Nub News get UP CLOSE with Paula Bellamy who, in the first of two parts, talks about getting to the top of her industry after leaving school at 15, inspiring women, and why she has returned to her hometown of Felixstowe.

Little did a 16-year-old girl who had left Orwell High with two O-levels, realise when she jumped on her moped to start her first job in a Felixstowe shipping office that she would one day return, via the Middle East, as the managing director of worldwide logistics company.

Paula Bellamy (nee Francis) was 15 when her careers' advisor told her that as a female she would end up in an office, and is this was Felixstowe, it would be a shipping office. So a couple of months later, armed with nothing more than O-levels in art and geography, a fierce determination to learn every aspect of the industry and a raw ambition to be a boss, she started her journey at what was then Livingstone Logistics.

That was swiftly followed by a spell with HM Customs and Excise and a pattern emerged with Paula moving around Harbour Logistics' various departments, absorbing all there was to know about shipping line, customs, imports exports, freight forwarding, accounts, in fact, everything she needed to know about running an international office, which she did for Ocean World Lines.

From there Paula was chosen to open the Dubai office for freight giants Allseas Global Logistics, before becoming the managing director and shareholder at Ocean Wide Logistics, a firm with 15 offices worldwide and operating in 110 countries. Paula has since come full circle to now set up their UK base and she has no regrets about spurning university, or even sixth form, to get straight into work.

"I wanted to be independent," said Paula. "I remember Mr Sharman our career's teacher telling me, 'you're a girl and you are obviously going into an office. You are too intelligent to do office studies but you are not intelligent enough to do software planning, so you will probably just go into shipping'.

"Because he put that in my mind and as most of the offices here were shipping offices so I got on my little moped and found my first job.

"That was terrible really if you look back in those days on how girls were perceived. It was a case of you are not going to do anything other than go into an office and didn't see anything wrong with that. I still don't today really.

But Paula did more than just go with the flow in shipping, she survived the stormy seas of office politics and was given the opportunity to build her own team in Dubai for Allseas Global and at the same time allowed more women to blaze their own trail.

She said: "I may champion women in logistics now but it is not to push the men out, I just want women to have a voice."

Paula admitted that running her own office in Dubai, while being mum to two young daughters Chloe and Sophie who were 13 and nine at the time they moved out there, had its challenges, there was an upside.

She said: "Being an SME and a woman can be very difficult as you are often perceived in a certain way, but I found it was easier in Dubai because I was a white woman and I was treated with certain amount of respect, due to their class system

"I brought about my team with lots of different stories behind them. They had been abused by previous bosses or treated with disrespect because of their nationality but I built them up and and said 'no, you can do that. You can say what you think, you don't have to stay quiet'.

"Once I knew I had that in my staff I was able to reach out to businesses and tell them; you don't have to market your product to a certain nationality, you can ship it internationally. Because someone had put that confidence into me, I felt it was my duty to put confidence into others. It followed on that I then put logistics knowledge into people moving products. I got a kick out of it. By telling my story and they would say 'wow, you are just like me' and I would say 'yes I am. I'm a working mum with no qualifications so yes'.

Paula's managerial style and mentoring ability led to her being named as most inspirational female professional in the Transport and Logistics Awards in October 2019.

She has also been recognised as a finalist in DMCC Maritime company of the year award and a finalist in "leader of the year" at the 2017 Gulf Capital SME Awards.

All that groundwork paid off for Paul who puts her success down to being 'able to see the flags'

and added: "I don't find it that tough, I just worked my way around the challenges

"Probably one of the good thing is I spent the early part of my career learning all the different parts of shipping; shipping line, customs, imports exports, freight forwarding

"Without really thinking about it just finding what I was most comfortable with and that was freight forwarding.

"It is the most interesting because you are not stuck in a niche. If a client comes to you and has air or sea or part , you can do it whereas if you in just one part that is all you can do.

"Probably the best thing I did was gaining all that knowledge, like doing market research, over 14 years, to figure out what worked for me and what I liked. It was not a climb for management but I have always had that ability to listen and working out what I need."

Coupled with the ability to lead and manage, is her relentless work ethic.

"I have always been ambitious and wanted to be a boss," said Paula, "but it was never the plan to have my own company. Running a company can be hard work and and sometimes you are not the one that takes the money home. The staff might see the gross profit but that doesn't mean that is what ends up in your pocket.

"There are people who just want to go to work, do their job and go home and I totally respect that. But I love to find that diamond in a group, and when you have that instinct you can see it in others. I like to give people a platform - give them a chance. Let them shine, it should not just be a certain type of person who get to the top.

Another factor was business coaching she took with a Chelmsford consultant who inspired confidence and made her realise her own abilities and strengths.

She said: "The more I learned and understood the more confident I grew. He told me: 'No Paula, that wasn't luck, that was you,' and that proved to be the turning point for me as I looked back and could see I had done good job. Going to him best thing I did."

One constant in Paula's worldwide business life have been her family; husband Peter, daughters Chloe

Sophie, step sons Oliver and Matthew.

Her dad, former Royal Marine colour sergeant Michael 'Connie' Francis DSM passed away four years ago. He won the Distinguished Service Medal for his bravery in the Falklands, was presented with the medal by Prince Philip, and Prince Harry opened a training block that is named after him at RM Tamar in Plymouth.

Apart from Felixstowe being a major container port, Paula's mum Marie Francis, who lives in Kirton, is a big reason why she decided to open the UK office here.

"My mother from Kirton would have killed me if I had set up elsewhere," explained Paula. "I told her I would be gone two years and it has been 10 years, so I owe her some time here.

The decision was made easier when husband Peter was made redundant aged 50 and he is busily setting up a new heating company after retraining as a gas heating engineer.

The couple have set up home in Trimley, along with two stray cats they adopted in and have given her mum, a third, even though they cost £1,000 to get into the UK.

Peter and Paula are enjoying being back, even if the cats don't like the rain, but she has no regrets about taking her young ones to Dubai and the education and cultural experiences they enjoyed.

Paula said: " Chloe and Sophie are two young ladies who are totally different some you will find in the UK.

"They are open-minded, not the slightest bit racist, they have friends from across the world. They will happily jump on a plane on their own. There are so many different things they will do that young women here may not do.

"On the flip side is they don't have that sense of a small community, they do not have such a close relationship with their family. If you talk about career advancement and opportunity internationally they have benefitted from being out there.

"I'm certainly not the Paula that left Felixtowe. I'm totally different."

Even now she is back in the UK, Paula intends to continue to inspire women, possible through the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce and is happy to show how a girl with two relatively meaningless exam results, can go on to be a top boss.

Paula said: "Felixstowe is massively about logistics and while I know a few business owners that are women but very few in logistics and if my story has any sort of impact, it would be nice that women can look and think 'yes I can run my own logistics business' and you don't need loads of qualifications.

"It is about sheer determination. My mantra is - if you do something different today, that you did not do yesterday, then that is progression."

*In part two of our UP CLOSE feature, Paula talks about Brexit, Freeport East and how OL plans to grow in Felixstowe.