Most provisions in this space measure the wrong thing and start in the wrong place. Enterprise programmes count the businesses that get started. Engagement and NEET programmes count placements and enrolments. Both are chasing an endpoint, and both skip what has to come first: the change in the person that makes those outcomes possible.
I work earlier and aim wider - developing the learner, so that whatever they go on to do, they do it backed by their own judgement.
A lot of my work is with young people who are not in education, employment or training. I get them closer to work or to a sense of purpose by helping them find something they can do, want to do, and build on. Entrepreneurial thinking turns out to be one of the few things that reaches learners that other provisions have given up on, because it starts from what they're capable of rather than what they're missing.
The principle is that confidence isn't something you can hand a learner. It's built from evidence, and evidence comes from action. It's about designing the real attempts that produce change, and making sure someone is there to turn that experience into something the learner understands about themselves. Here's how that translates into the work I do with institutions.
I design pre-start enterprise and freelance programmes from scratch, built around how people actually develop: action first, evidence next, confidence as the result. That includes aspiration-raising and engagement work for learners furthest from work, freelance education that turns what someone's good at into income, and enterprise embedded across a curriculum. I build the thing your team then runs. Twenty-three years of designing programmes that develop people, not just chase founders.
The most common reason enterprise provision underperforms isn't the learners. It's that the staff delivering it were never shown how. You don't need founder credentials to teach this well. You need a method and the confidence to use it. I train and develop the people already in your building, so the capability stays after I've gone, rather than walking out the door with a visiting facilitator.
If you already run enterprise or employability provision and want it to work harder, I review what you have and show you where the value is leaking. That includes mapping your provision against the frameworks you're held to: Gatsby, Ofsted's personal development judgement, funding requirements -and finding where enterprise can do the heavy lifting you can't do alone. Practical, honest advice from someone who's built and run this at national scale.
I deliver directly: workshops, facilitation, and one-to-one coaching, including with learners that standard provision tends to miss. This is useful when you want the work done now or want to see the approach in action before building it into something larger. Most of my direct delivery leads to a conversation about designing something that lasts.