Case Studies
2009 Recipient case studies
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion Lifetime Achievement Award
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion (honorary)
Professor Allan Gibb OBE
Former Director, Small Business Centre, Durham University, Durham
Allan Gibb has made a profound contribution to enterprise education and enterprise support in the UK for more than 30 years. He took up his first appointment with Durham University in 1965, launched the ground breaking Small Business Centre and became its first Director in 1971. Professor Gibb has acquired a national reputation for innovative and practical approaches to educational and business development programmes for new and existing entrepreneurs, educators and policy makers. He is an advisor on national bodies and a leading figure in new policy initiatives for entrepreneurship education in the UK.
The National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship say that he has had a greater impact on the way we think and deliver enterprise learning opportunities to others than any other UK individual.
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Miss Karen Arnold
Chief Executive, The Enterprise and Skills Company Limited, Wimborne, Dorset
Karen Arnold has made a major contribution to enterprise promotion for the 14 to 19 age group in the South West, initially through a part-time post with Young Enterprise and, since 2003, through a not-for-profit company which she set up and of which she is currently Chief Executive.
Miss Arnold's activities have included producing and delivering novel programmes in schools, working with 20,000 students over 11 years. She has been particularly successful in obtaining donations of time and money from a wide range of local businesses in support of enterprise activities for young people. Karen Arnold continues to work with schools across the UK and also with Bournemouth University promoting and delivering enterprise education.
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Mr Charles Cracknell
Youth Enterprise and Employment Manager, Hull City Council, East Riding of Yorkshire
Charles Cracknell works through both his paid role and through a range of voluntary activities to help young people to set up businesses in Hull. In addition to his advice and mentoring work, he co-chairs the Hull Youth Enterprise Partnership whose activities include establishing social enterprise support, enterprise lobbying and raising the local profile of developing entrepreneurial skills.
Mr Cracknell runs a Youth Enterprise Bank, which offers grants to individuals with enterprising ideas. The beneficiaries receive business support and advice. The bank depends on donations and many of those who have been supported become donors.
Mr Cracknell has recruited many businesses to contribute to enterprise promotion work in Hull. He co-ordinates Hull Global Entrepreneurship week, and is setting up a scheme to embed enterprise education within Hull's Primary Schools.
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Mrs Jackie Frost
Enterprise Projects Manager, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, South Yorkshire
Jackie Frost has been very active in enterprise promotion in her local community in both a paid and a voluntary capacity.
Mrs Frost has dedicated her working life to supporting and enabling young people to set up their own businesses and, under her management, Rotherham Youth Enterprise, has contributed to three Beacon Awards. Jackie Frost developed Rotherham Youth Enterprise from 1992 and has been involved in "Rotherham Ready" for the 4-19 age range since 2005, being manager since 2007. She has been a volunteer for the Prince's Trust for 15 years and is now Chair of the Yorkshire Committee and has been a Regional Co-ordinator for Shell LiveWIRE for 14 years. Jackie Frost has been recognised by special awards from both organisations. She is an Executive Board Member of the Young People's Enterprise Forum.
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Mr David Irwin
Partner, Irwin Grayson Associates, Stocksfield, Northumberland
David Irwin undertook ground breaking work as co-founder and CEO of one of the first enterprise agencies, Project North East (PNE) during the period 1980 to 2000. Mr Irwin has undertaken long term and continuing voluntary work with Northern Youth Business Fund and Sunderland Youth Enterprise Trust. He was the first Chief Executive of the UK Government's Small Business Service from 2000 to 2002.
Mr Irwin's long history of enterprise promotion includes managing Shell LiveWIRE to encourage young people to think about starting businesses and serving as a Trustee Director of three business enterprise charities. He was Chairman of the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies (1997-1999) and is now a Vice-President. He is Non-Executive Chairman of business information provider Cobweb Information Ltd. He advises and supports social enterprises.
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Mrs Beverley Pold
Business Development/Policy Manager, Chwarae Teg/Fair Play, Cardiff
Beverley Pold has been promoting enterprise in Wales since 1984, initially through her delivery of enterprise training, notably to young people and those returning to the labour market. Since 2001, she has worked through Chwarae Teg and done a considerable amount of work to promote entrepreneurship by women, including lone parents and those in disadvantaged areas.
Mrs Pold played a key role in delivering, between 2001 and 2006, the Women's Enterprise Wales project which supported 600 new business start-ups. Described as an inspirational mentor and role model, she delivered a pre-start-up programme, trained enterprise trainers and improved the guidance available to women in enterprise. At the policy level, she has done much to keep female entrepreneurship on the political and economic agenda in Wales.
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Professor John Thompson
Roger M Bale Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
John Thompson has been Roger M Bale Professor of Entrepreneurship at Huddersfield University since 1998, during which time he has developed some ground breaking schemes and written several books taking enterprise teaching forward. In particular, his BA (Hons) Enterprise Development Degree, which requires students to start and run a real business as an integral part of their studies, provides a practical innovation to University teaching of enterprise.
He was responsible for securing funding for the Huddersfield Business Generator, a pre-trading incubator which has helped 200 new businesses. Professor Thompson opened the Business Mine, an on-campus incubation unit which supports about 20 businesses per year. He has also produced a DVD for schools on how successful entrepreneurs behave and how their businesses evolved.
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Mr Jamie Murray Wells
Founder and Executive Chairman of Prescription Eyewear Limited (trading as Glasses Direct), London
Jamie Murray Wells is a successful young entrepreneur who started his company, Glasses Direct, at age 21 in 2004. It is now the world's largest online retailer of prescription glasses. He is a multiple winner for his enterprise, including Daily Mail Enterprising Young Brits, Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year and Natwest Business of the Year. He has used his experiences to good effect as a role model for potential young entrepreneurs.
Mr Murray Wells' voluntary enterprise promotion activities include acting as a judge in a number of local and national awards, including national judge for Enterprising Britain. He undertakes regular speaking engagements and mentors as an ambassador for the Government's Mark Your Mark campaign and for the Prince's Trust, as well as giving financial support to some entrepreneurs.
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Mrs Angela Wright
Chief Executive, Solent Skill Quest Limited, Southampton, Hampshire
Angela Wright has been promoting enterprise in the Southampton city region since 1995. While working as Education Project Manager at the Hampshire Training and Enterprise Council, she introduced to Hampshire schools the notion of involving business volunteers as mentors for under-achieving young people.
In 1997, Mrs Wright became Chief Executive of Solent Skills Quest, a small not-for-profit organisation helping employers to achieve their corporate social responsibility by supporting local schools. She led an expansion of its activities and today Solent Skill Quest works with over 1,000 business volunteers who act as mentors and role models for challenging young people. 15,000 young people a year experience education, which covers self-employment, business start-up and social enterprise.
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Mrs Charlotte Young
Chair of Board of Trustees, The School for Social Entrepreneurs, London
Charlotte Young worked with Lord Young of Darlington to develop and launch the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) in 1997 to support grass-roots entrepreneurs committed to solving problems in their communities. She was a prime mover in using "Active Learning", which has been one of the main planks of the SSE's methodology.
Whilst running her own consulting company, Mrs Young has continued to devote two days a week on a voluntary basis to a full range of enterprise promotion activities. These include developing learning packages for the SSE programme and researching and writing monographs to support the understanding and effectiveness of social entrepreneurs. The SSE has been particularly effective in working with ethnic and other communities from disadvantaged background producing 400 Fellows since 1998. 85% of organisations established by SSE Fellows are still in existence.
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Mr Gerry Ford
Director and Chief Executive of Advantage Northern Ireland Limited, Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland
Gerry Ford is a businessman and entrepreneur who has played an outstanding role in promoting the growth of business enterprise and entrepreneurial skills and attitudes in others, particularly young people, people with disabilities and those in deprived areas. As CEO of Advantage NI Ltd, he plays a pivotal role in all three areas of the Young Entrepreneurs Programme which impacts on 20,000 young people each year.
Mr Ford established his Bootcamp project to assist young people in four deprived areas and launched "the Big Idea" competition aimed at turning ideas into real businesses.
Previously, he had worked with the Shadow Trust designing and delivering training to socially excluded individuals.
He is a voluntary member of the Invest NI Youth Enterprise Strategy Group.
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2008 Recipient case studies
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion Lifetime Achievement Award
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion (honorary)
Mr John Eversley MBE
Director and Vice-Chair, Tyne and Wear Enterprise Trust Ltd (ENTRUST), Newcastle-upon-Tyne
John Eversley has a thirty year track record of pioneering and supporting enterprise in the North East following the decline of the coal and shipbuilding industries. He led the inception of Tyne and Wear Enterprise Trust and catalysed a partnership of the NE Development Company with regeneration agencies. Mr Eversley led the way with a public private partnership to develop work spaces, started a Loan Fund for entrepreneurs who could not get bank support and persuaded a company to provide premises specially adapted for disabled entrepreneurs. He was involved in establishing Graduate Business Solutions and a new Entrepreneur Scholarship Programme.
Mr Eversley received an MBE in 1992 for his work as Director and General Manager of Entrust.
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Mr Zulfiqar Ali
Chairman, Reach BCS, Rochdale, Lancashire
Zulf Ali has drawn on his business experience in both Celltek Communications and Reach BCS, both leading technology companies, to influence regeneration and enterprise in the deprived area of Rochdale. Mr Ali helps members of the local ethnic community to gain enterprise skills and to set up their own businesses. He is seen locally as a role model and uses this position to address and motivate young people. He has supported over 100 start-up ethnic minority businesses and mentored many individuals.
Mr Ali worked with local universities and the Kashmir Youth Project to develop an “Enterprise for All” course and established an annual business awards event. He has also played a key role in developing and launching the Unique Enterprise Centre, which provides managed workspace units, conference and training facilities for the local community.
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Mrs Sally Arkley
Managing Director, Women's Business Development Agency, Coventry, Warwickshire
Sally Arkley is the Managing Director of the Women's Business Development Agency, which she has grown from a local women's advice organisation into a nationally-recognised social enterprise helping women (including schoolchildren), refugees and ethnic minorities. Mrs Arkley has researched and implemented a range of tailored advice, counselling, training and business growth packages for women. She has raised the profile of women in business locally, regionally in the West Midlands and the South West, nationally through voluntary membership of high profile committees and internationally.
Mrs Arkley's voluntary activities include Chair of Prowess, the UK-wide Association supporting women into business, and Director of the West Midlands Regional Women's Enterprise Unit. She has broadened her clientele to include men in deprived areas, ethnic minorities and refugees.
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Mr Paul Barry-Walsh
Chairman, Fredericks Foundation, Lightwater, Surrey and Chairman, Netstore plc, Reading, Berkshire
Paul Barry-Walsh is a successful entrepreneur and multi-millionaire in the IT sector who set up the Fredericks Foundation in 2001, a registered charity to provide start-up support, loan finance and mentoring for those in financial hardship including the unemployed, single parents, ex-offenders and disabled people. He devotes two days a week to the charity, which has triggered 500 start-ups with 69% of the businesses still trading. He has helped others, such as former employees, with time and finance to start up businesses.
Mr Barry-Walsh is also voluntary Chairman of Slivers of Time, a social enterprise providing a market place for buyers and sellers of working time. He takes personal risks to help fledgling businesses.
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Mr Brian Dunsby
Principal, Perlex Associates, Harrogate, North Yorkshire
Brian Dunsby is a successful entrepreneur who has helped other entrepreneurs to start-up and grow their businesses and who has raised the professionalism of small business advisers. Much of his involvement in enterprise promotion has been at personal cost or business risk.
He became Chief Executive of the Institute of Business Advisers in 1992. In 1999 Mr Dunsby was elected a Director of the International Council of Small Business and organised their World Conference in 2003.
From 2001-2006, he was elected to the Governing Body of the World Association of SMEs. In 2001, he was elected a Director of the UK Institute for Small Business & Entrepreneurship and has organised their annual International Entrepreneurship Conferences for 2004-2008. Mr Dunsby also organises Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce on a voluntary basis.
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Mr John Jennens
Business Counsellor, Oxfordshire Business Enterprise, Banbury, Oxfordshire
John Jennens, a retired businessman, has acted as a Business Counsellor for Oxfordshire Business Enterprise for the last 11 years, mainly on a voluntary basis. He has offered general business advice, including marketing and sales training and business planning. In this period he has mentored, advised and assisted more than 1,000 clients, some from deprived communities around Oxford. Mr Jennens has continued to provide help and advice, again on a voluntary basis, to individuals with whom he dealt during the previous ten year period working for the DTI Small Firms Service, Enterprise Initiative and two local Training and Enterprise Councils.
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Mr Michael Leithrow
Executive Director and General Manager, Northern Pinetree Trust, Birtley, County Durham
Michael Leithrow, when working with Komatsu UK some 20 years ago, was instrumental in setting up the Northern Pinetree Trust as a social enterprise and registered charity dedicated to helping the most seriously disadvantaged in the North East.
Since 2002, Mr Leithrow has been its General Manager and provides a range of services to its target clientele, including people with a broad range of disabilities, offenders, ex-offenders, the long-term sick and those with mental health problems, to assist them to consider and to start up businesses. The services provided include enterprise awareness, business counselling and support, grants and bursaries, access to specialised loan funds, including the Spirit of Enterprise Loan Fund, reviews of personal finance and benefits evaluation, test trading, business and management training, basic IT training, access to adaptive IT aids and assistive technology.
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Mr John May
Chief Executive, Career Academies UK, London
John May is the founding employee and Chief Executive of Career Academies UK, a national educational charity which raises the enterprise skills and career aspirations of 16 to 19 year olds. The programme brings business support into the mainstream of young people's studies as part of a two-year, nationally accredited course.
The participating students, who are largely from deprived inner city areas, undertake six-week business internships, from which they learn and practise a range of enterprise skills and attitudes.
Mr May trains schools and colleges to form their own Career Academy local advisory board of business leaders. He has steered the Career Academy movement to a network of over 65 schools and colleges which share best practice.
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Mrs Pamela Neal
Mentor and Workshop Facilitator, CODA Business Management Ltd, Newport, Wales
Pam Neal has developed a reputation which sets her apart from her peers in providing mentoring support to young people in a predominantly rural and disadvantaged area of North Wales. In the last five years she has mentored over 400 individuals, of whom 200 have gone on to start successful companies. Although Mrs Neal is paid as a Mentor and Workshop Facilitator through a Welsh Assembly funded programme, half of her mentoring activity is provided on a voluntary basis. She also helps the educational institutions with whom she works to develop, establish and manage enterprise training programmes and is seen as a role model by peers and managers alike.
Mrs Neal focuses on young people, often from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those with dyslexia.
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Mrs Janette Pallas
Business Incubation and Enterprise Manager, De Montfort University, Leicester
Janette Pallas has been involved in enterprise promotion since she was a self-employed Business Counsellor in 1990, through various roles with Business Links and Enterprise Agencies to her current employment. She joined De Montfort in 2006 and has led her team to achieve the largest number of graduate start-up businesses in the East Midland region.
Mrs Pallas carried out a wide range of voluntary activities becoming a Board Member of the Pathfinder Trust in rural NW Leicestershire in 2000. In 2005, Mrs Pallas was the voluntary founder Director of Ivanhoe Enterprise Solutions Ltd, a new enterprise agency for the North and West of Leicestershire.
Janette Pallas had had an impact on students, schoolchildren, those with disabilities, women, and those in rural deprived areas as well as social enterprises.
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Dr Nicholas O'Shiel
Director and Chief Executive, Omagh Enterprise Company Ltd, Omagh
Nicholas O'Shiel, a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, has made a substantial contribution to the promotion of enterprise, potential entrepreneurs, social enterprises and small business development from the basis of his position as Director and Chief Executive of the Omagh Enterprise Company, both as mentor and role model. He has also been instrumental in developing and implementing numerous enterprise programmes for disadvantaged communities, women and young people in business start-up/growth/innovation, technology innovation and loan funds. Although his focus has been from an Omagh perspective, his influence has been felt more widely in Northern Ireland through his numerous voluntary activities, in particular founding and participating in the Omagh Business Forum and the 2010 Taskforce.
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2007 Recipient case studies
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion Lifetime Achievement
Award
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion
Mrs Joan
Richards MBE
Youth Business Advisor, Business Connect Neath
Port Talbot, Wales
Joan Richards has worked exceptionally hard for her
local deprived ex-coalmining community for the past 23 years. When working for
the Co-operative Development Agency, she assisted in the establishment of
hundreds of small and medium enterprises. Mrs Richards was the force behind the
reopening of a grocery store, the conversion of a factory to a visitor centre
and the setting up of a Youth Centre and Training Centre. She now works with
18-30 year olds setting up their own businesses. Joan Richards is Vice Chairman
of Neath Port Talbot Young Enterprise Board, participates in enterprise events
at schools and judges Young Entrepreneur competitions.
Mrs Richards
received an MBE for Service to the Community in 1996 and the Shell LiveWIRE
Wales Award for Services to Enterprise in June 2006.
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Mrs
Pauline Barnett
Deputy Chief Executive, East London Small
Business Centre Ltd., London
Pauline Barnett has an eleven-year history
as the leading light of the East London Small Business Centre, which has
provided the base for her enterprise promotion activities in the deprived East
London area. She has been instrumental in over 1,000 business start-ups with the
main emphasis being on women, ethnic minorities and the long-term unemployed.
Although most of her activities derive from her paid employment, Mrs
Barnett has clearly gone the extra mile in difficult circumstances. Her various
successes include the use of Phoenix loan funds for the Muslim community,
securing funding for incubator units in Canning Town, special help for ethnic
communities through "Investment ready for the Community" and winning a contract
to assist potential franchise start-ups.
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Mr Nigel
Brown
Chairman, NW Brown Group Limited, Cambridge
Nigel
Brown is an established entrepreneur who has used his financial services
business as a means of gaining financial support from organisations for new and
developing businesses. These organisations include the Cambridge Gateway Fund
and the Great Eastern Investment Forum (GEIF) which he chairs. Over 70
businesses have benefited through GEIF business angel activity.
Nigel
Brown's activities have spanned 33 years and he is considered to be one of the
key players in creating Cambridge's reputation as a home for entrepreneurial
clusters.
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Mrs Jane
Delfino
Innovations Director, United Learning Trust, Manchester
Jane Delfino is currently Innovations Director at the United Learning
Trust within the Manchester Academy. Previously, she was instrumental in Whalley
Range High School achieving Business Enterprise College status and currently she
is working to develop enterprise in students across twelve United Learning Trust
academies.
Although enterprise promotion is her job, Jane Delfino has
done much more than her job demands and has been particularly dynamic and
innovative in using enterprise education to improve the attitudes and prospects
of young people in the deprived Moss Side area of Manchester.
Mrs
Delfino has been involved in the promotion of enterprise in the school sector
since 1998 and she is a Board member of Enterprise Insight.
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Mrs Anne
Duncan
Chief Executive, Yellowfin Ltd., Southampton
Anne Duncan is a successful entrepreneur, currently Chief Executive of a
company in the marine leisure craft sector, who has devoted much voluntary
effort to enterprise promotion and continues to do so.
Since returning
to the UK in 1997, after spending six years in France, Mrs Duncan has shared her
business experience with many existing and potential entrepreneurs. She has
mentored small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly high-tech
start-ups and has created partnerships and networks between business
organisations and universities. Mrs Duncan set up an Entrepreneurs Club in
Hampshire.
Anne Duncan coaches post graduates in entrepreneurship skills
and gives talks on enterprise in schools. Over 3,000 potential young
entrepreneurs have attended enterprise events, which she has organised.
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Mr Geoffrey
Ford
Chairman, Ford Component Manufacturing Limited, South
Shields, Tyne and Wear
Geoffrey Ford, who runs his own successful
business, has voluntarily supported enterprise for over ten years as a member of
the Board of the South Tyneside Enterprise Partnership, especially as its Chair
since 2001.
In an area of widespread deprivation he has provided
mentoring and support to over 1000 start-up and existing businesses and has been
the driving force behind the development of the South Tyneside Young Guns.
Mr Ford played a key role in South Tyneside gaining the title of
Regional Capital of Enterprise 2005/6, and chaired the group which bid
successfully for £16.2m of funding from the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative.
Mr Ford is prominent in local Enterprise Education activities and initiated a
Business Week to inspire business success and stimulate networking in Tyne and
Wear.
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Mr
Charles Hadcock
Owner/Director, The Watermark, Preston,
Lancashire
Charles Hadcock is a sculptor with an international
reputation who, in 2001, opened a novel incubator unit for individuals and small
businesses from the creative industries. In view of its success, he added a
second unit in 2004.
Mr Hadcock used his own time and money to establish
and run the units, often to the detriment of his sculpting activities. He took a
financial risk by charging zero or low rents for start-ups to enable creative
people to establish small businesses. He also provided personal mentoring and
initiated links with key local business and enterprise organisations. By 2005
the units, which Mr Hadcock had established on a formerly derelict site in
Preston, were supporting 36 small businesses with an annual turnover of £6.8m.
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Mr Terry
Owens
Chair, Business Link Tees Valley, Middlesbrough, Teesside
Terry Owens is a successful entrepreneur who pursued his ambition to
help people in his deprived local area to move out of dependence on benefits and
into productive self-employment. In 1990 he and a partner set up InBiz Ltd to
develop and support individual and group enterprise in the community.
Under Mr Owens' leadership, InBiz developed into an organisation
operating in 50 locations in the North East, Scotland, London and the South. It
helped over 18,000 unemployed people to set up businesses, with over 80% still
trading successfully after two years.
Since ceasing to work full-time
for InBiz, Mr Owens has expanded his voluntary enterprise promotion activities,
chairing Business Link Tees Valley and helping to establish Business Link North
East.
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Mrs Janet
Scicluna
Proprietor, Janet Scicluna Associates, Cardiff
Janet Scicluna has 15 years experience of working within business
support, working in Enterprise Agencies, schools, colleges, universities and
with individuals through mentoring, advice and training. Since setting up her
own company, she has provided advice and guidance through various programmes to
lone parents, young people and scholars setting up small businesses as well as
NVQ training. She has focused her work in recent years on the deprived Valley
Communities within South Wales.
Mrs Scicluna undertakes many voluntary
enterprise promotion activities among the disadvantaged with a particular
emphasis on helping women into entrepreneurship.
In 2006, Janet Scicluna
received the Institute of Business Advisors' Advisor of the Year Award.
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Professor
David Secher
Chief Executive, N8, Sheffield
David
Secher has been involved in enterprise promotion for over 30 years. He has
created environments that favour enterprise, specialising in the practical
aspects of commercialising the results of academic research. He has done much to
influence the culture shift towards commercialisation by UK universities.
During his tenure as Director of Research Services at Cambridge
University (2000-2005), Professor Secher was responsible for over 100 new
licences and 15 spin-out companies. In 2002 he founded Praxis, a not-for-profit
organisation running a training programme on knowledge transfer for
commercialisation staff in UK academic institutions. This self- sustaining
programme has been so successful that it is now seen by Universities, Public
Sector Research Establishments and the NHS as a key resource for training their
business development staff.
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Ms
Caroline Theobald
Managing Director, Bridge Club Ltd.,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Based in the North East, Caroline Theobald has a
successful record of enterprise promotion since 1998. She established her
current business, Bridge Club, without public support, as a networking
organisation for small businesses, which also provides information and
mentoring.
Ms Theobald has spun out two further projects, Giantminds (a
not-for-profit arm of Bridge Club Ltd) which is aimed at schools, and Enterprise
Evolution, which is aimed at graduates. She is Entrepreneur in Residence at
Newcastle University and continues to act as a Board Member of Young Enterprise
North East.
Ms Theobald is an unpaid Board member of four North-East
start-ups.
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2006 Recipient case studies
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion Lifetime Achievement
Award
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion (honorary)
Mr David
Rowe
Director of the University of Warwick Science Park Ltd,
West Midlands
Mr Rowe became the founding Director of the University of
Warwick Science Park in 1982. Under his direction it has developed into one of
the largest and most successful in the UK. Through Mr Rowe's leadership, the
Science Park has invested in providing a variety of enterprise services to the
tenants and to others. David Rowe has worked consistently to develop a wide
range of, often-groundbreaking, enterprise promotion activities linked to the
Science Park. He has been instrumental in assisting about a thousand new
businesses and individuals to realise their enterprise ambitions in an area much
affected by the decline of the motorcar industry. In addition, Mr Rowe has
served on a wide range of committees and working parties for the Regional
Development Agency (Advantage West Midlands), the local Chamber of Commerce and
the local Business Link.
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Mr John Anderson
CBE
Non-executive Chairman of the North-East Business and
Innovation Centre (BIC), Sunderland
Mr Anderson has been active in
enterprise promotion for 16 years. He took the lead in establishing the North
East Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) of which he is still the Non-executive
Chairman. He received a CBE in 1996 for services to training. John Anderson has
continued to develop the BIC and remains involved with a number of voluntary
enterprise promotion activities. Mr Anderson's later development work at the BIC
includes the launch of the Big Ideas Project in 2003. He was involved in the
development and launch of the Tyne and Wear Education Business Link Organisation
to promote work-related learning for schoolchildren and is its Chairman.
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Mr Derek Browne
Chief Executive
of Entrepreneurs in Action, London
In 2003 Derek Browne gave up a
lucrative career in the City to launch Entrepreneurs in Action, an organisation
aimed at teaching young people about the approach needed for entrepreneurial
success. His aim has been to develop a new generation of entrepreneurs who,
irrespective of their background, can build a secure future through enterprise.
Mr Browne has worked with a range of partners in industry and education to give
young people, including those at risk of exclusion, the opportunity to gain
experience of real-life business challenges.
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Mrs Janet Brumby
Development Manager of Young
Enterprise, Hull and East Riding
In 2002, Janet Brumby became Young
Enterprise Development Manager for the Hull and East Riding area, having been a
Young Enterprise volunteer since the late 1980s. She spent much of her own time
as a business adviser in schools, helping young people who were taking part in
the Young Enterprise Company Programme. Mrs Brumby also increased the number of
Young Enterprise business volunteers. As Development Manager, Janet Brumby has
been especially energetic and innovative, achieving impressive results in an
economically deprived area of Hull and increasing the number of young people
with learning difficulties who take part in Young Enterprise activities. Mrs
Brumby won the John Cracknell Award for Enterprise in Cities from Hull City
Council (2005) and the Young Enterprise National Leadership Award (2004). She
was nominated as a Community Pioneer by Hull City Image.
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Mr Walter Herriot OBE
Managing Director of
St John's Innovation Centre, Cambridge
Mr Herriot started his long-term
relationship with the St John's Innovation Centre (SJIC) in Cambridge in 1986
and became its Managing Director in 1990. SJIC is now said to one of the world's
foremost centres for the support of entrepreneurs and early stage businesses. Mr
Herriot's earlier efforts at SJIC were recognised by the award of an OBE in 1999
for services to industry in the East of England. Since 1999, Mr Herriot has
built upon his groundbreaking work at SJIC, which serves as a role model for
entrepreneurs and public authorities. He has continued to perform a substantial
range of activities mainly through SJIC and Cambridge Enterprise working with
about 250 early stage businesses per annum. Mr Herriot serves voluntarily on a
number of committees dealing with technology transfer, innovation and enterprise
promotion.
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Mr Jason Holt
Director, R.Holt & Co, London
In 1998, Mr Holt gave up his
career as a solicitor working in the City of London to take over the family
business engaged in cutting gemstones for the jewellery industry, mainly in
Hatton Garden. Businesses were failing at the rate of over 100 per year in
Hatton Garden. Jason Holt devoted scarce company financial resources to setting
up a trade school to train in the various jewellery skills. This became a social
enterprise and formed the basis of the regeneration of the London jewellery
trade from 400 small businesses in 1998 to 700 at present. Those businesses
supported by the trade school in Hatton Garden have provided a novel model for
enterprise promotion in other trade sectors. Mr Holt holds a number of voluntary
appointments in the jewellery sector.
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Dr Bryan
Keating
Managing Partner of the CIP Partnership, Visiting
Professor at the University of Ulster and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the
Northern Ireland Centre for Entrepreneurship, Belfast
Dr Keating is a
successful entrepreneur who carries out a range of voluntary activities in
support of enterprise in Northern Ireland. As well as being the managing partner
of a company helping to commercialise the intellectual property of high-tech
companies and Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship at the University of
Ulster, Dr Keating is a founding director of Investment Belfast (a Belfast City
Council initiative), Chairman of Halo, a business angel network, Chairman of the
Advisory Board of the NI Centre for Entrepreneurship and of QUBIS, which
supports university spin-outs. He is a founding member of the Entrepreneurs'
Forum which he is currently developing with fellow entrepreneurs and Invest
Northern Ireland. Bryan Keating has played a major role in spinning out
technology from the University, in supporting start-up businesses, through
finance and mentoring and in improving the understanding of enterprise,
particularly among science and technology graduates.
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Professor David A Kirby
Professor of
Entrepreneurship, University of Surrey, Guildford
Professor Kirby has
been a pioneer in the field of entrepreneurship education and has promoted
enterprise in the UK for 25 years. Much of his work has been and continues to be
undertaken on a voluntary basis. Professor Kirby has not just launched
innovative enterprise training for university students across a range of
disciplines in his present appointment at the University of Surrey, but at the
Universities of Wales (Lampeter) and Durham and at Middlesex University Business
School. In addition to his current research and teaching at the University of
Surrey, David Kirby contributes externally to enterprise promotion through his
involvement in training enterprise trainers, judging for various
entrepreneurship awards, including the Young Enterprise Awards, and promoting
enterprise through appointments to a range of official bodies and enterprise
organisations.
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Ms Amanda
Parris
Business Centre Manager, Rotherham Investment and
Development Office, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, South Yorkshire
Ms Amanda Parris is currently a Business Centre Manager for Rotherham
Metropolitan Borough Council, where she is now mainly concerned with managing
business incubators. Ms Parris has had a number of roles over the last 15 years
concerned with enterprise promotion in the Rotherham and Barnsley areas. Amanda
Parris' early career was spent trying to instil an entrepreneurial culture in
out-of-work miners at the time of major pit closures. Subsequently she managed a
Business Bureau advising and supporting new businesses. Much of her activity has
been with the disadvantaged young and people with learning difficulties.
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Mr Peter Westgarth
Chief
Executive, The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme and former Chief Executive of
Young Enterprise UK, Oxford
From August 1990 to July 2005, Peter
Westgarth was Chief Executive of Young Enterprise UK, the charity which runs a
range of enterprise education programmes in schools, colleges and universities
"to inspire and equip young people to learn and succeed through enterprise". Mr
Westgarth's fifteen year period as Chief Executive was marked by a major change
in the reach and role of Young Enterprise, to the extent that, following a more
than six-fold increase in the number of young people involved, it is now truly
national in coverage, operating through twelve regional organisations. He has
been instrumental in promoting the need for enterprise learning in schools,
including primary schools.
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Mr Douglas Richard
Chairman and Co-Founder, Library House, Cambridge
Mr
Richard is a US citizen who came to the UK five years ago. He is Chairman and
Co-Founder of Library House, Cambridge, which creates networks and links
innovation with investment. He also founded Cambridge Angels, a business angel
network. Douglas Richard has been involved with several novel enterprise
promotion activities since his arrival in the UK:
- Library House - which in its catalytic role has introduced 1500
entrepreneurs to investors;
- Cambridge Angels - which provides potential entrepreneurs with a link to
finance and support and has financed 20 companies to date;
- The Gauntlet - a web-based service for entrepreneurs to test ideas before
proceeding further;
Mr Richard is best known for appearing on Dragons' Den,
a BBC2 programme that allows entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas in order to
secure investment finance.
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2005 Recipient case studies
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN has been graciously pleased to confer Her Award
for Lifetime Achievement in Enterprise Promotion upon:
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN has been graciously pleased to confer Her Award
for Achievement in Enterprise Promotion upon the following:
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Professor Kenneth O'Neill
Professor
of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development, School of Marketing,
Entrepreneurship and Strategy, The University of Ulster, Northern Ireland
Kenneth O'Neill spent 30 years dedicating his career and a great
proportion of his personal life to enterprise promotion. He fostered
partnerships between business, the public sector and education and developed
mentoring programmes to promote enterprise in disadvantaged communities.
Professor O'Neill is said to be one of the top 10 experts on enterprise in the
world. He developed programmes for owners of Small and Medium Enterprises in
Northern Ireland, which were taken up in the rest of the UK and abroad. In the
1980s and 1990s, Professor O'Neill designed, developed and raised funds for
programmes to develop the skills of business advisers and trainers, university
spin-out and aspiring women entrepreneurs. In 1997, Professor O'Neill became
Chairman of Young Enterprise NI and is a board member of Young Enterprise (UK)
Ltd.
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Mr Sikander
Badat
Head of Policy, Ethnic Minority Business Development,
Chamber Link, Bolton
Sikander Badat set up the Ethnic Minorities
Business Service in 1987 as an employee of Bolton Metropolitan Council. He was
nominated for long and effective service to the communities and economies of
Bolton and the North West Region. Mr Badat attracted private investment and
training to the area and supported ethnic businesses of which 90% have survived
for over two years. Mr Badat helped to reduce the economic disadvantage faced by
Black and Minority Ethnic communities in Bolton and the North West region by
developing a model of excellence for supporting the growth and development of
Ethnic Small and Medium Enterprises. He initiated a BME Youth Network and a BME
Women's Network and undertook work which led to the formation of a BME North
West Business Forum.
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Professor Alan Barrell FRSA
Businessman/retired academic and Chairman of several companies, Cambridge
Alan Barrell "retired" in 2002 but continues to work long days helping
entrepreneurs often for little or no financial reward. He has a passion for
helping people to achieve their potential and has enthusiastically supported
large numbers of entrepreneurs as an investor and mentor over a number of years.
Professor Barrell assumed chairmanship of a number of early stage technology
companies and raised an early stage technology venture capital fund of £35m. His
influence extends to many parts of the world: he has started up companies from a
British base and teaches internationally, while encouraging enterprise
investment from overseas into the UK. Professor Barrell has held many
entrepreneurship posts and has been a key figure in the creation of a number of
business networks that have themselves received awards.
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Ms Dinah
Bennett
Programme Director, Policy and International
Development Centre for Executive Education and Enterprise, Durham Business
School, Durham
Dinah Bennett has been a catalyst for entrepreneurial
development and support in the UK and abroad for 24 years and the driving force
behind several initiatives including Women into the Network, which is based in
the North East. She created the NE Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Ms
Bennett works with a variety of different organisations including banks and
Regional Development Agencies to reduce barriers to small business especially
those run by women entrepreneurs. She is a member of a group reviewing how
organisations will ensure appropriate support for women's businesses in the UK.
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Mr Stephen
Dumbell
Chief Executive Officer, Knowsley Development Trust,
Merseyside
Stephen Dumbell left school at 15 and was unemployed for
several years. While living on a run down housing estate, he became active in
social enterprises and community housing projects. Eventually, he helped to set
up Tower Hill Development Trust, which later became the Knowsley Development
Trust (KDT) working with Small and Medium Enterprises to create both jobs and a
culture of enterprise among local unemployed people. In 2002, he became Chief
Executive of KDT, which to date has directly assisted 650 businesses including
250 start-ups. He established the Knowsley Enterprise Academy to facilitate
training and entrepreneurship among young people, again encouraging business
start-ups. Mr Dumbell works with Young Enterprise and acts as a Business Adviser
for schools and community groups.
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Ms Diane Gowland
Director, Centre for
Innovation and Partnerships, Newham College, London
Diane Gowland is the
driving force behind Newham College's contribution to the social and economic
regeneration of Newham and East London. She has developed community based
business support centres tailored to the needs of the community and has secured
over £12m investment for the area. Ms Gowland has used European and other
regeneration funds and worked with a wide range of partners to open up new ways
of learning for the local business community.
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Mr Gary McEwan
Managing
Director, The Maitland Partnership Ltd, Hillington, Renfrewshire
Gary
McEwan rose from an underprivileged background to run several businesses which
were so successful that in 1993 he was first Glasgow, then Scottish, and then UK
"Entrepreneur of the Year". He passes on his experience to other would-be
entrepreneurs and, in 1996, Mr McEwan joined the Board of Young Enterprise
Scotland. Mr McEwan is eager to help others, especially in deprived areas, with
good results. He is involved in The Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust,
Shell Livewire and school enterprise programmes and encourages others to
participate in these organisations and activities.
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Mr Brian Murray
Chief
Executive, Workspace, The Business Centre, Draperstown, Magherafelt, Northern
Ireland
Through Workspace, Brian Murray has initiated projects and
activities that have resulted in the Magherafelt area having the highest level
of business start-ups per head of population in Northern Ireland, and the
highest level of social enterprises. Yet, 15 years ago, the district had one of
the highest levels of unemployment across 26 District Council areas. Mr Murray
helped to set up Enterprise NI and, as its first Chairman, oversaw the
establishment of the Enterprise NI Loan Fund, an increase in business start-up
levels to over 3,000 pa and the increasing use of new technologies by
micro-enterprises.
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Ms Joy Nichols
Chief Executive, Nichols
Agency Ltd, London
Joy Nichols acts as a role model for aspiring black
entrepreneurs, especially women. She has built up a multi-million pound
recruitment business and established offices in deprived areas of London. Ms
Nichols seeks opportunities to mentor Small and Medium Enterprises, Black and
Ethnic Minority companies and is a former member of Middlesex University
Business School Advisory Team.
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Mr Edward Prosser
Inventor/innovator,
retired from work, Cardiff
As an inventor (of Ronseal Paint and Grain),
Edward Prosser recognises that while Britain is responsible for more than 50% of
innovative ideas, less than 2% get to market. In a bid to change this, he gives
talks to universities, schools, Business Links and networks, and has championed
innovators' and inventors' clubs throughout the UK. He was involved in the
creation of the Welsh Innovators' Network (WIN) and was a member of the advisory
group which persuaded the University of Glamorgan to introduce an MSc in
Invention and Enterprise. Mr Prosser has embarked on a programme to champion two
schools in the Rhondda Valley with the aim of bringing innovation and
entrepreneurship into the school curriculum. He is a champion and mentor for
inventors and innovators across the UK.
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Mr Charles Skene OBE
Founder and Trustee, Skene Young Entrepreneurs Award, businessman, Aberdeen
Charles Skene has been a successful entrepreneur himself and is
committed to the development and awareness of enterprise among young people,
especially in deprived areas. He initiated the Skene Young Entrepreneurs Award
in 1986 to encourage primary and secondary pupils to operate mini and young
enterprise companies. An average of 2,500 children take part each year. Mr Skene
is a trustee of the Award and was a member of the Scottish Executive's committee
to review enterprise in education.
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