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Tim was born in Glasgow and worked for Allied Breweries
before joining WH Smith in 1973. Tim founded the remarkably successful
Waterstone's booksellers with £6000 of the redundancy money he received
when he was sacked from WH Smith in 1982. He went on to raise £100,000
venture capital and set up Waterstone's Booksellers with its first shop
in London's Old Brompton Road. Tim established Waterstone's reputation
as 'the eponymous classy bookshop' and changed the face of British book
retailing. Waterstone's was also one of the two or three largest and
most successful venture capital entities of its time. Nine years later
he sold the company to his previous employers for £47m, only to buy it
back, together with EMI and Advent International in 1998!
Waterstone's now has over 200 stores, and is developing
internationally. September 1999 Waterstone's opened the largest bookshop
in the world in London's Piccadilly. Having been founded by Waterstone,
the company has benefited from a consistent strategy of combining buying
power and marketing muscle of multiple retailers with the high standard
of service associated with independent book stores.
Tim's latest venture is Daisy and Tom children's
department stores offering everything from clothes to books, toys to
hairdressing for children aged 0-8 under one roof. A unique concept to
the world of children's retailing.
A man with diverse interests, Tim has held a variety of
other general appointments in business and his expertise translates well
to the fields of arts and education. Tim has served on the boards of
several companies, including some young companies where his expertise in
building up a business proved invaluable. Tim is currently a
non-executive director of Yale University Press, National Gallery
Publications and FutureStart Venture Capital Fund of BT and Downing
Classic Venture Capital Fund. He is an occasional guest lecturer at
INSEAD, London Business School, and a novelist with three books
published to date, as well as numerous published and broadcast articles
and programmes in general, literary and business media. |
