Meet the 100-year-old business whose foundations are built on trust

In the latest edition of Marketing Derby’s Innovate Magazine we meet the team at accountancy firm Bates Weston, which this year is marking 100 years in business.

There are not too many businesses who can say they have been operating for a century – particularly in the fast-moving professional services sector, where mergers and consolidations are commonplace.

But one hundred years on from being founded in 1926, Bates Weston remains a fiercely independent Derby company, with deep local roots.

Managing partner Wayne Thomas told Innovate: “We’ve remained, and continue to remain, a fiercely independent Derby company.

“We were based in Derby, we served Derby and Derbyshire businesses in the main, and we employed and recruited people from Derby, from the University of Derby and from local schools. That’s the core of the story.”

That story can be traced back to the early 20th Century, when, following the death of Captain Francis Dawbarn Stones, during fighting in Flanders in 1917, Richard James – or RJ – Weston was admitted into the partnership of accountancy firm David Sibbald, Stones & Co.

In 1926, RJ Weston would establish a practice in his own name and, in parallel, Arthur Clarke & Co was established in Green Lane, Derby.

Over the following decades, a series of mergers saw Arthur Clarke & Co become Bates Foston and, in 1993, Bates Foston came together with RJ Weston to form the Bates Weston we know today.

For Wayne and fellow partner Kay Brookes, the company’s centenary is not simply a celebration of age. It is a moment to recognise continuity – of values, of place, of training, of relationships and of a firm that has helped generations of local businesses navigate change.

And being a business that is Derby to its core provides a distinct advantage, according to Wayne.

He tells Innovate: “We like being what we are. Being controlled by something national has never really been high on our list of priorities.

“There’s a trust element to it. Every professional uses the phrase ‘trusted adviser’. But the key is that you’ve got to live up to it.

“People know who we are. They know where we are. We’re not faceless. We’re not just a voice on the end of a phone or a picture on a screen.

“People can pop in, have a coffee and a conversation. That relationship-building is how trust is formed.”

To read the feature in full click here.