Bertie Swayne

Managing Director @EPIC

Aberdeen, GB

In mid-2022 Ashenwood Holdings (MarineGuard’ parent company) acquired Exploration & Production Information Company Ltd, or EPIC. Always up for a challenge, I leapt at the opportunity to take on the Managing Director role and set about involving myself as best as possible in the merger and acquisition due diligence and legal process.On completion I made the trip to Aberdeenshire to embark on my next journey. For the most part, the 20+ strong EPIC team were not aware of the acquisition and so my introduction in person by the retiring Managing Director and founder of the company was a big surprise. The next few months would serve as a huge test of my communication and teambuilding skills. Our number one objective was to ensure that the good work that EPIC were doing was not hampered by the changes imposed, the long term objective was and still is for EPIC and MarineGuard to complement each other with similar technology solutions in different markets. Over the last 2 years we have moved the head office location twice, temporarily from Huntly to Aberdeen and now out to Inverurie where we hope to have a long term base. To make the most of shared space we have moved the manufacturing and design element of EPIC down to MarineGuard’ existing space in Southampton. Despite the logistical challenges and management changes we have retained 80% of the original team, onboarded new staff and delivered significant financial growth year on year whilst building our busy pipeline. I now manage my time between two office locations and teams at different ends of the country, whilst helping to maintain relationships with our global client base.

University of Plymouth

Biological Sciences Bsc