[P]laydale’s Managing Director, Barry Leahey has been named on the Queen’s Birthday List 2017 and will receive an MBE for services to UK Trade and Exports.
Barry began working for Haverthwaite based Playdale in 2004 as Sales and Marketing Director and progressed more recently to Managing Director in 2015. Barry has been the driving force behind Playdale’s growth strategy and has successfully formed distribution agreements in 46 countries in less than 7 years. Playdale products can now be enjoyed by children right across the globe from Spain to Singapore.
Playdale have won several awards in the last few years, including National SME Exporter of the Year in 2016. Speaking about receiving this award, Barry said “Receiving an MBE will be one of my greatest achievements and I could not have done it without the support of my team at Playdale and my family. When the UK market began to decline six years ago, I made it my mission to explore opportunities abroad and make Playdale a success globally. We still have a way to go but we have increased our export sales from £0 in 2010 to over £2m in 2017.”
“I feel incredibly proud to receive this award and it makes all of the hours spent in airports and aeroplanes worth it!”
