The name is Clacher, Rachel Clacher. She’s co-founder of the highly successful Wrexham-based company, Moneypenny.
It was named after James Bond’s favourite secretary in the blockbuster film franchise.
The award-winning company Rachel set up with her brother Ed Reeves in 2000 provides a telephone answering and outsourced reception service to businesses of all shapes and sizes across the UK.
She’s now on a new mission to give a stirring talk to the Wrexham Business Professionals group.
Rachel will be the guest speaker at their meeting on Wednesday, September 14.
She will be revealing Moneypenny’s recipe for success and how entrepreneurs need good professional expertise to grow.
Solicitor Gareth Kelly, a partner in Cyril Jones and Co, from the Wrexham Business Professionals, is thrilled that Rachel has agreed to address the group.
Gareth said: “The Moneypenny success story is a truly inspiring one and proof positive that Wrexham is a great place to do business, a place where you can thrive and prosper.
“I am sure we can all learn important lessons that we can apply to our own businesses.
“Naturally, I am also glad that Rachel will be emphasising the importance of using the type of professional expertise that we have in abundance in Wrexham as a key element in running a successful business.
“I am sure we will all be stirred by what she has to tell us,” added Gareth.
Today Moneypenny employs more than 200 people and is the UK market leader, handling millions of calls on behalf of thousands of companies.
As well as providing smaller businesses with answering services, Moneypenny provides its outsourced reception service to larger firms, handling calls exactly as if they were based in clients’ offices and supporting or replacing conventional receptions.
The company has been recognised by a Queen’s Award for Enterprise and Innovation, and being nominated by the Sunday Times as one of the Best 100 Places to Work.
Before Moneypenny, Rachel had a successful career in marketing.
She recalled: “I was working in mainly leisure products, films and videos, and then I moved to working in the arts promoting film and theatre.
“Ed has had a variety of sports related businesses, mainly based around wind surfing at which he’s exceptional.
“We’d been looking for businesses to set up together because we were both working alone – and using each other as our support network really.
“Then we realised that Ed essentially really needed someone to look after his telephone calls from his clients who would have had a blue fit if they’d realised he was working from his back bedroom.
“We eventually found a company in Newbury who did an adequate job – until Ed went away on his first holiday in years and his biggest client tried to send a fax through with a repeat order.
“The the fax machine ran out of paper and the client phoned Ed’s office. It was diverted to the telephone answer service who said they were just an answering service and couldn’t help.
“Ed lost the client but out of that unhappy situation came the acorn of the idea of Moneypenny, which is all about having somebody you know and trust looking after your calls and working as an extension of you team.”
“For the first two or three years, Ed and I had to do everything – which is great because we learnt about every single aspect of the business.
“We recruited our first PAs in March 2000 and they’re still with us today which is fantastic, and we’ve just grown massively since then.
“We’ve doubled in size year on year and we now employ 210 people – we recruited 82 people last year.
“We have extraordinary people with stunning technology doing a great job for wonderful clients.
“The secret of our success is really quite simple: we do what we do best, so our clients can get on with what they do best.”
“We always wanted Moneypenny to be the kind of place that we would want to work at, so that means that we have a very supportive, comfortable working environment where we say thank you.
“We appreciate our staff and the hard work that they do. By the same token everybody is very clear about what our expectations are of them.
“We’re very proud of the fact that we have been named as one of the Top 100 companies to work for in the UK.
“I think the nuts and bolts of any business are exactly the same and we all have different product and services, but essentially it’s about providing your clients with what they want in an effective way and setting new standards in terms of what they can have.”
“We love being in Wrexham. Being based here is the best decision we’ve ever made, because we’ve found amazing staff who have given us their time and commitment and allowed us to become what we are today.”
