Export Champion Roundtable - Export Academy Support

Hannah Dale is the creative director and founder of Wrendale Designs. Hannah achieved a first class honours degree from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and from there embarked upon a career in equity sales at Morgan Stanley on their graduate program. She quickly specialised in the healthcare sector and as well as advising major hedge fund and institutional investors and contributing to a proprietary investment fund she was also involved in corporate activity in the sector. She qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst in 2008.

In 2012, Hannah founded Wrendale Designs, a greeting card, stationery and giftware brand selling high quality and beautifully designed products featuring Hannah’s artwork.  As well as supplying around 2000 independent retailers in the UK, Wrendale Designs currently exports all over the world and was awarded a ‘Queen’s Award for Enterprise’ in 2019 for excellence in International trade.  Wrendale products can be purchased in many prestigious retailers across the world including John Lewis, The National Trust, Sandringham Estate shop, KaDeWe (Germany), Globus (Switzerland), Mitsukoshi (Japan).  Wrendale has also won many prestigious industry awards for both greeting cards and giftware.

Wrendale Designs is based in Brigg and has warehouse sites in Scunthorpe, Fort Worth (Texas) and The Netherlands. It employs 46 full time staff and turned over £8.5m at the last financial year end and made an operating profit of £2.3m.

Manuel gained a Masters degree in International Trade in 2015. During his academic career, he had the opportunity to study in a variety of different countries including Italy and Germany. Manuel also worked in France as Business Development Executive for the Italian Chamber of Commerce.

After a 6 months internship in London, Manuel moved to the North East in 2016 where he worked for an ice cream manufacturer as a Sales Executive. This role helped him to strengthen his knowledge in the Food and Drink sector, as well as gaining experience in international trade, attending several trade shows and connecting with key contacts overseas.

Since 2018, Manuel has been working with DIT North East and is currently the Food and Drink specialist in Tees Valley and International Trade Adviser for the Hartlepool area. Last year he had the opportunity to lead the Northern Powerhouse Trade Mission to the UAE and he is very keen to meet businesses that are looking to expand overseas.

Beanies Flavour Coffee, based in Darlington, was incorporated in 2013 after the acquisition of Square Orange Foods. It creates a wide range of flavoured coffees in both jars and sachets as well as innovative products such as its Beanies+ range which is coffee infused with vitamins and their creamy all in one products for those customers on the go! The company employs over 20 staff and has extended its premises to incorporate a state of the art flavour merging equipment and allow for an increase in productivity.

Overseas sales currently represent around 20% of turnover, with Beanies’ main markets outside of the UK including South Africa, Europe and India and Beanies has set its sights on expansion into the Far East and South America.