Stories of Success

Our volunteers share their experiences and the impact they have

Since 2017, Be the Business has supported thousands of businesses, leading to a productivity uplift of around £500m.

Maria Dabipi
Business development manager
True Bearing Financial Planners

Experienced business development professional Maria Dabipi wanted to enhance her qualifications with real-life business experience. Working as a Be the Business advisory board member ticked all the boxes – including building her own leadership skills and helping two startup companies to develop.

In the process she’s developed her own skills set, including influencing, collaborative discussion and team working, which feeds into her continuing Chartered Management Institute studies. “I’ve also become more confident and emotionally intelligent,” she revealed.

Helping the companies to step back and see the bigger picture is helpful, she explained. “Seeing your business through others’ eyes allows you to spot what is missing, or what you can improve on. We work together to probe and ask the right questions so that the founders come to the conclusions we want them to reach without us actually telling them directly.”

“It’s so rewarding to see your advice put into practice, and the business move forward as a result.”

Jeanette Pope
Head of People Capability
BAE Systems

Jeanette Pope, an experienced executive from BAE Systems, has learned a great deal through her time spent working with business owner Laura Clinton.

“Supporting people, developing their skills, getting the best out of them, is my real area of interest. It’s a real privilege to be on the inside of someone’s business.”

Although experienced in leadership within a corporate environment, working with smaller businesses provided an interesting challenge.

“I have to think about how to translate the established and embedded thinking processes and corporate language that I’m used to at BAE Systems into a small-company context, which means I’m honing my communication skills.”

Jeanette believes that the more insights you can gain into leadership in different contexts, and the more different perspectives you can experience, the better a leader you become.

Matthew Kay
Senior sales and operations manager
DS Smith

“I was worried that I might be wasting Tom's time,” Matthew explained. “But I was also curious to find out how transferable my knowledge is, and how beneficial it might be to others, so I thought I'd really like to give it a try.”

Matthew's motivation for volunteering with Be the Business was to learn about different businesses, develop his skills and make new contacts.

While he doesn't “shout it from the rooftops” Matthew does believe his exposure to a business in another sector gives him more confidence and credibility in his day job.

“It's been fascinating getting an insight into a completely different world. I can only imagine how tough it must be to start your own business.”