Accu Welcomes Alastair Morris As UK Managing Director
This month we are thrilled to welcome Alastair Morris, joining our rapidly growing team as UK Managing Director.
From sports cars to renewable energy, Alastair brings a wealth of experience from various exciting engineering centred disciplines.
Motivated by his love of motorsport, Alastair first dived into the world of precision engineering at university where he later specialised in thermodynamics and completed his masters in motorsport engineering.
Taking a side step from motorsport into the automotive industry, Alastair spent 10 years in various commercial roles, account and sales managing a range of automotive products for sports cars in the UK and Italy - a country he began to grow incredibly fond of.
Having spent those years in a large corporation, Alastair wanted to be a part of a positive and impactful change for a small to medium business. He shared, “I had been part of large scale organisations for the better part of a decade and I knew that I was after a change. I deliberately sought after SMEs, where I hoped that I could have more of an influence and an impact on the business. I found it incredibly exciting to be able to help a smaller business grow, to take the company to the next level.”
As Sales Director for a smaller engineering machinery company, he did just that. Spending years in the US establishing the brand, setting up a subsidiary and growing the manufacturing customer base.
Sticking with SMEs, Alastair also headed into renewable energy, taking a Chief Commercial Officer role in a business set to manage electricity more effectively and help companies decarbonise to achieve net zero emissions.
Alastair's passion for growing smaller businesses did not stop there. As of 2019, Alastair has been a Director for the International Trade Forum, a membership organisation working to help SMEs to start or increase their international trade by sharing best practice within international trade.
Fighting for British manufacturing, Alastair also sits on the Yorkshire and Humber advisory board for the manufacturers organisation, Make UK.
Excited to start his journey with Accu, Alastair shared, “It’s incredible to learn all about Accu and how the business is great at what it does. I’ve been involved with warehouses in the past, but never anything to this scale. The variety of component ranges, the speed of deliveries and slick operations is very impressive, not to mention the excellent, award winning, customer experience.
One of the key things that first attracted me to Accu was the great culture and employee engagement that exists here. These elements of a business are incredibly important to me and being part of a company where these values exist has been a goal of mine for a long time. Developing this for the future, I want to take our culture to new highs, to keep our roots and our family feel as we continue to expand and grow.”
Thrilled to have Alastair onboard, our Co Founder, Martin Ackroyd, shared, “I’m ecstatic to welcome Alastair to team Accu. We’re especially excited to learn from his wealth of experience as we move into our next phase of growth.
His vast knowledge and modern approach to leadership is going to be pivotal in continuing our mission ‘to be the most loved shopping destination for engineers and innovators’.
Alastair brings commercial experience from multiple continents, vital for expanding our global footprint within both our established and growth markets.”
Outside of work, Alastair is kept incredibly busy by his two children. He is also very fond of travel, taking many trips back to Italy to appreciate the culture, the history and, of course, to buy his parmesan cheese.