“A gift from Goldman Sachs”
– Amanda Poole, Programme Director, GS10KB
This week, I had the pleasure of going to the University of Oxford for an onsite residential as a part of my Goldman Sachs 10KSB programme. After a week of being on the programme and working through some initial material I arrived at St Catherines college, the largest college within Oxford University ready to meet my fellow students and programme team.
Affectionately referred to as St Catz, the modern college was founded in 1962 by Founding Master Lord Alan Bullock.
After attending the residential this week, I feel honoured to have been able to stay, learn and develop my capability in this college.
“Whilst treasuring the traditional values of Oxford college life, we are committed to evolving with today’s society, which is reflected in our College motto ‘Nova et Vetera’: the new and the old.”
A very fitting motto with regard to myself and other students on the programme.
A lot of material was covered during the day, from a range of speakers including Penny Daly, Professor Mark Hart and Amanda Poole.
The most insightful takeaway I have had so far is that there are a number of frameworks that can be applied to help organise a business leaders thinking.
As a business leader, you are often left with your own thoughts, which go around and around. You don’t necessarily have a way of organising those thoughts, or rationalising them, and actually, this is where particular frameworks and tools can come into play.
Whilst working through a number of approaches common in business, myself and my fellow students were motivated to learn about the application of the tools being shared.
We found that not only did the application of particular tools help to document our growth concepts, but also expose considered argument both “for” and “against” the pursuit of them.
What a qualified room of people I found myself in. Truly inspiring. Of all the sessions,
I have to say that Professor Mark Harts particularly stood out for me.
Mark is Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Aston Business School and Associate Director of the Aston Centre for Growth. His work on High-Growth Firms at Aston has been influential in shaping policy discussions and actions in the UK and Ireland.
Mark’s enthusiasm, motivation, and data led insights (which I have a shared appreciation for) came together to deliver an excellent session on understanding the reality of growth, and what high growth businesses look like.
My growth expert
As a part of the programme, the cohort is sub divided into smaller working groups of 6. Each group is then assigned a “growth expert”. Leading our growth team we have Stuart Ross of highgrowth.com.
Stuart has had an illustrious career developing value propositions at various businesses including Boots.
Personally conceived, developed and implemented new products/services which have generated sales within the UK of over £3bn. He has also been honoured to receive prestigious industry awards both in the UK and Japan for highly effective marketing campaigns.
The panel of growth experts is nothing short of extraordinary. All bringing a wealth of experience from highly competitive industries and environments coupled with first hand coaching experience.
Amongst the mix is also my dear friend, Hardeep Rai of Kaleidoscope, an initiative Hardeep setup to enable disabled individuals pursue their careers and aspirations in the modern world.
My growth group consists of 5 other like minded business leaders, who are keen to learn and develop their skills in being able to grow their businesses. We have a diverse mix of businesses, with service based businesses and tangible product businesses too.
I am even more excited and committed to the programme after meeting all of these wonderful people that are on this journey with me. Together, we are stronger.
Over the upcoming weeks, I will now be working directly with my growth group (which ill share a bit about in another blog post soon as they are all brilliant businesses), applying the learnings and teachings to start formulating a high growth plan for POLARIS.
