Joseph Black and Oliver Jacobs are the founders of tech firm UniTaskr which helps struggling students find flexible work and real-life experiences with some of the world’s leading companies including Amazon, Sony, Spotify, and Red Bull.

The company’s success has been built upon its technology platform and user app, which regularly tops the “Lifestyle & Business” category on Apple’s App Store, thanks to a workforce of over 300,000 verified students, offering services such as blogging, digital marketing, photography to over 20,000 client businesses.

Earlier this year, UniTaskr entered the US market where it has added thousands of members to its network, with anywhere up to 1,000 students joining every day. Such figures have enabled UniTaskr to surpass its projected targets for 2023, with an 80% increase in revenue and 30% expansion in its total user base, solidifying its reputation as the “go-to” provider of skilled freelance services.

Why are multinational companies like Amazon and Spotify so keen to utilise a student workforce?

JB – Multinational corporations like Amazon and Spotify value the student workforce for its inherent agility, fresh perspectives, and tech-savvy nature. Students bring a dynamic blend of innovative ideas, adaptability, and a pulse on evolving trends, making them an invaluable asset in industries seeking modern insights and nimble approaches. Their diverse skill and cutting-edge tech familiarity, align perfectly with the fast-paced, innovation-driven environments these companies operate within. Hiring students not only infuses new energy but also introduces a wealth of contemporary thinking and digital fluency, essential for driving forward-thinking strategies within these global entities.

Since founding UniTaskr how has your market changed and how have you adapted to it?

OJ – The market landscape has evolved drastically, witnessing a global surge in demand for youth based freelance talent. To adapt, UniTaskr focused on enhancing its technological platform, introducing innovative new tools like the ‘UGC Studio,’ and strategically targeting industry leaders. This journey involved continuous feedback-driven enhancements, scaling operations, and catering to the diverse needs of an expanding user base. By embracing these changes, UniTaskr positioned itself as a responsive and agile platform, effectively meeting the evolving demands and expectations of both freelancers and clients within the dynamic freelance ecosystem.

What factors influenced your decision to expand your business into the USA and what challenges did you have to overcome in the process?

OJ – The decision to expand into the USA was influenced by the country’s tech-friendly ecosystem, vast market potential, and innovative landscape. Challenges included navigating different regulatory frameworks, understanding diverse consumer behaviours, and establishing a brand foothold in an evolving market. Adapting our strategies to resonate with American audiences and comprehensively understanding regional nuances were crucial. Overcoming these obstacles involved meticulous market research, agile adaptation of our business model, and forming strategic partnerships to effectively establish UniTaskr’s presence within the US market.

How does the business environment in the USA align with your overall business strategy and goals?

JB – The business environment in the USA remarkably aligns with our overarching strategy at UniTaskr. The US offers an exciting opportunity due to its emphasis on innovation and robust entrepreneurial spirit. This alignment perfectly complements our global ambition of revolutionising youth based freelance work. The market’s receptiveness to innovative solutions and disruptive technologies resonates with our aim to continuously evolve and offer cutting-edge solutions. UniTaskr’s strategic goals of expansion and innovation align seamlessly with the USA’s business landscape, fostering an environment conducive to achieving our long-term objectives.

UniTaskr recently secured a million-pound investment. How will the business utilise it?

OJ – Our recent million-pound investment will be pivotal in steering our growth trajectory. The funds will primarily fuel several key areas within our business. We aim to allocate a significant portion to scaling our operations, expanding our user base, and enhancing our technological infrastructure. Additionally, we’ll invest in further research and development efforts to introduce new features, ensuring an enriched user experience. Strategic market penetration, particularly in vital regions like the US and UK, forms a crucial part of our investment strategy. Overall, these funds will be instrumental in driving UniTaskr’s innovation, market expansion, and sustained growth as a leading freelance platform.

What is the key in your mind to attracting and securing investment?

JB – In my view, the key to attracting and securing investment lies in several fundamental aspects. Firstly, having a compelling and clear vision for the business is paramount. Investors are drawn to innovative ideas with a strong value proposition and a well-defined market need. Additionally, demonstrating a robust and scalable business model, backed by concrete data and market validation, is crucial. Building and showcasing a passionate, skilled team capable of executing the vision effectively significantly boosts investor confidence. Furthermore, fostering transparent and open communication, coupled with a track record of consistent progress and adaptability to market dynamics, forms the bedrock of attracting and securing valuable investments.

What challenges did you and your partner have to overcome to secure funding?

JB – Securing funding presented several challenges. One major hurdle was proving our platform’s scalability and market viability, especially as a relatively young company. Convincing investors of UniTaskr’s potential amidst market uncertainties was challenging. Additionally, differentiating ourselves in a competitive landscape required showcasing our unique value proposition effectively. Overcoming these obstacles involved persistent efforts in presenting data-backed evidence, a compelling narrative of our growth trajectory, and demonstrating the platform’s value proposition clearly. Building trust and credibility with potential investors was an ongoing process that required consistent dedication and resilience from both myself and my partner.

How important is relationship building when it comes to securing funding? What advice can you give to our readers who are starting their fundraising journey?

OJ – Relationship building is integral to securing funding. Establishing genuine connections and fostering trust with potential investors is crucial. Building strong relationships requires open, transparent communication, showcasing progress, and aligning goals and values. Advice for those starting their fundraising journey: Focus on building long-term relationships. Clearly articulate your vision and demonstrate how investor support aligns with their interests. Leverage networking opportunities, attend industry events, and seek mentorship. Remember, it’s not just about securing funds; it’s about building partnerships that support your business’s growth and success.

Read more:
Companies like Amazon and Sony are hiring students in droves – Meet the UK tech entrepreneurs supplying them

Business Matters spoke with Andrew McNeill, co-founder of LX Leaders, a training and coaching consultancy helping leaders and teams to thrive in high pressure environments.  We find out more about the business, what they do and what inspired him and his co-founder, Anika Wagner to set it up.

What do you do at LX Leaders?

We help leaders develop foundational skills to improve their capacity to lead and enable them to thrive under pressure. These skills sit beneath the core capabilities that leaders may have already established. The techniques we share improve leaders’ ability to self-regulate, to respond rather than to react, to communicate and make decisions. We offer one to one sessions, team programmes, keynote speaking and facilitation. We work with clients to establish the programme or one off activity that will meet their needs.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Having experienced high pressure environments and led large complex programmes and teams we had to find techniques to be able to survive and lead effectively. I have also witnessed leaders sink under pressure or lead ineffectively.  I have a passion for sharing the techniques and skills we have developed that can help people thrive under pressure and support their teams by leading in ways that we know work.

Who do you admire?

I admire every client I meet! I am constantly amazed by what people manage to achieve despite the pressure they are under. Many organisations have fantastic aspirations for wellbeing and yet the corporate, public and third sector environments we come across seem to be universally tough. The leaders and teams we support work incredibly hard and achieve so much that it would be hard not to admire them.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I wish I had discovered the techniques and tools that I now use and share with others earlier in my career. I look back and can’t quite believe that I survived for as long as I did without them. But eventually the pressure did catch up with me and I found the techniques out of necessity when I was quite far into my leadership journey. That’s why at LXLeaders we are keen to work with people early in their careers as well as with more established leaders.

What defines your way of doing business?

Honest, accessible and data driven.

Honest: We are straightforward with our clients and speak from experience. The techniques we teach are ones we use ourselves and are proven to be effective when working in high pressure environments.

Accessible: We offer a range of price points to make our services as accessible as possible.

Data driven: We use feedback questionnaires to test what works and continuously look to improve our programmes.

What advice would you give someone starting out?

Take care of yourself. You are the best asset you have and your career is a marathon not a sprint. Also listen to others who have gone before you. Reach out to leaders in the organisation you have joined and ask them about their leadership experience and approach. Most will be flattered to have been asked and these conversations can give you some insights that can help inform your own leadership style

Read more:
Getting to Know You Profile: Andrew McNeill

We talk to Paul Eatock, the managing director of Eatock Design & Build about how he and his partner Jeni specialise in designing and project management in the construction sector.

With over a decade of experience in construction and project management, I thrive on finding innovative solutions to create the ideal workspace for our clients. I take clients through a four step process; consult, translate, design and build, to deliver projects which are perfectly tailored to our clients. Taking a collaborative approach, I make sure that clients are heavily involved throughout the process, as communication is key to achieving the best possible results with fit-outs. Together with my partner Jeni who specialises in design, we oversee every aspect of our projects to produce detailed fitouts and seamless delivery.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

My journey in the fit-out industry has been quite a ride, filled with challenges and a lot of determination. The dynamics of the industry underwent significant transformations amid the pandemic, discouraging many from embarking on entrepreneurial journeys. Armed with a decade of expertise in design, construction, and fit-out, I embraced the opportunity to launch Eatock Design & Build (EDB). The pandemic was far from the ideal time to launch a new business, especially as the dramatically changed business landscape saw many well established businesses struggle. I’ve never been someone who shies away from a challenge.

In fact, I saw it as a unique opportunity. With many workspaces emptying out, we made the pandemic a great time to start a business, recording an exponential turnover in our first year. Despite the homeworking boom, we’ve only accelerated since celebrating over 200 project appointments in just three years across a range of sectors.

I want to develop EDB into the number one, multi-award winning, ‘go to’ fitout name. We don’t create workspaces for the recognition, we do so for the legacy of our clients and the betterment of the people that work within them. But at the same time, we’re immensely proud of our portfolio of work.

Who do you admire?

I truly admire my team as they are the heart of EDB. With an amalgamation of diverse talents and skillsets, collectively they bring to life into any vision we put forward to our clients.

As a business owner, seeing the collective efforts of the team manifest into tangible successes gives me a deep sense of pride and fuels the drive to overcome challenges. My team is a source of inspiration, propelling me to face the future with confidence and optimism for the business.

I may not always have the answer myself, but I can maintain confidence that someone within my team will do or be there to offer a helping hand. Real, long term success is born from team collaboration.

What defines your way of doing business?

I always want to learn and no one can ever learn or know everything. I’m a doer – I am always wanting to learn more from practical experience and if we hit a challenge in a project, I thrive on coming up with a solution. I like to soak things up as I learn and put these new ideas into practice in creative projects.

It’s not about what I wish I knew in the past; it’s about how embracing a fresh perspective which can drive my skills forward. I believe that by consistently adopting a fresh approach to work, you can discover new opportunities you might have otherwise missed. Working across a vast array of sector fitouts, all the way from labs to restaurants, helps me consistently bring a fresh perspective to our fitouts.

We don’t follow a set template at Eatock Design & Build, the way we work and what we do is powered by the want to do what’s best for the client, and by doing that, we create schemes which, while personalised to the client, have our own individual stamp on them too.

We will continue to take on challenging projects, because it’s in those moments that you learn the most. If that means taking on a client in an alien sector or working to strict limitations, we’re confident enough in our own abilities to know that we can deliver workspaces that are perfectly tailored for longevity, productivity and staff wellbeing. When we handover a project and the client is taken aback by how far we’ve exceeded expectations, it’s an incredible feeling. You don’t get tired of that.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Approaching every project with an open mind and staying positive. I know it can sound a little clichéd, but when I think back to that period, just before I started EDB in the depths of the pandemic, I wouldn’t have arrived where I am today without a positive mindset.

Having a skilled and reliable team is instrumental, allowing you to leverage each other’s strengths. When confronted with challenges, being open to letting any team member take the lead in that moment can be immensely beneficial. If that team member is the one best equipped to solve that particular problem, they should lead. It isn’t about positions and titles – leadership isn’t about ego. The best leaders know when to lead and when to let other’s drive a project for the benefit of the project.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Paul Eatock, MD, Eatock Design & Build

We got to sit down with Susannah Davda, Founder of The Shoe Consultant about why she is so passionate about the shoe sector.

What do you do at The Shoe Consultant?

I help people to start successful shoe brands. I launched The Shoe Consultant in 2015, offering one-to-one consultancy. I then created my How to Start a Shoe Brand online course, and added The Shoe Community: a membership group for people starting shoe brands.

This year I released a new course How to Photograph Shoes to Sell which is for anyone who wants to take better photos of shoes or sneakers. Whether they are listing them on eBay or other marketplaces, they’re an influencer photographing shoes for social media, or they are starting a shoe brand. Shoes are difficult to photograph well, and good photography can make your footwear stand out from your competitors’.

I am passionate about making the shoe business more accessible to people who want to make a change in the industry.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I had worked in the shoe industry since the late 90s, and after many years of working for brands and retailers, I wanted to start my own business. When I resigned my role as Global Product Manager for a large shoe brand, I created a website listing several services I knew I could do well.

The only service with strong uptake was consultancy for start-up shoe brands. I had no idea up until that point how many people around the world dream of starting a shoe brand but don’t know where to start. The entrepreneurs I work with inspire me every day with their drive, passion and determination.

Who do you admire?

I admire anyone who has started a truly unique business. It takes such bravery! I include my clients and members of The Shoe Community in this group, as well as anyone creating a product or service that is outside the norm. Weird is good when it comes to business, as long as you can gather an audience of fellow weirdos eager to purchase.

Looking back is there anything you would have done differently?

I would have skipped the stage where I charged clients an hourly rate for my consultancy services. I recognise now that I was drastically undercharging for my experience and expertise at that point.

In hindsight I could say that I should have initially focused on just helping startups rather than offering an array of other services for different customer groups. Only when I niched down was I able to focus my marketing efforts on one customer group and scale The Shoe Consultant.

What defines your way of doing business?

I have enjoyed building my company culture to reflect my personal values and ethics. These are: honesty, humanity and practicality. I help my clients create shoe brands which reflect their own values, and develop a meaningful human connection with their potential customers.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

You need to have a concept and vision to start a business, but you also need to be open to the market telling you what it wants. I don’t necessarily mean collecting customer feedback – although that is also beneficial – but watching the sales and being prepared to discontinue unpopular products or services even if they’re your personal favourites.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Susannah Davda, Founder, The Shoe Consultant

Business Matters spoke to Ozgecan Üstgül, the Founder of fashion and textiles AI platform Ai Myth-Ai to find out how the co pay was founded and who Ozgecan admires.

What do you do at Myth?

I am the founder and CEO of Myth-ai, a generative AI solution that helps streamline the design of new and unique patterns, taking the length of the process down from days – and sometimes weeks – to seconds. The idea for Myth-ai was born out of the need for a better solution for designing patterns in fashion and textiles and was developed to primarily help me with my womenswear brand, Women&Women.

I head up business development, product development, investment relationships and marketing. Pretty much everything apart from the software development!

What was the inspiration behind Myth?

The inspiration behind Myth.AI sprouted from a profound journey of self-discovery and a desire to solve the challenges faced in the pattern design process.

After nearly a decade in the corporate world, a question lingered in my mind: “Could I start my own fashion business?” I realised I could – but with my mother and sister by my side. By fusing the expertise in textiles and patterns of my mother, my sisters’ proficiency in 3D design and fashion, and my skills in business development we launched Women&Women.

In 2018 I began thinking ‘why couldn’t technology be harnessed to revolutionise design production?’

For all design processes, my goal was to expedite Women&Women’s growth by employing holistic techniques that involve research, drawing inspiration, and seeking reflections of that inspiration in nature. These are always important to the design process of starting anything new.

Designing patterns and keeping up with fashion trends, colours, and themes for every collection is not sustainable for designers. They also need to create these patterns quickly and turn them into fabrics for industry events. Having a wide variety of designs is crucial for textile companies to make more money. To achieve this, designers need to speed up their creative process and use new technology to come up with fresh ideas.

Furthermore, designers often need to update old patterns to match the latest trends and offer them to customers as options. Unfortunately, there aren’t many technologies that can scan past designs and generate similar ones using artificial intelligence. So, designers still rely heavily on manual work without the help of technology.

And so Myth.AI was born, and now it is possible to create hundreds of amazing and totally unique patterns for fashion, ceramics and interior design purposes in minutes.

Who do you admire?

I drew inspiration from my sister Gökçe Dinçer who is an advanced user of the 3D design program Browzwear. She took creativity to its fullest extent when we were creating Myth technology.

Another person who I admire greatly is Refik Anadol. When embarking on this journey, I was deeply inspired by his work, which transforms millions of data points into artistic technological marvels through deep learning algorithms, showing me that technology can also be applied in the realm of art. He is undoubtedly the most inspiring figure in this field.

– Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
Reflecting on the past, I’ve noticed that when I made choices in tough situations, it was because I thought I had no other options, these decisions didn’t work out well in the long term. In fact, the opposite often happened. When I collaborated with certain individuals, without clear and specific goals (SMART goals), those collaborations ended in failure and disappointment. I know for the future that, even if things feel tough or time pressured, it is valuable to take a step back and take time to consider all options.

What defines your way of doing business?

I believe in questioning and critical thinking. Hard work is essential, but to make a real impact, we must also ask questions and think critically. Without these skills, we risk repeating the same mistakes and failing in our professional lives.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Before embarking on the entrepreneurial journey, make sure you have worked elsewhere first. Working with other people and observing how more experienced colleagues think and what they respect, gives you great on-the-ground insight. Even better if you can learn these insights at a young age, as all experiences you can carry with you into establishing your own business later on. I also would advise any new entrepreneur to be a keen observer; if you wish to change the system, you first need to identify its weaknesses and work in that area.

Also, as a female entrepreneur I have noticed how male-dominated the world of business is, but being an entrepreneur and finding ways to excel and stand out in your own field, you create a world where these things don’t matter. If you’re doing something good and different, all doors open whatever your gender.

I started my professional journey at the age of 12 which is young but I wish I had started even earlier. Life is yours. If you know you want to be an entrepreneur, be in control of your own destiny, or make a name for yourself, the price of waiting and potentially missing out, is a lot more than taking that jump.

Read more:
Getting to Know You: Ozgecan Üstgül, Founder, Myth-Ai

Pumpt is an electric vehicle (EV) charging startup founded by Jordan Fantaay, a serial technology entrepreneur. Jordan started his first company some 25 years ago while at university, developing a multi-room hi-fi and one of the world’s first DAB radios.

Early in his career, he worked with the likes of Sennheiser and Reebok on product development, before joining Dell as a startup advisor to the board. In 2016, Jordan presented to President Obama as part of Dell’s global entrepreneur summit.

What do you do at Pumpt?

Pumpt is an EV charging company committed to helping the UK’s transition to electric mobility and achieving its carbon emissions targets. We offer a range of electric vehicle chargers tailored for both residential and commercial use. Our platform aims to serve the needs of business and residential consumers alike. Residential owners can effortlessly procure fully installed individual chargers, while our corporate collaborations entail personalized packages aligned with specific business objectives.

Central to our ethos of making EV chargers accessible, empowering customers and taking care of the environment, all our chargers are intelligently designed, OZEV-approved, and affordably priced. Our all-in-one approach encompasses charger manufacturing, inclusive installation costs, and pioneering services such as financing, insurance coverage, maintenance services and cloud-based account management to ensure that you will be well taken care of for years to come, not just for now.

Who do you admire?

I admire my parents first, they gave me the space to be ambitious and strive to achieve whatever I wanted, it was the spark of my entrepreneurial journey. I admire Barack Obama! (Who doesn’t), a few and far between leader.

 Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I would have liked to have spent more time in my preparedness in bringing new products to market, I would have liked to have had more senior advisors involved in my business from the outset. Cant beat experience and even better having it on your side as you take a new venture to market in an industry you may not be familiar with.

What defines your way of doing business?

A good way to sum up my way of doing business would be: challenging the status quo and empowering consumers. When we started Pumpt, it was mainly to address issues faced by the average consumer in transitioning to EV. There was a lot of information out there, we’re so used to a system that relies on petrol, and the process to get a home EV charger was expensive and tedious. It was overwhelming. We wanted to undo all that, do right by the environment and our customers so we designed a process that was easy, convenient, and educational. We leveraged current technology so anyone looking to buy an EV can read all about it, buy it, have it installed and manage everything from a phone or computer. It was so important to make everything from information, installation, assistance and pricing accessible— which is why it was important that our entire process and platform is an all-in-one, multifunctional source so that our customers feel at ease and that we’re with them every step of the way.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

There will always be basic, timeless pieces of advice so let’s get those out of the way! Don’t be afraid to take risks. Always be open to everything new or try to look at things from a different perspective. Once you are able to find something you are passionate about, take any opportunity to see where it goes. Make sure you also fine-tune your business philosophy and are doing things for the right reasons.

I’m sure people always say some version of that but you’re also going to need the support of a good team with you. You’ll always have some form of self-confidence if you believe in what you do and no business is without risks but with good people in your corner, you’ll always be set-up for success.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Jordan Fantaay, Founder, Pumpt

Ian Kinnery, founder of coaching firm Kinnery, tells Business Matters about the inspiration behind his business and how he uses his own business experiences, including dealing with mental health problems, to help entrepreneurs.

What do you currently do at Kinnery?

My mission is to help people grow so that they can handle life as a business owner better and more successfully and with ease, without compromising important values. I have been working with leadership teams across a variety of sectors since 2005 and have over three decades of experience starting and scaling businesses.

While every business owner’s journey is a story, with them as the hero, I see my job as making sure it has a happy ending. I’ve been there, done that and have the battle scars to prove it, meaning I come from a place of honesty, empathy and experience.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

My father. Although he passed away when I was just 14, trying to follow in his footsteps nearly cost me everything – including my own life. Now I’ve learned from his mistakes, and mine too, I’m passionate about ensuring other business owners avoid the pitfalls that too often accompany success.

I am and always was unbelievably ambitious, but, while I knew how to manage a business, I had never learned how to manage myself. In the 1990s, while business was booming, I was not.

The stress of battling and pushing and striving since 14 led to severe mental health problems. I was obsessed with work and couldn’t let go, thinking I had to – and could – do everything myself. It came to the point where I could only see one way out.

My success came at the cost of my health, my house, my marriage, my self-esteem – and nearly my life. I don’t want anyone else to end up in the situation I’ve been in, which is what led me to coaching.

Who do you admire?

In part, there are many people I admire, however, there are very few in entirety. When I think about what they all have in common, they are the people that can ride the paradoxes that often come with life and successes. Kevin Sinfield and Martin Johnson have demonstrated both toughness and compassion throughout their careers, which I find admirable.

Similarly, Bill Scott, Alastair Waite and Irene Hays are successful and thoroughly nice people, who have achieved great things while maintaining their humility and kindness. Moreover, I admire parents like Charlotte Nichols, Sam Spoors and Mo Brown who have successfully grown businesses while raising a family.

Their ability to balance professional success and personal commitments is truly commendable. As I reflect on these individuals, the words of the poem ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling come to mind: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.” These individuals embody the essence of these lines, demonstrating their ability to navigate life’s ups and downs with grace and resilience.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

While I have experienced testing situations, including mental health problems, there is nothing I would do differently in my life. After all, without going through those experiences, I wouldn’t be where I am today, helping entrepreneurs lead their businesses to growth and success. I’m proof that you can overcome stressful times and come out the other side.

What defines your way of doing business?

As a business coach, honesty is at the core of my way of doing business. Honesty serves as the foundation for building trust and fostering a genuine and meaningful coaching relationship. I prioritise open and transparent communication with my clients. I believe in providing honest feedback, even if it may be difficult to hear at times. I strive to create a safe and supportive environment where my clients can explore their strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement without judgment.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Get a coach. Having someone in your corner to build your leadership skills and develop your business is, I believe, so valuable – it’s something I wished I had when I first started in business many years ago. Also, listen to your body and your mind, and don’t exhaust yourself. Being a successful business leader shouldn’t come at a cost to your personal life. It is possible to run a thriving company and have a personal life with family and friends.

Read more:
Getting to Know You: Ian Kinnery, founder of coaching firm Kinnery

Johann van Zyl, CEO of Cornerstone Healthcare and one of health and social care’s ‘Power 50’, shares his journey from mining exploration to the specialist care sector and discusses the inspiration, challenges, and strategies behind the company’s exceptional growth.

What do you do at Cornerstone?

As the CEO, I oversee the strategic direction of the organisation, so my role is balancing sustainable growth with the incredible care we provide for our residents. We run specialist nursing homes for people with challenging behaviours associated with complex neurodegenerative and mental health needs. It’s a demanding but fulfilling sector to work in.

From the beginning we identified this type of specialist care as a growth area. There are currently only 5,000 beds in England with an estimated need of three times that number. I think the growth we’ve seen is, in a large part, down to our ability to attract and keep high-calibre staff at a time when much of the care sector has been crippled by an unprecedented recruitment crisis.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

During the 80s in a turbulent South Africa the winds of change were blowing, and I found myself involved in the transition of the informal business sector into the mainstream economy. Those experiences built my knowledge across various sectors and gave me a deep understanding of business dynamics. But it was during my time working with a neurological care provider in the UK that I truly found my calling. The work we did for vulnerable individuals with progressive neurological conditions was unlike anything I had experienced before. It was profoundly rewarding and inspired me to think about starting my own care company.

Who do you admire?

It would have to be Warren Buffett. The man has been a leader in his field for decades but what I love about him is how he never deviates away from his plan. He stands strong and maintains his morals and ethics even in adversity. This emphasis on long-term thinking and resisting short-term market fluctuations is a wise and disciplined approach.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

The beauty of hindsight! There are always lessons to be learned and decisions that, in retrospect, could have been made differently. But you know what they say, every experience shapes us and helps us grow. The challenges we faced, the mistakes we made—they have all contributed to our journey and brought us to where we are today. So, I choose to embrace those experiences and use them to guide me as we continue to make a positive impact in the care sector.

The important thing is that when there was the need to change the direction of our strategies, we did it quickly and effectively. If you see a strategy failing, make sure it fails fast, change tack and move forward. We have also found powerful partners in our equity fund, Ignite Growth Investment, that never stopped supporting us, which makes it easier to make those decisions.

Also, I wish I’d joined healthcare sooner as it is the most rewarding sector I’ve ever worked in.

What defines your way of doing business?

Doing things differently, that’s what defines my way of doing business. We strive for excellence in everything we do, but we also embrace compassion and empathy. We’re not just a care provider; we’re a team of people, supporting each other and working together to create a nurturing environment for our residents. It’s about going above and beyond, not because it’s expected, but because it’s the right thing to do.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

My advice would be to follow your passion and believe in yourself. Trust your instincts and don’t be afraid to think outside the box. The path to success is rarely a straight line, so embrace the twists and turns, and be open to learning from every experience. Surround yourself with a strong team who share your vision and values. And above all, never forget the reason why you started in the first place. Let that passion fuel your drive and keep pushing forward.

As Cornerstone continues to grow and make a positive impact in the lives of their residents, one thing is clear—Johann’s commitment to his vision remain unwavering.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Johann van Zyl, CEO, Cornerstone Healthcare

Melissa Snover, talks about the inspiration that led her to creating the world’s first truly personalised nutrient gummy which has seen them become a finalist in the growth business of the year category of the 2023 Business Champion Awards

What do you currently do at ‘Nourished’

I am the Founder & CEO of the business. Here at Nourished, we pride ourselves on being the world’s first truly personalised nutrient gummy. It’s unique in the market because it rejects the one size fits all approach to vitamin supplementation and puts the needs of the customer at the centre.

Consumers can complete a short lifestyle quiz on our website, where upon completion, a science-backed algorithm makes a recommendation of seven vitamins, superfoods and nutrients best suited to the user’s lifestyle, body and goals.

Nourished delivers bespoke customer orders on demand in 100% plastic-free packaging, with less waste, hassle and cost than purchasing all of the vitamins separately. We are able to take this approach thanks to our unique, patented 3D printing technology, which allows the seven-layered gummy stacks to be manufactured bespoke on demand.

Now is a really exciting time for the business as we explore new markets and continue to expand upon our initial success. We have recently partnered with huge brands such as Neutrogena and Colgate and continue to seek out opportunities to further our offering.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

It was actually a rather amusing story that kickstarted the idea for Nourished. As an avid consumer of vitamins for over a decade, I used to take a large bag on my business trips of different pills, tablets, and supplements. A full cocktail of supplementation!

This was always a nightmare at airport security, having to remove the bag for the scanner. On one such occasion, I accidentally dropped the bag and sent pills sprawling across the floor! I had to crawl around in my suit and heels, picking them up – quite the ordeal! I knew there had to be a more convenient way to take vitamins, and the idea for Nourished was born.

Our personalised vitamin stacks solve that issue, amongst others, by providing convenient, easy-to-take chewable gummies, allowing travellers to pack just one gummy for each day of their trip – rather than a cocktail of different pills.

 Who do you admire?

I admire my CTO, Martyn Catchpole, who is an incredible 3D printing expert in the industry. He has demonstrated remarkable technical skills and leadership qualities, developing the prototype for Nourished in just 18 months and continuously optimising the technology, enabling the company to respond to customer demands, improve, and grow rapidly. Working with him since 2015, I have seen firsthand his passion, dedication, and drive, which has been an inspiration to me.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Yes, there are definitely some things I would have done differently. I have learned that confidence and self-belief are crucial to success in business, and I regret not realising that earlier in my entrepreneurial career. I made mistakes along the way, including not trusting my instincts, which led to set-backs. I also realised that it’s important to surround yourself with a passionate and dedicated team who you can rely on. In my first venture, I tried to handle everything myself, but it wasn’t sustainable or scalable. However, at Nourished, I have a fantastic team who provides support and allows me to focus on top-line strategies, raising investment, and expanding into new markets. Delegating responsibilities has been key to ensuring the longevity of the business.

What defines your way of doing business?

My approach to doing business is centred around teamwork and trust. I am fortunate to have a highly talented and dedicated team, including my CTO Martyn Catchpole and COS Caitlin Stanley, who have been working with me since 2015 and who have both been instrumental to our success. I believe that working together with a positive and fun attitude is crucial to achieving great results.

Through experience, I have learned that you can’t control everything and that having the right team in place is essential to success. I focus on finding experts in their respective fields and ensuring they are committed to our vision.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

As an entrepreneur, there will always be factors you cannot control when starting your business. Resilience to these is such an important aspect of running a business. Ensuring you have a trusted and passionate team around you, who share your vision, will allow you to overcome challenges and find solutions that lead to success.

Commit your time and efforts into establishing your brand and compile data, so you know exactly what your customers want. It is important to create a business that delivers a clear benefit to the end consumer, rather than just developing a product which you think is cool.

I also think networking is hugely important for advancing your career in business. I find it incredibly interesting speaking to other people in my field at events across the country and abroad, to learn how they face challenges and grow their businesses.

Nourished are a finalist in this years Business Champion Awards in the Growth Business of the Year

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Melissa Snover, Founder & CEO, Nourished

Charlie Betty, the founder of her own beauty brand tells Business Matters about the background to her company born from a facebook group in lockdown 2020

What do you currently do?

I am the owner of Charlie Betty Beauty, a cosmetics brand based in South Yorkshire.

I’m pretty much a one woman band here so I’m in charge of the social media, marketing, customer service, picking and packing, blog writing and development of our products, thankfully my husband is a photographer and graphic designer so he’s always on hand to help me out with the product photography and lends his expertise for the designing of the products and website!

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Charlie Betty Beauty was actually formed from a facebook group in lockdown 2020, I was in the deepest pit with my depression, with nowhere to go and missing communication, I didn’t want anyone else to suffer the way I was, so I decided to start a Facebook group for people who were in the same boat, women who struggled with mental health issues, who were lonely, who just needed a little normality in these awful times, with a theme of beauty, skincare and fashion, the group was just a lovely space to make friends and connections and just talk.

I’d worked in the beauty industry for about 12 years at that point and it was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to express and create my own version of beauty.

I’d experienced a lot of stigma in beauty salons and similar places I’d worked, I felt like I wasn’t ‘normal’ enough, with the way I looked, my interests, I was always the odd one out, I wasn’t stereo-typically beautiful, I didn’t fit in with the cliques.

So through my past experiences and the support of the girls and accidental market research in the group, I took the leap and I bootstrapped my first makeup product, I wanted to create something ‘for the underdogs’, something to prove you didn’t have to look a certain way, or be a certain way, to really solidify what we had learnt and spoke about in the group, a representation of the community we had built.

I based my first product on my own journey of self-discovery which I gained through the group, and around spiritualism and nature which really helped me through my hardest times.

Who do you admire?

In general, I have always surrounded myself with people who inspire me to be a better person, people who have built empires from the ground up and stayed humble. I think someone who wills to empower others so selflessly is the most inspirational quality they could have.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, however I’m a firm believer in learning from your mistakes, in the first year of the business, I definitely lacked planning and structure, I didn’t really look very far into the future when I started this business, I didn’t actually expect it to grow so quickly, and as much as I wish I’d had the structure in place back then, it really did teach me to think on my feet and I kind of appreciate that!

What defines your way of doing business?

Our business was built on being open and honest with our community and that’s something that we will always be, we started this by getting down to the nitty and gritty details of real life, and by being personable, humble and true to ourselves, in turn we hope that by doing this, we will empower our community to do the same.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

You’re always going to make mistakes in business, learn from them and always strive to be better, don’t be disheartened by setbacks and criticism, use them to your advantage!

Listen to your body and your mind, take your time with the process, and don’t exhaust yourself.

I think the most important thing is to not lose your focus, always remember your ‘why’ and everything will be worthwhile in the long run.

Charlie Betty Beauty are a finalist in this years Business Champion Awards in the Community Business of the Year

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Charlie Betty, founder, Charlie Betty Beauty

Dr. Vidal J Bharath, talks about the inspiration behind his fuel cell technology company which has seen them become a finalist in the scale-up and market disruptor category of the 2023 Business Champion Awards

What do you currently do at ‘Bramble Energy’

Having started at Bramble Energy as its Chief Operations Officer, I oversaw its growth from just three employees to its current 75. I have now moved into the Chief Commercial Officer role as we rapidly scale and commercialise our technology with go-to-market partners to decarbonise a wide range of applications and industries.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Starting out as just an idea in the labs, our company was founded as a spin-out of UCL and Imperial College London by our CEO, Dr Tom Mason, with an overriding ambition to help the world transition to net zero. Solving the climate crisis is the biggest challenge humanity will face and we desperately need solutions that are viable, scalable and low-cost. Our printed circuit board fuel cell (PCBFC) technology answers many of the issues that has stopped fuel cell technology becoming a go-to decarbonisation solution.

Who do you admire?

Ryan Reynolds. He has an understanding of brand and commercialisation like no one else. Not only has he successfully established himself as a versatile and popular actor, and has also made smart investments in various companies such as Wrexham Association Football Club, a small team from the north of Wales. Reynolds has a unique ability to identify opportunities and turn them into profitable ventures, as evidenced by the success of the team under his ownership. He’s also shown a keen sense of humour and marketing savvy, using social media to engage with fans and promote his projects in a way that sets him apart from his peers. With his combination of talent, intelligence, and marketing skills I truly believe he could ‘sell ice to the Eskimos’ – it’s a truly inspirational gold touch that I and many other aspiring entrepreneurs and business people admire.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it can also be a hindrance to your journey. I certainly don’t have any regrets as to where we are today as a business: the opportunities we currently have to make a real impact are a direct result of where we have been and the decisions we have made.

What defines your way of doing business?

Speed and adaptability. Our journey has been as fast-paced as our technology is. With any new innovation you have to be agile in your approach and this goes across all areas of the business. What you may have thought was your bestroute because it seemed to make the most sense, may actually turn out to be wrong. Being  prepared to pivot and adapt to new circumstances is vital.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Never. Give. Up.

Everyday there will be challenges to face and some may even make you feel like you are heading back to square one. But try to embrace failure – it’s a natural part of the learning process. Rather than being discouraged by setbacks, face them head-on with persistence and determination, using them as opportunities to learn and grow. There are lessons you can only learn from failing that will make you better, faster and stronger in the future.

Bramble Energy are a finalist in this years Business Champion Awards in the Scale Up and Make Disruptor category.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Dr. Vidal J Bharath, Chief Commercial Officer, Bramble Energy

Ava Whetstone-Magee, the founder of Avalanche Equestrian talks about the lightbulb moment which led her to start her business at the age of 13, which has seen her become a finalist in the young entrepreneur of the year category of the 2023 Business Champion Awards

What do you currently do at Avalanche Equestrian?

As Founder of Avalanche Equestrian I look after every aspect of my business. We have a small team of staff so my role consists of managing them and their time as well as designing new products and bringing them to market.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I remember clearly when the idea for Avalanche first came to me. It was winter. I was standing in a field up to my knees in mud with the sun setting.

I soon realised I couldn’t see my horse and no one could see me, being able to see and be seen is where is all began.

This was the moment I developed the SeeMe range of clothing and from this point onwards Avalanches ethos has always been to design clothing that has a practical and stylish but designed for a purpose .

Who do you admire?

That is a very good question, however difficult to answer. There are so many people that have influenced my success but no one singular person I can honestly say that I admire totally because there are so many.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

When I started Avalanche Equestrian I was only 13 years old. I received a lot of negative comments and criticism at school in the attempt to belittle me.

The honest truth is, it set me back, I started to wish I’d never started Avalanche and should just keep my head down. It then occurred to me the reason why this was happening and I used that frustration and drive to prove a point.

Looking back now I would really wish I didn’t care as much as much at the time about the negative comments however the irony is, it drove my ambitions further.

This is one of the reasons why I want to launch a Young Entrepreneur Academy for children who have drive and ambition. Just because we are young, our ideas and plans for our future should be nurtured and guided not overlooked.

What defines your way of doing business?

Customer focused, listen to our customers, give them what they want. It’s a simple ethos but it works.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Plan your business, look at the market and find your niche, do the ground work and put the effort in. You have to resign yourself to the fact it won’t make money overnight and whatever money you do make has to go straight back into the business. In essence, prepare yourself for alot of hard work with little financial reward to start with. If you can reconcile this and still believe in your business then do it and don’t look back.

Ava Whetstone-Magee is a finalist in this years Business Champion Awards in the Young Entrepreneur of the Year category.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Ava Whetstone-Magee: founder, Avalanche Equestrian

Will Polston, talks to Business Matters about how helping ambitious owners to maximise their potential has resulted in him becoming a finalist in the 2023 Business Champion Awards

What do you currently do at Will Polston Coaching and Training

I develop ambitious business owners to live a life they love by mastering their mindset, productivity, and efficiently. We do this by running a range of coaching services including an online academy, online accelerator, in person mastermind, and 1:1 coaching.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I grew up with a belief that money equals happiness, back in 2013 I had an eye and heart opening moment that lead me to realise that my belief that money equaled happiness was not the case and that the real driver was to do with my dad and how I perceived him not achieving his full potential which had an impact on him, my mum, me and all the family.

In that moment, I vowed, I did not want anyone else to go through the suffering of not achieving their full potential and set out on my quest to learn anything to do with human awareness, human potential, and human behaviour to enable people to transform excuses into results and live a life that they love.

Who do you admire?

Throughout my life I have had many mentors and people that influence me that I admire and trust, some of the most notable for me are my Uncle Mark, Tony Robbins, and Dr John Demartini.

I am also a huge fan of the NLP tool, modeling. There are dozens of traits or actions that individuals have or do that I aspire to model from people’s kindness to their communication, from their fashion style to their leadership qualities.

Looking up to others and incorporating these qualities is a blueprint that I have used for many years, and I will continue to do so.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Whilst I am very aware that everything happens for a reason and every challenge that I have ever faced whilst not necessarily loving them at the time I am grateful for them as they have shaped me to become the person that I am today, however, if there was one thing that I would go back and do or tell my younger self it would be to save 10% of everything I ever earnt and never spend that money only ever reinvest it as this not only gives a safety blanket it can create an ever growing resource that can be leveraged upon to do bigger and greater things with more ease.

What defines your way of doing business?

My mission in life is something I refer to as the “ripple effect” which is about me achieving my full potential not only benefitting myself but my family, my friends, my community, society, and humanity. I like to think that the way I do business is mirrored to this which creates win, win, win results for me, my team, and our clients. Additionally, I think all my business activities are aligned to that mission and getting people to live a life that they love.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Surround yourself with people that are further ahead on the journey to you to speed up the learning process, get really clear on what you want in the short, medium, and long term. Be willing to adapt and innervate and understand that there is no such thing as failure only feedback.

Ensure you have a good understanding of business financials this does not mean that you need to do a MBA but simply get a good accountant or financial professional to explain the differences between profit and loss, cashflow forecasts, and balance sheets. Ensure that you’re using and implementing profit and loss, and cashflow forecasts early on as they will help you sleep better at night and give you a stronger basis to grow from.

Will Polston is a finalist in this years Business Champion Awards in the Business Enabler category.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Will Polston, founder, Will Polston Coaching & Training

Wayne Janse Van Rensburg, Chief Executive of education company Learndirect talks to Business Matters about the inspiration behind their business, which has seen them become a finalist in the 2023 Business Champion Awards

What do you currently do at learndirect?

I am the CEO of learndirect. It is my responsibility to manage all of the operations of the company and ensure that we, as a business, continue to uphold our vision, mission and values.

This is especially important give the fact that we are a provider of adult education where tens of thousands of learners come to us each year to take that next step in changing their lives, something I am very proud of.

As CEO I aim to inject a natural fast pace approach, passion and enthusiasm to the business that creates a level of excitement and inspires my fantastic team to think big and bold.

 What was the inspiration behind your business?

learndirect is all about social mobility. It is about preparing and enabling people to take the next step in their education to allow them to make a positive impact in their lives.

The inspiration behind the business is to be the catalyst for change and allow our learners to make that change at a time and place that they can fit around their own lives. This is why people chose learndirect as we offer online learning opportunities that people can fit around their own lives.

Who do you admire?

My grandfather was actually one of the early ‘pioneers’ of home learning. He set up and ran a very successful correspondence college (where course materials were posted out and the answers posted back to the college). I began working in his business at the age of 13. He taught me a lot about business, resilience and the value of money, so I appreciate the early impact he made on my professional life.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I am a great believer in no regrets. For me, the most important thing in life is to learn from your mistakes. I have no doubt I could have made different decisions/done things differently, however I believe that had I, I would be in a different position than the one we are in as a business today. Given I am extremely proud of where we are as a business and the trajectory we are on, I am ultimately proud of the decisions made to date.

What defines your way of doing business?

Innovation, passion and leading a team to deliver a fast paced, forward-thinking business. Being astute at spotting opportunities, taking calculated risks when assessing them and quickly taking innovations to market. We are nothing without our team, so keeping them motivated, passionate and proud to work for the business is key to success.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Business is not easy. You can never underestimate the importance of resilience. Don’t waste time dwelling on mistakes, but rather learn from them and move forwards. Business is not part-time, it requires total focus.

Learndirect are a finalist in this years Business Champion Awards in the Business Growth Category

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Wayne Janse Van Rensburg, Chief Executive, Learndirect

Andy Watson, founder, Aberdeen Diving Services, talks to Business Matters about how his passion for diving has led his company to become a finalist in the 2023 Business Champion Awards

What do you currently do?

As the founder of Aberdeen Diving Services, I am responsible for equipment servicing and Padi Specialist instructor within the business. ADS is still very much a growing business and we are always growing our team and I will hopefully be able to share some of my responsibilities to the fantastic team we have.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Who do you admire?

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

What defines your way of doing business?

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Andy Watson, founder, Aberdeen Diving Services

Ronan Finnegan, co-founder of safer workplace company Spacebands talks to Business Matters about the inspiration behind their business, which has seen them become a finalist in the 2023 Business Champion Awards

What do you currently do at Spacebands?

As one of the co-founders at Spacebands I am responsible for product Development, Web Development, Business Development, Finance, Marketing and HR within the business.

We are building the team at the moment and hopefully many of these responsibilities will be issued to great team members very soon!

I am an Entrepreneur with a varied business background. I have a strong belief that anything is possible with enough time, dedication, persistence and optimism.

I have had a range of previous businesses: a social distancing tech company, a mobile app development firm (orDonate), a marketing agency (Search and Social), a hardware repair eBay business (buying and selling damaged phones and laptops), an attempt on creating a vegan protein snack brand (Tempe), an affiliate sim card channel, an arbitrage betting company, a waterproof wallet lifestyle brand…

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Spacebands started in March 2020. After gaining extensive press coverage and 1000+ customers globally with our social distancing device (including the NHS, MoD, Panasonic, Sony & Amazon), we are now pivoting to create a new multi-feature hazard alert system that will aim to change the future of workplace safety, well-being and insurance.

The brand-new wearable and SaaS platform (app and web-app) will alert for a multitude of hazards that aims to protect businesses by preventing workplace injuries, reducing staff sickness, enabling workplace wellness whilst collating a paper trail of live safety data points. Employers will be able to make informed decisions about their workplace safety and will be able to monitor workplace stressors whilst prompting employees to action wellness at work.

Privacy is at the forefront of development, all data will be anonymous unless the wearable user (employee) decides to attribute it to themselves manually. Effectively, an employee can decide if they want to track their safety and stress at work and if not, their company can still benefit from the company-wide dataset.

Who do you admire?

I look up to business owners who are able to build cultures that don’t ‘feel like work’. I read Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard and it was a real inspiration for me.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

For the first two years of the business, Harry and I were self-funded, in hindsight, seeking investment previously would have sped up our growth, but nevertheless we are very grateful for our what we have achieved.

What defines your way of doing business?

I believe that I treat all interpersonal relationships in the same way. I am open and honest with all partners, employees and investors (I don’t put on a front), by which I believe that respect is mutually shared and this helps everyone. I often tell people that I don’t know the answer and am often told how to improve as a result. Life is for learning!

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

The only thing stopping you from starting is yourself. Put one foot forward and the next one will eventually follow. Learning can always be done if there is perseverance following it!

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Ronan Finnegan, co-founder, Spacebands

Jonny Duggan, Chief Executive Officer, AnnexusPartners talks to Business Matters about the inspiration behind their business, which has seen them become a finalist in the 2023 Business Champion Awards

What do you currently do at ‘AnnexusPartners’?

I am Co-Founder of AnnexusPartners, incorporating AnnexusEV. I also hold the role of Chief Executive Officer, responsible for overseeing the day-to-day running and the growth of the business. Ultimately as CEO of a start-up, my role is to make sure the business doesn’t run out of money. It’s as simple as that.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

During one of the numerous lockdowns the UK faced in the pandemic, I watched a Sir David Attenborough documentary which inspired me. Both businesses were founded out of a passion for making a difference. AnnexusEV came first. I had spent some time working in the energy sector, both on a city trading floor and in a commercial brokerage.

Between the automotive sector and the energy sector, both our Co-Founder Gerard and I felt that electric vehicle drivers were not getting the support they needed when it came to charging their vehicle.

We felt that drivers needed advice, guidance and ultimately a simplified approach to the confusing world of EV charging. AnnexusEV was set up with this in mind, to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ to drivers who needed a home EV charge point installing. We set the business up to be fully independent, partnering with the best brands in the EV charging world and offering nationwide installation.

From there, our business grew into the fleet sector when AnnexusEV became part of the IFC Group in October 2021. The business now services a growing number of fleet clients, offering selection and installation of EV charge points residentially and commercially.

In 2023, AnnexusPartners launched. A consultancy that incorporates AnnexusEV and is focused on making UK businesses more sustainable. AnnexusPartners is working with organisations to reduce their carbon intensity through three key headings: Charging Infrastructure, Sustainability and Data. More information can be found on the AnnexusPartners website.

Who do you admire?

The main influence on me from a business perspective is my Dad. He inspired me to want to start my own business and he is someone I admire greatly for what he has achieved. It’s great to be in business with him and my brother at AnnexusPartners.

I have taken inspiration from many leaders over the years. If I was to pick someone in the sustainability and EV world that I admire, it would be Jordan Brompton of myenergi. What she has achieved alongside Co-Founder Lee Sutton is nothing short of remarkable.

Outside of the sustainability space, I am a big fan of various sports. Businesspeople in sport such as Eddie Hearn and Sir Clive Woodward are both men that I look up to. What Eddie has achieve with Matchroom globally is very impressive, and his ability to promote and sell an event is second to none. What Sir Clive Woodward has achieved in business and in rugby, as well as his leadership style, is inspiration to many including me.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I don’t see the benefit in looking back negatively or in regretting any decisions, each decision teaches us something. In terms of doing something differently, I would’ve had the confidence to start a business earlier. I waited until I was 29 to co-launch my first business and I would be further along if I had started earlier. That being said, I have learnt an awful lot from working in other people’s businesses over the years. This has stood me in good stead to run my own business.

What defines your way of doing business?

My way of doing business is influenced by honesty, trust and high performance. We measure our business on the triple bottom line; Planet, People and Profit. The environment has a big impact on how we conduct ourselves as a business.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Just start. That’s it. Don’t worry about having millions of pounds or lots of clients. Start with a strong plan and have the flexibility to be able to pivot quickly. As a start-up, flexibility is key to winning business off more established businesses with a higher headcount and higher overheads. Surround yourself with people better than you and most of all, enjoy the journey!

AnnexusPartners are a finalist in this years Business Champion Awards in the New Business Category

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Jonny Duggan, Chief Executive Officer, AnnexusPartners

As part of our series profiling the finalists of the Business Champion Awards 2023 we spoke to Shiraz Master, the founder of Simply Doughnuts, who are a double finalist in this years awards.

What do you currently do at Simply Doughnuts?

As managing director, I’m naturally involved in all aspects of the business.

In any given week, I spend a lot of time on client liaison – gathering feedback from supermarkets and other retail customers and making sure that we’re responding to their needs and priorities. Over the last year, for example, there has been a big swing towards net zero agendas, so we’re doing a lot more to measure carbon impacts and to adopt the carbon auditing systems that some of the major multiples demand.

That also touches on another important aspect of my work, which is about investment in plant, premises and training: putting everything in place to increase production capacity, reduce process waste, boost efficiency and to do all that while maintaining our AA+ quality rating from the BRCGS.

In the last year, we’ve increased our output capacity by around half a million doughnuts per week, and that has coincided with significant energy efficiency improvements and a new waste management policy that has diverted 100% of our waste from landfill.

We’ve also greatly reduced food miles within the supply chain by extending our ‘buy local’ policy to include packaging and other non-food elements.

I’m also closely involved in new product development, which has been the backbone of the company since its formation. We have developed a range of doughnuts that stay fresh in ambient conditions for 34 days and this helps retailers to minimise their risks of waste-related losses; product having to be discarded because it passes its use-by date.

This has become an ever more important selling point for our products and we continue to make huge R&D efforts to extend those shelf-lives even further.

More recently, I have been spending more and more time on export sales and marketing. We’re making great progress in the Gulf States now, having agreed deals with hypermarkets in countries such as Qatar and UAE. We’ve had help from the Department for International Trade and we’ve taken part on several trade missions.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

It started when I was still working in the forecourt retail sector. I kept seeing customers coming in and looking for sweet, fresh, ‘on the go’ snacks that they could take with them in their cars, into work and so on. Doughnuts would have been great for that but, in a small retail environment, we didn’t have the freezer space to store large stocks of product. And even if we had, we didn’t usually have the time free to spend freezing and thawing it for display.

That got me thinking how popular doughnuts would be if we could only find some that could be stored at ambient temperatures, and which would last more than just two days, which is still typical of conventional doughnuts.

But such a product didn’t exist. It was either a question of buying fresh and having to face 2-day shelf-lives and expensive losses due to waste, or buying frozen and somehow finding the room and the staff time to handle all the freezing and thawing requirements. It wasn’t commercially viable to risk either, so I started to wonder what would be involved in making a long-lasting doughnut myself.

In 2011, I began looking around for food scientists and labs in Britain and Europe and began to get a sense that with the right processes and conditions, we really could create something that would last well, taste great and sell well in forecourts, supermarkets and other outlets. In 2012, I launched the business, and we’ve been growing ever since.

Whom do you admire?

I really admire my parents, who instilled values in me that are still incredibly important to the business. My father was a natural and dedicated entrepreneur. He showed me the value of determination and hard work, and of always being calm, fair and honest.

My late mother was an inspiration; an example of the importance of ‘soft’ interpersonal skills. She always made time to provide lots of support and affection.

She was very compassionate and had a real philosophy of ‘giving.’ For any employer who values his or her workforce, these are important values to remember.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

There are always small things, especially when it comes to new product development and trying out something that is genuinely completely new.  We went down plenty of blind alleys in our R&D work, but that’s the nature of the work: we’re pioneering new process technologies and there’s always an element of trial and error in that. If I’d had a magic wand, then of course we’d have skipped the errors, but that’s all an inevitable part of it.

To be realistic, I don’t think there is much that I would do differently if I were doing it all again. I think we took the right approach. We identified the best possible partners for the job, we took advantage of their immense scientific expertise, and we had enough faith in their advice to invest the time and money to make things happen.

Yes, there have been products that we trialled and subsequently withdrew but, in general, the long shelf-life technology has been a huge success and a growing number of retailers are now stocking our products both in the UK and overseas.

What defines your way of doing business?

It’s very customer-led. Everything we do is the result of looking outward and trying to gauge what retailers and consumers are looking for. In the last few months, for example, we’ve been busy meeting supermarket category buyers, wholesalers and consumers in the Gulf States.

We’ve been gathering feedback on what flavours people prefer, how and when they buy, and whether there is anything else we need to understand. On the back of that, we have developed some new vanilla-based flavour variants and we’ve introduced some new pack sizes and packaging options.

But the same principle applies to everything. In the UK, for example, we’re constantly looking for new ways to reduce waste and, most recently, trying to find anything at all that we can do to insulate ourselves against rising cost pressures.

That all helps us to keep our wholesale prices down, which is obviously a real priority for supermarkets who are trying to support their shoppers.

We’ve also recently introduced a new vegan product, which responds to a growing market, and developed a long-lasting sugar glaze. The list really does go on, but it’s always about meeting underlying customer demand.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

In our case, I think that one of the things that really helped us was our decision to begin by seeking out the best advice that we could. It’s really important to set out in the right direction, and for a new entrepreneur, that direction isn’t always clear.

But there are experienced people out there who can provide technical input, market intelligence, real-world commercial feedback and so on. It might feel daunting to invest in securing that input, but as an investment, it’s well worthwhile.

Simply Doughnuts is a finalist in the Business Innovation and Diversity & Inclusion Categories in the Business Champion Awards 2023

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Shiraz Master, Managing Director, Simply Doughnuts

Philip Atkinson, managing director of North East-based manufacturing firm, BTS Facades and Fabrications tells Business Matters more about the direction of his carbon neutral business

What do you currently do at BTS Facades and Fabrications?

I’m the managing director at BTS Facades & Fabrications. I lead a forward-thinking manufacturing business which employs a team of 50.
We specialise in facades and fabrications and strive for precision manufacturing, which is much how I see my role. I drive the business forward, ensuring we’re an attractive company to work both with and for.

The project I’m currently working on entails making BTS a sustainable company, and over the past year I have been exploring and learning about the options we have.

Since I started exploring environmentally-friendly alternatives, we’ve made a number of steps into becoming more sustainable, and have even achieved a carbon neutral status, with aims of achieving NetZero by 2030.

Additionally, I am also committed to ensuring BTS becomes a B Corp organisation with a stakeholder business model.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

It’s all I’ve ever known; my father brought me into his roofing and cladding business in 1985, and 36 years later I’m still in the cladding game.

However, I have spent the last 13 years as the managing director of a new entity, BTS, which has been going strong since 2009.
My inspiration was to do it better than I knew; I learned so much in my previous tenure, but it also taught me to do things better and engage better and lead with passion and vigour.

Who do you admire?

I admire strong leaders such as Alan Sugar. I’ve read his book and take empowerment from his humble start to where he is now. I spent my first 12 years in business on a factory floor, so feel I share a similar journey.

The modest start to my career enabled me to learn every aspect of my trade, but also gave me the drive to do more, even if it did mean taking a pay cut – I knew it would be worth it in the end.

I also admire my two former bosses. One taught me to have a strong work ethic, and the other boss encouraged me to enjoy every working day – both lessons are still true to this day.

I also admire my father, a self-made man who, at 82, still comes into the business and offers advice at board meetings and can often be seen on the other end of a machine late on a night to help hit customer delivery dates.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I took the step to go on my own at 39. In hindsight, I wish I had done it 10 years earlier. However, after speaking with my former boss, we both agreed I probably wasn’t ready. I suppose you have to trust the process sometimes.

If there is one thing I could change it would to have seen more of my kids growing up, but the sacrifice has paid dividends as I’m now an 8-hour-a-day man and have lots of holidays and spend every minute I can with my wife and family.

I’ve really enjoyed every minute of it though; it’s been a dream come true.

What defines your way of doing business?

I’m a ‘doer’. If I’m asked to do something, I ensure it’s completed with passion and integrity. I lead with a love for what I do and pride of the business’s accomplishments. I take sales personally and strive to have brilliant relationships with our tier one customers and suppliers.

I aim to have an engaged workforce who share my vision, I do this through taking a hands-on approach with my team, I love to work closely with them to encourage them to grow within the business and come through the ranks.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Honestly, just work hard. It’s really tough at times, but if you love what you do it’s rewarding. My door is always open if anyone is in need of any advice.

During my time as an MD, I have learned it can be a little lonely, my advice is to mould a team that shares your vision and supports you.
Additionally, I have found that engagement and strategy is key.

Engage closely with every member of staff and be transparent. Have a plan, and stick to it, but ensure your team are involved in the decision-making process.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Philip Atkinson, Managing Director, BTS Facades & Fabrications

As part of our series profiling the finalists of the Business Champion Awards 2023 we spoke to Paul Hargreaves, the founder of Cotswold Fayre, who are a double finalist in this years awards.

What do you currently do at ‘Cotswold Fayre’

I am the founder and CEO (Chief Empowerment Officer) at Cotswold Fayre, which has two sides to the business.  The main business, which started in 1999, is a wholesaler of speciality food to around 2,000 retail sites across the UK – farm shops, garden centres, delicatessens, food halls etc.  Then in June 2021 we also opened our own retail site, called Flourish, which sells our own products and has a 120-cover restaurant.

On both sides of the business, I am fortunate to have two fantastic leadership teams who look after most of the day-to-day side of the business.  I set culture and strategic direction and support them in the great work they do.  I have discovered as I become older that more often than not other people can do a better job than me; I just need to be good at finding the right people!

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Originally, I was selling a few products from The Cotswold’s in my spare time in the late nineties and a farm shop manager mentioned how difficult she was finding to easily source and order a decent range of fine British food.  It turned out that this was a common problem, so we rented a small warehouse, filled it with gorgeous food and drink and started supplying retailers all over the UK.

I came from the charitable sector to start the business and was keen to have a business that wasn’t just about making money but made a positive difference in the community.  So, of our original first five employees, three others might have called ‘unemployable’; ex-con, recovering drug addict and alcoholic.  Since 1999 we have tried to make a positive different in all we have done since then in both in a social and environment way.

Imagine then, our delight when we discovered the B Corp movement in 2015 and became one of the first B Corps in the UK.  These are all businesses like us that put people and planet before profit and there are now 1,200 in the UK.  This movement is our main inspiration now and I spend around 20% of my time talking to other businesses about being better for people and planet.

Who do you admire?

That’s like a question I ask at interviews, “Excluding family members, who has most inspired you in your life?” I have always been disappointed with people’s ability to answer the question.  There simply aren’t enough inspiring leaders around who are inspiring their people to be better.  In fact, this triggered me writing a book about being an inspiring leader, The Fourth Bottom Line.  I use Nelson Mandela as a superb example of leadership in that book, so he would be the answer to this question.  We can learn more from reading his autobiography than any leadership or management book you might have picked up.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Short answer: ‘plenty’.  The main two things would be to make sure I listened to my intuitive side more.  The main times I have made mistakes were when I made a very rational decision but had a nagging feeling inside that we weren’t going in the right direction.  I am better at this now, but still learning.

The second would be to take on better people sooner.  We now have a great team, but we would have better earlier if I had taken on more expensive, experienced people earlier.  They always make back for the company the extra they are paid.

What defines your way of doing business?

Put people and planet first and the profits will follow.  These days consumers and buyers want to buy products and services from companies that are making a positive difference in our broken world, both for the planet and the poor.  Companies that do this will flourish in preference to those businesses that are only about shareholder benefit.  The more we have given away as a business, the more we grow.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Don’t hold back and be afraid to fail, dream your dreams.  Clearly there needs to be a balance between taking risks and playing safe, but most play safe for too long.  There is still a taboo around failing in the UK.  I would rather employ someone that has failed and learned than someone who has never taken a risk.  I would also counsel anyone starting out to ensure there are people around them (not family members) who they can turn to for advice.

Cotswold Fayre are a double finalist in this years Business Champion Awards in both the Sustainable Business category and Growth Business of the Year

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Paul Hargreaves, Founder & CEO, Cotswold Fayre

As part of our series profiling the finalists of the Business Champion Awards 2023 we spoke to, young entrepreneur of the year finalist and founder of the Music Workflow Academy, Omar Meho.

What do you currently do at Music Workflow Academy?

Omar Meho is an artist from the United Kingdom. He is a Label Owner, Music Production/ DJ Teacher, Mastering Engineer and International Resident in Ibiza, France, U.K & Dubai.

He has played in some of the biggest clubs in the U.K Including Egg LDN, Fabric, The Arch, The Cause & Much more. He has played festivals in front of 12,500 people and has support on his tracks from some of the biggest DJ’s in the world including Marco Carola, East End Dubs, Chris Stussy, Jamie Jones, Adam Beyer And More.

Music Workflow Academy provides a range of services for our customers, including music production lessons, mixing, mastering, sample packs, templates, racks, tutorials, stems, dj lessons and playlist placement. We have been operating for the last few years and our staff are highly qualified and experienced with relevant expertise. Read our reviews or give us a call/send message for a no-obligation quote.

We teach beginner DJ’s and Music Producers the basics of their skills and help them perform live sets and sign to their favourite record labels

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I wanted to help my younger self and I felt like there were no good tutorials online for what I wanted to learn. My 14 year old self needed help learning these skills but had no one to teach him. So I decided when I get to a high level I will teach the youth and grow the grass roots of the music community.

I have always wanted to make the world a better place and by teaching DJ’ing and Music Production I can officially help others. They say gaining knowledge is the first step to wisdom. Sharing it is the first step to humanity.

Who do you admire?

Martin Garrix, Bill Gates, Barrack Obama for his orator skills, Richard Branson for his note taking skills.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Absolutely nothing. I am happy with how I have conducted myself and I have learnt from my previous business failures enough on how to succeed.

What defines your way of doing business?

Ethics come first, treat others fairly and with respect and give everyone the best customer service they have ever received! (Crucial).

Provide excellent quality goods and services. Help all that are grateful and produce content that educates large audiences.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Consistency is key. 1 in 9 business ideas succeed. So you need to be in this for the long run. Keep going and the obstacles are typically the path, take them in order to succeed.

Continue to diversify your goods, services and business strategy.

Analyse competition and differentiate yourself from the market. Pay good energy forward and aim to help as many people as possible and make the world a better place. Business should be a positive venture that helps others and creates a win-win value exchange for both the customer and visitor

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Omar Meho, founder, Music Workflow Academy

As part of our series profiling the finalists of the Business Champion Awards 2023 we spoke to Ella Jones, a finalist in the young entrepreneur category of the awards and founder of equestrian clothing company, Ancora Equestrian

What do you currently do at Ancora Equestrian?

Presently I’m just launching online the much awaited junior range of Ancora’s horse riding clothing range, so it’s been a busy lead up with photoshoots and the social media marketing build up to the launch.

I’m really excited to finally get this range added to our collection. Next then it will be back to the drawing board to get the mens range designed and tested.

Early in the year sees all the chosen trade stands to attend in 2023 booked at equestrian events across the UK. Last year saw the sales model tried and tested successfully so this year will include extra tour dates in the ‘out on the road’ diary

Words getting out fast that Ancora is the hottest new brand of affordable on trend equine clothing to hit the market. Customer following is very loyal once they discover Ancora’s range of boutique quality clothes

Ancora has a fabulous range of competition and stable wear clothes in some gorgeous colour combinations and customer feedback is that they wear well, wash well and don’t need ironing!

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Since I was in my early teens I always wanted to look fashionable in riding gear but it was always so expensive. I was the kid wearing hand me downs, making do in an uncomfortably hot tweed riding jacket.

I had a lightbulb moment to want to start an affordable range of boutique quality equestrian clothing while travelling after my A levels. I just decided ‘I was going to do this!’ Everyone should be able to afford to look great!

Who do you admire?

I’ve met a lot of small business owners at  shopping villages at Equestrian events over the past year and it’s absolutely brilliant to build up friendships, network and give and get advice. I’ve 100% admiration for fellow entrepreneurs!

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

An awful lots happened in a short time.

I incorporated Ancora in 2018 but only really got stuck in and focused in 2020. In hindsight I should have done more in the first two years but I kinda believe everything happens for a reason and being a little older probably worked well to my advantage.

Back in 2018 I literally started with trialling just a few items so really not much funding was initially needed at all. Once I started selling  I continually reinvested and reinvested profits to slowly but surely grow the stock levels. I’ve learnt so much by taking it very slowly at the beginning.

After a year off to concentrate on my showjumping riding I really got back into Ancora’s launch and managed to sell a few sport horses which I’d produced.

That set me up to trade at the shopping village at Londons’ The International Horse of the Year Show in Dec 2022 and it was going to be sink or swim at such a big event.

Thankfully I swam and that set me up to purchase a fitted out lorry to set up a mobile boutique shop which has enabled me to take Ancora to different geographical areas ‘on the road’ across the UK  to raise Ancora’s Brand awareness to the horsey world.

It’s been an unreal journey so far and I’m lucky there’s not much I’d change to date.

What defines your way of doing business?

You do get some funny looks being a young girl who’s the boss of their own business. I’ve worked hard on networking and make sure I’m always polite and courteous to everyone. Respect I know needs to be earned.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

This would be my personal check list to share with others starting out…

• Be resilient as there’s always knock backs and setbacks along the way
• Learn as you go along
• Stay within budgets
• Seek encouragement and advice
• Be focused
• Keep things simple
• Grow your network
• Accept feedback
• Plan out your goals
• Own your mistakes
• Get a mentor
• Don’t be over-fazed by your competitors. There’s plenty of room for everyone.
• Get a bookkeeper or accountant and lastly be polite and keep smiling!

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Ella Jones, Founder, Ancora Equestrian

As part of our series profiling the finalists of the Business Champion Awards 2023 we spoke to Lionel Lodge, the CEO & Co-Founder of media licensing company SyncLodge

What do you currently do at SyncLodge?

I am CEO and Co-Founder. I overview all aspects, work directly with each division of the company, and manage cross-industry communications.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I have worked in many aspects of the entertainment industry in the management as well as the creative side. In mid-2000’s CD sales were disappearing.

Sync licensing was suggested as a way to cover the lost revenue. By first focusing on leveraging my own catalogue, I built up a sync licensing agency. This gave me great insights into the mechanics of the industry.

I was surprised by how analogue the industry-standard workflow tools were. It was obvious that a digital transformation was needed. There was a high level of frustration and a lot of time wasted on non-creative tasks.

We spent the first year talking to established, and new, contacts in the industry, mapping pain points. We built a clear plan of system structure and saw that no one else was looking at the industry in this way.

The need was there, the market was clear, and the opportunity was obvious.

Who do you admire?

I admire many people. I admire people like Elton John, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. I also admire people like the astrobiologist Betül Kaçar, the legendary jiu-jitsu competitor Roger Gracie, and the co-founder of OpenAI, Wojciech Zaremba.

I also admire the people close to me (my wife Karin and my family), the team at SyncLodge, and so many people in the industry I have the honor of working with.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

There are quite a few things I would have done differently. Many little things along the way and a few larger issues. Over the years and through the businesses I have started there have been some painful lessons learned.

There have been quite a few through the building and launching of SyncLodge. Hindsight makes it obvious that there was a wrong decision made. Inevitable, but also insightful.

We continually question our assumptions, working through probabilities, and getting advice from industry stakeholders, but the unexpected will still come.

What defines your way of doing business?

Cooperation, inclusivity, transparency, and honesty. To have long-standing industry presence we need to empower our teams’, our members’, and our associated partners’, longevity.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Choose the people you work with carefully. Partnerships can be more intense than marriage. You will go through many difficult things together so be clear on your reasons, your goals, and how you want your work culture to be, from the start.

When you have your first sit-down with a potential partner, regardless of if you know them previously or not, don’t go in hoping they will think highly of your new startup plan, go in asking if this person has the skills to deliver what the company needs from them and, is this a person I would want to spend most of my time with over the next 5 years.

Are we personally compatible? People tend to be on the “nice” side of their personality at first meets, so be prepared to ask some direct questions to see if their perspectives align with your perspectives. Even if you are being interviewed make sure the fit is good for both.

SyncLodge are a finalist in the Business Innovation of the year category of the Business Champion Awards

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Lionel Lodge, CEO & Co-Founder, SyncLodge

British entrepreneur, Tim Hayden, is set to deliver his ambitious target of achieving a one-million-pound turnover by the end of this financial year, just five years after starting his fledgling watch business Hagley West from his Hertfordshire kitchen and despite economic uncertainty and the COVID-19 crisis.

A natural flair for branding alongside complete dedication to studying how others had successfully leveraged social media channels has enabled Hayden to grow Hagley West in record time, since making his first watch sale in 2018. The brand doubled turnover every year, then last year saw record results with nearly half a million pounds achieved. That figure is set to double to more than one million pound in this financial year.

Hayden has now also accumulated nearly one million followers on TikTok and regularly delights fans of the brand with free watch giveaways, providing they can find him! ‘Find Tim’ video releases can generate up to three million views and have already helped him break into the lucrative US market, with more than 796 US sales within the first 60 days of approaching the sector.

Part of the secret to Hayden’s success with Hagley West is his determination and not being afraid to get things wrong along the way. “Our big strapline is ‘love your journey’ and that applies to me and Hagley West as much as it does our customers,” explains Hayden.

“Everybody has a story, everyone has been through something and we as a brand are all about positivity and kindness. We regularly reward our loyal followers and they in turn are great supporters of the brand. I genuinely love what we are doing and the stories we hear every day.”

Hayden himself has already had quite the journey, working in sales and management in his twenties, 18 years of experience in IT services throughout his thirties and early forties to then successfully build the Hagley West brand. Now he’s keen to inspire others who are on a journey and provide entertainment along the way.

“One of the things that I was most proud about was our inspirational women range, we got so much support for that initiative,” continued Hayden. “I think people like humanised, real content. We’re constantly looking at other ways we can work with inspiring people and we should have another exciting announcement soon.”

Tim is now keen to pass on his knowledge, experience and learnings about starting a brand to other people, so that they can go on their own ‘journey’ and find success.

“Times are understandably difficult for a lot of people at the moment and if I can be a source of inspiration for other small businesses on their own journey, I take a lot of personal pride in that. If I can potentially offer any guidance to other fledgling entrepreneurs that would be really rewarding.”

Read more:
UK entrepreneur overcomes adversity to deliver million pound business

We talk to Nicki Clark OBE about the inspiration behind employee-owned business UMi

What do you currently do at UMi?

I am Chief Executive at employee-owned business UMi where I am a founding Director since 2007.

Alongside my wider team, we help businesses go further by providing them with the best information, expertise and finance. I’m also actively engaged in a range of organisations and enterprises whose services support and create better opportunities for people

What is the inspiration behind the business?

To transform the way that businesses access information and expertise so they could make better business decisions more quickly. We believed we could bring the best that both the public and private sector have to offer and package it so that it’s easier to understand, access and use.

What defines your way of doing business?

Simply, the way we measure success.  Like all good businesses we keep a firm eye on the fiscal health of the business but at the same time keep two other key success measures firmly in our sights– whether we are a work place where talent thrives, and lastly the impact that we create in the places where we live and work.

Some of the practical ways in which we express that are through being wholly employee owned, pursuing BCorp certification, ranked in the top 100 best companies to work for, supporting over 500,000 business across the UK, and investing over £100,000 through the UMi community fund to help tackle isolation.

At an operational level part of our difference comes from being able to provide our customers all the rigour and robustness of a large corporate with the entrepreneurial flair and agility of a smaller business.

Who do you admire?

There’s not one person in particular, I tend to admire lots of different people for different things. It’s difficult to say if our values are influenced by those we admire or the other way around but I really admire those people who are achieving great things in the face of adversity or are doing something which has a positive impact beyond just themselves. 

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I am so proud of the work we do at UMi,  there are no big things I would change. Some of the things I wish I had learned at an earlier stage in my career was the fact that often the quality of the journey is more important than the destination, and also that if you embrace the differences in your team it leads to a stronger more creative and successful team.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

To not back yourself into a corner, always have options.  In my earlier career I thought that decisiveness meant that once you made your mind up you shouldn’t alter it as that would look like you lacked conviction etc.  In my later years, and following learning some painful lessons, I now benefit from being much more open minded and that changing decisions as long as they are done consciously and for good reasons can be a positive thing.

Read more:
Getting to Know You: UMi Chief Executive, Nicki Clark OBE

Bob Hair, who leads UK-based wealth manager Cazenove Capital’s activity in Scotland tells Business Matters what defines his way of doing business.

What do you currently do at Cazenove Capital?

I lead Cazenove Capital’s team in Scotland, based in Edinburgh. We have a team of 13 professionals here, all of whom are dedicated to helping entrepreneurs, business owners, professionals and wealthy families to optimise their financial and investment affairs in a fast-paced world.

2022 will mark Cazenove Capital’s thirtieth year in Scotland. The team has grown considerably in recent years, making significant hires and requiring a recent move to new premises in Charlotte Square. The outlook for the region, and the UK as a whole, is strong and we’re looking forward to the challenges that our diverse, dynamic clients will bring in the coming years.

What defines your way of doing business?

Putting it simply, we do the right thing, and seek to do things right. If I had to sum up how we do this in one word, it would be “collaboration”. We pride ourselves on our ability to form deep, lasting relationships and as such we sit on the same side of the table as our clients as they navigate life. Working together to gain a strong understanding of their interests is fundamental not only to meeting their needs, but also ensuring their wealth is preserved, grown and deployed in a way that aligns with their personal objectives and values. Now, more than ever, this is a critical consideration for wealthy clients.

Supporting clients to grow their own networks is another example of collaboration in action. Across each of our regional hubs, Scotland included, we are able to connect clients with local practitioners including accountants, lawyers and other professionals as required. That’s in addition to other clients with similar interests. Providing opportunities for clients to further their business interests organically, through trusted partnerships, is a key differentiator.

In Scotland, our entrepreneurs are also very collaborative and tend to follow a simple mantra – “work hard, play hard and give something back”. By tapping into that willingness to give back, be it with funding, energy or mentorship we also help the next generation of entrepreneurs coming through by curating opportunities for private investment through our extensive network. In so doing, we create a virtuous circle as part of our wider ambition to help Scotland, and the UK as a whole, become the most entrepreneurial society in the world.

What keys to being productive can you share?

Clearly focus on your purpose, and your objectives, understand exactly where you are today and what you need to do to get there. Be prepared to prioritise and say “no” on occasion, and look after yourself and your loved ones.

How do you measure success?

For me, success is multifaceted and measured through a series of day-to-day achievements – the “sum of all parts”.

One day it could be a high-net-worth client engaging their children in the family’s financial affairs with our help and eventually handing over the responsibility for the family’s wealth to the next generation, or facilitating them making a significant philanthropic donation to a cause close to their hearts. Or even something as fundamental as counselling a business owner and knowing you have helped them securely exit their business to secure their financial independence. It can be simply bringing clarity and simplicity to a confusing situation where financial arrangements have been accumulated over many years, building a team of multi-disciplined advisers to safeguard the interests of a family, or helping to guide the path in difficult circumstances such as the death of a family member, or divorce. We play a fundamental role in each process, working closely with the client for many months and years to achieve their desired outcome.

Clearly, every client has distinct goals, financial and non-financial. I feel a sense of success and pride if we exceed their expectations in defining and meeting these goals. Doing that without fuss, time after time over decades, could be defined as success.

What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned during your career?

Always do the right thing no matter how difficult it seems at the time – and that kindness is not a weakness in business.

What are your favourite things to do outside of work? How do you maintain a solid work/life balance?

My life outside of work revolves around my family, who keep my feet on the ground and work/life balance in check. When I can I like to ski, golf, catch up with friends and watch sport.

In your view, how has entrepreneurialism in the UK changed over the years?

Historically, entrepreneurs have been the catalysts behind some of the UK’s most significant industrial periods. Different regions have a long-term association with particular industries, for example textile markets in Yorkshire, iron and steel in Sheffield and shipbuilding in Glasgow. The word “industry” now represents a much broader and more diverse array of activities, but we see similar trends playing out today as we did over 100 years ago.

The UK’s modern industrial activity is concentrated into similar clusters. The South-East enjoys a close association with fintech activity, earning the region the nickname “the Silicon Roundabout” although Scotland is also no slouch in this area. Scottish industry is increasingly linked to technology in all its forms, particularly health-tech, and also sustainability, which was put under a global spotlight with last year’s COP26 Conference in Glasgow. In Manchester, the growth of fast-paced digital and media companies now means much of the UK’s television is produced and distributed from the city.

Entrepreneurialism in 2022 is less about status than it was in the past. Generally, entrepreneurs are individuals who identify a way to make money from their passions. And more and more we are seeing virtuous circles developing where today’s entrepreneurs support the next generation coming through.

What sets Scotland’s entrepreneurs apart?

The UK’s entrepreneurs are up there with some of the best globally, but Scotland has a few unique characteristics. The depth of the country’s entrepreneurial community means we are front and centre in the development of technological advancements in almost every field imaginable. Our workers are committed and hard-working; this has undoubtedly contributed to the strength of entrepreneurial spirit in Scotland.

The ambition of our people collectively also means that the Scottish diaspora is truly global in nature, so our innovators and entrepreneurs have been doing their work for hundreds of years in every corner of the globe. Understanding how to leverage that global but disparate potential is a challenge which technology helps surmount by giving better connectivity and communication than ever before. Having given the world so much, we need to reverse the trend to export our best people and ideas, and now find ways for inward investment of capital, entrepreneurs and technology.

Scotland at first observation has a fantastic eco-system for entrepreneurs, with a supportive government and public bodies, leading universities, supportive venture and angel investment framework and a rich heritage for entrepreneurialism. Yet we lag behind other areas in the UK in many metrics – the most significant being funding. We ask for less and secure less as a rule. We need to be as good at scaling businesses as we are at generating ideas and starting them.

How are you (and the business) positioning yourself to meet entrepreneurs’ needs in the future?

We are not just supportive of the eco-system for entrepreneurs in Scotland; we are a big part of it. We sponsor events, provide facilities for, support, connect with, advise and curate opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors, angel syndicates, venture capitalists, universities, incubators, accelerators and sector-specific support networks across Scotland. This gives us a deep knowledge of what is going on, who is doing what but most importantly the issues faced by entrepreneurs and investors alike.

Having looked after multiple generations of entrepreneurs, their families and their foundations we have also been privileged to serve the sector through thick and thin. It’s a bit like being a guide on a mountain – we know all of the paths, not just those well travelled! So that implicit knowledge and active support for the sector helps us provide support at every step of the journey they are on – often using our experience to provide guidance on aspects they haven’t even considered yet.

And when they have secured financial independence from their own endeavours, we take care of the wealth they have created, typically becoming custodians to preserve and grow what they have worked so hard to create, managing risk and tax as we go.

Our clients’ wealth is their future. Understanding the trends shaping future economic activity, and creating strategies in alignment with those influences, is a fundamental part of our service. Ultimately, we want our clients to continue growing their wealth to meet their future goals, so being able to take advantage of broader trends is very important.

Being able to draw on the expertise of our parent company, Schroders Group, also underpins how we pivot to broader trends, and meet clients’ demand for exposure to certain asset classes. In recent years, we have significantly developed our sustainable investment franchise. Alternatives has also become a key asset class, given its resilience in the face of broader headwinds.

Factoring in the regional presence of our client base is also key. The proportion of the UK’s wealth that is generated outside of London cannot be ignored; it is important to us to have on-the-ground presence across different regions to meet local clients’ needs and optimise the service they receive. We are committed to identifying opportunities to grow our regional presence, as we have done in recent years with new spaces in Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Bob Hair, Scottish lead, Cazenove Capital

Brendan Garvey the Chief Operating Officer of Business Champion Awards finalist the Global Procurement Group talks about the inspiration behind the business.

What do you currently do at Global Procurement Group

As COO I focus on working with our teams, supporting them to deliver to the very highest standards for our customers. Our growth has been spurred by sustained customer acquisition and customer loyalty. This is due to the quality of advice and support they receive from our people every day. I’m responsible for ensuring those standards are continuously maintained and that we go further, striving to improve on them all the time.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Our business has grown through the desire of its founder and CEO, Fokhrul Islam, to offer customers something different to other B2B energy companies – a greater understanding of when, where and how their energy was being used, so they could reduce it and cut costs and carbon. I’ve known our CEO for much of his working life and I’m inspired by that mission – creating a greener, cleaner future for us all.

Who do you admire?

I have admiration for many people and colleagues over the years, but if someone stands out, it’s Liv Garfield, CEO of Severn Trent. We worked together at BT, and I learnt so much from her. She’s an inspirational female leader who combines a direct, honest approach, with the ability to really listen and support. She is a role model not just for women, but young, aspiring leaders in general. In what remains a male-dominated culture, she has continued to stand out through her unwavering belief in her values and through her ability to inspire others around her.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

There’s plenty of times I’ve looked back over my career and asked myself why didn’t I say something then to convey my view. Although nothing major stands out, what I have learned over the years is that we must be brave and we must speak out in a respectful and constructive way about our beliefs and values.

What defines your way of doing business?

Believing in the power of people.

The success of a business really depends on its people. I started at the Global Procurement Group as Chief People Officer and my role was to get to know the people here, to support their development. I’ve worked with our people on their behaviours and supported their efforts to become better people themselves. As citizens of this planet, we can play a positive role ourselves (and by influencing others) on the environment.

I’m passionate about this because I really see it as a great opportunity to impact positively for future generations. Wasting energy really concerns me because we still don’t seem to realise its impact. Right now, businesses everywhere are burning through energy – leaving lights, monitors, heaters, generators and other equipment on.

As we see the energy crisis continue, we have the ability as people to reduce our energy by embracing technology that helps us see our impact. My way of doing business is by inspiring people to make positive change happen. There is no excuse and no time to waste.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Listen and ask questions – it will help you grow. Also, always seek feedback and try to use it constructively to improve yourself. You won’t get things right all the time, just as I haven’t, but you’ll be learning and developing and that is the right approach for success. Good luck!

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Brendan Garvey, COO, Global Procurement Group

Abdul Shiil Co-Founder of Business Champion Awards finalist Sahan Cares tells Business Matters what led him to start the family-run social enterprise.

What do you currently do at Sahan Cares?

I’m the Co-Founder and Director of Sahan Cares, a family-run social enterprise started in 2012 in London. We give employment opportunities to refugees, specifically Black and ethnic minority women, by teaching them English and training them as care workers for the elderly. I deal with Marketing and Operations.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

One of the reasons we decided to set up a social enterprise was to empower the community that once empowered us. My family arrived in the UK as refugees and received so much support that I feel it’s my duty but also my privilege to pass that on – and on a larger scale.

The inspiration for Sahan Cares, therefore, comes from my mother. She used to run a charity that empowered disenfranchised Black and ethnic minority women, especially other refugees, by bringing them together as a community, teaching them some English and letting their kids get to know each other. Sahan Cares was started, in a way, as a prolongation and expansion of that community and as a way to create positive changes in these women’s lives.

The older I become, the more inspired I am to help people that come from the same background as me to visualise a different life for themselves. I find it incredibly motivating to know that it’s possible to earn a living and uplift your community simultaneously, and that’s what I’m trying to share.

Who do you admire?

Definitely my grandmother. She’s still based in Somaliland and, despite not knowing how to read or write, is an entrepreneur who inspires many people within her community. In Somaliland, women are not encouraged to earn their own living, but my grandfather never thought that way, and they set up a farm together, which she still runs after his death.

She would always tell her children to strive for independence, be the master of their own destiny and never compromise on their beliefs and values. She has a natural love for caring for people and has helped so many women in her community to think outside the box; she also sponsors orphans and donates to several charities and, despite having no access to TV or the internet, she’s very switched on about current affairs – she recently installed solar panels on her farm because she wanted to do her bit for the environment.

When you’re young, I think you look for inspiration from classic icons in the business world, like Richard Branson and such. Still, the older I get, the more I appreciate all that my grandmother accomplished with her limited resources and the more my admiration for her grows. She believes in giving without expecting anything in return because the good you do will come back to you somehow, which can be used in business today, especially after Covid.

I see aspects of my mother and grandmother in the women at Sahan Cares – that natural sense of caring and so much power – and we want to help them reach their full potential.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

When we started the business, I wasn’t very patient – I wanted us to grow so quickly! However, I needed to learn that you have to build the proper foundations to support sustainable growth. Even after all these years, we’re still implementing this; Covid, especially, was a time of reflection. We realised that in order to keep growing, we needed to rebalance and keep reinforcing our foundations.

What defines your way of doing business?

I believe that our way of doing business is actually what separates us from other businesses: we are a care organisation, but one that cares about our staff – they are central to all that we do. For example, we’ve never had zero hour contracts and we’ve always given our staff options, such as access to early pay and extended leave. What’s more, our office is their home, and they bring their kids there. In fact, we’re so proud that some of the children of our carers just graduated from universities like Oxford, Cambridge and King’s College and that’s the generation of kids who would come to our office and use the Wifi to do their homework.

That’s what we’re most proud of: doing our work to empower these women and seeing how that filters down into the next generation. Caring has a domino effect – our care workers go above and beyond for their clients: they’ll visit them on their days off and put money together to buy them flowers or a cake to celebrate their birthdays. We feel like because we go the extra mile for the carers, they go the extra mile for their clients.

During Covid, we knew our carers were suffering from burnout so we launched our Therapy Thursdays program and brought in a psychologist to support them and encourage them to share ways to deal with the issues they were facing. They often live in disenfranchised communities and it’s important for them to share their experiences and support each other, especially when it comes to dealing with their kids and the negative influences from the community. And then, on top of that, they have so much other trauma because they fled from war, and now they’re able to work through that, too.

When we found out that our carers would need to be vaccinated, we knew there would be some backlash because there was a lot of fear and mistrust in the Black and ethnic minority communities. So we started to use some of the mental health and wellbeing time to dispel myths and appease any doubts about the Covid vaccine and, by March 2021, we had a 100% vaccine rate. We received a letter from the Prime Minister to thank us and our process was adopted by local NHS groups – we even had the Oxford vaccine taskforce asking us for tips. That’s a great example of the ripple effect – we started from a place of wanting to look after our staff, which became a great wave that helped and inspired others.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

I try to be mindful about giving advice because everyone is on their own path and what works for one person doesn’t always work for the other. However, I’d definitely go back to the patience element here – it’s so important to learn but hard to teach. Be patient, have good people around you that you trust because setting something up can be lonely.

When times get tough, always remember why you started and keep it in mind when times are good, too. It’s natural to get complacent, but when things are going well, you have to work even harder because nurturing that drive will help you when times are hard. And times do get hard! People think that running a business is such a high, but it’s during the low points that you build resilience. Keeping your mission close at heart is the way to get through the ups and downs and always stay true to why you started.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Abdul Shiil, Co-Founder, Sahan Cares

Emma Parker, talks to Business Matters about why she started the never beige and boring Business Champion Awards finalist lingerie company Playful Promises.

What do you currently do

I’m the Founder at Playful Promises. The main part of my role is overseeing the business strategy and product design. One of my favourite bits of my role is setting the colour palette for each of our lingerie brands for the season we’re designing into and working out what embroideries we should design for the coming season.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Playful Promises is a lingerie and swimwear business that is  pretty, sexy, comfortable but never beige and boring. I noticed there was a gap in the marketing for design led fashionable and sexy lingerie in a wide range of sizes (we make 90+ bra sizes!) and an affordable price point.

Who do you admire?

This is a bit cheesy but my Dad – he taught me to love reading and gaining knowledge and to have confidence to try and be anything I wanted when I grew up including an entrepreneur.

Outside of work I admire some of the old philosophers who spent time thinking about how humans interact and how we can best interact. A couple of the ones I admire the most are Bertrand Russell and JS Mill.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Planned bigger from a technology viewpoint from the beginning. Migrating technology systems hurts and I wished I had started with something more robust when the business was a bit smaller.

What defines your way of doing business?

Passion. We bring a lot of passion to what we do. We really care about making unique product and in a wide range of sizes.

Whilst it’s not cost efficient to have higher paid people doing more administrative tasks, I would never ask someone to do something I hadn’t done or wouldn’t do myself – I also apply to that to my design and fit process – it has to be good enough that I myself would wear it.

Put yourself in your employees and customers shoes always.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Stop waiting for your product or service to be perfect. A business is a journey which will evolve as you go along. Be resilient and by that I mean don’t worry about making mistakes; you will make mistakes, pick yourself up and work out how to do it better next time.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Emma Parker, Founder, Playful Promises

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Lucy Johnson, Founder, Isle Book-Keep

Paul Rhodes talk to Business Matters about Wellgiving, the fitness platform with plans to raise £1 million for UK charities.

What do you currently do at WellGiving?

I’m the founder of WellGiving, a health and fitness platform designed to improve the mental and physical wellbeing of employees while raising money for charities across the UK. With WellGiving, we wanted to help connect remote and hybrid teams, and bring back those essential water cooler moments.

I spend about half of my time managing my team and overseeing projects, with the rest of my time spent on sales, marketing, and leadership. I think the goal of any entrepreneur should be to essentially make themselves redundant in the day-to-day operations of the business, and instead focus on executing their vision. I’m now in this transitionary period and working on scaling my team so I can spend more time concentrating on the direction of the business.

What was the inspiration behind the business?

I knew I wanted to start my own product business, and I wanted this new venture to be based on a genuine passion I had. The pivotal point for me was an ultimatum set by my own team. We had already tried numerous times to develop products with limited success. I was given 100 days to find my own passion project – one that could be a viable, commercial opportunity.

I had gotten into running to improve my fitness, and for 35 years of my life had not really considered myself to be a runner. With a bit of persuasion from my cousin, I got into parkruns, and ended up doing the Birmingham half-marathon for a local children’s hospice. With donations from friends and family, I raised over £1K, and when I finished it, I truly felt like a superhero. This cemented the idea of charity as a powerful motivator for fitness, and the following year when I completed another half-marathon, this time without fundraising, it felt like a hollow victory despite achieving a better time. I kept falling back on that idea of charity motivating sports performance.

WellGiving was designed with this in mind, to turn people into superheroes, and make every physical activity count, whether it’s a marathon, team sports, or even daily yoga. Anyone can take part, and use any physical activity to raise money for the causes they care about.

Who do you admire?

Having played in punk bands for a lot of my life, I have an affinity for companies and people that have that rebellious and DIY attitude towards business, and those that dare to be different in what they do.

People like Jason Fried and David Heinemeier, the co-founders of the software company Basecamp, are a real inspiration to me. Like me, they also transitioned from a service-based company and moved into developing their own products, but they also encapsulate that “dare to be different” mentality. They’re not afraid to be opinionated, or throw traditional business thinking out of the window, and these are things I really admire in entrepreneurs, and have informed my own approach to WellGiving.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I come from a tech background, where we run constant trials to innovate, improve and find better ways of doing things – in essence we are constantly experimenting and testing to see what works and what doesn’t. I look at my journey as an entrepreneur in much the same way, and accept the fact that obstacles and things not always going to plan is simply a part of that journey and an opportunity to learn and improve – it’s only a failure if you didn’t learn something from the experience.

Having said that, if there was one thing I could change about the development process of WellGiving, it would be to have spent less time theorising about it, and instead building it. Getting the product out to your target customer is absolutely vital, and allows you to begin that discovery phase much sooner. It’s only your customers that can guide this process, and it’s so important to get your product in front of them, no matter how crude that initial prototype might be.

What defines your way of doing business?

At the core of everything we do is the idea that “there is always another way”. As a founder, your job is to validate or disqualify your ideas and assumptions by putting them to the test, and let the market decide what they want and how much they are prepared to pay for it. It’s this mentality that has led us to create a solution that is the complete opposite to many of our competitors – it may sound like a cliché, but when everyone else zigs, we zag.

From the inception of WellGiving, I’ve taken a collaborative approach with my team and my customers. At the heart of everything we do is transparency and equality. We have developed a truly remote, flexible and open way of working where all ideas and issues are discussed openly.

This has led to some unbelievable engagement and opportunity, and this approach translates into sales, too. We’ve been called “brutally transparent” by several of our clients, because we place such an emphasis on finding the right customers to go on the journey with us, and I think developing that personal connection with the people you work with is really the key to WellGiving’s success.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

My biggest piece of advice, and one of the most important lessons I learnt in business is to talk openly about the challenges you face. Being open, honest and transparent is one if the best things you can do. Surrounding yourself with support networks, whether it’s family, friends, your team, or other business owners, is invaluable in overcoming those inevitable moments of doubt. The practice of talking through an idea, or having my own pre-conceived notions challenged by those I trust helps me to process and organise my ideas in a way I simply wouldn’t be able to do alone. Never underestimate the value of surrounding yourself with the right people!

Don’t be too precious about your idea. Instead, identify and interact with your target audience, and get to know your customer better than anyone else in your market. When you do execute your idea, don’t try and achieve perfection. Instead, aim to make even 1% progress each day towards your vision.

Finally, for me, at the heart of being an entrepreneur is a desire to pursue a passion, and go wherever that journey takes you. You’re choosing to go on this adventure, and it’s important to truly enjoy what you do every day. If you’re not having fun, change what you’re doing!

Read more:
Getting to Know You: Paul Rhodes, founder, WellGiving

Danielle Cluett, Founder, The Pretty Hat and finalist in the Business Champion Awards tells Business Matters how a medical condition led her to creating her own hat brand.

What do you currently do?’

I’m the founder and owner of “The Pretty Hat” brand and run the whole business myself – from designing and sourcing the products, to building the website, making graphics, content, editing photos, packing orders etc.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I have a condition which causes hair thinning and was wearing a lot of beanies and satin bonnets myself over lockdown to protect my hair and scalp. I started designing hats for myself and had so many compliments on them and people asking where I had bought these “Pretty hats” from. Then the idea to design more and market them was born!

Who do you admire?

Jade Holland Cooper for her beautiful country clothing brand with the tailored tweed items made in the UK. I also greatly admire Conna Walker of House of CB and of course Ben Francis of Gymshark because these two entrepreneurs started out small in their bedrooms/garages and with little start-up capital.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I think I would’ve gone live with products sooner and just started selling one or two styles. I am quite a perfectionist and didn’t feel comfortable launching the brand until absolutely everything was ready. I didn’t want it to look “unfinished” but I needn’t have designed and arranged over 50 styles either. It took me a year of late nights and weekends designing, sampling and testing products when I already had a few designs ready to go.

What defines your way of doing business?

I’m just learning as I go and staying true to myself. It started out as a hobby to design and sell products I actually like and would wear, so I like to connect with my followers and customers on a personal level and learn what works and what doesn’t. I am always seeking feedback and ways to improve my hats and website. I also like to share tips and tricks on how I make my photos and website look professional with simple and cheap kit, to inspire other entrepreneurs.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Just go for it and try not to compare your idea to other well-established brands. It’s easy to believe a market is saturated or that your product isn’t as good as X, or social media account isn’t as good as Y. Everyone has to start somewhere. I am actually a software tester and have never been a product designer or marketer, but I am willing to give anything a go.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Danielle Cluett, Founder, The Pretty Hat

Steph Douglas talk to Business Matters about what led her to create the gift company Don’t Buy Her Flowers.

What do you currently do at ‘Don’t Buy Her Flowers’

I’m the Founder and CEO of Don’t Buy Her Flowers. I launched the business in 2014. We send thoughtful gift packages for all occasions, to offer some TLC and to encourage the recipient to take a bit of time for themselves. We also support a growing number of corporate clients looking for gifts that say a bit more than the usual hampers, for employee engagement and rewards, clients and launches.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

When I had my first baby, I received eight bunches of flowers. They were obviously well meant, but it struck me as bizarre that the go-to gift was another thing to care for, when you’re doing more caring than you’ve ever done in your life.

I found those initial weeks overwhelming and emotional and what I really needed was someone to just tell me it would be ok and maybe offer me a bit of TLC. From then on when a friend had a baby, I started sending packages with treats for them. A magazine, chocolate, a mini gin – nothing big, but just accompanied with words of encouragement. Their reaction was always so unnecessarily grateful, and it made me curious as to why someone wasn’t doing that.

It was after my second maternity leave when I really couldn’t shake the idea and combined with wondering how my role at work was going to fit with family life, I started to get curious about the idea of running my own business.

I started a blog as a bit of a stepping stone, writing honestly about motherhood and relationships, and the success of that told me that other people felt like me – overwhelmed and a bit lost – and acknowledgement of those feelings really helped me connect with people.

I launched as gifts for new mums a few months later and very quickly found customers wanted to send our packages for a whole host of reasons – always to offer TLC, but for birthdays, bereavement, work gifts etc. Just over seven years on we now have 20+ employees, have upsized our warehouse and have fortunately had a lot of success throughout the pandemic.

We were very fortunate that our product perfectly resonated with people during a time when people wanted to connect and support each other and couldn’t physically be together. It was daunting at first, as everything was unknown and at points we were 600% up on the previous year so a huge challenge operationally, but the team were amazing at pulling together and we delivered to the demand.

Now in 2022 we are in a great spot as we’ve been able to invest back into the business to protect and build on our foundations, in both the team and infrastructures such as the stock management system. We have a shiny new website we’re really proud of and lots of new products and offerings to come this year.

Who do you admire?

Lots of people inspire me in business and outside of business. We just launched the Don’t Buy Her Flowers podcast  where I’m speaking to brilliant people – psychologists, experts, and women who are carving out their own lives amid this ‘rush hour’ of families and work and life, not to mention the pandemic.

I’ve done a good amount of listening to and reading Glennon Doyle and Brene Brown, who are both instrumental in leading the conversation around equality in the home, which determines how we survive and thrive in business too. It’s a topic I’m really passionate about, as I want women like myself to come together and share thoughts and ideas around how we can craft a life that works better than it has in the past.

My main message is that we can’t do everything we did before when we are leading or running businesses, therefore conversations start at home. There’s also a lot of conversation around vulnerability, and that’s not something that has been associated with business and leadership in the past, but absolutely should be.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I’ve learned so much and continue to do so all the time. The hardest, most challenging times are definitely when you learn the most, so I don’t think it would help to change them. I love having a team – in most cases I probably could have brought people in just slightly sooner. Especially when I look back at packing boxes on my knees in my spare room – I had two small kids at that time, I was doing every role in the business and someone told me to get help with the packing, that my time wasn’t best spent doing that. They were entirely right and I’ve found that with each hire, it gives me and the rest of the team room to think, grow and deliver.

What defines your way of doing business?

The business was founded because of a need to connect, understand and support people often when they need it most. These are the values that run through the business inside and out. The pandemic definitely clarified how important communicating with the team is, but especially with regard to their wellbeing. Everyone was going through something – feeling anxious, worried for their families and loved ones, nervous about the virus – and I learned a lot about what I want our culture to be.

To ensure people could talk freely about their worries, that they could put their families first, we could work flexibly where needed. Maintaining that culture as we’ve grown has become one of my main roles, as well as listening to the team when they’ve come up with ways to keep everyone positive, including a ‘random acts of kindness week’ and team challenges where people were given the opportunity to develop ideas for packages that we’ve now taken forward. I’ve learned it’s ongoing – you can’t encourage everyone to communicate well and then hope they maintain it, it needs revisiting and working together with everyone constantly.

Our biggest strength has been developing people beyond the role they joined us for – recognising skills and building roles to fit and stretch them. The majority of the management team joined us as warehouse packers; seeing how proud they are to be a part of the story is hugely rewarding but also seeing people fulfil potential I don’t think they knew they had.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Stay focused. Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing, be really clear what it is YOU are doing and go for it. Once you’re live and receiving feedback you can always amend and improve your offer – no one starts with their final product or service. And be gentle with yourself. Starting a business requires a lot – of energy, flexibility, drive and of course cash. Take out some of the things to make space for it. It’s ok to have cereal for tea and not be a social butterfly for a bit – you can’t just do everything you did before and run a business on top.

Steph is judging the SME category of the Business Champion Awards

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Steph Douglas, Founder, Don’t Buy Her Flowers

Alex Ramamurthy tells Business Matters about why he co-founded retirement platform Mirthy and why you should ask for forgiveness, not for permission in business

What do you currently do at Mirthy?

I am the co-founder and CEO at Mirthy, a platform that is reimagining retirement. Mirthy offers a comprehensive programme of events and content library, designed to bring like-minded people together to share interests and experiences, learn new things and make new connections. It’s all about fulfilment and wellbeing.

Mirthy launched in 2020 and we now have over 30,000 users. The business is fortunate to have been supported by some top Venture Capital funds (Ascension, Ada, Redrice and True) and grant making organisations (UnLtd and Nesta). We’re a high-performing team of 12 with big ambitions.

My background spans health-tech start-ups and leadership roles within the Third sector and an innovation incubator. I am intent on solving problems in the ageing space that have a huge impact on society.

What was the inspiration behind the business?

I co-Founded Mirthy with Dhruv Haria. Both Dhruv and I witnessed the effects retirement was having on our parents. We noticed how their well-being was being affected by their decreasing social circles and the increasing inactive freetime they had alone. We wanted to bring a better solution to our parent’s lives and millions of others.

This is a hugely underserved demographic, who are feeling increasingly disenfranchised from society. While dialogue around an ageing population focuses on the growing burden on health services, my experience sees a generation of people with more energy, desire for life and time than ever before.

Our vision is to reimagine what it means to be retired. We’re starting with the discovery of new opportunities for learning and connecting through events, and the ambition is to evolve this into a game changing proposition once you’re no longer in full time work.

Who do you admire?

I admire super intelligent people, people who have the ability to easily learn and understand things or to lead and inspire large teams. People like Bill Gates, Sheryl Sandberg and Reid Hoffman. I also admire those who have dominated their field, like Lewis Hamilton, Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters.

The people that have inspired me as I grew up are much closer to home. My parents instilled integrity, hard work and the belief that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

There were countless mistakes made, and there will be many more to come. What’s important is that you learn from those mistakes fast and make adjustments.

I rushed into registering the company which caused some challenges down the road and also added some unnecessary admin (for example, Companies House filings). In reality, it took us over a year and several models tested before we were ready to launch. What we launched with was very different to what we set out to build.

What defines your way of doing business?

We closely follow the lean start up methodology adopting the build, measure, learn feedback loop in almost everything we do. If you haven’t read the book or are not aware of the methodology, I would highly recommend researching it.

At Mirthy, we believe in constantly improving, trying new things, and testing what works. We’re a curious bunch, always asking questions and striving to learn and get better. It makes it more challenging that the majority of the team are not our target market, i.e. we are not retired folk. So, we have to work twice as hard to ensure we are led by our users and build something that they truly need and love.

Above all integrity is at the heart of what defines my way of doing business. If you can’t trust someone, you can’t possibly have a relationship with them, whether that be in business or personal.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Be prepared for things to take twice as long as you expect and start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable! The idea you have in the early days will almost always be wrong. Whilst my vision for the future has never changed, we went through several iterations of the model in the first year at Mirthy, and then Covid struck and we had to pivot again from an offline model to fully online. If you are not prepared to be flexible, you will struggle to break through those early days.

If you can, find someone to share the journey with. In the past I’ve been against having a co-founder because I feared giving up equity. My experience at Mirthy has changed my thinking. It’s crucial you find a co-founder you can trust and who has a complementary skill set to you. Don’t rush into this, take your time to work with someone. Do you share similar values? Do they complement your skills? Do you have a similar view of the world and what you want to change? If things look good, then get going, but remember to protect yourselves. Founder conflict/break-up is one of the number 1 reasons for start-up failure. Ensure you put a vesting schedule in place for Founder shares and that you set clear expectations of each other. If you get it right, your journey will be much improved, as will your chances of success.

Finally, ask for forgiveness, not for permission – this is a mantra I follow in business and has (generally) served me well.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Alex Ramamurthy, CEO, Mirthy

We talk to Alistair King the co-founder of New Zealand pet food brand NOOD who have just launched their premium product range exclusively at Tesco.

What do you currently do at NOOD?

I am the Co-Founder and Director of NOOD, a natural pet food brand making premium pet food accessible to everyone. We first had the idea for NOOD walking through the pet aisle in late 2017 while I was in my first year of university in New Zealand. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with some of the world’s leading animal nutritionists to develop a range of all-natural recipes, which are now stocked in major retailers in 11 countries. We recently partnered with Tesco to launch NOOD across the UK.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

The inspiration for NOOD was born when I was walking through the pet aisle in the supermarket and couldn’t help but notice the lack of healthy, affordable options. We started reading the back of the products and were blown away by some of the included ingredients and how they were labelled. For example, products can legally be called ‘with Beef’ but actually be made up primarily of filler ingredients and only contain 4% beef. We quickly realised a need to create something cleaner, better and more affordable than the ‘$100 a bag’ premium brands, while also making it conveniently available where most people shop – supermarkets.

Who do you admire?

If I’m honest it’s not something I think about very much, but one of the things we pride ourselves on here at NOOD is thinking really big and trying to solve complex problems. We’re still small and finding our way, but take a lot of inspiration from people like Elon Musk who are able to bring people together to tackle big challenges. By no means are we trying to send rockets into space, but trying to make premium pet food wildly affordable and accessible has its own challenges!

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

There’s been hundreds of examples of scenarios where we could have made better decisions and saved a lot of time or money, but it’s something we try not to dwell on or think about. One of the things that I think we do well is being flexible, and the entire team have done an incredible job navigating what has been a challenging and unpredictable time over the past near-24 months.

What defines your way of doing business?

NOOD’s philosophy is that nutrition plays a critical role in helping pets live a vibrant, happy life, and that owners deserve to know what they are really feeding their pets. Therefor the more affordable and available premium products (like NOOD) become, the better the lives will be for so many pets around the world.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Be ready to go all in and do whatever it takes to make things work. We’ve had our fair share of setbacks, one of which was when our factory fired us four weeks before we were due to launch for the first time in Walmart Canada. We were due to begin production for about 120,000kg of product when I received a call from the factory saying it wasn’t able to proceed due to equipment issues.  I had to jump on a plane, and 21 hours and three flights later arrived in Missouri. We didn’t really have a plan of how to fix it, so I essentially begged the factory to let us try to hand-pack the food instead, and they reluctantly agreed. Over the next four weeks, we spent about 16 hours each day hand-packing pet food in the factory, just managing to get everything packed before the deadline. I wish I could say that was the only close call, but we’ve definitely gained a lot of confidence from overcoming all the challenges and problems over the past 24-36 months.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Alistair King, Co-Founder, NOOD

Matt Anderson talks to Business Matters about his company Velair ensure their customers get the best products for the end user.

What products or services do you provide?

Essentially, we provide hand dryer packages for B2B partners. If you’re a company that sell’s to customers, you’re in either the hygiene, janitorial or electrical industry, and you want to be able to offer your customer a hand dryer package which is based on ‘good’, ‘better’, or ‘best’ of 2 or 3 different hand dryers built through a robust supply chain, from a company that’s well established, then you’ll come to Velair, or everything Hand Dryers.

What type of businesses do you work with?

Predominantly with electrical wholesalers and washroom/hygiene companies

What problem does your company solve

We solve the problem of finding a company that sell a hand dryer package which is robust, energy efficient, with great customer service and amazing technical support.

What is your USP?

Our USP’s are number 1 our outstanding customer service, and number 2 our Plug and Play hand dryer system that we built, which is changing the hand dryer world. 

What are your company values? Have you ever had them challenged and if so how have you dealt with it?

On the wall of every office in the business are our values, titled ‘Be loved, not liked’. It struck a cord with me because lots of people like you (in the modern world of Facebook, and LinkedIn) but rarely do you get people who love you- especially customers. We put these values together to ensure that we’re loved, and these values are ‘Deliver WOW through customer service. Embrace drive and change. Create fun, and a little weirdness. Be adventurous, creative and open minded. Pursue growth and learning. Build honest relationships. Keep open communication. Build a positive team and family spirit. Do more with less. Be passionate and determined. Be humbled.’

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

One of the interview questions that we always ask is ‘tell us something that’s weird about you’, and it’s not a question that’s posed, it’s a gateway into knowing a little more about someone. We talk about the company values throughout the interview process, and what’s important to us, and so far we’ve built a fantastic team- so whatever we’ve done has obviously worked.

Are you happy to offer a hybrid working model of home/office post-covid?

Currently 90% of the people that work for Velair and EHD work from the office, but we do have people that work from both home and the office, and it’s not a problem. I believe that it works for most roles, but there are certain roles where you need to be in the office

Do you have any tips for managing suppliers and customers effectively?

In the 10 years of doing this, the one rule for us is fairness. Customers and suppliers are as important as each other, and some people don’t realise this. If you cant get a product, then you don’t have a customer, so its important that through the whole supply chain, and into the customer, you are fair with both parties.

Any finance or cash-flow tips for new businesses starting out?

Its really difficult when you start out because there aren’t a lot of business’ that have lots of cash injected into them at the beginning; you’re running everything yourself. The advice that I was always given was to bring somebody in as soon a possible who really understand finance, because it will be incredibly helpful, and hopefully keep you out of any trouble.

If you could ask one thing of the government to change for businesses what would it be?

The only thing I would look at changing is a way to make the system fairer for those business’ who don’t make a lot of money but work extremely hard compared to those who make an absolute fortune, and seem to pay the same tax.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?

I have the upmost respect for our competitors. Dyson came in 12 years ago, changed the industry and did hand dryers a massive favour, allowing for vertical change, as opposed to horizontal and expanding people’s thought horizon of what hand dryers are really capable of.

Any thoughts on the future of your company and your dreams?

With the invention of our Plug and Play system, we see the option of a global market opening up. We are now focusing on how we move from supplying the UK; into Europe, the US and Asia, with a system that’s revolutionising hand drying, and how do we protect that move forward. These are the things that challenge us, and as business owners, these are the challenges that we want.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Matt Anderson, Director, Velair

We talk to  Mark Costello, the CEO of hubb, a tech based insurance company focused on the SME market, which uses technology and AI to automate all but their advisory functions.

What is the concept behind hubb?

hubb was born from the inherent belief that the existing broken model is broken.

We want to see insurance sold with radical transparency and proactive commission disclosure. Equally, we want to see broker earnings that directly correlate to the value being delivered to the customer. When all of that is coupled with technology focussed on customer-centric service delivery, we believe we can change the face of an industry.

The insurance market is extremely overcrowded. How has hubb carved out a niche for itself?

hubb are introducing usage-based broking; the principle of paying for the service you consume. UBI is not a new concept but has until now focussed upon the insurance itself. We have SaaS-ified the broking model, enabling you to define your own service levels as and when you need us. Moreover, our charges are proactively disclosed up front, allowing you to directly assess the value of everything we do.

Do you believe the traditional insurance model is failing SMEs and if so, why?

Any model where you are financially incentivised to get your client a worse deal, cannot be without moral ambiguity. It demands the customer to blindly trust that their broker is happy to sacrifice their own earnings in pursuit of the best deal.

The fees being charged to customers are no longer reflective of the value being delivered. Instead, customers are subsidising extensive M&A activity, at inflated valuations, and high acquisition costs.

Why are they so high? Because brokers find themselves unable to win voluminous new business, unable to differentiate themselves from their cookie cutter competition. This is why so many policyholders buy on little more than price…because it’s the only obvious point of difference.

What are the main challenges facing SMEs today and how can companies such as hubb support them better than traditional insurers?

In the last few years, those challenges have changed dramatically. For many, simply keeping the lights on or staffing their business is now front and centre. Cost savings and the concept of value for money is central to their thinking. The concept of paying thousands of pounds up-front, for broking advice that you rarely ever use, is nonsensical.

Insurance has always been a grudge purchase and many just want to feel assured that their broker has taken the necessary steps to protect them. They want the necessary cover at a fair price. The problem is that they have to trust that both points are true – they have no basis for comparison themselves.

There have been a number of insurance technology start-ups launching over the past few years, especially focussed on SMEs. Should this be seen as a wakeup call to traditional insurers that they are missing something in the services they provide or is it too little too late?

That horse may already have bolted. The insurers succeeding are the ones working closely with InsurTechs. They are embracing it as an additional distribution channel, able to offer the laser-focused customer (and product) experience that a behemothic entity cannot.

As with anything, the issue with larger companies is that to scale they need to homogenize their processes. In doing so, they can lose the essence of what matters to the customer, or miss the nuances of specific industries.

It’s not too late, but incumbents are undoubtedly playing catch up as customers demand more, delivered better. There needs to be a real, focused commitment to improving their customer experience.

What advice would you give an SME business owner looking to buy the insurance and is unsure how to go about it or who to choose?

Put simply; ask some difficult questions.

Ask your existing broker to disclose what they earn from every quote they provide to you. Not just commission, but what they might stand to earn from premium financing, profit shares and marketing budgets. They’re obliged, by the FCA, to disclose those details when asked.

If it’s fair and a good deal for you, they should be only too keen to tell you, right? If they’re not….draw your own conclusions.

Once you know, assess for yourself whether you think those earnings are fair. If you don’t think it represents good value for money, consider a new way of buying business insurance. Ask to work on a fee basis and remove any temptation for the broker to keep your price higher than it needs to be.

But mostly, look for a broker who can clearly demonstrate that they are working for you…and not themselves.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Mark Costello, the CEO of hubb

Scott Sciberras, An investment and business aficionado with over 17 years’ experience working in Telecommunications, Event Management and Wholesale Beverage & Financial Services sectors tells us why he co-founded wholesale cask investment company Whiskey & Wealth Club

What do you currently do?

I am currently the CEO and co-founder of the world’s leading cask whiskey wholesale investment company Whiskey & Wealth Club. We bring together private investors and distilleries to allow clients access to premium whisk(e)y at ultra-wholesale prices.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I co-founded Whiskey & Wealth Club in 2018 with Jay Bradley and William Fielding. We noticed a gap in the market for private individuals wishing to access the rarefied world of wholesale premium cask whiskey ownership. So, we decided to bring together our backgrounds in business, investing and trading to bridge the gap between distilleries and investors. Globally, whisk(e)y is a booming. The Irish market alone is set to increase by 300% by 2030. Demand for mature stock currently far outweighs supply. This is set to continue for the next 20 to 30 years and the global whisk(e)y market as a whole, is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.51%.

Aditionally, New Make Spirit in Ireland and Scotland can only be legally called whisk(e)y once it has undergone maturation in wooden casks for a minimum of three years in those respective countries. With many world-renowned whiskies/eys being matured for upwards of 10 years, meaning distilleries have a lot of overhead and running costs before they start generating any revenue. That’s where we come in.

Whiskey & Wealth Club buys a large percentage of a distillery’s new-make production which provides them with a seven-figure income per year and essentially “keeps their lights on”. We then act as a bridge between distilleries and investors who are looking for a much safer asset-backed investment, with much greater returns. Our buying power means we can offer casks to investors at ultra-wholesale rates. Investors can later sell back to distilleries or brands seeking the highly in-demand mature stock, or to independent bottlers. Collectors or alternative investors also provide an attractive exit opportunity to our clients, as they will pay a premium to bunny-hop time and years of maturation.

What defines your way of doing business?

Our success at Whiskey & Wealth Club is built on our top tier team of colleagues. Motivation is always important, and we drive and encourage employees with a transparent career progression system that is 100 per cent determined by their performance. So, once they’ve hit the metrics needed to be promoted, they come to us and they get it. The final stage of the promotion structure is to become a business partner. We want our staff to progress to that level and have the same experiences as we have, driving, growing and owning a business.

Additionally, I always make myself available to the team should they need anything. I’ve learned that leaders need to be approachable so that everyone feels part of the family. Hence why I have my desk on the main office floor instead of having a personal office space.

What do you admire?

I have always been inspired by other business leaders and innovators and I enjoy learning from their successes. There is always a chance of failure but the persistence in believing in an idea and pushing to make it work is admirable.

Looking back is there anything you would have done differently?

As many entrepreneurs will tell you, the road to creating a successful business comes with a lot of challenges and tough lessons. In the early days, we struggled to meet demand and experienced supply issues as we worked to bring on more distillery partners. But each setback became an opportunity to learn and become stronger as a group. Enabling us to open up bigger and better doors.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Do your due diligence and research. My investment journey started when I was just 10 years old. Every Monday, my dad would ask me to pick ten shares in the newspaper. Come Friday, my pocket money for the following week would then go up or down depending on how well the shares did. It taught me about the importance of research and making educated, well researched investment decisions. Although I didn’t always increase my pocket money, it got me itching to get into the world of business and investing at a very young age.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Scott Sciberras, co-founder, Whiskey & Wealth Club

Change Management and Organisational Resilience expert Dr. Nahla Khaddage Bou-Diab is the COO of AM Bank s.a.l in her native Lebanon, having joined the organisation in 2000.

Prior to that she was responsible for launching Ernst & Young Lebanon’s Management Consulting Services, and also led the restructuring of Central Bank of Canada.

Noted internationally as an inspirational leader, Dr. Khaddage has broken new ground in integrating spiritual values within the corporate structure, and as Head of Women Empowerment for the World Union of Arab Bankers she introduced the first charter for gender diversity in the Arab world.

She has achieved all this despite severe hardships while growing up, being deprived of a university education as well as encountering prejudice and workplace harassment. Instead of letting these obstacles defeat her, she instead identified and followed a set of guiding principles that have allowed her to succeed, and as summed up in her new self-help guide, become ‘untamable’. As revealed in this interview, by following author Dr. Nahla Bou-Diab’s expert guidance you, too, can break out of your confines and become untamable.

Can you describe a typical day in your job?

I start my day looking at financial and operational ratios. There are two angles to this.

One, regular stats and reports that give me peace of mind that all ratios are in line with our forecasted plans. My objective here is to ensure there are no abnormalities that I need to address.  Two, ratios linked with new strategies, and I have to say that our normal day-to-day life includes unleashing new creative solutions. I give a lot of attention to these ratios as I analyse the results. This is important so that I can define my intervention to assist, motivate or remove obstacles and enable the success of these strategies. The results of my assessment will trigger other activities, such as brainstorming and ideation, which may become new innovative or agility-related projects.

I spend a lot of time managing the culture by activating people. I do what is necessary to keep people passionate about what they do. I ignite the bond between people and one of my top priorities is to keep people dreaming of a better tomorrow. I bring all efforts together to create the organisational dream.

I spend time talking to customers, understanding their needs and strengthening their bond with the organisation.

Regardless of how busy I am, people know that if they have a critical personal issue, I will make time for them and the organisation will support them.

You overcame numerous personal hardships growing up to break into the financial industry. Can you, briefly, tell us about this?

I can categorize my life into two parts. The first part is dominated by experiencing events, most of which can be labelled under ‘hardship’ and learning from these events. This first part would cover my childhood, immigrating to Canada from Lebanon and experiencing the hardship of rejection and bullying, then starting my professional life and facing harassment and discrimination. In this phase of my life I was experiencing, feeling and learning.

The second part of my life is when my learnings came together to define who I am. This is the phase when I depicted a consistent pattern of events and outcomes that materialised through my life. The dominant moment in this phase was when I realised that there is a relationship between my thoughts, my perspective, my actions and the outcome of my experiences. This second part of my life is where I harvested the knowledge and the emotions I endured in part one. In this part of my life I realised that the hardship I lived through was actually a rich experience that ignited my ‘powers’.  It is in this part of my life when I started documenting and researching, then decided that it is time to share and contribute to people’s growth.

You accelerated up the career ladder within the financial industry. What was the secret of your success?

There are two secrets and I share them in my book. The first one lies in the principles I live by—these principles that enabled me to effectively implement the step I share in my book, Untamable: ‘Connect, Trust and Accept’. It is these principles that guided my every decision and triggered my positive outlook on life, which led to my hard work and my perseverance.

The second one is my sense of purpose. I believe that I am here to experience life, to learn, to share, to love and make the world a better place by sharing the knowledge I have acquired so that others can reproduce the same successful cycle.

In your early career, you encountered harassment in the workplace. Can you briefly explain more, and how you handled it?

I was 18 years old, waking up from the realisation that as a result of my family’s traditional values I would not be allowed to pursue a university education because I was a girl. Although I was sad and broken, I accepted my circumstances. I saw this job as an opportunity to work hard and excel hoping that the company would support my night studies. With this state of mind, I got harassed by my manager. I felt invaded and scared, and my ambitions of having my work recognised were reduced to holding the job without giving into the manager’s advances. I could not tell anyone about this because I was worried that if I spoke up I would lose my job—which would place me in an even more difficult situation, especially as I was the main financial provider for my family. I felt helpless, and so I had to decide to pull myself out of the details and observe the situation from the outside. I used my thoughts to see more positive perspectives and decided that I am the master of my life and the manager was just a test to see if I would be distracted. It was my opportunity to validate my connection to my universe and to trust it. I applied my principles, and pulled myself out of the details and rejected all the negative noise. I focused on doing the work and nothing else, giving no mind to the distractions that would lead me astray of the path I chose for myself. Applying my principles in these circumstances resulted in nothing less than a miracle.

You are the author of a new self-help guide, Untamable, which sets out the guiding principles you have adhered to in your life. What are these, and what do you think professionals will gain from learning them?

My book invites the reader to implement one core step: ‘Connect, Trust and Accept’. Connect to the greater power that created us, trust it and accept that it will have your best interest at its core.

Associated with this are five principles that I live by to help me adopt this core step. If people can learn to feel gratitude; if they can learn to observe the details of their life instead of becoming a detail; if they can care for not only their physical bodies but also for their emotional and spiritual selves; if they can allow themselves to dream and release all expectations, they will be able to ‘Connect, Trust and Accept’. My book teaches the reader how to adopt these principles and implement this step by illustrating how I did it and using my life events as examples.

As the COO of a Lebanese bank you have taken active steps to integrate a spiritual dimension within the workplace. Can you explain what this has entailed, and why it has benefitted the company?

There are multiple decisions that were made in order to ensure that the integration of the spiritual dimension in the organisation was possible. I would like to highlight that the ‘spirituality’ I am referring to is a non-religious spirituality. It is a spirituality characterised by the need to have a sense of purpose and sense of belonging, not only to the organisation but also to the greater universe. The objective of integrating feelings of spirituality in the organisation was to make the organisation a place where one can integrate the whole parts of themselves into their workplace. It is a place where people and the organisation become one, bringing all energies of the people towards a higher purpose where both people and organisation can benefit. The intention is to make the organisation feel like home, becoming a place where there will be oneness that triggers a common purpose for both the organisation and its people. The organisation became the place where people are able to express themselves and unleash their passion. This objective dictates a redefinition of the organisation’s structure, its processes, its evaluation systems, and its decision-making processes. What we did is embed feelings that enable spirituality within the organisation, its the hierarchy and its processes. The result was magnificent on all levels—so magnificent that the organisation received multiple awards over the last few years and, in 2020, an award for achieving the highest level of resilience, at a time when the country was managing violence and total economic collapse. The organisation’s ratios exceeded the market and its culture is a benchmark.

You have also overseen a move towards a more gender-equal balance within the company. Aside from the fundamental issue of equality, why does greater gender diversity strengthen a business?

Gender diversity provides the company with the diversity of skills and competencies it needs to succeed in today’s high-pressure economic environment. The fact that men and women can bring to the company different skills will ensure that the skill set in the company is complete. Men and women bring different perspectives to the table and strengthen the company’s ability to create products and services that appeal to a wider population. More importantly, if gender diversity is supported by a healthy culture then we will see men and women reach out to each other to benefit from each other’s skills, in a way they operate as one perfect ‘body’.

You have earned a reputation as an inspirational leader. What are the key qualities business leaders need to get the most out of their teams?

Freeing themselves from the ‘ego disease’ is crucial to institute effective decision-making processes. Leaders also need strong analytical abilities to tie all financial and operational ratios to the macro view of the company strategy, empathy and compassion to retain talent, an expertise in managing change to institute change readiness in the culture, and strong interpersonal skills to trigger collaboration.

Your guidance comprises a distinct type of mindfulness. While some companies have incorporated mindfulness programmes, it is by no means across the board. What do you think companies are missing if they do not initiate such programmes for staff?

The mindfulness programs I have seen focus on supporting employees through a set of activities that the company finances. This means that the company pays for the program but it keeps its distance from its employees. The spirituality or mindfulness that I am talking about is, by contrast, founded on integrating the ability to trigger feelings of spirituality and/or mindfulness within the organisation. Whether we are defining the number of layers of an organisation’s structure, defining the company’s decision-making process, its recruiting process or its performance evaluation process, objectives related to triggering mindfulness within the culture must be integrated into the processes themselves. I believe that enabling feelings of spirituality, or as you call it ‘mindfulness’, inside the organisational environment will optimize the performance of the organisation.

What is the best piece of professional advice you have received, and why?

I always remember this statement made by one of the partners in a firm I worked with in Canada: “Not everything is black and white. Sometimes you have to manage the grey”. It’s easier to see everything in black or white, but it’s exhilarating to live in the unknown and strive to continuously understand. It’s even more exhilarating to evolve and see more shades of the grey.

Dr. Nahla Khaddage Bou-Diab is the author of new self-help guide Untamable: Claim Your Power, Live Fearlessly, and Become Unstoppable, published through Oneness Offshore and packed with powerful, proven tools to transform your life. It is available now on Amazon, priced £11.59 in paperback and £5.87 as an eBook, as well as on Barnes & Noble. For more information, visit www.nahlaboudiab.com

Read more:
Managing your life & career: An interview with Dr Nahla Khaddage

Ayesha Rees, Chief Executive Officer of ride-hailing app, UVA UK, catches up with us ahead of the launch of the challenger brand, which has set its sights on changing the ride-hailing landscape for good.

What do you currently do at UVA?

I am the CEO of UVA UK, an app-based ride-hailing service that’s set to be launched in a number of cities in the UK early this year. Ride-hailing is a completely new and exciting journey for me. Before joining UVA, my career has been in vocational education and working with businesses spanning the private, public and third sectors.

My extensive experience in education ties into UVA’s commitment to delivering a world-class driver training programme, which will give our drivers regular opportunities to take training modules on subjects that affect our communities including Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ and White Privilege.

Safety, honesty and transparency are our core business beliefs and we are passionate about creating a deeper sense of trust and community with our app that goes far beyond a name and a star rating system.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I had a real desire to run a company that didn’t just pay lip service to the importance of high-quality customer service but put it at the heart of their entire operations. We’ve built UVA around the ethos of customer care, satisfaction and engagement.

Separately, as a woman who often gets taxis alone for business meetings, I am passionate about providing a safe, reliable and easy-to-use service for all commuters. For too long ride-hailing apps have taken advantage of drivers, with outdated and immoral business models resulting in an unreliable ‘lottery experience’ for passengers.

What sets us apart is that pricing for our services is standardised, there’s no ‘surge charge’ when the roads start to get busy or cancelled bookings, which means that our customers will know exactly how much their journey will cost and when they can expect their driver.

Who do you admire?

I don’t think I’ll be alone in saying that the past 10 months has made me reevaluate what truly matters, and as a result the people I admire. Those people who keep going in the face of adversity are the most inspirational of all to me: the parents who are working full time, while juggling homeschooling; the elderly who have had limited contact with their loved ones and still manage to be cheerful; those of us who have lost work during the pandemic, and so many more.

Most importantly, I admire those who aren’t afraid to ask for help. Asking for help and accepting it shows such a real strength and it’s something I remind myself of every day. There are so many everyday, unsung heroes in our society that deserve the same recognition, respect and admiration as we freely give to prolific business leaders and celebrities.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Alongside determination and hard work, timing is a vital ingredient to the success of any business. UVA UK was founded in December 2019, with the aim of launching in 2020. However, the pandemic had other plans for our new venture!

Being able to identify the best time to launch in the face of the swiftly changing safety regulations has been one of the most consistent challenges we’ve faced over the past 12 months, but it has definitely made us stronger. We’ve been able to develop a robust brand proposition, refine our operations and prepare ourselves for whatever the future may hold.

We’ve all been working so hard to make this dream a reality and we’re raring to go. Once restrictions are eased, we’ll be launching with a big bang, which will make it all worth it.

What defines your way of doing business?

UVA is a brand built on our strong moral compass. We strive to provide a service that is transparent about costs and do things the right way, both for its drivers and its users.

I believe that a successful business is one that works collaboratively with others.

It’s important to see everyone you meet as a potential teacher and value everyone’s views equally. Before becoming UVA’s CEO, I met with former bosses that I admire and reached out across my network to bring in additional expertise and insight.

We have big ambitions and in the long term, we will become a UK-wide operation, synonymous with outstanding service. The timing of a national roll-out is largely dependent on how the initial launch goes, although roughly we aim to be in a new city across the UK every six months.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

I’d say to be prepared for some long days and sleepless nights because ultimately the buck stops with you and everyone will expect you to have all the answers, all the time. However, don’t let that pressure cloud your vision and passion for why you started. Accept that you will never know the answer to everything and know when to ask for help. You’ll find inspiration and support easily, so long as you know where to look for it.

At first, being your own boss can sometimes feel like a baptism of fire but there’s no other feeling like it. It’s definitely one of the best things I’ve ever done. To be in control of my own destiny, to do things the right way and to have an amazing team on that journey with me is such a joy to be a part of and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Read more:
Getting to know you: Ayesha Rees, CEO, UVA UK

Once strictly the preserve of traditional publishing houses, bringing a book franchise to market that will actually sell is now within the grasp of indie publishers in our digital world.

The global book market is anticipated to hit $49billion by 2024, with self-publishing representing the fastest-growing segment, but with no barrier to entry it takes far more than good writing to turn a creative project into a sound business model.

This is something that rising publisher Barksin has kept firmly in mind since its launch three years ago. A collaborative endeavour bringing together seasoned digital communication strategist Nadir Catalano and his friend, author and screenwriter Guenther Primig, has since become a pan-European collective dedicated to establishing the Gwenna Luna brand of classic-meets-contemporary horror stories in print and, going forward, in other mediums such as streaming TV.

As Barksin launches its second Gwenna Luna anthology of short, shocking stories—The Graveyard of Gwenna Luna—Business Matters caught up with Nadir to learn more about their strategy to become a screaming success in the publishing world.

What excites you most about the Gwenna Luna brand?

Gwenna Luna is the result of the combined effort of an independent team of creatives and professionals. Together we managed to put together a high-end, high-quality editorial project, and we did it on our own. We all had nothing to lose and a lot to give, and I think it shows.

You have big plans for the Gwenna Luna brand going forward. What can you tell us?

Absolutely! The audiobook for the first book of the series has just been released—it was super exciting to experiment with this type of media. In the meantime, we are working on the final touches for The Graveyard of Gwenna Luna, the second book of the series, that will be released in fall 2021 – and we are already talking about a third instalment.

In the meantime Guenther has been approached to develop a script for a Hollywood movie based on one of the stories from the first book—and we truly believe that the project has a lot of potential in that arena. Our first love is publishing, but we also have this little dream of bringing Gwenna to the big screen.

The Gwenna Luna series has been independently published. What have been the commercial and creative advantages of going down this route?

Full control over all the creative aspects would be the main advantage of going independent. We managed to publish the book that we wanted, without having to compromise. Also not having to find and relate to a big publishing house gave us the freedom to skip some steps and put our book on the market as soon as it was ready, as well as getting in touch with our potential audience directly. It’s been a test and learning process, and we are fully in charge of it.

By having our product out there we are collecting first-hand feedback. We can observe how readers are reacting to the book, and what targets and markets are more interested. This way we can make more informed choices about the next steps, both creatively and commercially.

Ultimately, owning 100% of the rights and the intellectual property of the project, we can be more flexible in making decisions and adjustments.

What are the challenges of independently publishing, and how are you overcoming them?

Going independent requires patience, time and some money to invest. We were all aware when we started this project that it was going to be a long road. When you publish an independent book, your creation will immediately get lost on a virtual shelf presenting hundreds of thousands of other books. It takes time (and some technicalities) to create visibility, reach readers, gain followers and accumulate reviews.

When you go live with the first book, you start from 0—and then you start capitalizing on each little step of growth that you manage to achieve. Entering this competitive arena you need to be aware that the first two, three publications will be an investment. Luckily enough we all have other jobs, and we could invest money, time and expertise in Gwenna Luna, creating the right conditions for it to grow organically. And so far, we are very happy and pleased with the results.

What is the market like for horror fiction? Do you foresee potential for strong commercial growth?

We think it’s a genre that never goes out of fashion, but we wanted to approach it with a more modern and contemporary touch. We see a growing demand for entertainment based on horror and ghost story anthologies: movies, TV Series, podcasts. Think of big hits such as Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Lovecraft Country, American Horror Stories or Fear Street. There is a hunger for horror in this ‘story’ format. And all of these projects have something in common: they are strong stories but, most of all, they are strong brands that can be adapted to different media. When we started working on Gwenna Luna this ‘horror story fever’ hadn’t started yet—but is a nice confirmation that our initial intuition was right.

What is your role in bringing the Gwenna Luna brand to life?

I’d say “brand” is the keyword! Coming from the digital communication field, branding and storytelling are major parts of my everyday job routine. And even when I’m working on more creative and independent projects, I still believe that a good story, a recognizable package and a set of well-communicated values can help reach more people and create that kind of emotional link.

I always say to my clients and partners, “When you go digital, people are not there waiting for your product, regardless of how good it is. No one will be automatically interested just because you think it’s good”. Branding for me is a way to fill in that gap. It’s about wondering, “How will my product make people’s life better? How can I get their attention? How can I tell them that we share the same beliefs? How will I make them feel seen, understood?”

When the author, Guenther Primig, first asked me to work on this project, he had this series of incredible ghost stories that didn’t have a connection between them. I knew his work already and thought it had a very good commercial potential. Therefore I gave him a challenge: what if we create a strong character with a strong story to glue together all of this incredible material? Someone that people can relate to, that can add that extra emotional and personal perspective to the stories, and that can be the starting point for something a bit bigger than a single publication. I was a bit worried at first, because I’ve worked with creatives before and I know how sensitive they can be regarding their own creations. But my suggestion immediately resonated with Guenther, and actually gave him the input to be even more creative with his writing. We had to wonder who do we want to read these stories, and to what type of character would they relate to? This is how our anti-hero, Gwenna, was born.

The other part was to create an appealing, high-end product and package. I’ve been working with top brands for the past 15 years, and I wanted to apply that way of working to this project. My philosophy has always been, “No matter if just one person sees your product, that one person must be happy with it and want to share it with others”. And that’s how I approached  this project.

How long have you been working on the Gwenna Luna brand, and how has this all come together into the product we see now?

We started working on this project in winter 2018, and the first book, horror anthology The Dark Book of Gwenna Luna: Six Dreams of the Supernatural, was online one year later. It was a long process. When Guenther asked me to work on this project, I immediately thought there was a very good commercial potential. But I had never worked on digital books before, so the first step was to do some research on the market in order to understand what was the best strategy. I didn’t want to be naïve or overconfident approaching a completely new field.

In the meantime, Guenther started working on the Gwenna Luna character, her story, and  the frames for the first anthology.

Then we moved forward to give a face to Gwenna and the other characters from the first book. We decided to collaborate with Rory Midhani, a British artist living in Berlin whom we both knew and appreciated. Rory did a wonderful job in translating Guenther’s stories into visuals.

The last part was to create a branded image for the first book and, overall, for the Gwenna Luna project. We decided to work with Peterman, a Milan-based communication agency. I’ve worked with them in the past for other high-end commercial projects, and I knew they knew how to do branding  in a tasteful and creative fashion. They worked on the logo and the designs of the first book.

After some months of work, what was just an idea was a fully realized book, and we all couldn’t be happier with the final product.

As a collective, what would you say is your shared business philosophy and driving force?

We all come from different professional backgrounds, and we are all successful in what we do. Gwenna Luna is a creative output where we can experiment and capitalize with what we’ve learned somewhere else, in an independent and creative environment. We all approached this project putting our ‘A game’ in, but also knowing that this time we were at the steering wheel. We all wanted to tell a story, to do it in the best way, and we all agreed on the fact that ultimately it had to be interesting for our potential readers out there.

What has the feedback for the Gwenna Luna series been like so far?

In terms of numbers, we are happy and satisfied with how things are rolling. It was not easy, but without any support we managed to distribute over 2,000 copies of the book worldwide. It’s like a snowball effect: you start from 0 and every review, every share, every comment will bring more visibility and, consequently, more sales. Sales are accelerating as we go on, so we’re picking up steam.

What we didn’t know was how people were going to react—and that has been overwhelmingly good. Reviews are very positive, and readers are getting in touch with us saying how much they loved the book, the Gwenna character, and the single stories. That’s what really makes us think that we are onto something very good.

What would you define as business ‘success’.

It may sound cheesy, but if even one person reading this book felt seen or understood, that’s a big success for us. Then, obviously, we wouldn’t mind a Gwenna Luna Netflix series.

The Graveyard of Gwenna Luna: Six More Dreams from the Dark Book by Guenther Primig is published Barksin and is available now on Amazon, priced £7.28 in paperback, and £4.36 as an eBook. The Dark Book of Gwenna Luna: Six Dreams of the Supernatural is also available on Amazon, priced £7.28 in paperback, £2.30 as an eBook, and £12.07 as an audiobook. For more information visit www.GwennaLuna.com or follow Barksin on Instagram at @gwennaluna.

Read more:
A screaming success: Launching an indie horror publishing company

Six years ago, British-Asian author Lena Shah, 41, left a high-powered career in account management, having worked for international travel and payment tech companies, to retrain as a French and Spanish teacher as well as a Mindfulness coach and Yin yoga instructor.

Whilst she gained a lot from her work and made numerous life-long friends, she became increasingly unhappy with her lifestyle, feeling unfulfilled with the ‘soulless’ and faceless corporate nature of her roles and yearning, instead, to share her true self more authentically by working in a more humanitarian sector.

However, she felt trapped, not knowing how to make an effective change while continuing to take comfort in the security and success corporate life provided, ignoring the serious impact it was having on her health and wellbeing. And with many of her peers within the wider Indian community frowning upon those working in fields viewed as less prestigious, she felt pressured to keep up a pretence. This constant unhappiness and pressure almost led to a breakdown. Finally, however, she found a new way forward.

Now, the languages teacher, mindfulness coach, and Yin yoga instructor has published Impetus  – No cover up, a transformative book of healing poems and prose that relay her experiences to help other professionals who feel trapped in their jobs or personal life circumstances.

You had a high-powered career yet felt unfulfilled. You, however, chose to ignore this because of wider social expectations. Do you think this is a common scenario for professionals, and what are the main general factors at play in their choice to stay in an unhappy situation?

I can best answer this by breaking it down, as follows.

Circumstances: I know it is common for many of us to make a compromise due to our situations and circumstances. Having dependents and other financial commitments can mean any short-term changes involving changes in income or lifestyle are very challenging.

Limiting beliefs: As psychologist Dr Rick Hanson says, “We have a brain wired to take in the bad and ignore the good making us worried, irritated and stressed instead of confident, secure, and happy.” Our ancestral and limiting beliefs constantly re-play old stories and attach on many occasions a false meaning to experiences that are not actually the reality of today. Our automatic knee-jerk reactions, thought patterns and consequent behaviours (life choices) to situations throughout the day are often based on traumas from the past. We are in a constant state of auto-pilot—“We are human beings, not human doings”, as the Mindfulness UK organisation puts it.

Addictions: When we think a desired situation or goal is not achievable, we have a (often subconscious) tendency to take refuge in addictive behaviour. Addictions take many forms; drugs and alcohol are well known. However there are many other addictions which are even more common but easier to hide and deny: addicted to thinking and strategizing, fear, control, pleasure seeking through mindless activities, whiling away time on the phone or the internet, gossiping and comparisons.

What I see happening, and what was beginning to happen with myself, it that we compensate for the unfulfillment we experience at work with activities that are not wholesome or fulfilling. We cover ourselves up with other things that will always lead to a break up of sorts in the long run, whether it be mental health, physical health or a breakdown of a situation or relationships.

Lack of time: This is one of the biggest myths we create for ourselves. Being open to having a coach, therapist or mentor who can help you challenge these beliefs can help you get out of a negative mould, and provide the space and time to dedicate your thoughts, time and life choices to things more aligned with your true inner desires, leading to a greater sense of joy and fulfilment.

In your case, you say that there were additional social expectations being a British-Asian woman. Can you briefly explain this, and how common do you think this scenario is among British-Asian female professionals?

The only way I can describe it (and how I realised my own blocks) is that we put our own happiness in the hands of people/society/role models who are often not involved with our lives in a direct way. The Asian community is strong and powerful, both for the good and bad. At times, it can mean someone becomes surrounded by people who cast judgements without wanting to know a person or situation in any meaningful way. We create a false, supposed moral society to live up to and then chastise ourselves for not conforming to superficial ideals.

If a professional feels unfulfilled in their current career, what can the consequences be if they remain?

There are many things but from my personal experience, unhappiness and a false way of living were the main issues. In time, this can become harmful to an individual’s wellbeing, necessitating an urgent change of scenery.

Since listening to my inner voice with respect to work, my network of friends and pass-times have evolved as a consequence.  I downloaded a new perspective and found another kind of richness. I decluttered!

What key advice would you give to any professional in an unhappy career?

You need to ask yourself a series of questions:

Do you love yourself enough to accompany yourself to make the change both practically and emotionally?

What are you prepared to give up to do it?

From a financial perspective, what expenses are controllable?

Where can you gain time?

Saying no to certain social things that are not fulfilling might be tough but is it worth it to you?

If you ask yourself these questions and decide that you cannot (or don’t want to) give any of these things up, then there is no longer any reason to be unhappy because you have made a conscious choice. You are less likely to feel like a victim.

Or, perhaps, the questioning makes you realise you are actually unhappy in another area of your life, or that in fact you DO want to make a change, making you feel less resentful of the things you are giving up.

What key advice would you give expressly to British-Asian female professionals?

The same as I would to anyone else, with the addition that you need to be prepared that moral and emotional support might be harder to gain. Be prepared to go it alone.

You retrained as a mindfulness coach. How did this meet your needs as opposed to your former career?

My former career served me at a certain point in my life and I have gained a lot from it both materially and in terms of some wonderful friends but I am in another place in my life now.

Being of service to clients 1:2:1 is a privilege—it is one of the most responsible, precious and fulfilling ways to live and work and I see it as a true blessing to be in a position to help others in this way.

I have a vocation now, not just a job.

As a mindfulness coach, what would you say are the main benefits to professionals of receiving mindfulness training?

Mindfulness can help achieve a greater sense of workplace and general wellbeing, leading to an improvement in productivity. Benefits to professionals and employers include:

• Reduced absenteeism
• Improved productivity
• Reduced employee burnout
• Improved communications
• Increased creativity
• Enhanced solution-based thinking
• Improved team work
• Improved workplace wellbeing

How do you think mindfulness can be incorporated into the wider corporate structure, and why would this be of benefit to companies?

A common reality in a busy and stressful workplace is having too many things to do in too little time.

This isn’t always true but there is a strong argument to say that unless top management are interested in promoting mindfulness to its employees, such programmes won’t work.

Another potential pitfall is that group mindfulness sessions in the workplace may not be conducive to a sense of stress reduction and wellbeing if you are not having an easy time with your colleagues in any case.

It is also important that the inertia to take on mindfulness comes from within each person and is not viewed as an authoritarian tick-box exercise. It should be seen as an effective way of exploring practical, voluntary and realistic ways for staff to find their own impetus to regain centredness and help reduce short-term stress and overwhelm versus having enforced mindfulness sessions after work or during lunchtimes.

It is important employees feel equipped with mindfulness tools that they can implement on their own during the work day. There might be different tools that work best in different workplace scenarios.—i.e.  whilst running between meetings, feeling overwhelmed during a meeting, during lunchtime or before or after work.

Enforced meetings on wellbeing run the risk of making people resentful when they already may feel that work has taken over their time and mind. They can of course, in some company environments, be very welcome so it really depends on the particular organisation and its atmosphere.

You are also a Yin yoga instructor. Why would you advocate that yoga becomes part of every busy professional’s regular routine?

It helps centre and set one up for the day, both physically and emotionally. At the end of the day it serves as a letting go. Even one minute of breathing is beneficial if that is all one can manage, but make it count.

I have a five-minute yoga routine (which can be done in bed!) at the start and end of the day. It brings me back to a state of calm if I have had a troubled sleep or busy day. The sequence is available on my website.

Your new book, Impetus – No cover up, shares your own journey of liberation and connecting with an authentic self through poetry and short prose. How do you think it will help other professionals?

I hope my book helps other professionals feel a sense of liberation, as I did. We often get so bogged down and become two-dimensional. I hope my book will enable professionals to stop and take an expansive, calming breath into their imagination and perhaps find a more creative outlook.

Here is an extract from one of my poems within the book, ‘Picking me up’, that is pertinent to our experiences as professionals and the need to find a path to authentic living:

Picking up my pieces

with sensitivity and compassion.

Binding them with gold

fostering myself

with care

AWARE.

Impetus  – No cover up by  Lena Shah is out now on Amazon , or via Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd. For more information on Lena Shah’s mindfulness coaching, visit www.metaworkscoaching.com. For more information about Impetus  – No cover up, visit the author’s website here

Read more:
Finding the impetus: Mindfulness coach & author Lena Shah

International financial investigator Jared Bibler was appointed by the Icelandic markets regulator, the Financial Supervisory Authority (FME), to uncover the truth behind the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis which saw three national banks collapse, plunging the country into unprecedented economic difficulties.

In this exclusive interview, Bibler, whose new book Iceland’s Secret: The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Con provides a cautionary tale for the world, speaks out about his investigation and why the Icelandic scandal still matters to us all.

The Icelandic financial crisis happened more than a decade ago. Why have you now decided to write a book about it?

I didn’t want to write this book, because what person in his right mind would write a book? I had to write this book.

One reason it took so long is that many of the cases took years to go through the courts. Some updates to the judgments happened just this spring, for example, and others are ongoing. But the main reason it took so long is that I delayed writing it; I kept waiting for someone else to tell the story. Once I realized that was probably never going to happen, I felt a duty to get the story out before it was forever lost to the sands of time. When you read what happened there in Iceland, you simply won’t believe it.

What would you say are the root causes of white-collar crime within the financial sector?

This type of crime often starts small. Someone fudges an expense report and gets a few extra quid here and there, and nobody says anything. Then they are emboldened when the end of the reporting quarter comes and they don’t have the sales figures they’d promised. So they book some of the next quarter’s sales forward to this one. And on it goes like that: the next quarter, the problem is even bigger, so bigger steps are required.

In the case of the Icelandic banks, when their share prices started slipping in the early years, it seems they bought a few shares here and there with the banks’ own money. But once they had started this, it became impossible to stop it. And the schemes grew bigger and bigger each quarter, pulling in more and more bank departments, until arguably the whole banks’ business models revolved around the buying up and hiding of their own shares!

The impetus for such shenanigans often starts at the top: the fish rots from the head. A firm with aggressive growth targets and a leadership that indicates they’ll look the other way often quickly becomes a hive of internal corruption. Doublespeak from management is another good indicator: firms whose executives, for example, lie to their own employees on internal conference calls tend not to be the most lily-white, either.

Iceland’s Secret exposes white-collar crime on a staggering scale, and which led to the Icelandic financial crisis. Why was this not detected and addressed prior to the collapse of the three offending banks?

I have a feeling the share-price manipulation schemes were detected. Email evidence later showed that many in the banks knew about it. And I have a hard time believing the stock exchange did not know about it, either. But addressing it? That’s another issue. That relies on someone standing up to stop the merry-go-round—and such bravery is usually in short supply in the middle of an economic boom. In the case of Iceland, the poorest country in post-war Europe, it was suddenly a place where private jets streaked across the sky and a good number of people could buy a Range Rover. Addressing the fraud at the heart of the boom would have meant a challenge to the very DNA of the banks themselves. I don’t think that was in the offing.

Your book is full of shocking revelations about the scale of the crimes that were going on within the Icelandic banks. What, for you, was the most shocking discovery, and why?

There are so many to choose from, and in Iceland’s Secret I try to tell the stories of the cases I found ultimately most important. I think the most shocking revelation was that the oldest bank in the country, Landsbanki, appeared to have been buying up its own shares since the day it was listed on the stock market in 1998. There was never a time when the share price—that thing followed so closely by so many of the investing public (and in Iceland, that was much of the general public, too)—reflected a fair value for this bank. This bank raised literally billions in debt from investors all over the world based on a fraudulent share price. And when it collapsed, it took those investors’ money with it—but also the savings of a good number of average people. Some of my friends and family had put much of their life’s savings into the shares of this one bank—and they lost everything.

Your investigation was closed down in 2011. What do you think was the reason for this, and do you believe that there was more scandal left to uncover?

I think within the FME, the Icelandic financial regulator, there was little appetite for more investigation. There was a sense from some powerful voices that we had ‘done enough’— and also stunningly that no new financial crimes would ever be committed after 2008! This was despite evidence that perhaps some of the biggest crimes were ongoing, and had started up after the crisis.

Sadly, I estimate that we had only cracked open 5 or 10% of the total cases. We had so many more to go. For example, many smaller institutions, and many of the trades done by insiders, never got a look.

Today, the FME has been folded into Seðlabanki, the central bank of Iceland, in a further blow to independent action. To my knowledge, the agency never had, and does not have today, an enforcement department—a group of professionals to look into alleged crimes in the financial firms it supervises. Don’t seek and ye shall never find?

What are your thoughts on the outcome of the investigation, in terms of the penalties imposed on the offenders? Were they in line with the severity of the crimes or should there have been harsher consequences, and why?

I think the penalties in terms of jail time were probably well in line with Nordic standards, although they can appear light, especially to English-speaking audiences. We are talking about a handful of months in prison for crimes that sometimes counted in the billions. On the other hand, unlike in the UK and US, bank CEOs did have to serve at least some time behind bars. That alone was a big accomplishment—and one I feel Iceland can rightly feel proud of, at least by comparison.

On the economic side, most of the financial benefits that had accrued to the convicted executives while they were committing the crimes were still theirs to keep. I think this is an area where we could do better in the future. The message to future executives here might be that crime pays: it might well be worth the risk of a few months in a white-collar prison to take home millions in ill-gotten gains. The decision to commit crime often comes down to a cost-benefit analysis.

Why do you think it is important for professionals within the wider business, financial and legal sectors to understand the Icelandic financial scandal?

I think that this is a scandal for the ages, and a cautionary tale about what might be brewing today in the much bigger economies: US, China, UK, Germany, and so on. We see little indications here and there that fraud is afoot: Wirecard, Theranos, Archegos, Greensill, to name a few smaller stories recently in the headlines. But what if much of market capitalism is somehow tainted by fraud? How would we know? And are we sure it isn’t?

This is a book that’s about questioning the assumptions we make about our economic system today. We base so much on market solutions, but do we commit enough resources to policing those markets?

Poor financial regulation led to both the global financial crisis and the Icelandic financial crisis. In the intervening years have lessons been learned?

To a degree, yes. I think the updates to, for example, the Basel banking standards to reduce counterparty risk was a good step. The Basel committee attempts to learn from past crises and lock in those lessons in the form of codified changes. In addition, there was new legislation in both the US and EU that attempted to curb the worst abuses uncovered during the 2008 crisis.

I think the lesson that hasn’t been learned is the importance of prosecuting criminal trials against those who violated existing laws in the run-up to 2008. We have thought we could get away with box-ticking exercises within our regulators, rather than embarking on risky and costly trials of those who really did break the law. But, ultimately, we need to go after criminals of all stripes if we are to uphold the rule of law. We can’t punish small-time drug dealers with years in prison and then let executives who misappropriate billions live out their lives in peace. I mean—we can and we do—but this does not augur well for the cohesion of our societies in future.

What would be your key recommendations to reduce levels of financial white-collar crime going forward?

I think a lot of this comes down to incentives. The incentive for stealing an extra million via an inside trade is . . . a million bucks! But what is the incentive to those who are supposed to catch that person? In my experience now in a few different countries, those incentives often point in the other direction. These inside trades are often super easy to discover—but for the person who discovers that trade and wants to investigate it further, there are often multiple levels of bureaucratic roadblocks. These could be inside of the stock exchange itself, or within a regulator, or even at the prosecutor’s office. Sometimes these staff don’t even have the necessary training for financial crime cases, and their salary remains the same whether or not they bring in a case, so what’s the incentive to stick their head above the parapet?

More common is that regulators and prosecutors take on smaller and simpler cases, in order to grab sufficient headlines to show they are earning their keep—but leave the biggest stones unturned.

So it’s ultimately up to us as citizens: do we believe this is a real issue? (I hope you will after reading Iceland’s Secret!) And, if so, how can we apply political pressure to ensure that our white-collar ‘police’ are as well-funded and well-staffed as the police who handle our street crimes? Based on the magnitude of the misdeeds, the white-collar police should have an even larger share of the budget—and a bigger presence in the news.

That brings me to the last point: how do we incentivize journalists to expose these big problems? Curious journalists are often some of our best market regulators.

What advice would you give to professionals who may stumble upon white-collar crime within their company?

First, I am not a lawyer and nothing here should be construed as legal advice. If in any doubt, contact an attorney in your local jurisdiction.

There are some basic questions you can keep in mind here. Does your supervisor know about the issue and will they support you? Do you feel your job would still be secure? What is your responsibility to the firm itselfand its owners or shareholders?

You can think about whom you might trust, either on the outside or within your organisation, to get advice. Ideally, your firm has an anonymous tip line or whistleblower hotline. Failing that, perhaps you can reach out to someone in internal audit or compliance.

Often it can be a good idea to go on the record in an email with your concerns. This does two things: it makes sure others are aware of the situation, and can also help to protect you. Of course, you should keep paper copies of this correspondence for your own records if you are able.

The final recourse can sometimes be going to the press. Use this one with caution, but in certain situations it can work wonders.

Iceland’s Secret: The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Con (Harriman House) is out now on Amazon in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook formats, priced £22.99, £14.99, and £16 respectively. Visit www.icelandssecret.com.

Read more:
Uncovering Iceland’s secret financial scheme

Tom Shrive the CEO of AskPorter, a tech company and AI messaging platform that supports businesses tells Business Matters how they can become more efficient through automation of their services.

What products or services do you provide?

Managing places and assets such as apartments, airports, and park benches is time consuming, high-risk and human resource intensive and unrewarding. askporter has a ‘Digital Assistant and process automation’ platform for different types of asset management, that enables the autonomous management of assets through AI.

What type of businesses do you work with?

Initially we focused on residential and commercial asset management, however we are now finding our services are applicable to any sector where the management and support of high-volume assets are required, such as insurance and logistics.

What problem does your company solve?

In essence, the problem is time: there simply aren’t enough hours in the day, and this is especially true when it comes to managing places and physical assets.

Given the sheer number of regulations, processes to undertake and the variety of systems required to carry out tasks that relate to managing physical assets, it is exceptionally time consuming. This means that resources that should be directed to other businesses activities, such as customer service, or business development are bogged down in administrative processes.

We solve the problem by helping organisations to manage these processes autonomously through AI. With our digital assistant shouldering some of the burden, enterprise and public sector entities can focus on improving their services and helping those in need while significantly lowering their cost and resource requirements.

What is your USP?

Perhaps the most fundamental unique selling point of askporter is that our platform and assistant is highly configurable. New conversations can be deployed in a matter of hours, and the platform is configurable to different operating models, no coding required, means we can quickly adapt to the needs of the client or operator – which also means that the product is built for scale and expansion.

By extension, another USP of our AI assistant is its capacity for understanding – and actioning – complex conversations due to its training across a number of highly specific data sources.

This grasp of complexity and deep integration within the organisations we work with, means that the assistant is also capable of understanding specific relationships, knowing what action needs to be taken, when it needs to be done, and who it needs to be done by.

What are your company values? Have you ever had them challenged and if so how have you dealt with it?

At heart, our values boil down to two connected principles: human resources are too valuable to be spent on routine tasks, and that AI and digital assistants have the capacity to make life better and easier for every party involved in a number of day-to-day interactions. Automate the transactional elements, to free up time to deliver critical human elements of the job.

In essence we firmly believe that AI will make businesses more human, and that’s great for everyone.

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

Honestly, it’s probably the biggest challenge. Specifically hiring Tech talent right now given the significant demand given the digitisation and automation drive happening since Covid hit. This along with not being able to onboard new starters face to face makes it hard to ensure a good culture fit.

During the pandemic, we’ve asked all of the team to input into our new values. Traditionally values come from the top down, but we think it’s important that the values reflect the team, not just that the team reflects the values.

Are you happy to offer a hybrid working model of home/office post-covid?

Absolutely – like the majority of companies, it’s hard to imagine returning to a solely office-based working life following the events of the last eighteen months or so.

We have actively transitioned the company to a ‘remote first’ model and actively are looking into ways to ensure our team is set up in ways that support their desired lifestyles; we don’t just want to drive employee engagement for the sake of it.

Do you have any tips for managing suppliers and customers effectively?

Leveraging technology like digital assistants and chatbots to deal with minor issues or queries, which spares customers the inconvenience of waiting in queues and wasting their valuable time while investing in the individual human touch for any issues which require more sustained attention.

These kinds of courtesies and acts of respect equally apply to the supply side of any operation – and, more broadly, these kinds of sentiments apply to more or less any business with customer-facing elements.

Focus ruthlessly on what your customers really value you for, and look to use technology to automate the rest.

Any finance or cash-flow tips for new businesses starting out?

Every start-up finds themselves in a unique position, so it’s hard to give blanket advice to cover every situation.

I’d recommend boot-strapping for as long as you can. Don’t put pressure on the business until you know there is some degree of product market fit. As soon as you have demonstrated this, perhaps a first paying customer.

Banks are honestly pretty ineffectual, and rarely have the risk appetite for startup financing. Finding good angels that know and understand your domain can really be win-win, additionally partnering with a strategic investor that also likes your product can really move the needle in terms of market validation and funding.

Venture capital should be taken on only as a vehicle for scaling, as they will expect returns in a very set time-frame, which leaves very little room for finding product market fit, and will only invest in billion dollar opportunities. That kind of a business isn’t for everyone.

If you could ask one thing of the government to change for businesses what would it be?

They need to support young entrepreneurs from more diverse backgrounds. Being an entrepreneur has been mentally incredibly tough for me, and I’m coming from a privileged starting point.

It’s critical, if we want a vibrant economy in the future, the government needs to do a lot more to protect startups and entrepreneurs from big tech, both foriegn and domestic.

Simply put; entrepreneurs need to be able to start-up a company and pay rent, otherwise all we get are entrepreneurs who come from an affluent background.

Equally, young startups need to be given time to grow before they can take on the tech giants, otherwise we will find we have no alternatives and that’s critically bad for consumers when all they have to choose from is Microsoft or Amazon.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?

Competitors are a healthy and necessary part of building a business – it’s hard to be more specific than this, however, since we’re not necessarily going head-to-head with any one company.

Our competitors will vary depending on the sector we’re working on – or else they’ll be more generalised AI/automation platform companies.

Since, as I’ve mentioned, we have such a flexible system that’s capable of handling multiple complex issues at once, we often find that competitors are capable of performing one aspect of our assistant’s role – raising tickets about a maintenance issue, for example – but can’t handle additional tasks like chasing rental arrears in the way that our assistant can.

As such, though we always strive to ensure that we offer the best product on the market, we don’t trouble ourselves too much over direct comparisons – they just aren’t often very applicable. We like to keep focused on the customer, and not look sideways too much.

Any thoughts on the future of your company and your dreams?

I want our product to save people time. It’s a great thought that customers spend less time on hold, more with their families and employees spend less time doing jobs they find boring and frustrating.

I want our AI to make organisations, both public and private, more efficient so they can be more human where it counts.

Read more:
The Business Matters Interview: Tom Shrive, CEO, AskPorter

We talk to Rob Stone, founder of the UKs largest storage solutions supplier Instaloft on his inspiration to starting the company

What do you currently do at Instaloft?

Instaloft is now the UK’s largest installer of loft storage solutions – we install loft ladders, flooring, and insulation in 900 to 1000 homes per month, via 6 different depots and 127 experienced employees. In seven years, the business that has grown from zero to a turnover in excess of £14 Million in revenue, with 127 employees so I would describe what I do now as ‘steering the ship’.

I sit at the back and steer the team and the business depending on which way the wind is blowing. By doing this I’ve built up a strong team who knows what the company vision is and where the company is going, where they’re going as individuals and what we’re trying to achieve. They know what their roles and responsibilities are but my job is to steer them in the right direction along the way

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Desperation. I had nine children and no money, and I was in a difficult place. In my previous business I’d been involved in loft installation, and I wanted to know how I could set up doing similar but with a unique selling point to differentiate my services over others.  I found out about LoftZone and I thought I’d really like to do this but I didn’t have £10,000 to buy a franchise.

I found a way to get started but I knew this was my last shot at owning and running my own business so I had to give it my all, otherwise I would find myself back to square one looking for work and struggling.

Who do you admire?

I love the stories of people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and the way that they started was very similar to what I’ve done and experienced.  I also enjoy the Grant Cardone TEDx talks. These are very Americanised but it’s like someone grabbing you and saying ‘you can do this –  you’ve got to think bigger you’ve got to set your goals bigger’ and that really works for someone like me. If you work out what your plan is for the next year and then you triple it then you’re more likely to achieve that rather than if you’re just dabbling at something half heartedly

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I would have introduced systems and processes a lot sooner and I would certainly have invested in learning more about the financial side of the business as you don’t know what you don’t know. We think we know, but we learn as we go along. Getting a business coach as soon as possible and reading more are also key elements as you learn from people who’ve been there and done it and you learn how to handle stuff. You need to set up your business with an end goal in mind and not just pay yourself a wage. if I’d known some of these things at the beginning, I could have saved myself a lot of stress

What defines your way of doing business?

I’m obsessive. I go all in; if I have an idea I don’t do it half baked, I gather as much information as I can, I study, I read, I listen to YouTube tutorials, I don’t let anything stop me. Too many people focus on their doubts, but I look at what might go wrong and ensure that it doesn’t go wrong

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Don’t underestimate the importance of numbers. People often go in and offer the best price guarantees and the cheapest prices. For example, you look at a job and think you could earn £100 but if you say that you could earn £200, you can pay someone else to do it that way you can replicate this across the business. Don’t just think about giving yourself an income, look at how you can grow. Always have a plan and work to that plan and listen to others who have succeeded.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Rob Stone, Founder, Instaloft

 Mike Coates tells Business Matters why his way of doing business is being a straight talker and not using jargon to confuse clients

What do you currently do?

I’m the Managing Director of Commercial Expert Ltd, an independent commercial finance brokerage based in County Durham, offering a comprehensive range of business finance to a broad spectrum of clients, each with differing financial requirements. The team and I commit to offering expert advice to businesspeople, helping them find the best deals relating to commercial and residential property investment finance, bridging finance, asset finance, commercial restructuring, development finance, and property portfolio finance.

We’re proud to be authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and a full member of the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB) since 2008. This ensures a robust process is adhered to throughout the application process and regulated commercial financial advice is offered.

My mission is to ensure every business gets the finance they need to grow and succeed through a fair and honest process.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Commercial Expert actually started under the guise of Chestnut Finance, and I was heavily involved with offering mortgage advice. Unfortunately, when the financial crash occurred in 2008, the mortgage market took a beating and I’ll admit I began to panic. But, instead of shutting shop like many suggested I should, I switched my focus to commercial finance brokerage leading to the birth of Commercial Expert – the rest is honestly history.

Throughout our years’ of operating as Commercial Expert, I’ve held that inspiration close to my heart and ensured that we as a team are agile and have the passion and drive to adapt to changing markets. We keep abreast of the news and industry updates so that when speaking with potential clients, we know we’re offering the precise support they need.

 What defines your way of doing business?

Our way of doing business is simple; we are ethical and act in the best interest of the client, always. Businesses in need of commercial finance come to us to get the job done, so we don’t believe in delivering a service which doesn’t fulfil their requirement.

I’m a straight talker, and just because I work in the commercial finance industry, doesn’t mean I need to use jargon or present information which can confuse things. Clients need details explaining correctly and clearly, so it’s a no-nonsense approach from us.

I also think it’s in the best interest of our clients to build a team of experts, and sometimes that means consulting people more knowledgeable than myself. I’ve never believed in egos, and regularly take the opportunity to shine a light on the team when they’ve been behind a great deal we’ve secured for a client. Having the right expert do the job is the ensured way to achieve an excellent, reliable service every time.

What do you admire?

For me it’s all about character. The go-getters, the hard-workers, the passionate people with the drive to become more experienced in their field – all extremely admirable qualities. I find myself naturally drawn to those who demonstrate the above qualities but are driven by the example they want to set for their families. I am a devoted family man, so those who always strive to put their family first are definitely my favourite kind of people.  When someone is driven and determined in everything they do, they move with tenacity and purpose – that kind of consistent effort within a person is incredible.

Honesty is also extremely important, specifically those who have the respect to be honest and admit their mistakes. Being honest with yourself and others about what’s gone wrong allows for communication to begin about how it can be rectified. In fact, communication in general I find admirable. Being able to communicate effectively with a wide range of people is a skill not everyone possesses, those who do have my respect.

 Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

To be perfectly honest, there’s a number of things I would have done differently, oh the joy of hindsight! In general terms, I wish I’d have gone with my gut feelings more often. I’ve learnt to trust myself and my gut now, but in the early years I didn’t have the kind of confidence to make decisions based on instinct.

When looking at the changes and developments I’ve made over my career, I think it’s safe to say I’d have brought technology into play sooner. Technological advancements are what drives a business forward and keeps it relevant, but in the past, I’ve acted with trepidation around technology that I probably should have been bringing in there and then.

Similarly, I’d have looked to increase awareness of Commercial Expert much sooner. We’ve started using marketing and PR strategies to improve reach, and the benefits we’ve seen make me wonder why we never used it sooner. But, as always, you live and learn.

If I had the opportunity to go back, I think I’d also focus more on pure commercial finance rather than trying to diversify into other ancillary services in 2016.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

I’m a firm believer that we should follow our hearts, but my advice is to always do your research properly. It’s vital to know and understand the market you want to occupy, even if it does feel right. I’m a big advocate of thorough research and I think people should never stop learning new things.

Surrounding yourself with smart and knowledgeable people and building a network is also valuable when just starting out. It’s amazing how much you can learn just by being around people, but you have to make sure they are the right people. Sometimes, having a mentor might be the best option. They are extremely powerful influencers when it comes to your business, but they also hold you accountable – something I think we all need.

Try to network as much as you can. Pick up the phone and communicate with people; remember emails can be ignored, so be the person that makes the effort to properly reach out, because that’s the person that will be remembered.

Finally, a last piece of advice I’d give, not just to people starting out, but as a recommendation; always remember that a cheap service usually means you’ll get a poor service. You get what you pay for, and I think people often forget that.

Read more:
Getting to Know You: Mike Coates, Managing Director, Commercial Expert

Steve Millidge talks to Business Matters about the inspiration to starting Payara Services and his motto “do stuff and stuff happens’

What do you currently do?

I like to say my role as ‘founder’ is to do any job that nobody else is doing (badly) and then get the company to the point where we can hire a professional to do the job properly. Currently I am CEO of Payara, so I head up the senior leadership and management teams, driving overall business strategy and direction. I also head up the Product Management function so I help define what software we build, when and why to maximise adoption in the market and meet customer needs.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Prior to Payara, I founded a consulting company. Consulting companies are simple, but horrible to manage and difficult to scale. My first love is developing software and building software tools – especially software that is widely used by lots of people – so when an opportunity arose to take some open source software that had been abandoned and improve, strengthen and build its future development, I took that opportunity and decided to turn my consulting business into a software business.

Who do you admire?

I don’t have any specific heroes, however, I have a motto which my wife says she will engrave on my tombstone which is “do stuff and stuff happens”. I therefore admire anybody that gets up and makes things happen. Anybody that strives for excellence in whatever they do. Anybody that tries to make a difference. Anybody that tries to make things better. Doing those things is extremely difficult, and it is easy to stop in the face of apathy and negativity. I admire all those people that make a difference.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

When I created my first business, I founded a software business, however, I was distracted by my sales team who believed it was easier to sell consultancy services rather than software. Ten years later, I had a consultancy business. I should have ignored that advice and carried on creating a software business. My recommendation for anyone starting out with a product business is not to be lured by short term services revenue over product revenue. After that one big thing, there are hundreds and hundreds of things that I would do differently in hindsight. If I had the knowledge I have now, I wouldn’t have done it that way. Growing a business is doing stuff, making things happen and then thinking “I could have done that better if only I’d known”. However, you don’t know so you have to just do. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

What defines your way of doing business?

I’m a shepherd. I like to set overall vision, strategy and direction and then let the team take the initiative and deliver to the best of their ability. My role then is to shepherd the team if they are straying away from the mission. I like open environments where people are free to discuss problems and work on solutions to make things better. I think a direction of travel is better than agonising over a plan to get there. Also, I’m product focused. I want to deliver products that are useful to customers. Everything we build must have value to our customers – that is the most efficient way to success.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

At this point I go back to my motto: “do stuff and stuff happens”. Fundamentally what this means is you shouldn’t agonise and plan everything out. Start small, try your idea, make small improvements, get feedback, reach out to potential customers, users, whoever can give you feedback and help you hone what you want to do. Listen to experts as another data point but don’t slavishly follow anything they say as they don’t know your business. Worry about what needs to be done next to move things forward but don’t worry about mapping out the whole journey as that way lies paralysis. The flip side of my motto is “do nothing, nothing happens” and that is a certainty. So, my advice to someone starting out is: What is the first step you need to do to get started? Do it! And once you’ve done it, see where you are and work out the next step then.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Steve Millidge, founder, Payara Services

Business Matters talks to Emma Mahy, chief executive of IoT Solutions Group, about who she admires in business and what defines her way of doing business.

I founded IoT Solutions Group in partnership with our CTO, Neal Forse, in 2018. As the CEO, I am responsible for ensuring that the whole organisation works in harmony. The commercial side of the business is my domain and I spend most of my time speaking to clients, both existing and potential, or out on the road travelling to meet them whenever possible. My role as CEO also means that I’m constantly looking at what we have in the pipeline, as well as finding new ways that we can connect with our target markets and showcase the value of our IoT solutions for both the public and private sector.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Prior to setting up IoTSG, I worked for Wireless Network Developments [WND], which is how and where I met Neal. Whilst with WND, I acted as project manager for the company’s rollout of the Sigfox Network across the UK. Through conversations with contacts in local government and housing associations, I recognised that there was a need for an IoT driven solution that could help address some of the key problems in a number of areas, including social care provision. Neal and I went to a Sigfox conference in Miami, where we were able to talk about our idea in more detail, and it was then that the penny dropped and we realised that there was a real gap in the market to make our vision worth pursuing.

Who do you admire?

I have a huge amount of admiration for Colin Campbell of Digi2al, who is a mentor to me and has helped me out on many occasions. He is a security specialist and has built his own successful business from scratch and his story is a source of inspiration to us. Whenever we’re unsure about how to approach something, our first thought is usually: “What would Colin do?”, and he is often on hand to provide his invaluable advice.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

As the CEO, I often think of the business as my baby. This can make letting go of things and trusting people to share in my vision and goals challenging. If I were to go back, I would focus on learning to delegate more in the early stages so that I could have maintained focus on strategy and growth. However, we are lucky to have a fantastic team and everyone works incredibly hard to help the business grow, and this has ultimately made the task of ‘letting go’ much easier.

What defines your way of doing business?

A core tenet of how we operate as a business is ‘tech for good’. We believe that the solutions that we provide have the potential to not only save service providers time and money but can also better the lives of those who rely on such services. In this sense, we are very focussed on what it is that our customers want, as well as focusing on what the end user needs. We take pride in the strong sense of partnership that we have with customers and our commitment to delivering positive outcomes.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

My advice would simply be not to be afraid in trying to achieve your goals. When Neal and I set out to create IoT Solutions Group, we were leaving our old jobs behind and embarking upon something entirely new and unknown. The attitude that we took into it was that if it didn’t work, what would be the worst that would happen? We would go back to doing what we were doing before, or would look to do something completely different. Until you try, you really don’t know what will happen, and now that our vision has been realised and the business has been such a success, we’re really glad that we had the belief that we could do it. The first and most significant barrier to achieving success is often allowing your worries to get the better of you – once you can overcome this, what comes next is much easier by comparison.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Emma Mahy, chief executive, IoT Solutions Group

Jennifer Bailey tells us how having bunions were the driving force being starting Calla Shoes

What do you currently do at Calla Shoes?

As Calla Shoes is a growing brand with big ambitions, I spend a lot of my time building the brand, devising new product lines and driving new sales.

Over the next two years, I have clear plans for accelerated growth, which I hope will be supported by raising investment. This will be used to not only increase awareness of the Calla brand both in the UK and overseas, but to also educate women on the fact there is a solution to problems like bunions and they don’t have to compromise on comfort as a result. In addition, I also want to develop more styles for other podiatry issues to ensure we can provide stylish and comfortable shoes for a vast and growing market.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Having had bunions for years, I have always struggled to find comfortable and attractive shoes that actually fit my feet.

This really came to light when planning my wedding in Lucca, Italy, where I ended up spending hours and hours searching online to find the perfect shoes. By the time I reached pages 6, 7 and even 8 on Google, I gave up and said to my [now] Husband out of sheer frustration that I was going to create my own shoe brand that manufactured stylish shoes which also accommodated for women with bunions.

This was my real lightbulb moment, but it wasn’t until a few years later when I was made redundant during maternity leave that I re-evaluated what was important in life and decided to take the plunge and push the idea forwards. Fast forward 5 years and Calla Shoes are now worn by thousands of women worldwide.

Who do you admire?

My Mum is genuinely my greatest role model. She came from a severely under privileged background in Hong Kong but worked hard to become a Senior Nurse Practitioner. She did this and continued to work hard despite having four children. She has the most incredible work ethic, persistence, and drive which she has thankfully installed in me. So, whenever I am having a challenging day, I think of everything my Mum has achieved and know that if she can do it, I can too.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

There are loads of lessons that I have learnt since launching and continuing to grow the Calla brand. I think one of the main ones is to not put too much pressure on myself about meeting certain timelines or deadlines, particularly for things out of my control like the physical manufacturing process.

In learning this, I have also embraced the concept of failure and learnt to redefine success in line with my own metrics – not everyone else’s. I now believe that as long as you are moving forwards and working towards consistent marginal gains, you will achieve your goals, but you need to ensure you are kind and more supportive of yourself in the process. Key to this is working with a Mentor, whether paid or unpaid, who can not only guide you from their own experience in business but can also give you a pat on the back and tell you ‘Well done’ when it’s needed most.

What defines your way of doing business?

My main values and passion in life is solving problems and helping people in whatever way possible. Both of these values have filtered through to the Calla Shoes brand and in everything we stand for and have achieved.

I am also a big believer in honesty and integrity and am always incredibly transparent in how I do business and expect the same in return.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Before launching a business, it’s so important to find and build your community via platforms like Instagram. Not only will some of your community members turn into customers as and when you do launch to market but involving them in the early stages of product development will also engage them emotionally and transform them into real brand ambassadors.

A lot of entrepreneurs neglect the importance of building a community in favour of alternative PR and marketing strategies, but it’s something I would genuinely recommend to anyone thinking of starting a business.

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Jennifer Bailey, founder, Calla Shoes

Brad Day, the co-founder of IT services company CloudStratex tells Business Matters the inspiration was to starting the company.

What do you currently do at CloudStratex?

I helped start CloudStratex a couple of year ago; we have an experienced team of client-centric practitioners who help enterprises leverage next-generation IT services (such as Cloud) more effectively whilst helping our clients have the option to become self-sufficient , instead of handing over all of the keys to a 3^rd party .  I now manage our Peer-to-Peer network “The Value Exchange” (TVeX). It’s an established ( 16+ years in existence) cross industry “vendor free” community made up of many global, blue-chip companies, who are drawn from such industries as Banking, Insurance, Asset Management, Pharmaceuticals, recruitment and also the Public Sector.

Many TVeX members are thought leaders in their respective organisations who enjoy coming together under the Chatham House Rule to openly share their experiences and common pain points on a range of business issues in a “badges off” environment.

In addition to this, I lead on a number of our senior level client relationships and also support our sales director with business development activities.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

The inspiration behind CloudStratex was to build a self-funded, sustainable, UK based business that would solve some of the emerging problems we see our clients experiencing when they invest in new technologies such as the cloud i.e. how to understand and utilise the technology effectively in order to maximise their returns. I love the fact that we have created a UK based business with a differentiated proposition that ensures our clients aren’t reliant on external consultants and service providers and can take control of their own destinies. Our success and rapid growth are creating new jobs for a number of UK IT professionals as well as jobseekers looking to start a career in the technology industry via our Talent Academy, most of whom are women. I am especially proud of this given the impact of the coronavirus on the UK economy.  We want to help create new jobs.

To be honest though, my fellow co-founders and I have a history of thriving in difficult times. We started our first business after the dot.com crash back in the early 2000’s, the second after the financial crisis caused by the collapse of Lehman’s in 2008, and now we are in the midst of a pandemic. Yet, still we are managing to stick to our principles, creating jobs, and doing good work for clients. Our philosophy of us knowing we are only as good as our last client delivery still holds true.

Who do you admire?

I love watching competitive team sport , both men and women’s sports, but if  have to pick someone then it is Martin Johnson, arguably one of England’s greatest rugby players of all time. He led a team of men to the pinnacle of their sport by winning the rugby world cup in 2003 in Australia. Johnson is the only England captain to achieve this. I take inspiration from his indefatigability, courage, leading from the front and not tolerating mediocrity. Closer to home, I admire my daughter Nancy who overcame many challenges and had some difficult times before reaching the pinnacle of her sport,  Lacrosse and representing England at Senior level.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Have more self-confidence. I am always paranoid and never think we will be as successful as we become but there really is no one else doing what we are doing, or cares more than us about our clients across our focus areas (Service Management, Infrastructure & Apps, Modern Workplace and our Talent Academy).

What defines your way of doing business?

Honesty and Integrity. Don’t overpromise or exaggerate. It’s a slippery road and the quickest way to let your standards slip. We don’t always get it right but when we don’t, we do whatever it takes to put it right.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Enjoy the journey, take your work seriously but not yourself. Surround yourself with very clever people and never ever compromise on your integrity, oh and never give up. Ever!

Read more:
Getting To Know You: Brad Day, co-founder, CloudStratex