About Carl Hopkins and kloog
The ‘business’ bit
My marketing and business experience spans 25 years during which time I seem to have acquired a bit of a tough, no-nonsense reputation.
I originally joined Judith Donovan Associates (now JDA) in 1984 as a junior designer and rose through the ranks to take over the business in 2000 as MD after a successful management buy-out.
From 2000 to 2005 I grew the business from 48 to 75 staff, took the turnover from £9.6m to £19.4m and tripled profits to £750,000. In 2003 I also coordinated the acquisition of Warrington-based advertising and PR agency Blueprint, without receiving any external support or funding. In 2005 I took over the role of chairman until the sale of the business in June 2007.
Rather than ‘retiring’ as I originally planned, I am now busier than ever, having become involved with a variety of Yorkshire businesses. I have been often been referred to as ‘one of Yorkshire’s up and coming entrepreneurs’.
I launched kloog, a business ‘angel’ service in September 2007 to share some of the experiences garnered in my career with other businesses. kloog offers the following services: business audits, business investment, personal mentoring within business (The Tor-mentor) and off-site presentations and workshops for a variety of topics such as creativity, sales, advertising, marketing, success and management.
I also created Coffee with kloog, a ‘no-froth’, marketing advisory ‘clinic’ in association with Forward Ladies, the North’s premier women’s networking and business support group. Since launching kloog, I have worked with over 250 businesses and stay in touch through a regular newsletter – the klooguide.
In addition to setting up kloog, I have invested in a variety of West Yorkshire businesses which include JumbleAID, sporting-supplements.co.uk, Parties Around the World, agencybods.co.uk and Joblink Solutions.
I am the only male director of Forward Ladies, a not for profit organisation supporting over 4,000 women in business and have also held various other non-exec roles since selling JDA.
The ‘other’ stuff
As well as dividing my time between my various business interests, I don an ‘agony uncle’ hat every month for marketing publication The Drum to dispense straight-talking advice to those in need of salvation from the struggles, challenges and concerns of agency life.
The first 18 instalments of my ‘Uncle Carl’ column have been published as a book called ‘The Gospel According to Uncle Carl’.
Not being the shy and retiring type as you may have gathered, I am quite a regular face in the media, best known for my appearance on Channel 4’s popular philanthropy programme, ‘The Secret Millionaire’. This saw me living undercover in the former North East mining town of Easington with the task of finding and helping out groups and individuals involved in community projects. At the end of my time in Easington I ended up giving away £42,000 of my own money to worthwhile causes.
In order to promote the programme I was invited onto This Morning and Richard and Judy’s sofa (C4) and gave countless radio interviews. I’ve also appeared as an expert guest on BBC1’s popular debate show ‘The Big Questions’ and have made several appearances on BBC Radio Leeds as a guest on Andrew and Georgey’s Breakfast Show and the Shourjo Sarkar show.
The ‘random’ stuff – 10 things you won’t know about me
- I taught myself to juggle clubs and ride a unicycle – sadly I cannot do them both at the same time.
- I have over 3,500 Spiderman, Hulk, X-men comics (and others).
- For my 40th birthday, I bid £1,200 on e-bay for Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine to play a private gig in the front room of my house. The proceeds were donated to charity.
- I am a huge Elvis fan and have been to Gracelands and wept. I also have a dog called ‘Presley’ in his honour.
- I am the Lifetime Honorary President of a Miners’ Brass Band even though I cannot play a note on any instrument and have never been down a mine.
- I am the same age and grew up on the same notorious council estate as fellow ‘Secret Millionaire’, Terry George.
- I failed my driving test four times. I like to blame this on the fact that a) nobody in my family had a car, let alone could drive and b) I only managed to save up for a few lessons at a time so by the time the test came round, I was out of practice again!
- I went to the same art college as Henry Moore, Damien Hirst, Ricky Wilson, lead singer of the Kaiser Chiefs and Leigh Francis of Bo’ Selecta.
- I have never drunk alcohol, smoked or taken drugs. My one vice is caffeine (tea, then coffee) …and biscuits (and cake).
