An accomplished businessman and Freeman of the City has moved back to the UK from South Africa to support small businesses in his home county of Norfolk.

In addition to years of leading consultancy work for SMEs, Nicholas Eastaugh has worked in business and technical sectors in the UK and South Africa. He has become the latest certified UK Business Doctor for the national support network of the same name, and will help grow and develop SMEs across his old stomping ground of Norfolk, including Norwich and parts of North and West Suffolk.

Though he was born in Malaysia, Nicholas, 60, was raised and schooled in Norfolk. He worked on and off for almost 30 years in South Africa before joining the Business Doctors SA network earlier this year.

As he enjoyed helping SMEs in the province of Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg, he decided to move back to Norfolk with his wife and two young children, so he could be closer to family and friends here, joining Business Doctors in the UK was the natural thing to do.

Nicholas says: “I see very good opportunities with the UK Business Doctors support network. I think it’s a very powerful, meaningful and effective value proposition for small businesses in the UK, which can increase their growth.”

With an MBA and a background in engineering, banking, finance and project management, Nicholas also has a strong track record of working with SMEs. He set up his own marketing and sales service company in the 90s, which focussed on supporting SMEs in Norfolk and Suffolk, a sector very close to his heart.

“The SME sector has appealed to me for many years because it’s filled with entrepreneurs who are freethinking, free-spirited people,” he says.

“I’ve continuously gravitated back to the sector throughout my career and been through some of the growing pains a lot of SME business owners experience with my own start-ups. I can empathise with them and recognise their key challenges, like growth and profitability, and managing and maintaining a motivated team with a shared vision.”

With his personal history and career experience, Nicholas says he can help SMEs in Norfolk and Suffolk’s key business sectors, particularly financial services, oil and gas, agriculture, renewable energy, real estate and services. Prior to joining Business Doctors in South Africa, he was the director for Renendi Cleantech in Gauteng, a company that plans, commissions and develops renewable energy projects, such as solar power plants.

Nicholas is a Freeman of the City of Norwich – an honour bestowed to a valued member of the community – in recognition of the public services his ancestors provided to facilitate the flow of business and tourism traffic in the early 1700s, by improving and maintaining local road surfaces.

“I’m pleased to be back in Norfolk now to do my bit in my own way,” he adds.

Co-founder of Business Doctors Rod Davies, says of the support network’s latest appointment: “Nicholas has an impressive history and wealth of experience across multiple industries, including the SME sector. His dedication and passion for SMEs is inspired. He’ll be an enormous benefit to small local businesses.”

Nicholas will hold his first seminar event, ‘Antidote to the Dragons’ Den’, from 7.30am till 9.30am, on 2 March 2016 at the Holiday Inn Norwich-North Hotel.