What’s next for Yorkshire entrepreneur Jonathan Straight?

IT HAS been six months since founder of recycling products manufacturer Straight, Jonathan Straight, sold his AIM-listed business in a £10.7m deal to Irish firm One51.

“You know in your heart when it is time to move on,” he says. “I had been there for 21 years and the business had changed. I was pulling it in the direction of environmental impacts but in order to be able to do that, the business had to be making a lot of money, but it wasn’t. It had become out of favour with the city because we weren’t growing. 

“When I sold it, it was time for me to go. The business needed major investment and in order to achieve that, it needed a structural change.”

Straight founded the Leeds-based business in 1993 and floated it on AIM in 2003.

Straight, says he doesn’t really have the appetite to start another business just now and instead, is focussing on a number of other projects.

“People say, ‘you’re an entrepreneur, you won’t sit still for long’, and I’ve not sat still, but I am not quite ready to plunge into another encompassing project just yet,” he says. “I’m interested in being behind the scenes of running a business and mentoring.

“One of my aspirations is to write a story. I don’t know if it would be 250 or 50 pages but I would like to document what’s happened with Straight from the beginning to the end. It started with me and a desk and telephone and at the end, had about 150 people. There’s a great story there and there are some really good lessons in that story. This is a big project for me to get started on.”

Describing himself as a big believer in philanthropy, Straight has a number of charitable projects he’s working on.

“Charity work has always been important to me,” Straight says, who runs the Straight Charitable Trust.

“I’m starting to be proactive with this now. The trust has been around for around 3/4 years but it has always been reactive. Now we are being proactive and working with charities.”

One charity it is working with is SMIRA which provides information and support for children and families suffering from Selective Mutism.

He’s also working with the Street Lane Bakery – a social enterprise bakery in Leeds.

”When I was a teenager I worked in a bakery baking bagels so I know a bit about it,” he adds.

There’s certainly no resting for Straight. He says he’s working on about 20 projects – each in various stages of development whether it be helping young businesses make the right first steps or talking the right people for them.

Straight is also a non-executive director of Waterwise, a leading authority on water efficiency in the UK and Europe. It’s an independent, not for profit organisation, that receives funding from the UK water industry, sponsorship and research projects.

“I want to build a portfolio of non-executive positions,” Straight says.  “There’s a number of people I am talking to at the moment.”

There’s a whole bunch of other interests the entrepreneur, known for his love of quirky glasses – he has 300 frames in his collection – is looking at, too.

One being photography, which he said he used to do as a kid, and the others include TV work (he’s already in discussions with some producers), the environment and also healthy eating.

“People generally eat a lot of crap,” he says. “And I would like to do something to help that. I am looking at new ideas of food products – a lot based around seaweed. I am very interested in this space.

“I want to do lots of different things really. I’ve a very broad range of interests and a desire to make the world a better place. If we take a step back from the environment there are lots of other ways we can make the world a better place.

“And I’m much happier than I was before. The 21 years at Straight were ended with a series of problems to solve. We had massive successes but a lot of my time was fixing things. I was lucky though because I had a very good team.

“I am fortunate to be where I am. I started something from nothing, built it up and sold it – that’s what everyone wants to do, isn’t it? I had the privilege of running a public company during that time, worked with talented people and learnt stacks.

“My ambition hasn’t finished, I just describe myself as a resting entrepreneur at the moment.”

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