Cheltenham businessman listed in Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders 2020

Published by

Nicky Godding

Miles Dunkley, founder and creative director of SLG Brands based in Cheltenham has been named as one of private equity company LDC’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders for 2020.

Read our interview with him first published in 2018 on pages 50-52 of Business & Innovation Magazine's CEO Interviews supplement.

Now in its third year, the programme, which is supported by The Telegraph, celebrates the inspiring leaders behind some of the UK’s most successful and fast-growing medium-sized firms.

There were more than 350 nominations and those profiled hail from every corner of the country, operate across a multitude of industries, employ more than 5,250 people and collectively contribute more than £1bn to the UK economy.

SLG Brands was incorporated in 1985 and has evolved from contract manufacturer to award-winning beauty brand incubator and global brand builder. It has fashioned a unique market positioning as a highly responsive and trend-led organisation, with integrated studios, brand development and R&D laboratory with headquarters in the centre of Cheltenham.

When Dunkley joined SLG as managing director in 1996, he brought with him a vision to inject his parents’ business with his extensive experience in brand design to catapult the £700,000 turnover firm up the value chain.

The company experienced an exponential trajectory of growth over the next 15 years, doubling in size every five years and producing top-selling products for ever more high-profile brands, including their own brand creations – COLAB Dry Shampoo, Johnny’s Chop Shop and Beauty Launderette.

SLG received £10m from BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active investor in growing businesses, in 2015, to support new product development and brand incubation. BGF invested a further £10m in 2018 to accelerate SLG’s US expansion plans.

Since the investment, SLG Brands has continued to its pivot its brand portfolio towards the creation and development of wholly owned, high growth brands assets distributed globally but particularly into the key geographies of USA, UK and Germany.

Since launch in 2015, the company’s break-through dry shampoo brand, COLAB can be found in 35 countries and 30,000 stores globally.

The company will launch its latest brand creations, Rhyme & Reason eco-haircare and Amie Naturally Kind Skincare into major retail partners in the USA and UK markets simultaneously at the turn of the year.

Miles Dunkley, founder and creative director of SLG, said: “I am very proud to have been recognised as a part of this list alongside many other inspiring business leaders.

“Since I joined SLG, the company has pivoted from a commodity product sub-contractor to an award-winning, global brand-owner with a reputation for extraordinary creativity. It’s been an amazing journey and one that owes a great deal to the brilliant team at SLG.”

Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe. After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts. She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.