Times Enterprise Network

Rude Health, maker of one of Britain’s best known plant-based milk brands, has been acquired by Oddlygood, a food and drink company that was spun out of Valio, the Finnish dairy giant. Camilla Barnard, who co-founded the company with her ex-husband and stands to make a “seven figure” sum from the sale, said it was "lucky" timing to close the deal before anticipated increases to capital gains tax in tomorrow’s budget. We have the exclusive story for readers of The Times: https://lnkd.in/es5MnteU

Founders often tell us they are the main driver of sales for their businesses. Customers buy into the vision - and who can articulate that better than a founder? But what happens if a business is reliant on its founder for sales and that founder is forced to take some time out? This is the position Dana Denis-Smith, founder of Obelisk Support | B Corp Certified found herself in when her mother died suddenly two years ago. Travelling back and forth to Romania coupled with a "zombie state of grief", led to turnover falling by £1 million. To get the business back on track, Denis-Smith hired Caroline Allen as chief commercial officer in April 2023. It was an expensive hire but is paying dividends: Obelisk, which has a core team of 16, is forecasting sales of £7 million this year. https://lnkd.in/emFQJtux

ICYMI, this weekend's How I Made It star in The Sunday Times was Naomi Raybould, the impressive founder of Beyond Nine, a fashion-forward maternity brand which has grown at 90 per cent a year for the last two years. She described how she was checking orders between contractions as she went into labour with her second son hours after Beyond Nine launched in 2017. She had to reach ten sales of her first piece, a jumpsuit, in order to hit the minimum order requirement at her north London factory. “When I hit ten, I was like, ‘Okay, I can go and have this baby now,’” Raybould laughed. Seven years later, the business’s growth has kept pace with her family’s: Beyond Nine’s product range has expanded to include dresses, knitwear and outerwear, and sales are on track to hit £7 million in this year. https://lnkd.in/eKUs6Z_5

In the run up to next week's budget, Chris Rea, founder and group managing director of AES Engineering Ltd, writes about the importance of marrying investment in cutting edge tech with development and training of staff to improve productivity. It's something he knows a fair bit about, having built a 175,000 sq ft "factory for the future" in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, which includes spending £2 million on 26 AutoStore robots which double the efficiency of the picking part of the company's assembly operation. "Some businesses can do this without help, and they should therefore just get on with it. For the chancellor and her colleagues in government, the goal must be to create the right investment and training environment to help, not hinder, those willing to future-proof British manufacturing," says Rea. https://lnkd.in/ewb3JN5Y

More than 1,500 business people have signed a letter to Rt Hon Rachel Reeves asking her to reconsider changes to taxation affecting entrepreneurs expected to be announced in next week’s budget. The letter, seen by The Times, says that rumoured changes to business asset disposal relief, previously known as entrepreneurs’ relief, “risks severely undermining the entrepreneurial spirit that has been a driving force behind the UK’s economic growth and innovation”. The petition was organised by Dominic McGregor, co-founder of Fearless Adventures, and signatories reportedly include: Emma Sayle, CEO of Killing Kittens, Peter Roberts, founder of PureGym; EUR ING Will Butler-Adams OBE FREng CEng FRGS FCGI FIMechE, managing director of Brompton Bicycle; Leonard Picardo, a former executive of Deliveroo; and Jennifer Roebuck, co-founder of Tortilla Mexican Grill plc. They argue that the relief is an incentive to take a risk on starting a business and says that “without it, taxing entrepreneurial gains at the same rate as regular income will make the UK a far less attractive place to build a business”. Full story here: https://lnkd.in/eWkujxxb

James Uffindell, founded Bright Network in 2013 and now connects more than one million young people to their first jobs, for free. He has also signed up 300 global employers from Goldman Sachs to Google, PwC and Amazon -- all keen to reach strong candidates at a time when many recruitment teams are struggling with record volumes of applications from candidates using generative AI software to complete their applications. He says giving young recruits freedom within the context of clearly defined objectives is key, in this week's What I learnt... interview. https://lnkd.in/eMFHVy3i #entrepreneurs #scaleups #recruitment #HR #talent #GenZ

Peter Kyle, the science secretary, is selling the merits of cities such as Birmingham on a visit to Microsoft in Seattle today, and other Silicon Valley-based tech giants later in the week, as part of efforts to attract billions more in technology investment to the UK. “We do have the opportunity to incentivise investment outside of London,” said Kyle, speaking to Richard Tyler at the launch of Birmingham Tech Week #btw24. “As we start to announce policies, you will see incentives for regional investment will be baked into everything we do.” Convincing overseas investors to look beyond the bright lights of the capital took “a lot more effort”, he added, because “people see London as a safe bet”. https://lnkd.in/eW8cQNYm #entrepreneurs #inwardinvestment Department for Science, Innovation and Technology #regionaldevelopment #growth

Anyone who thinks leadership comes down to numbers is only fooling themselves, says Caroline Plumb OBE, a serial tech entrepreneur and chief executive of ... accountancy firm Gravita. Plumb explores the role of emotion in modern working life. "I am here to tell you, from the bottom of my heart, that emotion is an essential part of every good business," she writes. #entrepreneurs #worklife #business #leadership

At the age of 16, Dean Forbes was “broke and homeless”. Just 11 years later the software company he worked for - and had shares in - was sold to tech giant Oracle. "And my life and my family’s life financially changed in a way we never imagined." Now the chief executive of Forterro, a private equity-backed company that makes software for industrial manufacturers, Forbes has worked for and led technology companies that have been sold for a combined total of more than €2 billion (£1.67 billion). He also also started the Forbes Family Group to support people from underrepresented backgrounds to reach their full potential. For the third of a four-part series to mark our partnership with UK Black Business Week | UK Black Business Show, Amy Wilson-Watson spoke to Dean Forbes about his hugely impressive career in tech so far, and why he sees it as his duty to inspire the next generation of black founders and leaders. https://lnkd.in/ewnc775c

Black women in the UK are being failed by maternity services — they are three times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than white women, figures from the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit based at the University of Oxford show. Black women are also 13 per cent more likely to experience postnatal depression than white women and face additional barriers to accessing care when they do. For the second of a four-part series to mark our partnership with UK Black Business Week | UK Black Business Show, Amy Wilson-Watson interviewed Sandra Igwe MBA, about why she started The Motherhood Group to address some of these issues, the progress so far and where challenges remain. https://lnkd.in/eTC4hz5Q