IF THE phrase “junk removal” conjures up images of Steptoe and Son, the television rag-and-bone men complete with horse and cart, think again. Armed with an MBA, a formidable CV and a fleet of red trucks, Jason Mohr, founder and managing director of Any Junk?, is busy transforming the UK’s fragmented, often tatty and rather down-at-heel junk clearance industry into a far more attractive proposition — a heavily branded, highly profitable franchise operation.

Take a look at Mohr’s CV, and junk collection seems an odd career choice. Qualified as a solicitor, several years in corporate finance with Dresdner Kleinwort Benson; by rights he should be in private equity, a senior manager at a blue-chip company or a partner in a top law firm. Not driving a red truck full of junk.

But Mohr always had a restless spirit. Working at Kleinwort was financially rewarding, but something was missing. So he left to take a one-year full-time MBA at Cranfield School of Management. “I didn’t want to be a banker all my life,” he says. “Cranfield was a chance to take stock and look at what I was going to do next in a more leisurely way — instead of cramming in meetings with headhunters at stupid hours.”

Despite his extensive finance experience, there was plenty to learn. “I had to work in teams made up of people from all kinds of backgrounds. Many had line-management experience, for example. I learnt a lot from that. It was also good having time to work on the business side, understanding what makes businesses tick, rather than just the numbers.”

After business school Mohr returned to the world of corporate finance with the investment firm NM Rothschild. But only briefly. “It didn’t take me long to start moping around,” he says. “I wasn’t getting a kick out of it; it was really just about the money.”

In August 2003 Mohr resigned to start a new career as an entrepreneur. “I spent 12 months looking at different businesses, met with more than 100 companies, read through hundreds of business plans, made some small investments, and finally came across the idea of Any Junk?” He got the idea from a similar business in Canada. Any Junk? launched in November 2004.

Junk removal suffers from a bit of a clapped-out-vans-and-unsavoury-characters image problem. Not Any Junk? though. “The customer is impressed if you turn up on time, with nice clean trucks, take the junk and dispose of it in the right way,” Mohr says. “That’s what they care about.”

If all goes to plan the red van with the white elephant logo will soon be a familiar sight. Franchises are rolling out in the major cities, and Mohr is interviewing potential franchise holders, including several with MBAs.

It just goes to show the value of taking a little time out to reassess your career. “The MBA wasn’t about learning a list of 20 useful things to apply in business, but more about getting a general impression of how business works,” Mohr says. “And enough confidence to go out and do it myself.”
www.anyjunk.co.uk

JUNK MALE
JASON MOHR: CV
Career history: 1993-95 qualifies as a solicitor at Ashurst Morris Crisp; 1996-99 corporate finance at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson; 1999-2000 MBA at Cranfield School of Management; 2000-03 private equity at NM Rothschild; 2004 starts Any Junk?
Career low: “Selling rolls and drinks on the beaches of Salcombe, Devon, from a motor boat, and being left with more than 200 tuna and cheese and pickle rolls to eat when the rain came, and stayed, for ten days.”
Career high: “Winning Wandsworth Business of the Year within a year of launching Any Junk?”
Childhood ambition: “To be a writer.”
Little known fact: “I once went out with Miss Cracow.”

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