37 THE CEO INTERVIEW Eva Pantzar Waage President and CEO at Säkra Tell us about your background and how you founded Sweet Concepts and Propaganda I founded Sweet Concepts in 1993 based on a simple idea of replacing unhygienically un-wrapped mints that were often found on reception desks and hotel counter tops with a mint wrapped in a clear wrapper printed with the words “Thank You.” I had had no money and just an idea and had to find a way to develop this idea and make it a reality, easier said than done for a 23 year old working from his bedroom desk with nothing but yellow pages and an old fashioned telephone. However, the desire to succeed often trumps all obstacles. So having called many different factories, I spoke to a friendly salesman from a leading sweet factory who believed in me and said he would come to my house and talk to me about supplying my first batch of sweets. He visited me at my very supportive patents house and said “I like you and believe in you” and will supply them but you have 30 days to repay me! I replied very confidently, “ sure that’s no problem, as those words left my mouth I was thinking oh wow now I really need to figure this out as I have just committed to a deal and I just knew that I could not let him down. So approximately 30 days later the sweets arrived and I had to get selling fast to turn the sweets into cash. I literally walked around central London restaurants during the day walking in during their busy lunch hours and often being asked to leave as they were too busy serving customers to talk to me. However, undeterred I kept going. My Mum would often accompany me driving around with sweets in the back of her car so I could instantly make sales, and softening the rejections with words of support and encouragement telling me to try another one and keep going. My sales endeavours would continue during the evening where I visited hotels to sell sweets. This was not easy but I had no choice and 30 days later repaid the factory and repaid the faith in that salesman. During the following years I discovered that there was significant interest in the corporate market for personalised confectionery and so the business started in the supply of promotional sweets, chocolates, fortune cookies and other edible promotional gifts. As I was talking to the various corporate promotional gift buyers they started to ask for other types of promotional goods that at that point we did not supply, but I realised that I need to branch out and so in 1998 I founded Propaganda. It now supplies over “I have always been creative in my approach to product design and development, and this creativity also runs through the way I run and approach my businesses.” CEO Today magazine recently caught up with Stephen Taylor, a Londonbased entrepreneur, businessman, and philanthropist.
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