On the Rich List with a towering ambition and eyeing Lord Sugar’s job
IT WAS 2013 when the then freshfaced Cardiff-born businessman Alex Mills was grabbing headlines while starring on The Apprentice.
Now he is back in the headlines again, this time sharing the 50th spot on the Sunday Times Under 30 Rich List with a Premier League footballer.
In less than a decade Alex has gone from cleaning hotels to being fired on national TV by Sir Alan Sugar to sitting alongside an international football star with a fortune valued at £16m.
But he’s not stopping there – he plans to turn insurance company Dynamo Cover into a billion-pound business, build a skyscraper in the centre of Cardiff, and replace Lord Sugar on the BBC show.
Alex grew up in St Nicholas, just outside Cardiff, and went to Cowbridge Comprehensive School, where he says he did not exactly excel. He says he saw much of education as hypothetical.
His arrival for our interview was preceded by the roar of his Ferrari.
While heads turned as he parked, perhaps people don’t recognise him as much as they would have eight years ago.
The eyebrows are less plucked, for one thing, and his face is now covered by a beard.
“In school, I was rubbish at maths,” he said. “Now I’ve left school I’m really good at it, and I think because in school, I never sort of got it in terms of how it worked. I hated school because it was hypothetical. Working out the area of a triangle... why? There’s no real value for me to learn that.
“But you know, ratios, for example, ratios for profit, ratios for investment, return on investment, percentages, increases, decreases, all that sort of stuff I get now. I think the biggest reason I get it is because it’s quantifiable.
“I don’t need to work out the area of a triangle to say, ‘oh, look, I got a good grade, I can work out the area of a triangle’. But if I can work out the percentage increase or decrease, or marginal gains et cetera, I can see real tangible results with that knowledge, and I think that gave me a thirst to get better at it over time, which I think is why
I’m good at maths now.”
Alex also says he struggled at secondary school as he went from a small village primary to a large c o mprehensi v e and felt lost. It was only when he left to go to sixth form that he started to find his way.
“I sort of went back to my small group of people, back to being focused in one area, and back to being something that I enjoyed. In my particular college class, I finished one of the top two,” he said.
It was at Bridgend College while studying graphic design that Alex started having his first instincts for business. They would be given projects where they would have to research, do different designs, give feedback and present, which he felt was very similar to starting your own business.
“It’s doing the homework first, then it’s trying three or four different ideas, and then settling on the one,” he said. Despite this, Alex felt that education was not for him. He had “a hunger to get on with life”, and he wanted to get away from the hypotheticals.
It was while he was studying at Bridgend College that he began working at the Vale Resort, but he also started putting on music events.
These nights enabled him to book bands, charge entry fees, make merchandise and turn good profits. These early days enabled Alex to turn some of his early business experience into practical knowledge.
After college, he started working for a graphic design company but this was 2008 and after the recession hit Alex found himself out of work only a few months after starting.
One of the companies he had designed a website for was a slate sign business in Pontyclun, and the redesign had helped boost sales for the small company.
Alex went over to this firm, but the company was liquidated eight months later.
“My first sort of glimpse into real entrepreneurship was working for these two small businesses,” he said.
Alex says he learned as much from the bad as from the good, and will always tell his staff what he is doing and when... “probably to their annoyance”.
With the slate firm went under, Alex and a former colleague set up their own company. Alex designed the website and handled sales, while his partner made the signs.
They won a contract to make the slate signs that are put on buildings when a member of the Royal Family opens them.
“One of my proudest signs is the one which I put on the Arts Club in London,” he said.
“It wasn’t made of slate, it was made of a Cornish limestone because there was an original plaque that was put there when the building was repaired after being bombed during the war. And then I got to make this other plaque to commemorate a refurbishment that was done and it was opened by Prince Philip. So, we had to make it out of the same stone, with the same craftsmanship and font.”
Alex adds that when he is in London, and if he has time, he likes to go and look at the sign as a reminder of where he started.
Alex sold his share of the business in 2012.
“I was young, I was single, I kind of wanted to do more and work more,” he said. “The problem with the slate business was that there was no repeat business. You make a house sign or a headstone, for example, and they don’t come back. I wanted to go into something which was annual. So I thought, ‘what do I have to buy every year?’ and I thought ‘insurance’. That’s how it started.
“So I sold out my share of the business and needed some more investment, so I applied to go on Dragons’ Den. Dragons’ Den said no. I applied to The Apprentice and The Apprentice said yes.”
When he was fired by Sir Alan Sugar, Alex was given some parting advice to stop jumping around between businesses and focus on one. Alex admits he was probably a bit too cocksure and thought he could do anything.
“Lord Sugar definitely grounded me again,” he said.
“Would I be where I am today without his advice? Probably not. I’m happy to give that credit, but at the same time I also give myself credit for listening to it, because I could have just turned off and tried to be a reality TV star or some nonsense like that.”
After the show several investors were keen to meet Alex but many just seemed to want to meet him, take a selfie, and not part with any money.
He started a bicycle insurance firm, and while that did not work out, it helped further educate him in the world of insurance.
This is when Stephen Jenkins stepped in. Alex had known him for some years and the pair had talked about working together. The timing was finally right, Stephen had just sold his company and decided he wanted to invest in Alex.
“I wanted to create a B2C [business to consumer] insurance brand, which was very much focused online, focused on a streamlined ability to deliver products to customers and search the market for the best products. The biggest plan of it was to use my technology background, to build platforms that allow distributions so that we could compete with the big boys. And we did. We launched it, and yeah, it just took off.”
This was 2017 and in four years the valuation of the business, plus a few other investments, has put Alex’s wealth at £16m and alongside Marcus Rashford on the Sunday Times Under 30 Rich List.
Alex said the way the figure was calculated was by multiplying the profit of the business “12 or 14 times”, plus he also owns some properties, and is invested in a couple of other businesses, as well as doing some stock-market trading.
“The calculation, I believe, is primarily based on my collection of assets and also the business. Dynamo Cover is about a £32m business and I own 50%, Steve owns 40%, and a company that helped us with the technology owns the other 10%.”
Alex originally had the intention of building a company to sell it, but now he wants to build it up much more before he will even think about that.
“We’re going for a billion, and I think we can do it. I don’t think there’s anything that says we can’t,” he says.
“The industry that we’re in is multibillion, trillion worldwide, but certainly multi-billion in the UK and European markets.
“For me, I want to grow the business to be a massive company.
“I think the software that we’re developing is very unique, it’s very innovative, hasn’t been seen in the world before. And, you know, it’s allowing us to compete with the big boys on a small scale.”
Once Alex turns Dynamo Cover into a billion-pound business, what then?
“I always wanted to be the first Welsh dragon on Dragons’ Den. It was always a goal, but now I want to replace Alan Sugar,” he said.
“I don’t see why not. If I’ve been able to go from zero to £16m in personal terms, in the space of three years, that sort of rate, I’m sure I can get to a suitable size that I’d be interesting.
“Most importantly, I think that I’ve got a unique position if ever it was to come about in the future, in that I actually did the process. Lord Sugar is going to have to rest up one day and if they want someone to pick it up, hopefully I’ll be successful enough.”
More than once Alex stresses he is unapologetically ambitious and that he makes no apologies for that.
“I wasn’t handed a business, I wasn’t born into some dynasty that puts me on that list. I work my a**e off,” he says.
One ambition that will see the business relocate from Barry is his desire to have a skyscraper in Cardiff.
“I’ve always had this idea, and I want to call it Mills Tower,” he said.
“My big plan is I want to build a tower in Cardiff, I want a ticker-tape board around the top that says the news and things like that. And then when Wales are playing I can change it to say ‘Well Done Wales’. I want a special app on my phone that allows me to text it, and it comes up with whatever message I want.”
His more immediate plan, though, is marriage. The pandemic has meant he and his partner, Emma, have had to postpone twice. They are now looking at May next year and it will be back where he started his working life, at Hensol Castle on the Vale Resort.
As the interview ends and Alex heads back to his car, a young boy is looking at the Ferrari. Alex lets him sit in the driver’s seat and rev the engine, and the boy’s mum says that this has made his day.
Alex tells the boy that he needs to do well in school if he wants one of his own one day, before turning and saying, “Just don’t tell him that I didn’t”.