Think Enterprise July Edition

Think Enterprise

Vol. 10

Publication | July Edition

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IOEE ACADEMY

THE ACADEMY OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

SPOTLIGHT ON...

GIUDITTA MENEGHETTI

HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES

PRESENTS AWARDS TO WELSH BUSINESSES

SET UP BY OVER 50s

MAGAZINE July Edition Vol. 10

CONTAC T US 53 Coniscliffe Road Darlington DL3 7EH 0845 467 4928 newsletter@ioee.uk ioee.uk

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SARAH TROUTEN, IOEE CHIEF EXECUTIVE Welcome to our July Edition of Think Enterprise, whether you’re returning refreshed and re-energised from summer holidays and wondering how you can keep this sentiment for the rest of the year, or getting ready to head off for some much-needed time to think, I’m sure some of our inspirational stories this month will provide food for thought.

This month we hear from two IOEE Academies, The Academy of Leadership and Management based up in Scotland who are driving forward exciting new online learning opportunities as well as forging links between IOEE and Edinburgh Napier University. Also, Julia Goga-Cooke of G Consultancy, an IOEE Academy based in London provides an interesting insight to Design Thinking.

We shine the spotlight on Guiditta Meneghetti an Academic Member working at Barking and Dagenham College, delivering innovative programmes across the College. We also hear Fathi Mehdi’s truly inspirational story on page 22 and I look forward to hearing more as Fathi further develops.

I’m delighted to welcome one of our IOEE Fellows, Paul Freeman as a new blog contributor and have featured his first article this month, “Escape the 9 to 5 and become a Digital Entrepreneur”, and we have the latest installment of our regular feature, Enterprisingly Me. Finally, I am delighted that we have been invited to contribute to the Government’s new SME Advisory Board. Our involvement ensures our members are represented at the highest level and provides a unique opportunity for us to influence the future of UK entrepreneurship.

So pop your feet up on a lounger, grab a cocktail and enjoy this month’s summer edition!

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Content 08 HRH The Prince of Wales presents Awards to Welsh businesses set up by over 50s

10 Distance learning, Skype challenges and five-day sea voyages: We talk the ups and downs of blended learning with ALM’s Director, John Parker.

12 SFEDI’s Ruth Lowbridge MBE flies the flag for SME support in prestigious Advisory Board meeting

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13

Graduate in 2017 as a Business Resilience Advisor

14 Can Design Thinking change the future of your business?

Q&A with GConsultancy Innovation’s CEO, Dr.Julia Goga-Cooke.

16 Enterprisingly Me x

18 Spotlight On...

Giuditta Meneghetti

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21 Smeez

22 A new country, a new language and a brand-new career in the UK - there’s no stopping Fathi Mehdi.

24 Escape the 9 to 5 and become a Digital Entrepreneur Guest blog by IOEE member, Paul Freeman.

26 The Woo ‘B’ Woo Fairy’s mentoring journey, from a passion for fashion to sprinkling her magic in the vintage wedding world

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29 Interested in finding out how mentoring could help your business?

30 IOEE and TONI&GUY The Perfect Partnership

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HRH The Prince of Wales presents Awards to Welsh businesses set up by over 50s

His Royal Highness went on to say: “In Wales, more than 1 in 3 of all older people over 50 to retirement age are currently not working, and this is a total of around 210,000 people…In addition, the number of people over the age of 50 who are considered not in education, employment or training is over 4 times the number of those in the 16 to 24 age group, the age group my Prince’s Trust Group is dealing with. So, what I am really pleased about is to be able to deal with both ends of the spectrum, as frequently people don’t realise how many over 50’s are in these difficult situations.

On 11th July 2017 The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise in Wales (PRIME Cymru) hosted their annual PRIME Cymru Awards event, celebrating the diversity and success of the businesses that it has supported recently, as well as the dedication of their volunteer mentors.

On the day, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Founder and President of PRIME Cymru, met with people aged over 50 who have set up their own businesses in Wales with the charity’s help.

The Prince of Wales presented the four over all winners in the four categories of New Business, Growth Business, Green Business and Mentor of the Year with a cut glass vase at the ceremony.

In front of a delighted audience of 120 guests in Craig-y-Nos Castle, Powys His Royal Highness said: “I am really so impressed by what PRIME Cymru is able to achieve… to enable people to fulfil their dreams after they have had very often a difficult time being made redundant or whatever… “

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Research shows that around one third of all those currently economically inactive [and aged over 50] would actually like to work, and that’s the point. But bespoke services for the 50 plus age group to assist with addressing what are often multiple barriers, is not always so easy to find, which is another reason why PRIME Cymru I think is of such importance.

I particularly want to congratulate all the people who won the awards today and also wanted to say all those who haven’t won an award are equally important and are making a huge contribution to the life of the economy of Wales. Llongyfarchiadau.”

PRIME Cymru is a registered charity and the only organisation in Wales dedicated to providing practical support to people aged 50 and over to help them find work or set up in business. The charity has helped thousands of people in Wales set up their own businesses or find employment and provides tailored one to one support through its dedicated staff and team of over 400 volunteer mentors.

Winners of PRIME Cymru Awards 2017 with Lucy Owen L to R Dave Marchant Coedcae Services for Growth Business, Nic Williams for New Business, Lucy Owen, Alex Holland for Green Business, Rob Challenger Mentor of the Year.

Presenting the 2017 PRIME CYMRU AWARDS WINNERS: Sponsored by Warren Davies Property Nic Williams / Llandrindod Wells New Business Award Sponsored by Powys County Council After working in a variety of people-orientated and hospitality jobs, which led to her suffering from mental health problems, Nic saw a niche in the market and decided to use her skills to develop her own business idea. Nic’s business supports people in their home and lifestyle by doing gardening, decorating, dog walking, cleaning, decluttering and accompanying people on outings. She is inundated with requests for her services and her thriving business has made her feel happier than she has ever felt in her life.

Alex Holland / Mental Rentals / Machynlleth Green Business Award Sponsored by Abaca Organic Welsh Wool Mattresses After being made redundant Alex decided to set up a business using his home in the Cambrian Mountains. Mental Rentals is unique holiday rental accommodation including a vintage caravan and a 24ft long clinker built boat on a hillside 750ft above sea level. The accommodation is all made from upcycled or recycled materials, powered using solar panels and heated by antique wood burners using wood from local farms. Alex also won the prestigious Shed of

the Year Award in 2013.

Dave Marchant / Coedcae Services / Bridgend Growth Business Award Sponsored by Walker Cambria Investment Management Dave Marchant gave up a lucrative job in IT to start Coedcae Services, doing all kinds of tree surgery and woodland management and supplying locally sourced kiln-dried logs for firewood. The business has expanded dramatically in the past year and as well as taking on bigger contracts for golf courses and large woodlands, Dave is now looking for new premises.

Rob Challenger / PRIME Cymru Mentor / Pembrokeshire Mentor of the Year 2017 Award Sponsored by Lloyds Bank Having worked in banking for the past 20 years, Rob was looking for a new challenge, something that would help his own personal development whilst giving something back. Becoming a PRIME Cymru mentor offered him the opportunity to empower people to see a future, through giving up a little bit of his time.

For more information and photographs of the PRIME Cyrmu Awards event, please visit: http://www.primecymru.co.uk/awards-2017-new/

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Distance learning, Skype challenges and five-day sea voyages: We talk the ups and downs of blended learning with ALM’s Director, John Parker.

John Parker is the CEO of The Academy of Leadership and Management based in Ayrshire in Scotland. Working alongside his wife, Janet, this husband and wife team are at the heart of the Academy, which gained its IOEE accreditation last year. We interviewed John for the very first issue of Think Enterprise, and this month we caught up with him to see how the Academy is continuing to evolve, the opportunities provided by blended learning, and how it will be expanding its offering even further in the year ahead.

John Parker is the CEO of The Academy of Leadership and Management based in Ayrshire in Scotland. Working alongside his wife, Janet, this husband and wife team are at the heart of the Academy, which gained its IOEE accreditation last year. We interviewed John for the very first issue of Think Enterprise, and this

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month we caught up with him to see how the Academy is continuing to evolve, the opportunities provided by blended learning, and how it will be expanding its offering even further in the year ahead.

The Academy of Leadership and Management’s strapline captures its commitment to the development of outstanding learners, with its powerful promise of delivering Executive Education and Key People Development.

For three years, the Academy operated as a SFEDI Awards Centre, offering SFEDI programmes as part of its extensive range of professional enterprise qualifications, before the decision was made to become an IOEE Academy in 2016.

Through a combination of practical work-based programmes, executive coaching via Skype, and online distance learning, the

Academy is dedicated to developing strong leaders, managers, coaches, mentors and business advisers - and whilst its offering is available to businesses of any size, John says that he and his fellow team members have always specialised in the development of small businesses: “We have a strong team with a wealth of experience in both business development and business advisor programmes, throughout Scotland and further afield. Between us, we have trained and supported around 1000 small business professionals so far, as well as the leaders and managers of businesses, small and large, and we’re constantly growing.”

The Academy’s principle delivery process is delivered blended learning, and John explains how this enables them to have a greater outreach than a traditional campus-orientated learning experience: “Our blended learning methods allow us to have quite a major outreach, so we are literally able to influence and educate all over the world. We’ve delivered programmes in Russia, Australia, America, Mexico, Czech Republic, the Middle East… as well as our beloved Scotland, of course, and other parts of the UK! A number of our learners are from the island of St. Helena, 1200 miles off the west coast of Africa - it’s famous for where Napoleon was incarcerated at the end of his life. With no commercial flights yet, the only way to get there is a five-day journey on the Royal Mail Ship St. Helena! We’ve been delivering programmes there at a very senior level, delivering Level 5 and Level 7 qualifications to government officials and others. Janet and I visited there in October 2015 – an experience of a lifetime! A five day journey by sea, with not even a seagull to keep you company, to visit a remote island with 4000 inhabitants and its own government. An extraordinary experience!

“We have also helped to develop the BA Business and Enterprise online, which is a one year top up degree progressing from our level 5 courses, delivered through Edinburgh Napier University. I have to say that it’s great to be able to connect and reach places like this all over the world.”

However, John says that although their distance learning methods enable a global outreach, educating through online platforms does come with its own challenges: “I think that one of the problems that people find with online learning is that, naturally, the taking away of the human element can be a strange prospect. We overcome this by using Skype for individual coaching and tutorials, as well as group workshops on occasion, and this works extremely well for our learners.

“People can also be put off by the idea of a lot of solitary reading.

Of course, there will be an element of reading, which you would find in any course at this level, but through the interaction with their coaches and application of their learning in the workplace, our learners get the opportunity to gain an in-depth knowledge of key

issues as well as chances to bounce ideas off their coaches, apply their learning in safe environments and gain useful feedback on their work.

“We’re always looking to improve our online offer as well as - trying to make our offer as engaging as possible. What we don’t want to do is make it appear more exciting, by putting a load of flashes and bangs on the screen, but with the content remaining the same.

We’re not going for ‘flashy’, that’s not who we are - we want to enhance the way that we deliver our learning process so that it is accessible, engaging and extremely rewarding.”

Part of the way that The Academy of Leadership and Management works is to ensure that measuring skills and knowledge is achieved through practical assessment processes. John says: “It’s the reason that we’re so involved in the assessment process.

We know that it’s about applying what you’ve learned to achieve results and then getting useful feedback that helps learners to get even better at what they do. It’s hands-on. And the learning journey doesn’t just end once you’ve gained the qualification either. For example, we work closely with an organisation, based in NorthEast Scotland, which provides business support and incubation to businesses with growth potential.

The team at The Academy of Leadership and Management has, as part of its extensive portfolio, specialised in developing and accrediting Scottish business advisers for well over a decade now and has won many awards for their programmes. These credentials have led the Academy to its recent position of working closely with one of Scotland’s largest local authorities to support the development of their business growth team. John says: “One of the biggest changes in the Academy in the last year or so is that we are expanding our portfolio of programmes. This is enabling us to evolve the business and work with different clients and in different areas. We’re currently in the process of adding the new business adviser and business support qualifications that the IOEE and SFEDI have recently brought out onto the market, with a particular focus on Level 5 and Level 7 learning, and will be delivering most of these so that our learners have access to an even broader offering. This will involve working with business support professionals, small business coaches and mentors and business information specialists, as well as small businesses and their leaders.

We’ve achieved a lot so far, but over the next couple of years our aim is to get even bigger and better; to expand our offering, continue to grow, and to connect with the broader business support community in the rest of the UK and with even more far-flung corners of the globe!”

For more information about ALM, you can visit their website: www.academylm.co.uk

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SFEDI’s Ruth Lowbridge MBE flies the flag for SME support in prestigious Advisory Board meeting

On the 17th May, Ruth Lowbridge MBE and SFEDI Executive Chair attended the SME Advisory Board meeting at The Westminster Conference Centre in London.

Lead by British politician and entrepreneur, Margot James, the board is made up of only 12 SME industry experts, and as the only awarding and standard-setting body from the UK to be invited, it was a great privilege for both SFEDI and Ruth to be able to represent our values, vision and voice in this prestigious and exclusive group of influential professionals.

Subjects on the agenda included Industrial Strategy, Business Support and Growth Hubs, Brexit, Start-Up Businesses, and Access to Finance. Ruth outlined that a more holistic approach to business leadership and management skills development and support is needed, and how business support should also

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focus on softer skills and areas, such as mental health.

Ruth also discussed how mentoring and peer-to-peer support was absolutely vital in building skills and supporting SMEs; an area where SFEDI is already flourishing through the positive work of its established Meet a Mentor scheme. Ruth says: “Being personally invited to join this advisory group is a huge deal and an enormous privilege. However, it is much more than that - this is an opportunity; and opportunity to fly the flag for skills in SMEs, and an opportunity to speak directly to Ministers.

“Effectively, being a part of this group enables SFEDI and the IOEE to actively engage with and influence our Government, and it is incredibly exciting to be politically involved in the shaping of the future of enterprise and entrepreneurs.”

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Can Design Thinking change the future of your business?

Q&A with GConsultancy Innovation’s CEO, Dr.Julia Goga-Cooke.

Julia Goga-Cooke is the powerhouse behind GConsultancy Innovation; an Academy of Design Thinking and Entrepreneurship, based in the heart of London. GConsultancy Innovation believes that ‘innovators are not born - they are made’, and describes itself as ‘an ecosystem of design thinkers who can give you the mindset, knowledge and tools to shape a successful business’. We first chatted with the GConsultancy Innovation CEO back in 2015, when the company first became an IOEE Academy. This month we caught up with Julia to discuss how the business has evolved, why storytelling is so important, and how creative collaboration is key to success.

For people who have never heard of the concept of ‘Design Thinking’, how would you describe what this is?

The term Design Thinking refers to both a set of mindsets and a process for solving complex problems. It is a fully formed discipline, with methods and tools for every stage. It brings together analytical and creative thinking in a very flexible way, allowing them to combine with other methods and tools that you are already using,

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such as Lean Enterprise, Agile, Appreciative Inquiry, and so forth.

I will mention four mindsets that I see recurring in the work of the Design Thinkers which are key to innovation. Design Thinkers are curious people, they ask questions, challenge assumptions their own assumptions and other people’s assumptions. They are courageous, they experiment, they try thing out things in order to test, to minimise risk, iterate and innovate. They are collaborative; the more complex the problem, the bigger the need for collaboration across disciplines, ages, locations and industries. They are optimistic, they adopt a positive stance; where other people see problems, Design Thinkers see opportunities for innovative solutions.

Apart from the mindsets, Design Thinking is also a process, which helps individuals and teams in how to approach complex problems, how to find needs and look for new solutions. It provides a common approach for teams to discover problems, to imagine solutions, and to try out some of those solutions before launching a new product, a new service, or a new way of working. Whatever the problem, there are always people in it. That’s why Design Thinkers start with

people, understanding people, empathising with them, and then they move on to questions about the technology and how much business sense the solutions make.

Storytelling is a large element of GConsultancy Innovation’s offering now. With its connotations of youthful fairy tales and so on, how does storytelling work in the corporate business world?

What sort of courses services does GConsultancy Innovation offer?

Storytelling is a very important element in the success of your business. You spend a great deal of time designing something new and bringing it to market, but if you can’t tell your story, you’re going to struggle - you need to inspire funders, supporters, clients, partners, followers. This is where storytelling, that brings together facts and figures with stories that connect to the emotions of your audience, helps you stand out and impact.

There are a number of courses we offer to leaders and managers to enable them to facilitate and lead innovation within their teams, departments, or the wider company. The courses are designed according to the needs of different client types we have. Some have heard about Design Thinking and just want to have a taster of what it is. For them, we have the InnoZoomba, a 90-minute fast track hands-on workshop. It has been very popular with ‘Leader Away Days’, retreats and conferences, fitting into the broader agenda of the event.

Other courses vary in length from one to five days, from Introduction to Design Thinking where you learn and take away Ten Tools, to Training the Trainer - where you practice and create the confidence to use the methods and tools as a Design Thinking Facilitator of strategy conversations, boot camps, or short ‘Innozoombas’. Other popular courses have been Design Thinking for HR leaders, Design Thinking for Talent pool, Design Thinking for IT managers.

When we met you in 2015, GConsultancy Innovation had just become an IOEE Academy. How has your company evolved since this time?

We’ve been an IOEE Academy for two years now, and it’s fantastic being part of the IOEE family. Having this accreditation is hugely rewarding, and boosts our credentials as a professional, trusted and inspiring organisation.

We have been teaching Design Thinking for over nine years now.

What we have seen in the last couple of years is that people in the business world have started to hear about it and really listen.

Harvard Business Review had a whole issue last year on Design Thinking finally coming of age. And there are many reasons why it is being held as a competitive advantage, as Professor Roger Martin says. The speed of change as a result of technology, demography, society, resources and globalisation have made it a priority for any sized organisation, big or small, for profit and non-profit, to be creative and innovative in order to deal with complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity, be it for the future and grow.

This is where Design Thinking comes of help - with practical methods and tools that help you to explore and make sense of this complexity, create a deep empathy for your clients and your employees, and come up with solutions that are new and offer value.

We strongly believe that anybody can learn how to become an innovator, and this is what the aim of our courses is - to help you adopt the mindsets, try out the tools, and use them as soon as you are back at your desk.

In the last couple of years that we have been part of the IOEE family, we have diversified our offer, guided by the needs of our clients, making it easier to access the programmes both as open courses and as in-house for teams and companies. We are very excited that we now have two new courses: Design Thinking Facilitator - Train the Trainer, and StoryTelling.

Storytelling is an integral part of the whole journey of discovering people’s needs, making sense of what you hear in the field, presenting your prototypes and pitching your ideas and products.

These days, you need to master how to tell your story in a Tweet, in a one-minute pitch, or a longer presentation. We get our participants to compose ‘Six-Word Stories’, like Hemingway’s Award, and use techniques for headline-writing, Tweet composition, storyboarding, three-act presentations in one minute, and many more practical tools. They get tips from guest journalists - and even from one of the rising stars of opera singers, the Russian soprano, Ilona Domnich on how to manage stage fright and anxiety, how to create presence, and how not to forget to breathe. It’s fun, enjoyable and practical learning.

As more companies are getting excited about using Design Thinking, how can people not only learn about using these tools, but spread the word too?

Since we last spoke, GConsultancy Innovation has also developed a course for Design Thinking Facilitators - basically, it’s training for the future trainers! It’s for the people who have some knowledge, who’ve read the books, studied on courses, but really want to learn more and take it to the next level. There is a lot of free resources on the web, thanks to d.school, IDEO, and many more.

What people appreciate coming to the course is the use of those tools in real life situations. At G Academy, we have used Design Thinking processes to facilitate intimate workshops of five people and big live boot camps of 500 participants, and 48-hour virtual jams of a several thousand people. We are now teaching other people how to do that, giving them a process and a tool box, as well as follow-up coaching to get them confident in the early steps.

Where can people find GConsultancy Innovation’s courses?

We have published our course calendar in our Gconsultancy Academy website and we offer updates in our weekly magazine, Inspire to Innovate, a curation of articles from Technology, Business, Science and Arts.

We go to where the client is, offering in-house courses for teams of six upwards. Whereas all of our open courses and classes are held at Somerset House, one of London’s iconic landmarks. People come to these courses from all over Europe and beyond. Somerset House allows us to tap into the bountiful creativity, traditions and art on both sides of the River Thames, the Northbank and the Southbank, and act as inspiration to find and nurture the creativity that is at the heart of innovation.

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‘Enterprisingly Me’ is a monthly feature where you can follow my entrepreneurial adventures. Names have been changed to protect the innocent but everything you read really happened.

I hope my story inspires you to take your first steps, or if you already have, then it lets you know you’re not on your own. Starting and running a successful business isn’t about being perfect. It’s about loving what you’re doing, learning from your mistakes and keeping the faith!

Things are hotting up in my journey towards becoming my own boss. I’ve been to view the office space that is part of an incubation centre near to where we live. It’s ‘cosy’ but I don’t really need that much space as I’ll only be using it to prepare my training packs and make my calls. I must ask them about being able to gain access at weekends as I’m hoping to be out training during the week. I’m still wondering if I’m doing the right thing by paying for premises but I think it will help me to separate my business from my chaotic home life and anyway the first 6 months are at a reduced rate which includes everything I need to get started. They have also introduced me to a business mentor who will help me through the first stages of getting going – I asked if I could use Bill as my mentor but they said as he’s advising me then it would be best to have one of their mentors based in the incubation centre. What’s the difference between an adviser and a mentor? I thought they were one and the same... I’ll have a look on the internet and see if I can find out for myself and impress Bill when I next see him.

The kids are really excited but I probably need to find a

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way of managing their expectations as they flick through holiday brochures choosing their first exotic holiday and browse the laminated book of dreams (otherwise known as the Argos Catalogue) choosing their very expensive christmas presents and it’s not even the beginning of September. I wish I shared their faith in me but I’m also conscious of how optimistic they have become which has put more pressure on me to succeed. I have come to realise that this drive to start my own business is not all about money – it’s about doing something I love and being rewarded by seeing people learn and develop with my help... although that all inclusive holiday in the Bahamas does look very attractive, maybe something to aim for in the future but for now it’s a caravan in Scarborough.

I’ve done it! I’ve handed in my notice and I’m starting my business next month. So I only have a few weeks to get everything in order – there seems so much to do. It’s a bit like when you learn to drive and there seems to be so many things to think about when you’re approaching a junction and you’re scared that you run out of time and overshoot the end of the road. Did you feel like that – or

is it only me? I need a list – I always work well with a list.

It’s so satisfying when I can tick things off and sometimes, just for the hell of it, I also put a line through each item as I complete it and then a tick. Livin the dream! Note to self: You must get out more!

Things to do: • Speak to an accountant (recommended by friend and confidante Beryl) to see what I have to do to register the business • Make an appointment at the bank to arrange a 2K overdraft – this is what I’ll need to set up my office and to give me some money to live on until my first invoice is paid. Bill has helped me to develop my financial forecasts so I’ll be able to present these when I go to meet the bank manager • Get some quotes from printers so that I have some business cards and letterhead • Let the incubation centre know I want the office • Buy lots of sparkly wine, crisps and nuts – well I’ll be celebrating my launch won’t I! I must tell you this, I went to the bank for my meeting and I was all ready for them. I had my plan along with all of my financials and Beryl had given me a dummy run by asking me all of the questions she thought the bank manager would ask. So I was well surprised when a young man, who looked like he should still be in sixth form college, met me and invited me to join him in his office. So where was the proper bank manager, I wanted to ask him? He proceeded to ask me questions to which I had all of the answers and he began to look a bit hot and bothered as he was running out of ways to catch me out. He asked to be excused while he checked with

someone and came back to inform me that they could provide me with up to 3K as an overdraft facility (Beryl had suggested I ask for more than I needed just in case).

Whoopee – I’m on my way.

I can’t wait to tell Bill… What would I do without him?

I go from being really excited to be eventually taking the first step into owning and running my own business and waking up in the middle of the night in a blind panic wondering if I’m doing the right thing. Well there’s no turning back now and I just have to make it work, not just to prove to myself that I am capable of making my own way in the world doing something I love but also to satisfy my childrens’ need to order the most expensive items from the dreaded laminated book of dreams!

Bad news – Bill seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth and I now have a new adviser called Tracey.

Oh dear, she’s definitely not Bill! In fact after she put me through the third degree proving she knows nothing about either me or my business, I’m starting to question both my desire and my ability to do this. She has agreed to meet me but what with her holidays and her other appointments it is going to be 4 weeks before I can see her. I could probably get an earlier appointment to see the Queen and the Queen would probably have taken the time to find out more about me before speaking to me… looks like I’m on my own again. That reminds me, I haven’t heard anything from my mentor – I will make a note to ring them tomorrow for a chat. Oh well, onwards and upwards!

Me x

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Spotlight on‌

Giuditta Meneghetti Giuditta Meneghetti is an academic who has recently secured a prestigious post as Curriculum Leader for Business and Public Services at Barking & Dagenham College (BDC), which will begin in August of this year. Giuditta will be influential in rebranding and reshaping the structure and delivery of the college’s Entrepreneur and Enterprise courses, and in preparation for her new and exciting role, Giuditta has become a member of the IOEE. This month we chatted to Giuditta about her drive to inspire young people, and how her relationship with the IOEE will help her students to flourish in the field of enterprise and entrepreneurship.

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Giuditta may be at the beginning of a new chapter of her enterprising in education story, but she already has a wealth of experience, knowledge and qualifications behind her that she is excited to bring to her new role.

She has a background in teaching people with barriers to education and employment, and has delivered numerous SFEDI courses. Giuditta says: “It’s about opening the door for people. There are a lot of misconceptions that can put people off the idea of education, enterprise and entrepreneurship, but I’ve seen people from all walks of life and all levels of education make successful businesses; people with language barriers, mental health issues, physical disabilities, criminal convictions. There’s often an idea that formal education, university or running a business is only for certain types of ‘clever people’, but this only holds people back from their actual potential.”

With her recent work with JCP contracts such as the Work Program and the NEA (New Enterprise Allowance), there is one particular heart-warming success story that Giuditta was a part of, that she says never fails to inspire her: “I worked with a lady in Southampton through the Work Program, and she had a serious struggle with fibromyalgia. She had real confidence issues and was very nervous, and we began working together on a 10-week course to develop her business idea. She was getting baby clothes, toys and other items that had hardly been used, and sorting them, cleaning them, repairing any little bits, and then selling bundles of baby items for next to nothing to help mums who were struggling to make ends meet.

Within three weeks of the course her whole image had changed - she had confidence in herself, she was dressing differently, and with no previous IT skills she designed and launched a simple website; and on a business note - she was making 100% profit!

“One of her ambitions was to take herself and her partner to a restaurant for a meal, as they’d never been to a restaurant together since they met. Before the 10 weeks

were up, she contacted me to tell me that she’d booked a table. Lots of people had written her off due to being unemployed for such a long time. When she set up her own website and her Mum asked her who did it, she replied, ‘I did - I’m a businesswoman now’. It was one of her proudest moments.”

Giuditta is working alongside Barking & Dagenham College’s Business Manager to create an environment where students have a more hands-on approach to learning, and part of this means that the students will actually be actively involved in the college rebrand, rather than simply benefiting from the changes:

“

There are a lot of misconceptions that can put people off the idea of education, enterprise and entrepreneurship, but I’ve seen people from all walks of life and all levels of education make successful businesses.”

“What we want is for the students to be learning from doing, not just sitting in a classroom, writing with a textbook and a computer, and this is an amazing opportunity to learn branding and business skills. They’ll be involved in such things as interactive workshops, running their own temporary pop-up shops, visual branding - and we’re holding a competition to design the ‘BDC for Business’ logo.

“They’ll learn about marketing too - there’s already a hair and beauty salon and a restaurant one the main site, as well as a number of other BDC businesses that will benefit from new creative marketing techniques, so one of the students’ first challenges will be remodelling this business school and creating a PR and marketing campaign together.”

Giuditta says that as the landscape of employment is

Turn over to continue ...

Think Enterprise | 19

changing, the approach to teaching entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial skills needs to evolve with it: “For me, often the problem is that students aren’t getting the gist of what the real working world is like. The working world is fast-paced and we have all of these amazing resources to help us prepare, but they need to be used properly. Education needs to include experience of the the reality of life and all the changes it will throw at you - such as moving house, technological changes, health issues, or starting a family - and work with that reality.

That’s what I see with my new role at the college - a fantastic environment with incredible resources, but we need to utilise all of those to their full effect.”

With the start of her new job approaching just around the corner, Giuditta tells us what fuelled her decision to become an Academic Member of the IOEE: “I’m a huge advocate of what the IOEE does, and this is absolutely the right time for me to begin forging relationships and partnerships that will help me to

connect to other entrepreneurs. I also want to be able to use my position as an IOEE member to benefit my students. I’m not a one-man-band, and I certainly don’t have all the answers - there will be lots of people more qualified than me to advise students, so it will be great to see it help students to flourish.”

The launch of the new rebranded Business Department will coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Week in November this year, when the students’ efforts will be showcased and celebrated. Giuditta says: “Their work doesn’t end there, though - as the students will be organising the event too! This new role is going to be hard work, but I absolutely love a challenge and I’m ready for it. What’s really exciting is that, despite this being education, there is the potential for students to gain so much more than a qualification. These skills can set you up for the rest of your life, and the knowledge that I can make a difference to the students’ lives and futures is what motivates me, and makes me jump out of bed in the morning.”

Spotlight On...

To meet some of our fantastic members and hear how the IOEE has helped them, please visit: http://ioee.uk/category/member-spotlight/ Will we be shining the Spotlight On you next?

If you’re an IOEE Member and interested in being featured, we’d love to hear from you.

Please contact: newsletter@ioee.uk

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TM

The search is on for

Guest Writers and Enterprise Experts!

Are you an IOEE Fellow?

Do you have exceptional writing and/or design skills? Are you interested in sharing your expertise with a large audience of entrepreneurs, educators, and small business owners?

If so, please visit http://ioee.uk/write-for-us/ to find out more about IOEE’s Think Enterprise blogging opportunities!

Think Enterprise | 21

A new country, a new language and a brand-new career in the UK there’s no stopping Fathi Mehdi.

This is his inspirational CCBED story.

Fathi Mehdi’s journey in enterprise and education is truly inspirational. He arrived in the UK as a refugee only a couple of years ago, and he found himself homeless, speaking very little English, and being uncertain of how to get a job - least of all embarking upon a long-term career. However, despite these enormous challenges, Fathi has thrived through his relationship with CCBED (Centre for Capacity Building & Enterprise Development); a Bristol-based social enterprise that helps people in its local community to gain employment.

For our third CCBED article, we chatted to Fathi about how he found his confidence, getting his qualification, and starting a professional career in the UK. When Fathi first came to the UK he lived in Glasgow for six months, but it was when he moved to Bristol in 2015 that the community support available provided him with the platform to really begin his enterprising and employability journey.

Ashley Community Housing is a refugee resettlement service in Bristol, Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and they helped Fathi to settle into his new city and create the strong foundations that would help him on his route to finding a good job. Fathi says: “Ashley Community Housing is where it began. They were so lovely, they helped me with so much. I was homeless at the time and they found me accommodation, and my English wasn’t very good back then, but I was able to study English through them too. I also studied other courses in their learning centre, such as IT and mathematics.”

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Through Ashley Community Housing, Fathi was able to develop his employability and language skills, and after only a short time he had his Level 1 qualification in English. However, despite making big steps in his education, Fathi was still finding it very difficult to get a job: “I didn’t know how to start my career in the UK. It’s really hard.

Even after doing these IT and maths courses and so on, it was still very difficult. I did many interviews, but if you don’t get the job, you don’t get any feedback - so I knew that there was something missing, but I didn’t know what it was. And because I’m not from here, finding work can be harder, especially if you’re not local and it’s a new culture that you don’t know.”

Through Ashley Community Housing’s Community Engagement Partner, Dr. Attia, Fathi was put in touch with CCBED to help him to get further support and develop skills that would help him to transition into the working world, and Fathi says how the experience has changed everything for him: “To be honest, when I started the course with CCBED, I frankly didn’t expect it to be this useful! But after I started the course, I didn’t want to miss a single class. The tutor, Jane Franklin, was so supportive of me, and my classmates were very supportive and helpful too. Before the course, I didn’t know what to expect, but once I was there I got the meaning of the whole thing. I learnt about motivation and demotivation and how it effects everything in the work place, I learnt about what my strengths and weaknesses were, and I learnt about the real meaning of

down on paper gave him the motivation to start working towards his future: “Putting myself down on paper helped me to learn about who I was and what I wanted. Before the course, I was lost and didn’t know what I wanted, but writing it down gave me the chance to think about these things and be able to talk about myself. It gave me a confidence that I didn’t have before the course.”

Two months ago, Fathi was awarded his CCBED Level 2 Award in Enterprise and Employability, and not only did he receive an award to celebrate this fantastic achievement, but he actually helped to organise and run the event, as well as getting up on stage and giving a talk to the guests: “I helped with everything from setting up the hall to welcoming people and showing them around, and then I got up on stage and spoke about my experience with CCBED and Ashley Community Housing. I was really quite nervous about doing it, but Jane encouraged me to be open, and said that she knew I’d got more confidence now. At the beginning of this course, if you had asked me to stand in front of all these people and talk about myself, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do that.

But I did it!”

teamwork. I didn’t quite know the meaning of that before, but everyone in the class had to really work together and help each other.”

However, Fathi says that the most important lesson that he learnt throughout the experience, was the importance of selfbelief and confidence: “That thing that I said I was missing, but didn’t know what it was - that was confidence. And it’s a really important thing to have you have to find it. One day, Jane said to me, ‘if you don’t have confidence in yourself, then you’ll never do anything!’. She told me that I needed to be open and to believe in myself. She said, ‘you have lots of skills, such as being really good at IT, so don’t tell me that you aren’t good at anything!’. She said that I could do something, and something that could benefit the community too, that we just needed to refocus on my confidence and would change everything. And she was right.”

Part of the process with CCBED was to set ‘Smart Goals’, and Fathi says that putting these short-term and long-terms goals

All of Fathi’s hard work with CCBED has paid off, and he is now waiting to start a new job as a care assistant - which was one of his long-term Smart Goals. However, ‘waiting’ does not mean any ‘down time’ for Fathi, as he is busier than ever - working in three volunteering positions to further develop his skills and experience, and giving back to the community that supported him on his road to getting employment in the UK: “I volunteer at Ashley Community Housing and Easton Family Centre - and a month ago I started volunteering at CCBED too!

They have helped me so much, so I wanted to be able to do something in reverse and give something back. But it helps me lots too, not just because I am getting experience working in an office and doing admin, but on a personal level - getting to know the culture, practicing speaking the language, and meeting lots of people and making new friends. At the beginning of the course I felt like I just wanted to get an education and pass my exam and that was all, but I’ve got so much more than that.

CCBED has been amazing, and I’m still learning new things every single day.”

To find out more about IOEE Academy, CCBED, please visit: http://www.c-cbed.com/

Think Enterprise | 23

Escape the 9 to 5 and become a Digital Entrepreneur Written by Paul Freeman

I’m pretty sure that everyone reading this will be able to associate with at least some of the pains that working for others in a stereotypical “traditional” business often presents.

I’m talking about all the things like the daily commute chaos, being stuck in traffic on the motorway or trying to get a seat on the train or tube, and that’s before even arriving at the office to be subjected to 8 hours of workplace stress and demands, and all the pointless meetings too (which half the time end up being nothing more than glorified coffee and social gatherings with no real productive outcome anyway!) – you are probably smiling now because you know it’s true!

In a way, it’s also sad that there are still many people out there, experiencing some, or all, of those issues daily, and haven’t yet discovered the benefits of becoming an entrepreneur – in fact the nearest they have got to it is shouting at the TV during Dragons Den! Of course, it also takes a special person to become an entrepreneur and it requires motivation, ambition, and the right mindset and approach.

But with that said, there is no better motivation than being able to create freedom, and lifestyle choices by being your own boss. You can’t put a price on being able to spend more time with your family.

Being able to watch your children grow up – rather than constantly missing your child’s bedtime stories for example because you were late home from the office or got delayed in traffic for the fourth time that week.

So, that brings me to the main content and reason for this blog post. I wanted to share some of my story with you in the hope that it inspires and motivates you to develop your own journey as an entrepreneur.

I won’t bore you with the exact day to day history of my background (although I have written an eBook which follows my journey for those of you who would like to know a little more).

However; after spending the majority of around 25 years working in commercial technology sales, product management & marketing,

24 | Think Enterprise

and business development, you can imagine that I have numerous stories to tell about the trials and tribulations of employment, recession, life on the road in sales, and all the issues mentioned at the start of this article.

The other reason for this blog post today though, is to also share with you a part of my journey which has allowed me to move from the more traditional “bricks and mortar” style business, to that of a Digital Lifestyle. Indeed, these days I like to consider myself as a “Digital Entrepreneur”.

Having become sick of the daily commute and workplace stress, which eventually impacted my health, I had a “light-bulb” moment – in fact, I “really did” have a light-bulb moment – because I decided to setup an LED Lighting company!

To be fair, that element of my business is still growing, however I expect it to be hugely overtaken by the other element of my business – Digital Lifestyle Mentoring, and the focus of this blog.

You see, when I setup the original lighting company, I did it because after a period of illness caused through workplace stress and issues caused by my employer at the time, I needed to escape that lifestyle, and having been immersed in the market and technology of LED Lighting, at the time it seemed like the most obvious choice.

However; that’s also my other point, because it only “seemed” like my most obvious choice because I was kind of following the typical human life blueprint almost following the system like a sheep, and not exploring new directions… it goes something like this… we go to nursery, followed by primary school, secondary school, maybe college or university, and then we think we “have” to go and work for others, so we join the rest of the 9 to 5 rat-race!

And, when you think that the average adult spends around 40 hours a week, 48 weeks a year, and around 40 or maybe even 50 years of their life working – that’s a whole lot of stress!

Getting back to my LED Lighting company, whilst I was now able to work from home on my terms, nothing had really changed in a sense… not only was I now sitting at my desk for much more than

“

Having become sick of the daily commute and workplace stress, which eventually impacted my health, I had a ‘light-bulb’ moment - in fact, I really did have a light-bulb moment - as I decided to set up an LED Lighting company.”

40 hours a week, I was also working nights and weekends too, and in terms of the actual workload itself, I still had to deal with suppliers and stock, logistics, insurance, and countless site surveys and meetings just to close a deal.

products that I could sell or even licence to others, and suddenly, my workload also reduced due to the automation possibilities that digital can provide too, and that’s the whole point really, about being able to create freedom.

Don’t get me wrong, I am of course very grateful for the business from LED Lighting – and there is nothing better than the satisfaction of knowing it is all your own work, and profit, and the feeling of creating results directly for you and your family.

The early success of being able to create and control my own products and services, also meant that I wanted to give something back and to mentor and help others to the same too.

But during all this process, I realised that longer term I wanted to expand the business direction into “Digital” – I carried out thousands of hours of research, and I even undertook a Diploma in Digital Marketing. I guess the plan was for the LED lighting to initially create revenue because I was already in that industry; but with the aim for it to allow me to expand into other areas in due course.

So, Why digital?

What I very quickly realised was that the transition to digital much sooner meant, no more stock issues, no more dealing with suppliers, no more warehouse and logistic issues, and no more cold-calling!

My overheads were literally halved in an instant, and my profit doubled in an instant! I had full control and copyright of my own

My core business now focuses on doing just that, through a range of products such as eBooks, online video courses, and 1-2-1 mentoring /workshops.

Most importantly, being able to show people how to pretty much automate everything, so that they do create true freedom going forward, and the ability to work anywhere they want, when they want, working less hours to create income on demand through a digital lifestyle.

You and I are fortunate to live in a time that has never happened previously in history, we now have instant access to multiple technology channels, and global opportunities, and there has never been a better time to become a Digital Entrepreneur.

To find out more about PMH Digital, visit https://pmhdigital.co.uk/

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The Woo ‘B’ Woo Fairy’s mentoring journey, from a passion for fashion to sprinkling her magic in the vintage wedding world…

Jane Baines is the Woo ‘B’ Woo Fairy; sprinkling her own unique brand of fairy dust through her self-starting company and bespoke service of vintage-style wedding décor and fresh floral arrangements. Jane worked in the fashion industry for almost three decades before she decided to follow her passion and ‘go it alone’. Through the IOEE, Jane was paired up with mentor Jonathan Wales, a Bank Manager for Lloyds Banking Group, and they spent a year working together to help Woo ‘B’ Woo blossom into the successful company it is today. As another wedding season is underway, we chatted to Jane and Jonathan about making difficult business decisions, developing confidence, and all things flower power.

Jane’s Story Jane originally trained as a fashion designer, and worked in the fast-paced and high-powered fashion industry as a designer of womenswear for 26 years. She was based in Yorkshire, but her successful career took her all over the world. Jane says: “It was a wonderful, amazing time, and some of it was just fabulous.

I was often jetting off on garment and range development trips, and inspiration shopping trips. New York, Milan, Paris, LA, India, Istanbul, Hong Kong; I got to travel and work with some extraordinary people and see some incredible things.”

However, Jane says that it was when she became pregnant with her

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son, who is now nine years old, it was the beginning of readjusting what she wanted - and needed - from her working life: “Basically, my job was dealing with the massive pressures of deadlines and moving goalposts, and it was impossible to plan any sort of ‘you’ time. You’d have a holiday booked and then an extra range would be added, and this often led to working weekends and late nights at short notice, so you couldn’t necessarily have the weekend off anymore… after my son was born I requested to go part-time, but it was a no. I knew that something needed to change, but I didn’t know what or how, and I was almost looking for something to show me the way.”

“

Jonathan helped me to cut through the fog, to focus, and to take a step back, set out bullet points of goals and make a plan of action. It was exactly what I needed.”

At this time, Jane was designing maternity clothes for a big High Street retail name, and there was a community of creative designers, like herself, who put charity craft fairs together. It wasn’t planned, but this is how Woo ‘B’ Woo all began: “Most of the other designers at these craft fairs were young talented things, and I ended up becoming a bit of a ‘mother figure’ - and

getting called The Baines Fairy! Others would call me Janey-WaneyWoo-Woo, so it was a merging of nicknames!”

At these craft events, Jane upcycled vintage china, making such things as beautiful floral cake stands and delicate teacup scented candles, and she began giving them to friends and family as presents for occasions like baby showers, hen parties and weddings. It wasn’t until the maternity department that she worked for announced its closing that Jane realised a redundancy could be her window of opportunity for a new professional venture: “I was being advised that I could be relocated, but I held out for that redundancy! I knew it was my time to set up Woo ‘B’ Woo, to work for myself, to create something that made me happy, something that would mean I was able to spend proper time with my family.”

Jane was put in touch with Jonathan Wales through Paul Harper, the Mentoring Manager at the IOEE, and Jane and Jonathan spent 2016 working together to help in those early stages of Woo ‘B’ Woo, meeting up every couple of months to assess what had happened in the last few weeks, and set objectives for the next few. Jane says: “When we first met, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I had an idea that I might be a bit like Interflora and operate as an online florist, but I opened it up and evolved past that. I knew what I was good at, I had a strong portfolio, and I’m pretty good at marketing myself - but I didn’t have a clue about business planning and strategies and finances. Jonathan helped take all of the information I was bombarding him with and put it into some sort of order! He

helped me to cut through the fog, to focus, and to take a step back, set out bullet points of goals and make a plan of action. It was exactly what I needed.”

Jane says that as well as the practical business knowledge and advice that Jonathan was able to impart, having a mentor also helped her to grow her confidence in herself and her abilities, which was vital to the evolution of Woo ‘B’ Woo: “You know, you need to tell somebody else what you’ve achieved for them to then tell you what you’ve achieved… because you just can’t tell yourself, as you don’t believe it! Setting up your own business is actually really scary, and a lot of the time you think you don’t know what you’re doing and keep asking yourself ‘will it even work?’ - Jonathan told me that I was too hard on myself, and he’s been so supportive. It’s been a shaky journey at times, but I have a confidence that I didn’t have at the beginning.”

Jane says that the mentoring scheme was also a positive and uplifting experience in showing her the free support available to new startups, after being approached with so many costly ‘opportunities’: “You know, I can’t believe this wonderful mentoring experience is free! When you’re starting up a business, you’ll go to these networking events and people will say, ‘come along to this conference that will help you!’, and you’ll pay £10 for entry with coffee and people approach you and say, ‘for a set fee per month, I can help you and your business to develop’, and you simply don’t have that money when you’re starting out! I think you’re quite

Think Enterprise | 27

vulnerable as a new start-up, so to have this mentoring resource at no cost is amazing.”

Jane is now in the throes of Woo ‘B’ Woo’s second summer wedding season, and her business is busier than ever: “I have worked so, so hard, I cannot tell you! However, I might work long hours, but I get to do it from home - I can sit with my little boy when he gets home and tells me all about school, and that’s invaluable. And another one of the privileges of working for yourself is that I get to choose who I work with, so I can surround myself with nice people, and that makes for a happy life! There’s still pressure, but it’s completely different, because it’s my pressures on my own terms. Woo ‘B’ Woo is a million percent ‘me’.

“I get so much more personal satisfaction from this. In the fashion industry, you complete a collection and then move straight onto the next one, whereas now I get to actually see how happy my work makes my clients, so it’s extremely rewarding. I work at really beautiful old buildings and I often find myself walking through the grounds at, say, Cannon Hall or Oakwell Hall, and I can almost feel the people who used to walk there in their gowns. I look around at these gorgeous places I get to work at, and I feel so incredibly lucky.”

Jonathan’s Story Jonathan works for Lloyds Banking Group as a branch manager in Halifax. Three years ago, he was seconded by the bank to work as a business contractor for BITC (Business in the Community) in Huddersfield, where he helped charities, social enterprises and community groups; primarily by linking them up to businesses that would be able to offer them the support and guidance that they needed to grow and develop.

It was through this that Jonathan discovered the opportunity of becoming a one-on-one business mentor through Lloyds’ relationship with the IOEE. Jonathan says: “My work with BITC was similar in lots of ways, so I was very interested in becoming a mentor, and I went through the mentor training that was arranged by Paul Harper, and was paired with Jane at the end of 2015. Initially, you ask yourself what right you have to be advising someone with a vintage-style floral wedding company, when you’ve worked in a bank all your life! But that’s the first thing you learn about being a mentor - you’re not an advisor; it’s not up to you to dive in and tell her what she should be doing, giving her ideas and answers. It’s your job to listen, to ask sufficient questions to draw out from her potential solutions, to make sure that she’s

28 | Think Enterprise

looking at everything and hasn’t missed anything, and to help guide her into a position where she can reach her own conclusions and make balanced decisions for herself.”

“

Mentoring is challenging, it makes you think in a way that you don’t have to in your day-to-day job, and it broadens your experience and knowledge of the communities we live and work in, which is invaluable.”

The shape of the mentoring was to meet every couple of months and look at any problems that had arisen for Jane, and Jonathan would then help her to look at various solutions and courses of action. Jonathan says that one of the recurring considerations was Woo ‘B’ Woo’s price point, and that they spent a lot of time talking about the financial side of the business, such as turnover and profit: “I thought that Jane was undercharging, but she was frightened that she’d price herself out of the market. We talked about abandoning her online sales and focusing completely on the events side of things, so that she was doing fewer but more profitable jobs, but Jane was concerned about letting anything go that could mean possibly losing some income at first, and didn’t want to turn anything away.

“And there wasn’t really a right or wrong here - doing fewer more profitable jobs was a solution, but not necessarily the solution.

When you set a business up, all these things are potentially an issue all at the same time, which means there are so many decisions to make. But that’s what being a mentor is all about - being someone to bounce ideas off, not making the decisions for them.”

Jonathan and Jane spent 2016 working together as mentor and mentee, and after the busy 2017 summer wedding season is over, they are planning to restart their mentoring relationship again in September of this year: “I’m really looking forward to meeting up with Jane - and although the mentee is, of course, the focus of the relationship and I get great satisfaction from helping, I get plenty out of the experience on a personal level too. Mentoring is challenging, it makes you think in a way that you don’t have to in your day-to-day job, and it broadens your experience and knowledge of the communities we live and work in, which is invaluable.

“Jane and I have kept in touch and I know that this year Woo ‘B’ Woo has been busier than ever before. She’s incredibly talented at what she does and she is an exceptionally hard-working individual with a drive to succeed. She absolutely knows she wants to make this happen, so it will be exciting to meet up again and find out everything that’s happened, and what the future holds for Woo ‘B’ Woo.”

INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT HOW MENTORING COULD HELP YOUR BUSINESS? Mentoring has a strong track record of helping businesses meet their objectives. The Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs (IOEE) helps match businesses with mentors from the banking industry, who are able to give an hour of their time per month, across the following regions:

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North East

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Yorkshire

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West Midlands

Central London

The volunteer bank mentors offer a wide variety of business experience and expertise with small and micro businesses, social enterprises and creative businesses.

Are you interested in meeting a mentor?

For more information contact Paul Harper paul.harper@ioee.uk or 07715 905638. * To be eligible to receive support you business must be established and begun trading.

Our dedicated volunteer mentors are passionate about helping their mentees.

“

The key skill I have taken from this experience is true active listening. I have applied those skills at home and at work and I am finding the results are having a lasting impact.

The reason I continue to mentor today is the positive feeling I get when I help others achieve their dreams and ambitions. It’s a great way to give something back to the local community through sharing my knowledge and experience.”

Carl Beardon

IOEE Volunteer Mentor IAB Small Business Mentor of the Year 2016 award winner

“

My mentor’s support and level of understanding has been exceptional, which was the key in identifying and overcoming issues as they arose.

With his experience I have become self sufficient working through the challenges my business faces and to identify new business partners who have exporting experience.”

Dorota Grabkowska

Founder of Fanatic House

TOGETHER, IOEE AND TONI&GUY have developed a visionary programme, bringing together the very best of enterprise education expertise and the UK’s leading creative brand. Designed specifically to appeal to those studying fashion, hairdressing, beauty and design courses, this programme hones entrepreneurial capacity and encourages an enterprising outlook.

For more information about either delivering or undertaking Creating Enterprise, click here to go to toniandguy.ioee.uk

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To discuss this please contact the Marketing Team at newsletter@ioee.uk.

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