Wickford: The pizza path to success . . .

It is 6pm at a High Street pizza shop in Wickford.

Homeward commuters are collecting their dinner, the order-phones are beginning to buzz. The air is full of the unique noise of muscular masculine hands slapping dough into shape.

Out in the yard, the hi-speed pizza delivery drivers are revving up for the night's action. The guys and gals at Dominos are energetic, they've got the mozzarella between their teeth and there is an air of purpose about the place.

Even so, this is not the first spot where you would look to find a hotshot graduate from the prestigious Bradford Business School.

Yet here he is - Paul Ashurst, trailing academic letters after his name, rattling off statistics and mission statements in the manner of MBAs in boardrooms the world over - and peddling pizza in Wickford.

The nearest thing Paul has to a boardroom is a small parlour squeezed between the pizza oven and the cold store. This is the floury spot to which he has taken his business degree, his entrepreneurial vision, and, above all, his personal dreams.

At 24, Paul is believed to be the youngest pizza franchisee in Britain. "They tend to be chaps in their mid-40s who've learnt all sorts of lessons about life and business," says an impressed Domino's spokeswoman.

Down in Wickford's takeaway zone, the thoughtful young graduate cuts a slightly incongruous figure. He looks a bit like the banker that he almost became. Yet his presence here in the pizza parlour is far from accidental.

Paul's ambition is simple - he wants to be a millionaire. And he sees his present role as pizza shop manager not as some unavoidable prelude to his first million, but as the broad highway to wealth and success. There's dough in dough. "This is the future," he says, affectionately patting some pizza dough.

Paul's franchise is the result of an extraordinary act of family devotion. His father, a Cambridgeshire engineer, re-mortgaged his house to raise the capital. Officially the sum required was £25,000, though "actually," says Paul, "that's just the start."

Paul is grateful, of course, but he feels that his gratitude is best shown by a business-like approach.

When his mother and father came to help out (unpaid) on a Saturday night, they enjoyed a pizza dinner at Domino's - and were charged full whack. It is Paul himself who tells this story, and with some pride. "I didn't charge them for their uniforms," he says in mitigation.

He can take this attitude because the person with whom he is most ruthless is himself. He has taken a vow of dedication as rigorous as any monk's. His wild oats are sown, his fun has been had.

After graduation, he travelled round the world. He enjoyed himself for a while going to cinemas and pubs. Now that is all over. "A social life was something I had before I started here," he says.

Up at 9am in his flat in Dartford, Paul has arrived at Wickford by 10am, and he won't see his flat again until 2am the next morning. He then finally gets to enjoy one of his own pizzas ("I really do love it - and I could never afford it when I was a student") before crawling into bed. If lucky, he gets a day off a week, which is spent "basically sleeping."

Yet it is all to a purpose. Aside from his Domino's franchise, Paul also has his own limited company, Vision Ten Ten. He runs this with a partner, an old friend from business school called Kevin.

The intriguing company name refers to Paul and Kevin's game plan - to own 10 Domino pizzerias within 10 years. The dream is well on target.

The pair open their second outlet, at Grays, later this year. By the time the 10th outlet opens, Kevin reckons that he should have made it to where he wants to be.

"The sign will be when I can buy an Aston Martin DB7," he says. I'll know I'm successful when I have that."

A betting man would probably reckon it a racing certainty that Kevin will get that DB7.

Kevin was obviously born to be successful. As an 11-year-old in Cambridgeshire, he recalls: "I set up a business selling sweets at school, but I was found out and had to give the money to charity." He progressed to cutting lawns

Business school was part of a natural sequence. After graduation, Paul started to apply for banking jobs. Then, however, came the radical and original decision that sets Paul Ashurst apart from other 24-year-old would-be entrepreneurs.

"I'd joined Pizza Hut to get some managerial experience," he says. He soon decided that pizza might well offer more opportunities than shuffling other people's accounts. "It's an expanding market, it appeals to people of my age group, it's healthy. Pizza is just a good business to be in," he says.

Lest all this gives the impression of an out-and-out businessman, Paul is also softly spoken, and devoted to his family. His looks and slight air of vulnerability would no doubt guarantee him numerous female admirers, but he says: "There's no time for a girlfriend at the moment."

Forceful and confident-sounding when he is talking about his business plans, Paul is surprisingly modest when it comes to another subject - himself. He is even prepared to joke about the narrow, if focused universe in which he has decided to reside.

Paul's business partner is an airline pilot, "and," says Paul, "he always steals my thunder. The minute he mentions he's a pilot, that's it. Everybody here wants to know all about him."

"Meanwhile," says tomorrow's deep-pan millionaire, with a touch of ruefulness, "all I've got to talk about is pizzas."

Deep pan plans - Paul Ashurst, just 24 years old, is a business graduate who plans to have 10 pizza outlets in the next 10 years

Picture: MAXINE CLARKE

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.