Accord

I was born in Egypt to Greek Cypriot parents. There wasn’t enough land to go around for the boys in my father’s family, so he went to Egypt to make a new life for himself and set up a grocery shop. When the Suez Crisis started in 1956, my parents were forced to leave everything behind. We moved to Britain when I was six years old and I arrived not speaking a word of English.

My dad found a job as a shop assistant and eventually leased his own grocery and delicatessen shop. Growing up, I worked in my dad’s shop on the weekends to earn my pocket money. On the train on the way home, my dad would quiz me about our turnover for the day, our average profit margin, our gross profit. He taught me the fundamentals of business.

All images courtesy Stelio Stefanou

When I decided to expand my company, Accord, I borrowed quite a lot of money – enough to blow me out of the water if I’d failed. But my view was that my dad had lost everything when he was in his 40s. He came to a new country and started again from nothing. Even if I didn’t succeed, I could resurrect myself somehow.

By the time I sold Accord in 2007, we were one of the largest maintenance companies in the country, responsible for a large section of the motorway network and half of the social housing in Birmingham, amongst other projects. We did things rather differently than many other companies and I’m proud of having built up a sizable company from small beginnings.