My fascination with business, the What, Why, When & How of each with which I dealt has been the main driver for my work for 30 years. Initially within Barclays & subsequently elsewhere has driven a desire to help those with whom I work achieve success- by their measures & not necessarily by mine.At Barclays this meant something else on offer in addition to the banking needs of a thousand plus different businesses, over time, ranging from one person start-ups through micro & small or medium businesses, to a Local Authority, an NHS Foundation Trust & a small number of listed businesses from AIM, NASDAQ, & the main LSE.I always asked business owners: “If you could change just one thing in your business, what would that be & why?” This led to many interesting conversations from which customers derived more benefit than from banking services. In almost any case I would have seen a similar issue dealt with by another business, & be able to offer ideas for consideration.Interesting projects have come my way from many directions over subsequent year including from customers I had worked with at Barclays. These have included:Delivering a series of multiple workshops on a Job Centre Plus contract for unemployed people considering starting a business & developing additional course content (Kingston Chamber of Commerce)Advising a syndicate re acquiring a South London private hospital on proposed purchase & suggested tender price working from the Investment memorandum produced by Ernst & Young.Developing an investment competition aimed at Start Ups including the operational process & planning.A project for an overseas chamber of commerce developing a national employment service from scratch. Services of seven different countries were researched & a hybrid model recommended using much existing infrastructure with centralised telephony & IT systems. Developing, & running a prototype course, in HMP Brixton, for offenders on starting & running their own business. Well received but neither the prison authorities nor anyone else was prepared to fund future courses aimed at developing a new busines prior to release & then receiving their business in a bag, ready to roll & be supported going forward.Far more often I have dealt with crises (overdraft being pulled for example), new start-ups or existing businesses wishing to expand & borrowing to finance this. Or indeed helping businesses to find alternative solutions to avoid the need to borrow!
Listed skills include Strategy, Start Ups, Business Planning, Business Development, and 46 others.
