The story of Leigh Mann’s career with Piroto started with a chance meeting between two women in the small Northamptonshire village of Roade. In 1989 18-year-old Leigh was living above the family shop when Myra Inglis, wife of Piroto’s Managing Director Alastair, mentioned to Leigh’s mum that the Company was growing and needed more staff.
Leigh already had experience in selling business equipment and thought the Piroto opportunity sounded interesting, so arranged to meet Alastair the following Saturday. Far from being a foregone conclusion, Leigh actually attended three interviews before he was finally offered the position of Sales Correspondent at Piroto.
Alastair was a firm believer that sales staff should have a thorough understanding of all aspects of the business, including the technical and print side of label manufacturing process. That being the case Leigh’s duties were many and varied in the early years. Much of his time was taken up with receiving orders by telex and facsimile and arranging delivery of pricing labels to multiple individual stores; this was before the days of centralised distribution centres. Leigh even spent evenings and weekends overprinting hundreds of thousands of barcode labels in the days before retailers had their own thermal printers.
Although some may have complained about the wide job description, Leigh acknowledges that Alastair’s approach was extremely valuable. He said, “I am incredibly grateful to Alastair for sharing his principles and business acumen with me. His help in guiding my early career has been invaluable.”
Ever enthusiastic to gain more knowledge, and with a canny ability to spot an opportunity, Leigh led a project to improve upon traceability within the food manufacturing sector in the late nineties. The resultant unique redesign of metal detectable tags helped Piroto gain the reputation for innovation amongst the top food retailers.
As Leigh became more instrumental in Piroto’s success so Alastair handed over more responsibility. So much so that at the start of the new millennium Alastair made Leigh Non-Designate Director and started plans to sell Piroto. In 2003 a buyer was found, and Leigh’s hopes of buying the business himself were dashed. In a dramatic turn, the sale fell through, and with the Mann family’s deal still on the table, Leigh found himself with a new business, a new home, and a new baby all in one year.
As new owner, Leigh did not rest on his laurels and in 2004 he had another big decision to make. With retail loyalty schemes at their height, Piroto landed the opportunity to print millions of loyalty stamps for a worldwide scheme. A significant investment in new printing technology by Piroto was needed to complete the order though, with no promise of future business. Leigh did not take the decision lightly, and the investment in the first Mark-Andy press gave Piroto the opportunity to move into a new growth phase.
With increased label and tag printing capacity, and Leigh at the helm Piroto went from strength to strength.
The next 20 years saw continuous improvement projects across all areas of the business with the resultant enhancements bringing new innovations, like water washable labels, tamper seals, peel & reveal labels and environmentally friendly labels and tags. Investment in printing presses, technology, people and processes has continued to be the cornerstone of Piroto’s success story. Plus, a stronger brand identity and adherence to the core values established over the 50 years of Piroto’s history.
Leigh is a modest man and puts much of his success down to having a great team around him, both at Piroto and at home. He, and the Piroto team, remain committed to taking the business to the next level and working in partnerships with customers and suppliers to meet the challenges of the future.
You can read Piroto’s full 50 year story here