Nurturing bright business talent

Oct 18 2006 By Paul Walker, Chairman Of The Entrepreneurs' Forum, The Journal

Entrepreneurs are, by nature, driven people. They move fast, they react quickly and they want everything to have happened yesterday.

Consequently their businesses are exciting and dynamic places to work and so attract similarly focused and motivated people.

Yes, entrepreneurs take risks, but it's backed up by self-belief, a determination to overcome any obstacles and recognition that risk-taking is an inevitable part of the journey towards an end goal.

In the fast moving environment of a young and growing business there may not be the luxury of time to consider for too long your next move; caught in the thick of doing business, you may be too close to be able to step back and assess things from a distance.

Wouldn't it be great if sure- footed advice was just a telephone call away? Wouldn't it be reassuring to know that experience was at the other end of an email?

And for when you do have the time to look at the bigger picture, wouldn't it be fantastic if there was someone to meet who would listen and not laugh at your ideas, who could offer constructive criticism and give you the encouragement and motivation to push on?

All that, and much more, is what members of the Entrepreneurs' Forum experience.

Since it began three and a half years ago, the Forum has evolved into a distinctive resource to support this region's entrepreneurs as they grow their businesses.

On a scale not seen in other organisations, it offers something unique to its members - the experience of the members themselves.

With the additional expertise of the world-renowned professionals the Forum brings to the region, it's the members themselves who share their knowledge for the benefit of everyone else.

Every business is different; every entrepreneur is unique. But for each one the Forum offers mentors who can help.

For example, Tom Maxfield, a former sales director of Sage and now with his group of companies in the hospitality industry, has an immense amount of wisdom from which young entrepreneurs are benefiting.

So do Paul Callaghan, founder of the internationally successful Leighton Group, and Brian Jobling, co-founder of one the region's most exciting companies Eutechnyx.

This one-to-one mentoring is proving to be invaluable in helping our young entrepreneurs make great strides in growing their businesses quickly.

As one of our young entrepreneurs said: "No amount of reading or hard work can make up for real experience."

But the Forum isn't stopping there. Our graduate enterprise programme is going a step further to offer students similar access to the region's most successful and experienced business leaders.

This autumn, we are providing more opportunities than ever before for students to not only join entrepreneurial businesses, but also to get the practical help offered by experienced business people to turn their exciting ideas into successful commercial realities.

I'm delighted to see Forum members represented in this year's Fastest 50. With the Forum's help, the young people we are working with today will be the Fastest 50 winners of the future.