Philip King

Background

About Philip King

I first picked up a soldering iron when I was 11 years old, and I have been involved in electronics ever since. I got my amateur radio licence when I was 14, and used to repair scrap TV’s and sell them through newspaper adverts as a self-employed schoolboy. I intended to become an electronic engineer, but ended up studying mechanical sciences at Jesus College, Cambridge because this was the nearest to a specialist electronics degree that was then offered. On graduation, I qualified as a Chartered Accountant, but still held a burning ambition to own my own business. I’ve owned Newbury Electronics for the last 30 years and have enjoyed every moment of the challenge of building it up. Having worked for 5 years as Financial Controller for AB Electronics PLC, one of whose subsidiaries was Newbury Electronics, my business partner and I were given the opportunity to buy Newbury Electronics in 1987. This was after I had a year out to take a 1 year MBA from Cranfield University. We jumped at this chance and we both immensely enjoyed managing and driving the business forward. In 1998, and the early years of the internet, we started to sell online and launched In 2011, I bought out my business partner on his retirement, and became sole owner. In the last 10 years, we have focussed on developing on online trading platform that allows clients to get quotes and place orders for complex electronic products and services in a simple and straightforward fashion and completely integrating this into our production process. We are not box shifters. Every product we make is unique to our clients. I thrive on the opportunity to innovate and create something worthwhile that grows because customers love it.