Julian Niman, the founder and chairman of the Nycomm communications group has died at his Manchester home, he was 64.
Niman was the Group Chairman and Managing Director at Rocom. He founded Nimans in 1985 and serves as its Chairman.
His first job after college was as a radio engineer for the Met Police in London. After the Met worked for Sharp Electronics in Manchester for a while. One of his proudest archievements was getting his radio operators exam in 1972.
Then he worked for his dad who had a jewellery wholesalers in Derby Street, Cheetham Hill. Working for him gave Niman experience in how to run a business.
The 1980s saw the deregulation of the UK telecoms industry and he saw this as a big start to buy and sell phones as the GPO (British Telecom as it is now known) no longer had the monopoly.
“I started by selling a few phones from a corner of my dad’s showroom. I also bought a van, fitted it out myself and went on the road while I took someone on to mind the office. I guess the business started and grew from there”, he later said.
He said that the biggest challenge he had to overcome was his shyness as he was not naturally chatty.
“I knew that for my business to grow I had to be more outgoing. If your name is over the door, you are your own PR and need to have a friendly and professional image”, he said.
Fellow Director and friend David Bennett said Julian regarded all his staff as family.
He said it was a huge shock but stressed the board of directors will continue to run the Manchester-based company as ‘Julian would want us to continue his legacy’.
David told his workforce: “Julian saw all of us here as his family and he would want us to carry on serving the customer and running the business in his memory.
“Many of us have known Julian for many years and we will have to support one another through this difficult time.”
