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Dear friend
Welcome to our first newsletter of 2008. Well it's actually our first newsletter full stop (but adding the '2008' gives it a certain gravitas! - not sure about this?) This month we have some fantastic news including:
We are officially a Charity!
After leaving Sir Alan Sugar's Amstrad Plc as the first Apprentice to start out on my own entrepreneurial journey almost a year ago I dreamt of creating an organisation which would give young people equal access to real-world information and support about how to create their own businesses to allow them to make their dreams a reality. Since then we have gained the support of politicians, dignitaries, business organisations and the media, developed a unique and compelling business proposition and are now officially a registered UK charity.
We chose to be a charity because we wanted to emphasise our social intentions to help others and a structure that would enable us to engage with forward thinking companies through their Corporate Social Responsibility agendas. After successfully navigating the extremely thorough charity registration process I must thank the wonderful team at Herbert Smith, especially Steven Kempster and Julia Williams, and Gillian Shaw and Alice Holt at the Charity Commission, for their fantastic assistance with our application. Phil Horrell at the CIC regulator offices was also very supportive. So now we have our official stamp - well actually it's a number - we can really make some headway with our objective to empower tomorrow's entrepreneurs.
New High Profile Trustees appointed
We have been extremely fortunate to enlist the support of two new Trustees. They are:
Iqbal Wahhab - Iqbal, a graduate of the London School of Economics, is a serial entrepreneur who after leaving the national press as a newspaper journalist set up his own specialist PR firm in 1991 and launched his own magazine in 1994. In 2001 he launched the multi award winning Cinnamon Club and in 2005 opened Roast, a restaurant and bar in Borough Market. Amongst his many awards he has been voted Finalist, Entrepreneur of the Year Awards; Restaurant Personality of the Year by Menu Magazine; Finalist, Asian Businessman of the Year awards and one of the Top 10 Restaurateurs in Britain in an Independent on Sunday survey. In 2007 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration by the University of East London. Brian Friedman - Brian is a recently retired senior partner with Ernst & Young, where he headed up their Human Capital practice. Brian is triply qualified as a Chartered Accountant, a Chartered Tax Adviser and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. He has worked with companies of all sizes and in numerous countries worldwide and is currently a non-executive director of Article 13 Limited, a leading CSR consultancy. Brian holds an MA degree in economics from Cambridge University.
Partnership with HBoS
We are proud to announce another key partner.
Halifax Bank of Scotland has taken on the Bright Ideas Trust as part of their community banking facility. In addition to their being our bank, they have also offered banking support for those of our beneficiaries who may otherwise struggle to obtain bank accounts. As part of our two way partnership with the Bank of Scotland I am now a member of their Women's Entrepreneurship Forum which was established to bridge the gap between strategic research and business advice and to offer ideas and inspiration to the current and future generations of female entrepreneurs. With its high-profile membership, it will draw the attention of a wider audience - the investment community, academics, journalists, government and other agents of change. If you or any of your contacts may be able to help with our ambitions to empower young people who need it most, then please email us enquiries@brightideastrust.com.
The Bright Ideas Trust takes its message international
As part of my evangelising about the boundless possibilities social enterprise, as a Cabinet Office Social Enterprise Ambassador I was invited to the University of North Carolina Wilmington with a very good friend of mine, Glen Yearwood founder and CEO of the Glen Yearwood Group to discuss the work of the Bright Ideas Trust and highlight the positive approaches to business start up and diversity that we have in the UK. More details of the trip can be found here but we had an amazing time and hopefully we can develop the relationship with a number of American universities going forward to allow some of our beneficiaries to gain international experience.
So that's all for this month. Over the next few weeks we expect to see much more engagement with corporate supporters and also hopefully our first officially supported beneficiaries. I personally will be speaking at the Social Enterprise Coalition Voice '08 Conference in Liverpool, the Guardian Public Services Summit 2008 and also the Emerging Talent Conference in Scotland so I will let you know how these go. Also watch out for our blog which can be found BrightIdeasTrust.com Thank you for reading and lets keep doing all we can to empower tomorrow's entrepreneurs. Best wishes,  Founder
The Bright Ideas Trust
Empowering Tomorrow's Entrepreneurs Cabinet Office Social Enterprise Ambassador |
