The Entrepreneur:When Ian Jeffers turns the key in the front door of his printing company this morning he is not just opening up for the day but celebrating six months in business.

The former managing director of several NTL divisions set up an AlphaGraphics business centre in Belfast at the beginning of this year. It offers a range of specialised services under one roof from design to copying, printing, digital archiving and display solutions.

It is a completely different way of life for the man who was one of the team of Northern Ireland business leaders who greeted Tony Blair during his first ever visit to the North.

Then he was part of the corporate elite, managing multi-million budgets and several hundred members of staff. Today he will probably work about 18 hours, helping to establish a business which employs a fraction of the people who used to work for him, and his enthusiasm for the entire project is hard to miss.

"I always took pride in whatever job I was doing. I always wanted to deliver, but I have never been as emotionally involved in any job as I am in my own business.

"There is something about being the master of your own destiny, about having the flexibility to make your own decisions, to grow your business and to shape it into exactly what you want it to be.

"One of the advantages I have is that I can take all the very best practice I learned from my years in the corporate world and marry that with the best of being a small-business entrepreneur."

Jeffers says that he did consider setting up his own business in a couple of other locations, but ultimately Belfast won. "Belfast is home, so that was a huge factor, but I have a lot of faith in the future here."