Ambitious North East Businesses Encouraged To Apply For Scale-up Academy

North East businesses with ambitious growth plans are being encouraged to apply for the Entrepreneurs' Forum's fourth annual Scale-up Leader's Academy

Starting in January 2020, the Scale-up Leader’s Academy delivers practical advice through a mix of inspirational events, team sessions and scale-up coaching workshops with Gazelle International Coach Ian Kinnery.

Exploring what it means to ‘scale-up’, the Academy prepares ambitious business owners to face the challenges of business growth, helping them to build an actionable ‘One Page Strategic Plan’ to achieve their goals.

For the first time, those interested in the Academy can attend one of two upcoming preview events held on Thursday 26th September in Newcastle and Friday 27th September in Darlington.

The preview events offer those interested in the Academy the chance to hear first-hand from its alumni about their experience and the Academy’s impact on their businesses, as well as the course content and delivery. There will also be representatives on the day to share the different funding options available.

The events follow the third cohort’s successful completion of the Academy earlier this summer where business owners explored the key issues relating to business growth including people, culture, and strategy.

Among these was Andy Greener, founder of digital agency Komodo, who said, “I decided to get involved with the Scale-up Leader’s Academy to unlock the potential in the business and push the scale of the company beyond where it was.

“The One Page Strategic Plan is something we’re going to be able to work together on as a team over the next 3-6 months and on an ongoing basis to give us a framework from which we’re going to build the future company and scale it out into its full potential.”

Since launching in 2017, the Academy has supported almost 30 entrepreneurs across the North East to focus on achieving sustainable high growth by creating a blueprint for future business success.

The first cohort of businesses, which were the subject of research conducted by Newcastle University, reported a 66.37% increase in their business revenue since completing the Academy – equivalent to an added average value of £668,413 per business.

Jonathan Lamb, Chief Executive of the Entrepreneurs’ Forum, said: “The Scale-up Leader’s Academy is delivering a toolkit of invaluable knowledge to business owners that allows them to prepare for rapid and sustained business growth.

“As in previous years, the feedback we received from our latest cohort has been fantastic and truly demonstrates the strength of the Academy.

“For each cohort, we refine the programme to reflect our members feedback and to address the key challenges faced by scale-ups in our region such as access to talent and leadership development. “On completion of the Academy, our members are fully equipped with everything they need to grow sustainable companies with the ongoing support of their senior leadership teams. We look forward to welcoming another 15 ambitious entrepreneurs to the Scale-up Leader’s Academy in the new year and encourage anyone who is interested to get in touch.”