Q and A with Laura Hampson of Lancereal

Laura Hampson is Sales Director of Lancereal, a leading powertrain solutions provider based in Kirkburton, near Huddersfield UK.

The company specialises in creating bespoke, specially engineered powertrain products and systems, and supplies world class components, sourced via partnerships with prestigious global manufacturers. Serving sectors such as agriculture, groundcare and construction, it has built up a reputation for its innovative mindset and engineering expertise.

Laura’s career has taken her from studying Biochemistry at Newcastle University, to spearheading the growth of Lancereal, which her father, Nick, founded in 1988. It’s fair to say she has learned a great deal on her journey!

Here, Laura talks about working in the family business, supporting the electrification revolution, and swapping lab coats, microscopes and petri dishes for gearboxes, clutches and brakes…

You have a very different background to many people working in engineering. Tell us about your early career.

I went down the science route at university because I found it really interesting, especially the biology side. After graduating, I took a year out to travel around the world, before returning to Newcastle to become a Research Associate, working in the field of Type 2 Diabetes. The position was funded by AstraZeneca and I also completed a PhD at that time. A lot of my work focused on cell signalling pathways and interactions at a cellular level. I really enjoyed it.

However, in that research environment, you can become so focused on your work that you don’t really put into perspective what it’s actually influencing or what it contributes to. Also, I had always worked in the summer holidays in restaurants, and done lots of temporary jobs, and that made me interested in how businesses are managed.

I didn’t see myself staying in research and becoming a lecturer, and I really missed interacting with people. I was asking myself, ‘what comes next’?

So what did come next?

I joined the Centre for Excellence in Life Sciences in 2008 as a researcher, then became Network Manager, building the network, making contacts and creating events for people working in the life sciences sector. It was quite a learning curve. I was thrown in at the deep end, but I did learn a lot.

After that, I worked in technical sales for a US-owned biotech, Promega, and looked after the North of England. I was on the road, selling equipment to universities and hospitals – often the same equipment I would use in the lab!

I was promoted to Business Development Manager to look after the healthcare sector, because a lot of hospitals were moving over to genetic diagnostics, and the company was developing more equipment and reagents to support that.

So how did the move to your father’s business come about?

I felt like I wanted to be more involved in different aspects of a business and I was always interested in how my dad ran his company. He started Lancereal from our home when I was nine years old. I remember the phone ringing and him being really excited, saying, “Oh, it’s an order!”.

Eventually, I just decided to take that leap and join Lancereal. That was 10 years ago in July, I don’t know where it has gone!

It must have been quite a leap…

It is a totally different sector, but there are so many similarities between engineering and cell biology. It’s all about interactions and how things move together. So I found it wasn’t hard to pick up the technical aspects of the job.

You’ve worked in a number of large organisations and multinationals. How does being part of a family business compare?

I think customers are sometimes attracted to the idea of it being a family business, because that sense of continuity can be important to them. However, my dad’s always been reluctant to call it family business. He sees every employee as just as important as the next, whether you’re family or not.

But our employees seem to really like the idea of being part of a family business. Some of them have said that it’s like we’re all a family anyway!

What has been Lancereal’s biggest achievement?

It has been the year on year growth that we have experienced, and winning businesses with some of the key manufacturers of industrial and mobile equipment. We’ve worked hard to build those relationships with both suppliers and customers, and my dad has always been very good at that. It just comes down to providing a really good service – and maintaining that as you bring in new people into the team. We thrive on those customer interactions.

Of course, the Coronavirus pandemic threw up a lot of challenges and maintaining a supply of components was at times very difficult, but we didn’t let anyone down and helped our customers maintain production levels.

Lancereal’s capabilities give you the experience to spearhead electrification projects, which are vital in the UK’s push towards Net Zero. How exciting is it for you to be playing a role in this?

I am thrilled that we are part of that growth towards electrification… and it is creating many opportunities for Lancereal.

Being able to support customers is what drives me. Some machinery manufacturers don’t necessarily have the in-house knowledge and capabilities to carry out electrification projects, but we have the expertise to do so – and we can work with their engineers on the whole journey from early product development to full system integration. Everyone in the company is excited about how we can make a difference – and where electrification is taking us.

Lancereal recently rebranded and launched a new website – what was the reason behind this?

Lancereal has long been a full powertrain solutions provider and systems integrator, but our previous messaging and website didn’t reflect this. Instead, it gave the impression that we were solely a component distributor. In addition, the brand and website didn’t convey our visions for the company: to be a global leader of integrated drive transmission solutions.

We therefore went through a full rebrand exercise with Horizon Works and launched the new website, to truly represent what Lancereal is in 2024.

We’re coming to the end of 2024. How has this year shaped up for Lancereal?

I’m really excited about our new marketing strategy and what that’s going to bring us over the next few months. We haven’t been too good at shouting about ourselves in the past!

We’re also very pleased with how our partnership with Curtis Instruments, the electric vehicle technology provider, has developed. It has opened a lot of doors for Lancereal and we are learning a great deal from them.

And we’re really excited about some of the powertrain integration projects that we’re working on now. They’re complex projects so a substantial amount of our design expertise is going into them. We’re bringing the full depth of our powertrain expertise to bear and I can’t wait to see the results!

For more information on Lancereal, visit lancereal.com.

Find out how we supported Lancereal with its new brand, website and marketing strategy – view the case study here.