Biography
Management consultant & trouble-shooter. Former vice-president of the Small Business Bureau. Founded Nighthawk Electronics Ltd. and is one of the few women to be successful in the field of computing and electronics. Widely quoted in the national and trade press, Tina has made several television appearances including, Question Time and BBC Breakfast News. She is also much in demand as a conference and after-dinner speaker.
From 1985 until 2002 Tina was owner and Managing Director of Nighthawk Electronics Ltd, a world leader in the field of computer resource sharing devices and is one of the very few women to be successful in the field of computing and electronics.
She started Nighthawk Electronics with an initial investment of £4,000 and within three years, sales turnover had risen to over £2 million. Soon the company had an established customer base that ranged from the smallest company to the largest multi-national organisations, many of whom standardised on Nighthawk products.
With a proven track record in both electronics and marketing, she has held executive managerial positions within a number of companies. In 1978, she established the UK subsidiary of a large American corporation where she swiftly rose to the rank of Managing Director. In this position, she set up an extremely successful worldwide distribution network, leading to her being called "Britain's leading female electronics executive" by Electronic Times.
She owns a number of diverse companies including Nighthawk Enterprises Limited and sits on the board of several companies in both the private and public sector. She is a Director of J.I.T. International, which is a non-profit making company that provides training and encouragement to women in third world countries who are seeking to become business entrepreneurs. She is currently helping to establish a new company to manufacture an innovative British designed product. The company has attracted international backing as well as inward investment.
A Fellow of the Institute of Directors and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Vice Chairman of the Small Business Bureau, Chairman of the Government's Fair Play Consortium, Eastern Region, Chairman of Women into Business, London Chair of BAWE (British Association of Women Entrepreneurs) and a member of BAWE's National Council, Tina was also a Trustee of the Eating Disorders Association.
She is actively involved with a number of boards and committees including the Essex Board of the Prince Youth Business Trust, TAVRA (Territorial Auxiliary Volunteer Reserve Association), the Small Business Bureau's Policy Advisory Unit to the Government, the China-Britain Trade Group and was one of the first women to be appointed director of a government Training and Enterprise Council. She has recently been invited to serve as a member of the East of England Industrial Development Board by the Government's Department of Trade and Industry.
A keen advocate of training, she has attained the Institute of Directors' Diploma in Company Direction and has recently qualified as a mediator in Alternative Dispute Resolution with the British Academy of Experts.
She has won a number of distinguished awards, including the 1988 Women in Business Award presented by the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, the TOBIE (Technology or Business Innovation in Electronics) award as Personality of the Year in 1988 and was Runner-up for the "Business Woman of the Year" award in 1989. Tina Knight was judged as one of the Top Entrepreneurs of the World in 1998 and was recognised as "U.K. Business Pioneer" at the Global Summit of Women in London in 1998. One of her most popular topics is that of women in business, and this is a subject on which she is clearly well qualified to speak, this she does, bringing to it a wide range of humorous anecdotes.
Widely quoted in the national and trade press, she has made several television appearances including Question Time and BBC Breakfast News. She is also much in demand as a conference and after-dinner speaker culminating in her being asked to speak at the Institute of Directors annual conference to an audience of 3000 business people at the Royal Albert Hall.
Currently she continues to run her core business, Nighthawk Enterprises, in addition to holding a number of other senior positions. These include working as Chairman of Millbank Bakery Master Bakers, CEO of The Entrepreneurial Exchange, Deputy Chair of the Entrepreneurial Working Party, and Founder Member of The Entreprenologists.
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