Innovating your way through choppy waters? Entrepreneurship is key!

We live in turbulent times where the actions taken to limit the effect of coronavirus are having a far-reaching and significant impact on businesses and the economy. Right now, amidst the welter of negative data, announcements and changes to lockdown restrictions, it is extremely hard to be positive about the opportunity for recovery, whether to an ‘old’ or a ‘new’ normal. Going forward, entrepreneurship is going to be an essential ingredient for business and economic recovery. Entrepreneurial ability to identify and capitalise on opportunities that most see as problems and to blend creativity and strategic risk-taking and bring new ideas and concepts to market (often in the face of adversity and nay-saying) will be the saving grace to restart business and economic growth.

The Centre for Entrepreneurs has been running it’s NEF Fast Track programme for 10 years now. It is a leading development programme for aspiring and ambitious young entrepreneurs which has helped over 300 alumni hone their skills through a combination of learning, placements in fast-growth businesses and support from coaches, mentors and the startup community. Our alumni have gone on to launch and grow over 140 businesses, raising ￡100m+ investment and creating more than 2200 jobs. We’re rightly proud of these achievements and very excited to be welcoming our latest, and tenth cohort – the NEF Class of 2021 – our latest class.

A key part of NEF Fast Track’s success is the year-long placements that participants undertake with our portfolio of partner companies, typically high-growth businesses, founder-led businesses that are looking for exceptional entrepreneurial talent to help fuel their growth and who want to help support the development of the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders at the start of their journeys and careers. We’ve been fortunate to have worked with some of the UK’s fastest-growing and most innovative businesses, placing talented candidates in demanding roles which have allowed them to put into practice the skills they acquire from our innovative learning programme and make major contributions to their companies’ scaling ambitions. We’ve worked with nearly 200 businesses to date, many of whom have hired several candidates over the years, such has been the success of their predecessors’ achievements.

“What NEF offers us is an opportunity to attract bright, inquisitive and driven people like Teague and the NEF programme offers training outside of Rotageek. It is an amazing programme and we would happily take on another NEFer as we have done every year in the past three as I really value having Teague as part of the Rotageek team. I hope that the experience he gains here will set him in good stead for a no doubt glittering future running his own successful business one day.”

Chris McCollough, CEO & Co-founder, RotaGeek

Other partners include Vita Coco, Abel and Cole, Kantan, Thriva, Treatwell, PodPoint, JustPark, BGF ventures and many more (see our website for our list of the 300 plus partner companies that add to our entrepreneurial community), all of which continue to request to hire talented Nefers, despite these uncertain times, a testament to the quality of the programme. Fouzan Ali of Kantan, an operating system for trade professionals, who hired Maxxwell Firth (Class of 2020) as operations lead in August 2019, said,

“Maxxwell adds so much to Kantan. Both in his positive, proactive attitude, actioner-mentality and his addition to the company culture. He has been a joy to work with and we wish him well with his entrepreneurial ambitions.” 

In January, Maxxwell moved into the tech team to work as a software engineer. Maxwell said,

 “it’s been great to utilise my operational experience at Kantan, whilst also taking part in NEF Fast Track. Kantan has been a great environment for me and has supported my learning and development by helping me to transition into a technical role and help ship our app to 3000+ tradespeople. I’m building on this experience by working on Founder Tribe, my NEF venture, where I’m currently focusing my time on building a tech platform for accelerators and incubators”.

Each year we select fifty exceptional candidates (from recent graduates to those with 5+ years of professional experience) out of thousands who apply for the programme and offer them a position on the cohort. These candidates, with varied skills and backgrounds who must show the right blend of entrepreneurial ambition, key skills, vision and humility, are then found a challenging work placement in a growing company. The current coronavirus situation, specifically the impact of hiring freezes and layoffs, has made this a particularly challenging task this year. However, we’re certain in our belief that entrepreneurs are a key part of the solution to the recovery of the economy and that NEF candidates can make a major contribution to businesses success in the coming 12 months and beyond.

As things change with the Coronavirus situation and hiring opportunities arise, and if you are a growing company actively looking for exceptional talent in marketing, sales, growth, product design, operations, business development or analysis roles, why not delve into our NEF talent pot. There is a specific breed of partner company CEO and senior teams that we attract at CFE NEF Fast Track; the best ones. These are the visionary CEOs who see the bigger picture and want to grow people, grow entrepreneurship, network and help repair and excel the economy in times of both economic prosperity and hardship. Join NEF Fast Track and hire pre-selected ambitious individuals who are ready to hit the ground running post Covid19 and help rebuild your business and the economy. 

If you think that your business can offer the right environment and opportunities to stretch and challenge members of this group, and benefit from their talent and ambition, get in touch with Laura Campbell, CFE’s Head of Partnerships and Marketing, [email protected] and she will happily arrange a partnership Zoom call to discuss this opportunity further.