Co-founder and managing director of Bert Frank, Adam Yeats was Grant’s recent guest on the podcast. Yeats started the brand with designer Robbie Llewellyn in 2013 and since then it has gone from opening a showroom in London’s Clerkenwell in 2019, exhibiting at home and abroad, and winning the Elle Decoration British Design Award for Lighting in 2016. Bert Frank was also the headline sponsor for last year’s Material Matters fair.

In this episode we talk about: growing up in his father’s factory; why he lives next door to his workshop; founding the Bert Frank brand; the importance of craft and skill to the company’s products; working with brass; learning his trade, from sweeping the factory floor to running the business; how Bert Frank has evolved over the past decade; wanting to create a legacy for his family; the economic consequences of Brexit; starting a new assembly facility in Belgium; the importance of immigration to his workforce; the state of manufacturing in the UK; and reveals why he always wanted to be a marine biologist.