Sam Stannah is only 31 but is already feeling the pressure to produce the next generation to lead the family-owned lift business. In a recent blooper reel from a corporate video, his 89-year-old grandfather Brian was filmed telling him “get going, don’t hang about”. Smiling, he points out: “I’ve only been married a few months!”
He is the sixth generation of the family to run the business founded by Joseph Stannah in 1867 as a manufacturer of cranes handling goods off the Thames docks during the Industrial Revolution.
As London grew upwards – with hotels, flats and offices – so Stannah’s lifts became popular, but the introduction of household stairlifts in 1975 brought a product that would become synonymous with its brand. The group now boasts 2,500 employees worldwide and a turnover of £348m.
Sam spent summers as a teenager helping with the company’s Network Rail lift maintenance contract, but flew the nest. He had a London School of Economics management master’s and a career with City bank Berenberg under his belt when his father, Jon – who sits alongside him for this interview – rang to invite him back into the fold.
Sam’s initial reaction was “tepid”, but after a month, he decided to join, citing the “huge sense of ownership and reward” in joining the family business. However, he became “frustrated” in the first three years, battling for resources for projects in a group with a well-established strategy.
Then, spotting an opportunity, he pitched a startup to a board comprised of seven relatives. “There were more family members in that room than we tend to get together for Christmas,” says Sam.
Now, 16 months on, he stands in a new factory in Andover, Hampshire – the group’s home since the 1970s – in front of a see-through box with sleek wooden finishes and subtle lighting. The household lift is the leading product for Uplifts, a new subsidiary led by Sam.
The group has tried standard vertical home lifts before, but he believes this one is far different: it has a slimmer design and swift installation (it runs off a normal plug and requires just a hole to be punched through a ceiling for it to run up and down on guide rails).
At nearly £17,000, it’s at least £7,000 more than the group’s most complex spiral stairlift installations but early demand has been strong, he says.
Sam says the Uplift can reach a younger market, with its early customers typically in their 50s and 60s. “Having a lift in your home is almost like a luxury good – a stairlift is seen as a medical device. The most common trigger for a stairlift purchase is a fall down the stairs, [but] we can sell Uplift to people who are not struggling.”
But could the new brand cannibalise sales from its established parent? “If we are to be disruptive, let’s do it ourselves. Steve Jobs said don’t be worried about cannibalising your own product range – if you don’t do it, someone else will.”
Meanwhile, the mothership continues to motor and the group has just fitted its one millionth stairlift. Recently released accounts show a 12% bump in annual sales and pre-tax profits at £7.3m in a recovery from a difficult period in which the pandemic upended supply chains and made visiting the homes of its vulnerable customers a challenge.
The group is held through family trusts and dividends last year were £4.2m – a far cry from the huge payouts enjoyed by John Jakes, the secretive Monaco-based tycoon behind rival stairlift maker Acorn.
“It’s quite an emotional sale – people usually buy a stairlift much later than they would need to when it comes to them struggling,” says Sam.
Jon adds: “There is a bit of a stigma about owning [one] but that falls away once they have it – it’s just a domestic appliance which normalises your life.”
The pair believe Stannah has a wider social benefit. “It relieves the pressure from hospitals and care homes to keep people in their homes [longer],” says Jon. Sam lauds the government’s disabled facilities grant as providing a stable source of revenue, although acknowledges that charities have labelled the grant’s distribution a “postcode lottery”, with some people waiting months for an installation.
One counter-argument runs that home lifts can prevent downsizing and stifle access to much-needed housing stock for younger people. “The issue is downsizing is quite expensive when you look at the fees for selling your home. Also, the reality is that when you reach that age, your home is so important and you often have a local network, which supports the [government] ageing-in-place initiatives,” says Sam.
“The reality is a lot of our customers do live in small homes,” adds Jon.
Confident, with an easy manner, Sam isn’t afraid to interrupt his mild-mannered father – often sweeping a flop of hair aside as he talks. Sam typically works remotely from home in Zurich, where his wife is employed by Deloitte, and splits his time between Switzerland, and Paris and Milan, where the Uplift has launched.
By contrast, Jon’s early Stannah experiences involved visiting its old “smoky office” in London’s Elephant and Castle and later renovating a tractor at just 13, before joining the business proper at 18. He rose through the ranks and is now one of five members of his generation of the family in the business.
The Victorian principles of its founder are still cited in the company today – Joseph Stannah’s 12 “rules of life” included mantras on sound judgment, early rising and perseverance. A more modern reference point for the Stannah clan could has been Succession, the drama about family members warring for control of a well-established empire. “That’s the antithesis of what we would like – Dad is not Logan, I’m not Kendall,” says Sam, who is a fan of the TV show.
As they prepare to huddle together in their newest product for the Observer photoshoot, father and son gamely ponder which figure they would have liked to be stuck in a lift with. “It’s lame, but Steve Jobs. My YouTube feed is just old motivational speeches [of his],” says Sam. Jon adds: “Nelson Mandela – he was an inspiring leader and did have a Stannah lift! Or Ferdinand Porsche. What an engineer.”
CVs
Sam Stannah
Age 31
Family Married to Lisa – “No kids (yet!).”
Education Bachelor’s degree in economics at Exeter, master’s in management at the London School of Economics (with exchange semester at Cornell University); also has passed all three levels of the CFA..
Pay Undisclosed.
Last holiday Lake Garda, Italy.
Best advice he’s been given “Delivering on your promises is the best motivator of all.”
Biggest career mistake “Believing that I understood how businesses operate after spending a few years in investment banking. I had barely scratched the surface.”
Word he overuses “Absolutely.”
How he relaxes “I’m getting very into running.”
Jon Stannah
Age 58
Family Married to Ceri, five children (middle three are triplets, Sam is the eldest).
Education A-levels.
Pay Undisclosed.
Last holiday Sifnos, Greece.
Best advice he’s been given “Learn something from every person you meet.” (A version of one of the Stannah founder’s rules.)
Biggest career mistake “Underestimating the challenges of diversification away from our core lifts and stairlifts products.”
Word he overuses “Fantastic.”
How he relaxes “Listening to live music.”
