Member Article

New team of coaches ready to help Northumberland entrepreneurs

A six-strong team of experienced business coaches have been recruited to help Northumberland entrepreneurs succeed.

John Logan, Jon Storr, Nick Devitt and Fiona Setch join Oxford Innovation’s Business Northumberland High Growth Programme, which is responsible for the delivery of £1.35 million investment.

With various backgrounds in business development and mentoring, the new recruits have a wealth of expertise in providing high-quality, tailor-made coaching to assist local entrepreneurs and support Northumberland-based businesses with high growth potential.

New associate coach John Logan from Corbridge in the Tyne Valley has years of experience working as a trainer with multi-million pound blue chip companies. Former clients include Associated British Foods, Wilkinson Sword and grocery giants ASDA, Morrisons and Tesco.

He also has plenty of ‘hands-on’ experience after launching his own business and growing it into a regional market leader and also runs his own training consultancy business.

Finance expert Jon Storr joins the Oxford Innovation team from Rio Tinto’s Lynemouth Smelter. Jon is a chartered accountant with an impressive track record both in the UK and overseas in senior financial positions with companies including Blue Circle, Boots the Chemist and latterly Rio Tinto Alcan as financial director of UK operations. He has also led a number of management buyout teams in several business sectors.

Associate coach Nick Devitt’s areas of expertise lie in product and service design and development. He was part of the team that established the Centre for Industrial Design at Northumbria University and is the founder of a successful digital media company and a long-time adviser to SMEs.

All his work is geared toward enabling innovation and developing valuable opportunities for a range of companies with many involved in healthcare, automotive and training.

Newcastle-born Fiona Setch has worked in Italy, Saudi Arabia and London before returning to her North East roots and making a contribution to business growth across the region.

A former nurse working in the AIDS Hospice ‘London Lighthouse’ in the early 1990’s, she realised the real passion in her working life was to help people to achieve their potential and enjoy their working lives.

Fiona is an experienced, highly-qualified coach and facilitator specialising in leadership coaching, motivating and inspiring individuals and teams, personal effectiveness, interview skills and career coaching. For the past twelve years she has been providing these services through her own North East-based training and coaching business.

Oxford Innovation’s coaching methods have proved successful elsewhere in the UK, where the organisation has worked with over 2,500 high growth businesses.

And despite the challenging economic circumstances of the last three years, the company has helped its clients across the UK access over £100 million of funding, creating or safeguarding more than 1,600 jobs.

Mike Jobson from Newcastle is the Business Northumberland High Growth programme manager at Oxford Innovation. He said: “Since we launched last year the demand for our service has been steadily increasing as more local companies hear about the positive impact we have on our clients’ businesses.

“It’s a real pleasure to welcome our new associate coaches to the team. Increasing the team extends our range and allows us to work with even more ambitious businesses in Northumberland to support their growth.”

The Business Northumberland High Growth Programme has been funded by Arch, The Northumberland Development Company, Northumberland County Council and the North East European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Anyone wishing to find out more about the Programme and how Oxford Innovation can potentially support their business should call 01670 528403 or emailnorthumberland@oxin.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .