Features
As leaders in business, we constantly strive to accelerate innovation, efficiency and productivity within our teams. With over two decades of experience behind me I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on what’s made me the leader I am today, what I saw in others that impacted the way I work, and why I have ultimately come to understand that creating a culture of coaching is the primary driver of success.
Due to the current global economic downturn, startups are finding it harder than ever to access the capital needed to grow their business. Funding has dried up almost overnight with investors shying away from taking risks as they come under greater pressure to make a return in the midst of the cost of living crisis.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) has been the corporate craze of recent years: the route for global giants to flex their eco and workforce credentials, and an excuse for business consultancies to generate endless new reports and frameworks. But the biggest corporate secret is that, when it comes to ESG credentials, startups consistently steal a march on their rivals.
Despite the ups and downs of startup funding over the past year, several areas continue to draw interest from investors – and medtech is one of them. That’s especially true of startups looking to apply AI to healthcare, a sector where angels and VCs believe smarter diagnostic tools and better drug development pipelines can result in major cost savings.
Ask any early-stage business owner and they will tell you that getting funding to scale can be tough. Very tough. All will tell you that it takes much more time and effort and takes much longer to complete than they had expected. And all will tell you that raising finance is a massive distraction from actually running and growing the business.
You’ve had a bright idea, given what feels like endless hours of thought to your business and worked on your company mission statement, which will shape culture and guide commercial activities. You’ve pulled the business plan together, developed a marketing strategy for the year ahead and set the company’s revenue targets to deliver incremental growth. You can pitch your product or service; you know who your customer is but who are you? And what matters to you and your team? Where’s the plan that guides your activities as a business owner, as an industry thought leader, or as a diverse collective of human beings?
Mental Health Awareness Week only started two decades ago in 2001. Luckily, since then mental health in the workplace has grown in importance. However, there is still so much real change needed in workplaces to provide better mental health support for employees. Many companies now have mental health policies and guidelines, but in reality, aren’t supporting their employees. Mental Health Awareness Week should be a significant date in the calendar for startups.












