July 8, 2014 – The director of The Royal Mint’s Commemorative Coin and Bullion business has received a top industry award in recognition of his achievements which have made a fundamental difference to the fortunes of the UK’s oldest manufacturing organisation.
Shane Bissett (left) receives his Director’s Award from IoD Wales director Robert Lloyd Griffiths / courtesy of www.huwjohn.com.
Shane Bissett, The Royal Mint’s Director of Bullion, Commemorative Coin and Medals, was honoured to receive the distinguished Director’s Award accolade at the IoD Wales Director of the Year Awards in Cardiff.
Shane secured the award, which is given at the discretion of the Director of IoD Wales, after he successfully transformed The Royal Mint’s commemorative coin division from a loss-making venture into a profitable business within three years.
In addition to leading a highly successful commemorative coin programme and medals manufacturing division, he has also driven The Royal Mint’s key business objective to break into the precious metal bullion coins market as a premium player.
Over the last three years the commemorative coin division of The Royal Mint has gone through a significant commercial turnaround which has been accomplished by a combination of new businesses developments and boosting the standard of the existing commercial skills of the business.
This involved the introduction of metrics for measuring performance and developing a clear direction and achievement for the division to make the most of opportunities presented by the major national events of 2012, particularly the Diamond Jubilee and London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In addition to implementing successful commemorative coin initiatives, Shane has launched a new bullion business area which has seen The Royal Mint benefit from significant and sustainable income streams from bullion coins, bullion vaulting and an Indian joint venture.
Shane Bissett, The Royal Mint’s Director of Bullion, Commemorative Coin and Medals won the Director’s Award/ courtesy of www.huwjohn.com.
Shane Bissett, The Royal Mint’s Director of Bullion, Commemorative Coin and Medals, said; “When I started working at The Royal Mint I made a conscious decision to modernise the way in that we communicated with customers and shift the focus of the business online, whilst also increasing customer engagement and buy in. To strengthen the business I launched The Royal Mint into the Bullion market, commercialising some of the existing business assets and utilising limited investment to secure cumulative sales now in excess of £400 million. This included negotiating a joint venture with MMTC-PAMP to licence the striking of the Sovereign in India.”
“For the last two years I have been working closely with the Welsh Government on a proposed visitor centre and we were thrilled to recently announce that we have been able to secure their support and a grant of £2.3million, which will help to facilitate the opening of a new visitor experience with a total investment of £7.7 million. It will enable us to take people behind the scenes of over 1,000 years of coin making history, to demonstrate our long-standing heritage and craftsmanship, and the innovation that harnesses state-of-the-art technology to achieve the highest standard of minting. We supply circulating and commemorative coins, as well as medals, to more than 60 different countries and as such we believe the new centre has the potential to draw visitors from all over the world.”
IoD Wales director Robert Lloyd Griffiths added; “Shane has led two very significant business development initiatives: the most successful Olympic Coin Programme ever with sales worldwide of £102m and re-launching The Royal Mint back into the Bullion business with cumulative three year sales of £412m. Our Director of the Year Awards is a flagship event within the Welsh business calendar and I look forward to the celebration more each year. It is great to have the opportunity to honour top business people from across Wales, where so many innovative and thriving businesses are based and I am delighted that we were once again able to promote excellence in business leadership in Wales.”
In April 2014, The Royal Mint unveiled plans to develop a purpose-built visitor centre at its headquarters in Llantrisant, South Wales. Construction is expected to be completed during 2015.
Find out more about the Royal Mint on the firm’s website.
The Royal Mint has recently announced plans to open a new visitor centre. Read all about it here.