With the global economy and politics in a tangled mess, 2023 will be another tough year for business owners.
This recession is full of risks. But every challenge is an opportunity. For entrepreneurs who have the right skills, it’s the perfect time to make their mark through innovation and disruption.
Only one thing is certain: things won’t stop changing any time soon. So join us to ask what it really takes to launch and adapt a business for prolonged growth and success, whatever the economic weather.
We invite you to hear the founder of leading men’s grooming brand King of Shaves, Will King, reveal the secrets of success – from his days as a Portsmouth student, to his 30th anniversary year as an entrepreneur.
Facing redundancy in 1993, Will set out to challenge the highly competitive men's grooming industry with his first product, a shaving oil. Three decades later, King of Shaves has overcome many challenges on the road to more than 17 billion lives ‘shaved’ worldwide.
Join Will on Wednesday 8 February 2023 as he shares the realities of disrupting and leading in a competitive industry, and shares the core skills that allowed him to scale up in the face of uncertainty.
Programme
5:30 pm - Doors open
6:00 pm - Keynote with Will King, followed by a Q&A
7:00 pm - Drinks and nibbles and the opportunity to network
Speaker details:
Will King, Founder and CEO of King of Shaves
Honorary Doctorate and BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering, 1987
Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk in 1965, Will studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Portsmouth between 1984-87, with an early career in advertising sales, marketing and event management. Following redundancy, in 1993, he created the King of Shaves brand and its first product, a shaving oil. Buying shave.com for £18 in 1995, he found that “shaving’s a growth business” and in 2023 King of Shaves will celebrate its 30th anniversary, with more than 17Bn lives ‘shaved’ world-wide.
In 2019, King of Shaves announced the Code Zero® project to minimise the brand’s plastic packaging impact on the environment, in 2020 the brand launched new lifetime use refillable aluminium packaging resulting in a 96% reduction in plastic and 2021-22 will see further strides in reducing waste impact on the planet.
September 2021 saw the launch of above and beyond® – a unique, durable micro-plastic free refillable brand and packaging platform, 2 years in development. Will is a co-founder and director of Integro Innovations Ltd., the development company owned by The King of Shave Holding Company Ltd.
Will was delighted to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate D.Univ by the University of Portsmouth in 2015 for services to Engineering and Entrepreneurship and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Suffolk. He has spoken at dozens of schools, colleges and universities to thousands of pupils and students.
Find King of Shaves at www.shave.com