Speakers
Gavin Shields
Jason Mathew
Paul Whittaker
Session
Self storage is becoming increasingly autonomous — from online booking and unmanned access to dynamic pricing, automated payment recovery and AI-handled customer conversations. The early wins are already clear, and they are widening the gap between operators moving quickly and those still relying on manual processes.
But automation is not one-size-fits-all, and the operators pulling ahead treat it as a connected system rather than a series of point solutions. At the physical access point, innovations such as Janus International's Nokē Smart Entry deliver security, customer convenience and valuable site data. Tying the operation together, storage platforms such as Stora automate the customer journey end to end - online sales, dynamic pricing, payment recovery and AI chat and voice agents - and orchestrate the hardware, payments and communications layers into a single automated operation.
This panel brings together two suppliers and two operators approaching automation from different angles for a candid, pitch-free discussion on what is working, what still breaks, and where operators should automate next.
Gavin Shields is the founder and CEO of Stora, the operating system for growth-focused self storage businesses. Before founding Stora, Gavin launched and scaled startups and ran his own self storage business, giving him first-hand insight into the challenges of legacy systems, manual admin, and operational drag. Today, Stora helps operators modernise and unlock new revenue through automation, pricing intelligence, and flexible integrations — and powers hundreds of self storage businesses worldwide.
Jason Mathew is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Nokē Division at Janus International. He has 20+ years of experience in industrial goods, technology products and services with a proven track record of delivering customer impact, business growth and transformation.
Paul started his Self-Storage adventure in 2012 with NorthWest based storage experts BiG Storage and was lucky enough to be initially mentored by two of the best independent operators in Kevin Murphy and Paul Fahey, whilst in his in his group sales manager role. Alongside the whole BiG team, Paul’s abilities to raise standards and in particular revenues led to the Big Yellow/Armadillo group acquiring the business in early 2015.
After being the only member of the senior management team to be retained, Paul assisted with integration of the two businesses before being given a golden opportunity to join Mike Wilson at Smart Storage in late 2015. After implementing radical changes to the business as well as new technology and a sixth site, it was decided that with new opportunities on the horizon that they would prepare the business for sale. This occurred in early 2018 achieving a sixfold return for the investment group after less than three years involvement.
Mike and fellow storage entrepreneur Andy Wood formally of Storage Boost now had investors and capitol in place to realise the dream of creating SureStore. Paul has become a key part of developing and operating these multi-purpose facilities which not only cater for domestic and commercial storage requirements, but offering office space, drive up units, retail spaces and trade counters all in purpose-built brand new, high specification, environmentally conscious and technologically advanced sites. Bolton was the first site to open in April 2018 and seven more sites across the North West and Midlands have followed, with a substantial number of sites due to open across the UK in 2021.
Paul owes his success down to his team of hard working but life enjoying individuals and eats drinks and sleeps the wonderful world of Self-Storage. Paul has four amazing children aged between 6 and 20, with the eldest recently learning the ropes as a part sales advisor at SureStore, so he is always busy and, in his spare time enjoys disco dancing, origami and welsh poetry.
