Member Article

Did you run your own business at school?

Two of the region’s leading business figures have joined forces with Young Enterprise North East to launch a search for business success stories that have been through a YENE program at school. Steven Bell - founder of Student Mobiles and now owner of £130m turnover computer logistics firm Mobilx – and Steve Brown, managing director of NCJ Media, were both involved with Young Enterprise at school.

Steven said: “I had my taste of running a business aged just 17 at Whickham Comprehensive at the time, now Whickham School, where I was sales manager of a company that sold picture frames, which we set up as part of the YENE Company programme. It gave me a valuable insight into the real world of business at a young age, and fuelled the spark of interest I already had in being my own boss.”

Young Enterprise North East wants to hear from other people in business in the region who did a YENE Programme at school.

Catherine Marchant, chief executive of YENE, said: “Young Enterprise has been inspiring young people for forty years, and we are in the great position as the UK’s leading and longest running enterprise education provider to now be able to track our success stories out there in the world of business to further inspire today’s young people that it can really work for them. “Therefore we plan to build a range of case studies of past students on Young Enterprise programmes to inspire our pupils today that doing Young Enterprise at school could lead to a successful life as an entrepreneur or senior business figure.”

Anyone who did a Young Enterprise programme at school and is now in the North East business world, or runs their own company, can contact Catherine Marchant on 0191 495 9500 or catherine.marchant@yene.org.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .