'To work together for 20 years, the chemistry must be right'

HENRY AMAR

I met David when he applied for a job as our sales director 20 years ago. He’d seen the advert just as he was going on holiday and actually posted his application on his way to Heathrow. By the time it arrived, we’d completed our first interviews and were putting a shortlist together. But something about his letter and background made us hesitate. We were intrigued by David. So we arranged for him to see us as soon as he returned from holiday.

He was exactly suited to our needs. He’d worked for companies we rated highly. He had a very confident air; he was knowledgeable about the business. Even at the interview he said things that made us realise he could take us forward. He was enthusiastic and engaging. We felt he was right for the company. And I liked him personally. He’s a very different character to me, but that’s a positive.

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I sensed at the beginning that we would work well together. I’m an organisation man, and I worry about things till I get the right answer. David is confident, very outgoing. He’s perhaps not as attached to the detail as I am, but that’s where the combination works, because I think I support him in that respect. He has the drive to move things on. He’s a great trend-spotter. He knows whether something will sell or not, and he’s brought a number of successful products into the business which I probably wouldn’t have looked at.

In the early days, David’s role was purely sales director. I was the managing director and I looked after the supply side. In 1998, David became chief executive, and I moved up to chairman, but we maintained a general separation of roles. His interest is sales and marketing. Mine is supply.

We do sometimes disagree. He might be keen to take on a range of products that I’m not sure about, but I trust his judgement and generally give way to it on things like that. Similarly, if there is an issue on the supply side, say he’s not particularly enthusiastic about a supplier I want to work with, then he would bow to my judgement. We rub along very well. It would be disappointing if we agreed on everything. This way, we generate a certain amount of energy and discussion, which is good for the business.

Our jobs in some ways have fused a little recently. I was 70 this year and have gradually stepped back from day-to-day management, so David has moved towards a more enhanced role.

We’re good friends. To work together for 20 years, the chemistry must be right. We have the occasional game of golf. We meet socially. We spend quite a bit of time together outside work. One thing that’s surprised me about David is that even after 20 years, he is still as sharp and aware of what is happening in the food world as he ever was, and that’s quite a hard thing to do because the market changes so fast. It’s very easy to live in the past. But he loves the industry he works in. I can’t imagine him doing anything else. It’s a tribute to him that he’s still as cutting-edge after all these years.

DAVID MELLOR

I’ve always worked in the food industry, but obviously the greater part of my career has been here with Henry over the past 20 years.

It almost didn’t happen, though. I came home from work one day to prepare to go on holiday that evening. While my wife finished packing the cases I flicked through The Grocer and saw this little advert for a sales director at an un-named Buckinghamshire food importer. I knew of RH Amar and I loved their range of products. I thought the advert sounded like it might be them, so I dashed off a letter, posted it on the way to the airport. When I got back, there was an invitation to go in for an interview.

That was where I met Henry. My impression was of a gentleman in the old-fashioned sense of the word, a man of real integrity and honesty. That’s been borne out ever since. If Henry says something, he stands by his word. He’s also very well educated. He was open-minded about his business, yet extremely ambitious for it. The attributes I recognised in Henry at the time were what convinced me to take the risk of moving to a small company – their turnover was about £2.5m in those days.

The way we work is totally different. That’s one of our strengths. Henry brings a solidity, gravitas, and attention to detail. He’s very methodical, whereas I am more on the creative side. But the key thing is that although we’re different personalities, we’re aiming for the same goal. Although we use different methods, we have a shared purpose.

My passion is for bringing new and innovative products to market. We’ve launched all sorts of new products. We were the first people to introduce Caesar salad dressing. The one we went for was the Cardini brand: it was Caesar Cardini who actually invented Caesar salad. We’re very keen that we only get the best products in the categories that we work in, and if we can’t find it, we won’t take it.

Twenty years sounds like a long time to work for one company, but it doesn’t feel like it because the business is constantly changing and evolving. We’re taking on new suppliers and products, attracting new customers and going into different customer areas. It almost feels like a different job every year. That’s why I came here. I was looking for variety in my career, something I could put my energy and creative talents into, somewhere I could keep developing new things. All of those ambitions have been fulfilled because I’ve been given the autonomy to do a lot of things by myself.

And in all this time, Henry and I have never had a serious argument. We usually manage to resolve any problems and we’ve never had an issue where we’ve had one or the other storming out of the room. Our relationship has never really changed. We’re friendly colleagues. We play golf sometimes, and attend social events together.

At the moment, our roles are changing. He is still chairman, just less of an executive chairman. It has become more of a classic chairman/chief executive relationship than it has been before. Although I think that when he says step back, instead of working 12 hours a day for five days like he used to, it may turn into 16 hours a day for three days.

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