Having planned to flee BDO Binder Hamlyn and its management consultancy when it was announced that Arthur Andersen would be taking it over…
…and then having fled and started establishing Z/Yen…
… there were times when I thought the business wouldn’t be ready to start trading on 1 October 1994. But of course we were able to open our sole door, to our sole room in Garrard House, 31-45 Gresham Street, on that prescribed day. No death in a ditch for me.
Click and look at the images for that address and you will see a grand City building, opposite Wax Chandler’s Hall, which at the time of writing has been home to Schroders plc for decades.
In the autumn of 1994, though, it was an old 1930’s building, in a state of some distress, which was about to be emptied for the purposes of a massive makeover for Schroders.
Nice address.
Mercifully, no pictures seem to survive on-line of the old Garrard House, nor of the single, pokey room that was, for about nine months, in 1994/1995, Z/Yen. Here and below is a link to a wonderful blog piece about the history of Gresham Street with some good photos which, again mercifully, miss out the 1930s to 1990s Garrard House:
There were just five of us on the payroll that first autumn; Kate Carty, me, Stuart Otter, Steve Taylor and John Thompson. Michael Mainelli was with us, in spirit and informally, but technically Michael was unable to join the firm until February 1995.
Kate Carty got something akin to cabin fever in those early months, as so few of us went nigh nor by the place. Yet somehow Kate and Steve got it together during that early period of Z/Yen’s life, such that our tiny business of just six people; the other four of whom were attached, managed to yield an office romance and then marriage which, like Z/Yen, has endured to this day (as I write 25 years later).
One abiding memory from that room is the day in early December when we needed to splurge on getting our first year’s Christmas cards out. We thought this to be a very important marketing campaign…
…in truth the Christmas cards was our only marketing campaign for the first year or so of our existence.
A rare occasion when several of us were in the room at the same time; me, Kate and John Thompson.
In the early days of a business, everyone needs to muck in for all tasks, including stuffing envelopes and labelling up Christmas cards…
…but John Thompson seemed a little reluctant for such menial tasks.
I said:
I must be the highest paid envelope-stuffer in the City right now.
John, a competitive fellow who was being paid considerably more than me at that time, immediately jumped up and exclaimed,
No, I am the highest paid envelope-stuffer in the City.
I was delighted to let JT win that debate.
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