and having already expressed an interest in the television rights.

But Hewitt, 54, only took up writing a couple of years ago during a spell of semi-retirement in the south of France.

He has spent most of his career in senior business roles.

Working for companies including Vibroplant, the RAC and Kwik- Fit, Hewitt moved house an astonishing 28 times in 30 years. He also earned a reputation as something of a turnaround specialist.

He helped transform Sir Tom Farmer's Uddingston-based Kwik-Fit Insurance Services from a loss-making operation into the fastest- growing motor insurance distributor in Europe. In the process, through an earn-out, Hewitt made himself made enough cash to retire to the south of France in 2002.

"I'd been working, waking up at 5.30am and getting home late for 30 years. I've got a family but they grew up with, much of the time, me not seeing them. I do regret that. It was an opportunity of starting again so the family packed up and went to live in France."

They decamped to StRemy-de-Provence, a village between Avignon and Arles, but soon tired of its 64 restaurants and mostly American residents and returned to Scotland.

But the ECC job is no sinecure for Hewitt. Founded by Royal Charter in 1786 the ECC is a membership-based organisation which observers believe needed a new sense of purpose after membership fell to around 1400 last year.

Hewitt has already set himself the stretching target of boosting member numbers to 5000 by 2008. He says: "I think they took their eye off the ball here, partly because of revenues from Business Gateway contracts and money coming in from car parking businesses, and so on."

As RAC operations director, Hewitt rationalised the organisation's network of area offices into five supercentres - including the Nicholas Grimshawdesigned building on the M4-M5 junction near Bristol.

Now his mission is to apply a customer-centred management approach to the ECC. It is hardly rocket science. Basically, Hewitt believes that firms will come flocking if the ECC can offer better value for money than rival organisations, such as the CBI, Institute of Directors and Federation of Small Businesses.

Through the Chamber Connect card, the ECC last month started offering members a range of benefits in exchange for their GBP275- GBP3000 membership fees. These include discounts of 25% on meals at The Scotsman Hotel's North Bridge Brasserie, Channings and The Bonham;

20% off car servicing at Belmont Vauxhall; and up to 60% off at Riverside Stationers. The card also provides free access to Servisair airline lounges and discounted corporate hospitality deals through Keith Prowse.

Hewitt intends to extend the package to include free use of top- quality meeting space across the UK, as well as discounted merchant rates on credit card transactions. He says: "This is all very exciting.

It's a big change for the city."

He also wants to ensure the ECC becomes a more powerful lobbying voice with Edinburgh city council, the Scottish parliament and further afield.

Hewitt says: "We want to be the voice and the hub of business, and we've got a lot to say.

My role is to fight the corner of what member firms tell me they believe matters to them - things such as the traffic situation in Edinburgh."

He scored one notable early victory with his Level The Playing Field business rates campaign in June. This may well have been pushing at an open door, but three months later finance minister Tom McCabe announced Scotland's business rates would be harmonised with those in England and Wales.

Next on Hewitt's agenda is a campaign to slow the Topsylike growth of public sector employment in Scotland. He believes the public sector's approach to pay, job security and pensions is starving the private sector of talent.

He also wants to see a more concerted campaign to improve the capital's transport infrastructure and would like to ensure that conservation bodies are less able in future to slow Edinburgh's economic growth through their interventions.

Hewitt, who oversees a staff of 60 people, is also seeking to cut costs through merging the ECC's back office with those of other chambers, such as Glasgow and Aberdeen. "Where possible, I want to avoid unnecessary duplication of costs."

Another step in rejuvenating the chamber - as well as reinvigorating its finances - is expected to come later this autumn when it hopes to sell its Melville Street headquarters building for an expected GBP1.5 million. Hewitt sees the Georgian townhouse as inappropriate for the modern and outward-looking body he is seeking to create.