Youth charity The King’s Trust has announced the Wales roll-out of Business Advance, a programme designed and developed in partnership with LDC, to help young entrepreneurs sustain and grow their businesses through the first three years of trading.
Business Advance is an extension of The King’s Trust’s Enterprise programme, which helps young people from all walks of life, including disadvantaged communities, to launch their own businesses by equipping them with the confidence, skills and funding they need to do so.
It is a comprehensive package of support designed to increase the help available to young entrepreneurs as they navigate the early years of running their business, and provides access to a designated mentor, structured business reviews to track progress against targets and ambition, workshops and networking opportunities.
The Wales roll-out of Business Advance follows a successful pilot in the Midlands in England, in which more than 100 young people took part, with 90 per cent confirming it helped to increase their business confidence.
It will help young Welsh entrepreneurs like James Langston to grow their business. James recently began trading Media Story Productions, a multimedia production company, with help from The King’s Trust. His business produces immersive audio-visual works to present local history in an impartial light for clients including local companies and charities.
James said:
“Everyone’s path in life has its challenges, so you might as well push to do what you really like as a career. The new Business Advance support offers great help and advice for young entrepreneurs in Wales about key aspects within business that can, in my opinion, be easily overlooked.”
LDC first partnered with The King’s Trust in 2019 to support the Enterprise programme and has so far helped more than 4,400 young people to turn their dreams into reality. Business Advance is funded through the multi-million-pound partnership and has been created with the support of an advisory board consisting of LDC’s employees.
Dewi Hughes, Partner and Head of the South West and Wales at LDC said:
“Young entrepreneurs play a vital role in the economy, both here in Wales and across the UK. They inject fresh ideas and perspectives into the market, create job opportunities and help to drive economic growth. To help them grow and sustain their businesses, it’s important that we give them the tools, skills and funding to achieve this, and being able to extend Business Advance to help young entrepreneurs across Wales is something we’re incredibly proud of.
“At LDC, we have more than 40 years of experience in helping management teams across the UK to drive growth and realise their ambitions, and our partnership with The King’s Trust is an important part of extending that commitment to young entrepreneurs from different backgrounds.”
Jonathan Townsend, UK Chief Executive of The King’s Trust, added:
“Since 1983, we’ve helped more than 91,000 young people to start their own businesses and the UK-wide roll-out of Business Advance takes the support we can offer even further. It’s a flexible, broad-ranging programme that will help young entrepreneurs to go on and grow their businesses in those crucial early years after launching.
“It wouldn’t have been possible without the support and expertise of LDC. They are one of our biggest supporters at The King’s Trust and together we’re excited to help more young entrepreneurs to maximise the potential of their businesses.”
LDC is the leading supporter of The King’s Trust Enterprise programme and its partnership is designed to inspire the next generation of UK entrepreneurs. It has contributed towards a more diverse group of future business leaders, as a quarter of the young entrepreneurs supported to-date are from ethnic minority backgrounds and more than half are female.
