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In my last year at Cambridge, Denis (now Lord) Stevenson came to speak to one of the student societies of which I was chairman. I can still vividly remember our conversation after the meeting, when Denis asked me what I was going to do after university. I proudly replied: "Procter and Gamble" and he told me - remember this was 1977 - that I was wrong - small business was where it would be and that I should go in to small business. So, three years later, when I quit P&G, Denis was one of the very first people we went to talk to, about our plans for what became Project North East.
In summer 2005, I celebrated a quarter of a century in enterprise promotion and small business development. This started as co-founder / director of Project North East - now Britain's longest established enterprise and economic development agency; then as CEO of the Fairbridge Youth Enterprise Scheme and joint Managing-Director of the Prince's Youth Business Trust, then championing enterprise agencies nationally when Business in the Community held the umbrella role for the agencies. Since the early 1990s, I have been involved in the creation and development of Business Link: chairing the original taskforce which set up the national network; two terms as chairman of the Business Link Accreditation Board to champion quality; and most recently as Principal of BLU. Responsibility for the Business Links has now passed from the Small Business Service to the nine Regional Development Agencies. This also includes determining how best to build the capacity of individuals and organisations working in the small business development sector. The RDAs are still deciding how to do this. Meantime, therefore, BLU has finished.My final report to stakeholders, summarises the achievements of BLU from 2002-06.
Throughout the past quarter century, I have also been interested in enterprise promotion:
My main enterprise focus now is:
Click here for one the last reports from BLU: on how to help small businesses to learn from each other. Support for small businesses, enterprise promotion and economic development have been a major part of my working life for this last quarter century, starting when David Irwin and I set up Project North East in 1980. Please click here to read more about Economic Development Consultancy
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