It is with profound sadness that we mark the passing of Sue Valentine, wife of Chairman and Founder of Baltimore aged 73 from pancreatic cancer.
Sue was the second major shareholder of Baltimore and the second employee of the company acting as the first Company Secretary and first Financial Director. We started life as Baltimore Chemicals Limited and Sue was instrumental in setting up and implementing all the Company’s Administration and Financial procedures as well as monthly Management Accounts that led us to start trading on the 1st. July 1997 with a small suite of offices in Bourne End as well as organising the sub-contracting of our warehouse and deliveries to an outside contractor based in Feltham near Heathrow Airport, but Sue maintained control of all the stock and batch control. After 4 years we changed the company name to Baltimore Innovations to reflect the fact we worked and focused on the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device industry, and Sue implemented and successfully managed that name change and all the aspects concerning financial and administration. In the early years cash flow was very difficult and we ran on a shoestring but Sue managed to keep all our suppliers and customer happy no mean feat plus of course our Bank Manager.
As the business grew Sue needed additional resources in the admin and financial departments and hired Latha Pillai our Financial Director in 2003, unfortunately Sue had a stroke shortly after and fully retired immediately whilst retaining her major shareholding in the business.
Latha took over from Sue who trained Latha to become our Finance Manager and both successfully carried out a seamless transition. Sue continued to watch the business grow from the side-lines but was always on hand to organise a summer day out for all our staff as well as attending the staff’s Christmas meal.
