Our managing Director Stewart Leahy has been appointed as a mentor to the Government’s New Enterprise Allowance (NEA) scheme, which aims to help people claiming job-seekers allowance launch their own businesses.  The role of the mentor is to help people on the scheme develop a business plan which, on approval, leads to the claimant becoming registered as self-employed and gaining access to over £2,000 in financial support to launch the business.  The mentor continues to work with the new business over a period of 26 weeks to give it the best chance of succeeding.

The scheme in our region is run in conjunction with Job Centre Plus and The West Yorkshire Enterprise Agency.  Our first “mentee” Karl (pictured) met with Stewart this week to run over his plan to launch an online photography and poster-sales company. We look forward to following Karl’s journey and updating you on how his business idea develops over the next few months.