HE may be the most successful British Olym-pian of all time but Sir Chris Hoy has nothing on Jon Jorgensen, when it comes to BMX racing.

Ranked number one in the UK and second in the world, Jon was at the top of his game as a BMX racer as a young boy and teenager.

Sir Chris, who has won seven Olympic medals for cycling, managed second in the UK and ninth in the world.

Jon laughs as he reveals his BMX racing background.

Now executive director of IT software company Access Group, in Stratford St Mary, he seems slightly embarrassed that his parents, who live in Brantham, still have one of the trophies from his competitions on display.

“It is massive,” says Jon, “but I guess it is something parents do.”

Jon competed in the same Weetabix BMX World Championships in France in 1986 as Sir Chris, when Jon was seven and Sir Chris was ten.

Jon says: “I didn’t really know him, but my parents still have the programme where our names are listed.”

He may not have become an Olympian but the hard work ethos and competitive spirit nurtured during his time as a BMX racer have driven Jon to success as a businessman.

“There is a real buzz about BMX racing. It is quite aggressive and tough and as I got older my mum refused to come and watch me. There are eight racers at the gate and there is a chance that you could stack it straight away but the actual satisfaction of winning in that environment makes everything worthwhile,” explains Jon.

It is the same approach he applies to business.

“We look at the next corner, and the next jump, rather than just the end goal,” explains Jon, 34.

The strategy has helped Access Group win awards year after year for being one of the fastest-growing companies in the UK. In 2011, it was in the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies to Work For, for the way it values and treats its staff.

It is a feat Access Group is hoping to emulate again. It would be a particular achievement, says Jon, as the company has more than doubled in staff to 500 since the last win.

Access Group began life as Access Accounting on the same site in School Lane in 1991, developing accounting software for businesses.

By the time Jon joined the company in 1998, Access was employing 45 people and had a turnover of £7 million. The company had evolved by then to develop management software for businesses in areas including procurement, human resources, payroll, manufacturing and business intelligence.

On a year out from education after completing A Levels at Colchester Sixth Form College, Jon joined as a temporary telesales rep for six months.

He had ambitions to become a lawyer and was also playing football for Harwich and Parkeston, being paid £70 a week for taking part in matches.

Jon laughs as he remembers his first day at Access: “I had hardly used a computer at that point. All the work used to be done on floppy disks and during my first training session here they asked us all to load up the floppy disk. All I knew was where to put the disk – after that I had no idea.”

“Now I am much more technology-savvy, though nowhere near as much as lots of other people here at Access Group.”

But when he left Access to find a job in London for the rest of his gap year, Access asked him to stay on with one of their resellers – companies which sold Access products and services to its customers.

He explains: “When I started at Access in telesales I was earning £8,500. Then they offered me £17,500 to work as a reseller in London. I was 19-years-old and had to seriously think about university. As a graduate I would have earned £15,000 and here I was, being offered more than that without a degree.”

He admits: “Also, all the people living around Brantham and East Bergholt, where I am from, who drove flash cars all worked in London. So I accepted the job.

“I was living the life, going out drinking in London after work and still getting to work in Westminster the next morning,” he remembers.

Now living in Leicester to allow him easy access to the company’s 14 offices, Jon worked his way up through the ranks.

By the time he was 25 his boss asked if he wanted to arrange a management buyout of the sales company. Jon admits: “I didn’t know what a management buyout was – I had to go home and look it up on the internet!”

“Then what do I do? I had already bought a house in Tendring, but I went and bought a BMW M3. I didn’t realise there would be a problem to insure it, but I managed to in the end.”

In 2005, Access bought the sales company off Jon and his colleagues and Jon became the managing director of his division. It was a time of big change for Jon and Access, he says.

“Access was suddenly going from selling their products through a reseller, to selling them directly to customers. “The last time the company had gone through such a big change was when I first started in telesales, when everyone was making the transition from green screen and Dos to Windows!”

When the original founder of Access decided to sell the company in 2011, Jon, members of the current board of directors and private equity firm Lyceum Capital decided to buy it for £50 million.

Since then, Access has grown 33 per cent year-on year, buying out other companies offering business computer software in a diverse range of industries including theatres, museums, domiciliary care and many more. It has also grown 10 per cent organically, aside from company buyouts.

It can boast clients including the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Natural History Museum and McLaren.

With a turnover of £44 million, Jon revealed the company has recently taken over its first firm abroad, in Paris. Renamed Access Insight, it is part of the company’s Access aCloud services allowing the business to evolve further.

“It is an exciting time at Access Group now,” says the dad-of-one.

“We have restarted our graduate scheme to grow our own talent and continue to look for ways to expand, while working hard to look after our existing staff.”