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Mentors inspire small businesses
Tuesday May 13th 2008. Posted: 09:30
Ambitious small business owners from London’s East End now have BT mentors to help them grow and bid for London 2012 Olympic Games contracts.
Sixteen BT people have volunteered to work with the business owners over the next 12 months, acting as critical business friends and sounding boards for new ideas. They will provide coaching and advice on management, leadership and managing change, reaching new markets and the role of IT and communications. Many of the East London businesses are already doing well and are financially healthy, but they have aspirations to grow. Companies include a high quality biscuit manufacturer, exclusive champagne distributor, event management, security services, a rickshaw company, water hygiene consultancy and speech therapist. The mentoring scheme is being run by London Region and East London Business Alliance (ELBA). East London Regeneration managing director Helen Simpson, who is on secondment from BT Global Services, said: “It is a great personal development opportunity for BT people. They will get close to a small business and give valuable advice and expertise framed by the experience and wisdom they have gained in BT.” Joe Walsh, London Region development and innovation director, who is also a mentor, added: “It’s a fascinating range of companies and the BT mentors are equally mixed and come from all lines of business and functions. “We were matched at a speed networking event. Each of the BT people had two minutes with each of the business people to summarise who we are and what we want out of the mentoring scheme. At the end we were all matched with one of our top three preferences. The matches are all working out really well.” The other BT mentors are Dee Shelford, BT Global Services strategy implementation; Alex Yip, BT Operate global technical services; Tom McGiff, BT Design customer engagement; Jikish Patel, BT Wholesale business manager; Paul Bailey, BT Operate inlife support; Maria Yurenok, BT Operate migrations implementation; Kevin Taylor, BT Operate, service operations solutions; Jonathan Dayman, BT Retail, PR and communications; Andy Dell, BT Retail IT services; Paresh Raval, BT Design e-channel development; Helen Stiles, BT Global Services sales; Kevin Gaughan, BT Design, central resourcing; Chris Simmons, portfolio strategy and development.
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Last updated:
09:55
