AS a well travelled chief executive it is interesting to note Peter Atkinson's coping technique for dealing with airports and hotels.

It basically amounts to the Macfarlane Group boss blocking out the potential pitfalls, stresses and strains which can crop up while keeping calm and carrying on regardless of what is happening around him.

It is a routine he sticks to whether he is in the United States, Asia, Europe or somewhere around the UK.

He said: "No one can ever say they enjoy the travel. My whole career has been spent travelling so you just get very conditioned to it.

"I try and turn off from all the things that are going on around you. You see people going through security and they get phased and upset when things do and don't happen the right way.

"You just get in a mental channel I suppose and say this is part of doing the job – get on with it. I'm very boring and never talk to anyone."

Although based in Surrey Mr Atkinson typically spends four days out of five "on the road" visiting the packaging companies' operations in places such as Kilmarnock, Coventry and Ireland.

Alongside that he might spend a week at a time meeting partners in the US or spending periods at facilities in Sweden.

Trips to suppliers in places such as China also take up some time. While that might seem a gruelling schedule, he is good humoured enough to recognise nothing can beat his own personal travel horror story from his days before Macfarlane.

With a shake of the head and rueful smile he said: "I had to go to Australia for a day as there was a meeting called. It was my worst ever travel experience."

As he nears 10 years in post at the packaging company Mr Atkinson can afford some reflection on what has been a successful tenure and turnaround of the company. When he joined, the business had built up a chunky debt pile and over expanded into a number of areas.

After stemming the losses Mr Atkinson has steadily led the Glasgow firm – famously founded by Lord Macfarlane with his £200 army gratuity in 1949 – back into the black.

Almost a decade on he shows no outward signs of being jaded and still finds fun in the role. He said: "I have only worked with a relatively small number of companies and I do that because I like to get immersed in the business.

"If it wasn't fun why would you even think about doing it? This is a fun, exciting business with great people.

"Most of them were here when I joined when the business was in trouble.

"There is a real sense of pride and purpose that it has come through the mire and now has a successful, growing, profitable, dividend paying business."

While the economy shows few signs of sustained growth Mr Atkinson, who studied economics at Durham University, believes companies can no longer blame domestic conditions for their own performance.

He said: "It is so easy for businesses and chief executives to blame the economy.

"The philosophy we have here is we can only control the things we can control.

"Within an overall weak economy there are growth opportunities. It is my job and the team's job to go out and find those and make the most of it.

"We can't continue to whinge on about the economy. If business people sit back to wait until the economy recovers we will be waiting for a very, very long time."

Those opportunities include the boom in internet retailing, and growth in resealable labels, particularly in food and the presentational packaging sector. According to Mr Atkinson staying ahead of the competition and identifying those profitable niches comes through sustained research and development, being present at global trade shows and staying close to customers and supplier to anticipate trends.

He cites the example of kitchenware retailer Lakeland, which was looking to move more of its operation towards online.

Macfarlane came in to help redesign the packaging and also the way Lakeland packed its products.

Mr Atkinson said: "If we had just been trying to sell them a product we would never have won the business. The fact we could bring new and different ideas was the card that got us over the finishing line."

A relatively flat management structure, with no secretaries for executives, is also a key part of Mr Atkinson's management philosophy.

He said: "The people who work in the business are there to be on the road and be self-sufficient. My view is if you are more than a couple of layers away from the customers then you are probably not in the right place.

"From my point of view that I need to be close to that as customer behaviours are changing so quickly. We can see that from internet retail as when I joined we would never have envisaged at that time internet retail would be a big part of our business and it now represents almost 20%."

Mr Atkinson previously served a six-year term as a non-executive director at tool rental business Speedy Hire.

While he enjoyed the experience he has no plans to take on any other roles at the moment and admits he would feel guilty about taking time off from Macfarlane to do non-executive tasks.

He said: "I would like to return to it as the time I had at Speedy Hire was great and really enjoyable with lots of good learning.

"That is the benefit of being a non-executive. You can learn a lot of things very, very quickly as to how other businesses deal with certain issues and hopefully you can bring some of those back to your own business."

CV

Peter Atkinson was born in Cheshire and went on to study economics at Durham University.

After graduation he joined Proctor and Gamble and worked in a number of marketing and sales roles.

A move to cleaning products firm SC Johnson Wax followed where he became a sales manager. In the 1980s he was invited to join a subsidiary of engineering giant GKN.

He then went into a joint venture GKN ran with Brambles.

In 2000 a deal was done and the businesses he was involved in were hived off into Brambles.

Part of his role included running the US automotive and materials handling business of Brambles Industries.

A headhunter approached him about the chief executive role in 2003 and he was appointed to lead the turnaround of the business.

When not spending time with his family, Mr Atkinson enjoys cricket, rugby and golf.