Lawrence Tomlinson

Dr Lawrence Neil Tomlinson is one of the UK's most successful entrepreneurs and innovative engineers. He is the founder and owner of the LNT Group and also the owner and chairman of Ginetta, an english motorsports manufacturer and race series organiser.

Tomlinson's contribution to engineering has been recognised by three Honorary Doctorates from the University of Huddersfield, the University of Bradford, the University of Bolton and Leeds Metropolitan University.

Early life

Tomlinson grew up in Batley, where he attended grammar school before being sponsored to study engineering at Bradford University.

When he was in his teenage years his parents started a care home and Tomlinson was involved from the start. After writing IT software to control the processes of the home Tomlinson took over the management of the home and began his career in the sector.

Career

From the initial care home Tomlinson has driven significant growth in LNT Care Developments Group and this now employs over 1,000 people. In addition to LNT Care Developments he has also driven the successes of:-

• Ginetta, an automobile manufacturer.
• LNT Software, a developer of care home management systems which trades under the name of Coolcare.
• LNT Solutions, a developer of climate protection systems for the aerospace and rail industries.

Tomlinson was the Institute of Directors’ Overall Director of the Year 2013 and has advised Government on business issues over the last 20 years including a period as Entrepreneur in Residence in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills in 2013–14.

Biography

Tomlinson started in business importing ski boats and classic cars into the UK before moving into the Care Sector. Borrowing £526k from his local bank in 1988, he bought out his parents care home company. Subsequently Dr Tomlinson spotted a gap in the market for bespoke purpose built care homes, he went on to design, build and operate new facilities and establishing LNT Construction in 1991. LNT Construction and LNT Care Developments has grown to build 20–25% of all the new elderly residential care homes across the country. LNT Care Developments have operated under a vertically integrated model since 2008, when Tomlinson began purchasing LNT's main subcontractors and began the scale up of the business to its current market leading position.

Outside of care developments, he launched further businesses including LNT Software, which develops and sells bespoke software for the care home industry. LNT Software's care home management programme, CoolCare is used now to help the management of almost 10% of the UK Care Bedrooms in operation.

A further addition to the LNT Group was LNT Solutions, a specialist chemical company. LNT Solutions supplies Network Rail with a chemical that stops trains slipping on the leaves, de-ices the third rail and supplies runway and aeroplane wing de-icer to airports across North America and Northern Europe.

In 2005 Tomlinson acquired Ginetta, which has been continuously building race cars since 1958. Since its purchase by LNT, Ginetta has grown to become one of the most significant players on the global motorsport scene. Tomlinson has himself raced at Le Mans winning the GT2 class at the 24 hours of Le Mans in 2006.

Since 2007 a number of LNT owned companies have been acquired by large scale players in the sector and this has enabled Dr Tomlinson to reinvest in transforming the stock of quality care homes in the UK. Over a 30 year period Dr Tomlinson has guided and invested in LNT Care Developments Group to drive it to its current position as number 1 in the market today. LNT has built over £3.2bn of Care homes delivering over 12,500 care home beds to the sector. He is a passionate advocate for building “Great Places to Live” and making a real difference to the lives of the residents who live in LNT built homes, the communities they serve and to the people who work for the LNT Group.

Dr Tomlinson is now a Non Executive Director of LNT where he works in a role providing strategic and innovation input into LNT care homes and how they are designed and built. Lawrence is a passionate supporter of the agenda to move to net zero and has been a major force behind LNT Care Homes progress to becoming Carbon Zero operational users of energy from 2021 onwards.

Dr Tomlinson is also an Ambassador and mentor to various programmes at the Said Business School at Oxford University.

Entrepreneur In Residence

In April 2013, Lawrence Tomlinson became Entrepreneur in Residence at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Tomlinson was selected from over 100 candidates.

Throughout his career, Tomlinson has worked across Government departments providing advice and feedback to civil servants, Ministers and MPs on policy ideas including; planning, red-tape and access to finance.

Tomlinson’s time in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will largely be remembered for his work on the Tomlinson Report.

Motor racing

An enthusiastic race car driver, Tomlinson and his two co-drivers steered the Team LNT Panoz Esperante to first place in the GT2 class of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 2006.

In 2005, Tomlinson bought Ginetta Cars. Tomlinson designed the specification for the Ginetta G50 car which was built within six months, and has now raced in GT championships across the world. Under Dr Tomlinson's leadership Ginetta has gone on to build numerous different race and road cars. The company has scaled up to its current position as a widely regarded volume supplier with a significant in interest in organising events and races and helping people to enter motorsport and progress through the ranks. After Ginetta won the Small Business of the Year award from the Motorsport Industry Association in 2008, and the Ginetta G50 crowned Autosport's Car of the Year, in 2009 Tomlinson was nominated by the MIA for the Outstanding Contribution to Motorsport award.

Today, Ginetta is housed in a purpose built site in Garforth,Leeds and has ownership of its own race track and has distribution interests in the US. The Garforth building was opened by Damon Hill OBE in December 2007, it houses both the group headquarters and the Ginetta car factory.

24 Hours of Le Mans Highlights

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2004	Chamberlain-Synergy Motorsport	Nigel Greensall Gareth Evans	TVR Tuscan T400R	GT	291	22nd	9th
2006	Team LNT	Tom Kimber-Smith Richard Dean	Panoz Esperante GT-LM	GT2	321	15th	1st
2007	Team LNT	Richard Dean Rob Bell	Panoz Esperante GT-LM	GT2	308	23rd	5th

24 Hours of Silverstone Highlights

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Car No.	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2010	Team LNT	Stewart Linn Mike Simpson Nigel Moore	Ginetta G40	83	4	521	12th	1st
2015	Team LNT	Chris Hoy Charlie Robertson Mike Simpson Gaetan Paletou	Ginetta LMP3	12	1	418	13th	2nd

External links

• LNT Group