Adam is from Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, where he grew up in a troubled one-parent family, living in social housing, receiving free school meals and not having contact with his father until he was in his teens. A regular absentee from school and target of the local wag man, he left school at 16 with no qualifications.
After some false starts, several jobs working in farming and periods working within his father’s businesses, Adam talked his way into a November start at the local technical college to complete his GCSEs when he was 20. He then stayed to complete A’Levels.
Adam completed management training with Pickfords Removals (then part of the National Freight Consortium / NFC) and then ran a council refuse & recycling operation for the municipal contractor Sita (GB) – now known as Suez.
Already interested in putting something back, he joined the Gloucestershire Rural Community Council to turnaround and develop a ‘wheels to work’ scheme, helping disadvantaged people in rural areas to access training and job opportunities. On behalf of Gloucestershire County Council and the Gloucestershire Rural Transport Partnership, Adam then designed and set up a large sustainable vehicle sharing scheme to support not-for-profit organisations and charities meet their low-cost transport needs.
Having for a time suffered from a very serious lung-related condition himself, Adam ended his 20’s as a Regional Manager for the British Lung Foundation, focusing on engaging and developing patient and carer support groups across the South West of England.
In 2004, Adam won a large distribution contract with a National Newspaper Group, to deliver regional titles to retailers each day. He set up a fully functioning 19-vehicle operation in less than a month, which was awarded Investors in People Accreditation within 18 months and employed disabled staff in frontline delivery roles whilst supporting the DWP Two Ticks for Disability Scheme.
Alongside his professional work, Adam was a member of Tewkesbury Town Council (2003-07), representing one of the most disadvantaged Council Wards in the Region at that time. He was also a member of the newly established Ashchurch Rural Parish Council (2008-11), supporting the Parish in his role as the local member of Tewkesbury Borough Council (2007-15), where he was Chair of Licensing (2011-15).
Adam has volunteered as a member of youth offending panels, as a school governor and as a tutor of basic literacy skills, working with adults with Special Educational Needs. He has also tutored undergraduates in business planning at the University of Gloucestershire Business School.
With an experience of life that has included a very difficult childhood, poverty, failing at school, absent parents, unemployment, returning to full time education, the ups and downs of business, volunteering to help others, becoming a senior manager for a national charity whilst he was still in his 20’s, being Managing Director of a successful startup at 30 and becoming a senior member of a local authority before he was 40, Adam offers an invaluable level of insight and understanding of what is really going on.
Today, you are most likely to find Adam sat writing blogs or books in a coffee shop, out walking the Gloucestershire Countryside – from where he manages the online community journal project Our Chosen Hill, or following Gloucester Rugby – with playing rugby being the only thing that he says made any sense to him when he was a teen.
Adam Tugwell 