Blackswan move into former Viz offices

Newcastle-based organisational transformation specialist, Blackswan, is swimming against the tide and relocating its UK headquarters to the coastal town of Tynemouth.

Blackswan, which operates on a global basis, was located in Grey Street for 12 years but has now bought premises in Prudhoe Terrace, Tynemouth, at one time occupied by the irreverant and often controversial Viz magazine, which enjoyed cult status in the 1980’s.

The company which has clients in Australia, the USA, India, Africa and even Mongolia, made the decision to relocate last year and it has been welcomed by staff and clients.

Alan Campbell, local MP joined staff at Blackswan for their official opening on Friday 6th September. He said: “It’s great for a global business like Blackswan to bring their business and expertise to the area, let’s hope more businesses follow suit raising the profile of Tynemouth further.”

Joint managing partners Karen Lee and Maurice Duffy, are keen that staff feel the positive impact the move will have on their work and life balance now that they will be out of the busy city centre and in the seaside town.

Maurice Duffy, said: “We hope that staff take advantage of our new location. They will have the coast on their door step and we will even be putting shower facilities into the offices so that they can participate in fun activities like surfing! It is so hard in our business to find a healthy work life balance as we do a tremendous amount of international travel.

“We were delighted to learn that Viz magazine were once inhabitants of our new offices. The magazine was often quite controversial and outspoken. Our role at Blackswan is to assist companies to transform their cultures so as to become more profitable. To do that we have to be disruptive and challenging, qualities I am sure the publishers of Viz would very much relate to.”

Karen Lee, said; “We took a strategic decision last year to relocate our UK operation to a place that we love and to which our UK clients would enjoy visiting. None of them know Grey Street or have a sense of its prestige, so that value is wasted. “Tynemouth is a fantastic place to go to work every day. There’s a great choice of coffee shops that do an amazing selection of cakes! You don’t need to be in the city centre these days to run a global company and we’re absolutely delighted with our new HQ.”

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