A company launched by Scots serial entrepreneur Gio Benedetti has secured what it describes as a “lucrative contract” to provide first aid and health and safety training for Highland Council employees.
The local authority is the latest in a number of large employers to sign up with Hamilton-based Green Cross Training, founded by Mr Benedetti, who is the father of celebrated violinists Nicola and Stephanie.
The firm declined to give further details of the contract, which joins its deals with supermarket giants Tesco, ASDA, and Sainsbury’s as well as BT, Coca Cola and the City of Edinburgh Council.
But the company’s recently appointed business development manager, Caroline Meikle, said: “We are delighted to have secured the Highland Council contract and look forward to providing our services to the local authority.”
Italian-born Scot Mr Benedetti, 66, launched his entrepreneurial career when he started a dry-cleaning business at the age of 18, eight years after arriving in Ayrshire to make a life in Scotland with his uncle. He has gone on to build and sell businesses worth around £100 million.
Having grown it from a door-to-door operation, to one of the biggest dry-cleaning plants in the UK, he sold his first venture, based at Kilwinning, Ayrshire, to Initial for around £30 million in 1980.
He went on to buy a paper maker in Birmingham, later sold for £9.5 million, and a cling-film maker in Shropshire. That was sold for £21 million in a management buyout in which he was involved and he continued as a shareholders and part of the management team.
Although he announced plans to give up work in 2013, Mr Benedetti changed his mind, and continues to work on a number of ventures, including Green Cross Training.
The company, which has recently invested £1 million in new systems, said it has now established itself as the biggest independent provider of courses in the UK with around 50,000 trained last year.
Mr Benedetti said: “Retirement was not for me – I have still a head full of ideas and innovations. Anything I have been involved with throughout my career I have built from a start-up and the successes have been based on innovation.
“It is the same with this company. We started from scratch and have recently spent a lot of time on strategy and invested significant funds in innovative training management systems. That is now paying off as we plan for an ambitious future.”
