LDC Top 50 2026
Dean Willshee
CEO
Willshee’s Waste & Recycling
Dean Willshee left school at 16 to work in the family skip yard. Now CEO of Willshee’s Waste & Recycling, he leads a £50 million turnover business with 160 employees, processing over half a million tonnes of waste across the Midlands every year.
Over 13 years at the helm, Dean has transformed a local family operation into one of the region’s most respected commercial waste management and recycling businesses, and his ambitions are far from satisfied. With a target of £100 million revenue within five years, he’s focused on driving innovation in an industry he believes is ready for change. “We’re nowhere near the end of the journey,” he says.
Waste management is an ageing industry. There’s a real opportunity to do things differently, and we intend to be the ones who do it.”
Q&A
What first drew you into the family business?
Growing up, school holidays meant one thing, jumping in the skip lorry with my dad or getting stuck in at the yard. It wasn’t glamorous, but I loved it.
Interestingly, my dad never wanted me to join the business. He was adamant I should do my A-levels, go to university, use my brain. He’d say he’d rather I did something with my head than get my hands dirty. But I left school at 16 and came straight in, and from the moment I did, I could see the potential.
I started at the bottom as a labourer, worked my way through machine operator, HGV driver, accounts, sales. I’ve done pretty much every job in the business. I think that’s shaped everything about how I lead, there’s not much anyone can tell me about how this industry works from the ground up.
What’s been your biggest challenge?
Without doubt, securing planning permission for our new 33-acre Resource and Recovery Park in Swadlincote. At its heart is a 220,000-tonne energy from waste plant, a significant and complex development by any measure. It took five years, was refused by the local planning committee, and we had to take it to appeal. There were moments where it would have been very easy to walk away.
But we believed in it. We fought it. And last year we finally won.
It’s a £350 million development for the business, so the stakes couldn’t have been higher. Looking back, it was probably both my biggest challenge and my proudest moment in the same breath.
What have you learnt from working with family?
That when everyone is genuinely there for the same reason, it’s a powerful thing. My sister is a director, my brother is our operations director, and my mum still pokes her head in every now and again to keep us all in check. There’s a level of trust and commitment in a family business that’s hard to replicate anywhere else.
But I’d be lying if I said it was always straightforward. The HR rulebook definitely goes out of the window at times.
My dad passed away 10 years ago, completely out of the blue. It was a huge shock. He built this business with my mum and I think about him a lot. I’d like to think he’d be proud of how far we’ve come. But we’re nowhere near the end of the journey there’s still plenty to do. In some ways, that drives me on.
