David Parkinson - Owner, Brave and Heart.
What were your key achievements this year?
Becoming a B Corp certified company has been such a huge achievement for us and is really a testament to where we want to take the company in 2025 and beyond.
In addition, we have been named as a supplier on the Crown Commercial Services G-Cloud 14 framework across several products and services, which means that public sector organisations and charities can now find our products, services, and work with us easier than ever.
We’re also really proud of the internal developments that have been made to look after our employees this year, which has included setting up an extensive benefits package with an innovative “pick and mix” concept designed by our HR team which provides employees with points and allows them to choose benefits that are truly tailored to them.
Finally, we also became a real Living Wage employer this year, committing to pay our team a salary that considers the actual cost of living in 2024.
Has everything gone according to plan?
It is impossible for everything to go to plan all the time, and those bumps in the road and how you deal with them are what makes or breaks you as a company. We set ourselves a comprehensive set of 2024 objectives and are currently on track to meet them for the end of the year.
What are you most proud of this year?
Becoming a B Corp certified company really was a huge acheivement for us and combined effort by the team. As one of only 2,000 companies in the UK that are part of the B Corporation community, we really feel like we are going in the right direction to developing our company in the right way for all our futures.
Did your customer base grow as expected?
We have managed to build and extend our customer base through the addition of new services such as the building of bespoke document and project management systems using the Microsoft Power Platform along with AI technology, led by our newest member of the team Max, who joined us earlier this year.
Tell us about your team.
We are an agile team of professionals with many different strengths and coming from lots of different walks of life and being so diverse helps us meet the varied challenges set to us by our clients. We combine the fresh mindsets of our graduates, Charlotte, Olivia and Chloe, with the experience of team members who have had careers as IT teachers before joining us, like Karen, or myself, who worked at Nissan for 27 years and managed global teams across multiple disciplines before leaving to create Brave & Heart.
Whats the best piece of business advice you have received this year?
No matter how large or small your business you cannot afford to not be up to date on the law around HR and People matters. Looking after people is key and ensuring the company does so at all levels in an ethical way is paramount for us.
What has been the most enjoyable business event you have been to this year?
Every other year we go to SXSW in Austin Texas. It is an amazing event where you really get to see what is new in technology, digital and social media. It is the perfect place to speak with like minded people and even coming to London in 2025 which will enable more of the team to take part.
What have you learnt about yourself this year?
I continue to learn something new monthly and specifically I am learning to delegate better as we grow. In our early days and up until fairly recently I had to be all roles – from Finance Director to CEO to HR Lead. As we grow and evolve, I have learnt to start to release those skillsets to the team and professionals who know a lot more than me.
Describe 2024 in three words…
Challenging, fulfilling, and most of all, fun.
What are your top three priorities for 2025?
Building the business, building our capabilities, and building our team.
Any New Year Resolutions?
Continue to grow the company in the right direction and ensure all the team have the perfect balance of work and life to help them grown in Brave & Heart and in their personal lives.
www.braveandheart.com