Nadeem’s 50th milestone
Nadeem Shah chats to Charlotte Dimond about his major business milestone.
With a twinkle in his eye, 68-year-old Nadeem Shah tells me he wants to build a tower. When I asked him why he wanted to build a tower he responded: “Because I’ve never built one and I love a challenge!”
One thing is clear, as the managing director of Vigo Group celebrates 50 years in business this month, there is no sign of slowing down.
Nadeem shares his way of doing business and, while he suggests it might be old fashioned, his focus on relationships, connections and being open and honest is refreshing to hear and has served him well for half a century.
He said:
“I was nine years old when I came to the UK with my parents, and they settled in Doncaster. We made the town, which I am now proud to call a city, our home.
Doncaster has been great to us and given us a warm welcome and provided many opportunities and in return we’ve employed lots of people locally, built some great communities and put back into the local economy.
I can’t tell you how proud I was the day I heard that Doncaster had become a city.”
From the age of 17 when he first started working in the property business Nadeem has strived to make people’s lives better by providing good quality homes, employing people in the community he lives in and putting money back into the local economy.
“Unless you make a difference to someone’s life what is the point. If I’ve made one person’s live a little better because I’ve been here then it has been a good journey,
If I drive past a site that I built ten years ago and I see children playing on their bikes and having fun, that makes me happy.
I feel very lucky, and I’m lucky to have my children working with me now. The business has changed a lot over the last 50 years, but our core principals will never change – that’s to be honest, bring value to people’s lives as they bring value to yours and to deliver all projects to the best of your ability.
My wife Maureen has been by my side supporting me for the last 47 years. Maureen has played a pivotal role in the company looking after the finances and keeping us on track with our budgets and costs.
She has supported me in all of my endeavours, and has worked tirelessly in the business, running all of the accounting systems and has been a wonderful mother and wife.
My vision for the future is about moving with the times and still creating great quality projects but we’ll be developing partnerships and working to deliver communities at a bigger scale than we have done before.
It is important for us as we continue to grow that the core values of the business don’t change.”