Nicholas Earlam (UK)
Nick Earlam is the founder, executive chairman and owner of Plexus Cotton Limited, and a leading figure in the international cotton trade. Founded in 1990 in the historic cotton hub of Liverpool, Plexus is firmly established as one of the trade’s biggest global players, with an annual turnover of more than $500 million. In that time it has diversified and expanded to perform every function in the supply chain: growing, ginning, trading, and manufacturing. The business employs 1,500 people around the world and thousands more seasonally, with operations in China, Australia and sub-Saharan Africa.
An ardent advocate for Africa and for cotton, Mr Earlam sees enormous potential in the continent both to do business and help developing societies emerge from poverty. Mr Earlam was born in Ghana, spending his first few years there. His parents then moved the family back to Liverpool, where he has spent most of his life and where he has been proud to base his company. His father was a shipping director, a career which seemed to rub off on his son. Mr Earlam turned down the chance of university to apprentice with a cotton trading firm. He went on to spend his whole career in cotton, developing a profound passion and respect for the commodity.
After rising to head the Trading division of a Liverpool family firm, Mr Earlam ventured out on his own, launching Plexus with capital made from selling his home, cashing in his life insurance policy and a loan from his mother. That sense of adventure and readiness to take a calculated risk has led him to live and work in numerous places far from home, including Gujarat and the United States. Thisin turn allowed developed a sharp appreciation of different cultures and nationalities, and a deep understanding of each phase of the cotton process from field to fashion garment.
Mr Earlam is convinced that cotton’s track record of transforming national and regional economies from rural to industrial - and of providing great benefits to society at the same time - will be repeated on a grand scale in Africa. As the continent emerges as the next great global centre for growth, Plexus is more than making its contribution. Mr Earlam was quick to see the competitive advantages provided in Africa by the availability of raw material combined with low costs and an integrated supply chain.
The company bought its first ginning operation in Uganda in 1996 and now has a well-established joint-venture operation combining gins and a textile mill, operating as Fine Spinners Uganda Ltd. It is the east African region’s first vertically integrated sustainable cotton textile and garment operation, created to supply the increasing demand from Western markets for sustainably produced garments.
In 1998 Plexus bought Cargill’s operation in Malawi, where it maintains two ginning operations and operates more than 130 seed-cotton buying markets. In Mozambique Plexus runs a commercial farming operation, which makes it the largest cotton producer in the country and the largest employer in the north. In Nigeria it operates through a subsidiary.
Mr Earlam has held various posts in the cotton trade including President of the now International Cotton Association in both 1995 and 2003. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Aid by Trade Foundation based in Hamburg, and of its Cotton Made in Africa initiative, which helps smallholders help themselves through trade.
Outside of the industry, his past and present roles include those of Chairman of Liverpool Associates for Tropical Health (LATH), board member of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Trustee of the Liverpool Cathedral Centenary Trust. He was a co-founder of the Liverpool Shanghai Partnership. Mr Earlam has run a number of marathons for charity (including the Comrades Ultra-Marathon in South Africa). His other hobbies include golf, tennis, cricket, rugby, skiing, sailing, piano and reading.