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DABS Festival of Enterprise

Festival of Enterprise 2022 banner image Festival of Enterprise 2022 banner image

Festival Speakers

Bradley Jensen

Bradley Jensen – Jensen & Jensen

https://jensenandjensen.co/

Bradley has spent the last 5 years breaking ground across the UK with a number of brands on various high-profile campaigns.

From being named O2’s Digital Leader of the Year in 2017, consulting on Nike’s Nothing Beats a Londoner Campaign in 2018, jointly winning the ‘Ones to Watch’ award at Leeds Digital Festival in 2019 with his brother Myles, then being voted Top 100 Digital Enterprise Yorkshire in 2021, his experience is nothing short of colourful.

His presentation will be an honest account of social media and why it could be too late if you’re not using it for your business. Bradley will be covering social media, branding, and content strategies, leveraging his own experiences on how culture needs to be in the heart of all decision making.

  • Social Media 101
  • The new landscape 
  • Influencers & Thought Leaders
  • Brand & Content Strategies 
  • Culture & Our Story

Jack Sutcliffe – Power Sheds

https://www.powersheds.com/

Jack Sutcliffe – CEO and co-founder of Power Sheds who are a manufacturer of garden sheds, log cabins, summerhouses, potting sheds and other garden buildings. Launched in 2019, the company has grown rapidly and now producing 700 garden buildings a week with 80 members of staff.

Jack Sutcliffe is a finalist in this year’s EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards. Power Sheds have won multiple national awards including:

  • Winner of StartUp Awards National Series 2022
  • Winner eBay for Business Awards for Innovation 2020
  • Winner of ‘Best New Business’ at the Lloyds National Business Awards 2020
  • Winner of ‘Disrupter of the Year’ for the 2020 Great British Entrepreneur Awards
  • Winner of ‘Scale-up Entrepreneur’ for the 2021 Great British Entrepreneur Awards
  • Winner of ‘Best New Business’ at the 2020/21 SME National Business Awards

Jack Sutcliffe will be discussing the story of how Power Sheds have grown and disrupted an industry, looking in particular at digital techniques used in a manufacturing and rather old fashioned industry.

Jack Sutcliffe

Jeni Smith

Jeni Smith – NetKno

https://netkno.co.uk/

Jeni is passionate about connecting people. When people come together powerful things happen: relationships are built, knowledge is shared and sparks of innovation are fired.

With sixteen years’ experience in the networking industry, Jeni now teaches networking skills to professionals and academics all over the world, and creates networking strategies to help people come together and build effective, long-term relationships.

During her careers she has won several awards in enterprise including being named within the ‘Future 100 Young Entrepreneurs’ in the UK, and finalist for Start-Up of the Year at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2021 & 2022.

At the festival she will be passing on her knowledge on networking that you can implement at the event and in future events, which includes:

  • Networking ROI What does networking actually cost us and what do we want in return?
  • The Power of Networking A look at academic research showcasing the power of networking
  • Reading the Room How to read body language to get in and out of conversations
  • Small Talk Top tips for breaking through the awkwardness of small talk
  • Relationship Management – Nurturing the relationships with your new connections, and actionable steps for after the event

Charlie Charlton – Host

Charlie is a well respected broadcast journalist, who’s presented on award-winning local and national radio and TV for almost 20 years. Charlie’s known for her engaging presenting style: witty and warm, whilst getting to grips with the issues that matter to you. 

Charlie stepped down from her role of Senior Journalist with the BBC, to be a freelance interviewer and host. She’s described as “inspirational” on social media, after becoming the first woman in the UK to host a day-long business conference with her 4 month-old baby in a sling.

Raised in Gateshead, educated in London and a worldwide traveller, she features in a bestselling book about the North East’s “famous sons and daughters”.

Charlie is very proud to be a Patron of Changing Lives, a national charity supporting vulnerable people and families experiencing homelessness, addiction or abuse. 

Charlie Charlton

Danielle Phillips

Danielle Phillips – Inside Out Communications Consulting

https://www.insideoutconsulting.co.uk/

Danielle Phillips, founder and principal consultant of Inside Out Communications Consulting, an internal communications agency based in Durham. We specialise in helping businesses to communicate digital transformation, major IT change and cyber safety to their people. I set up the business in March 2020 on my own, and just over two years later have a wonderful team of four, who work remotely from all four corners of the UK.

The DABS programme has been an incredible help to us. I signed up for the programme not long after starting the business, and didn’t access as much of the support on offer in the early days as I was too busy just trying to get the business going. Now I’ve got a small team, I’m able to spend more time working on the business, rather than just in it. Working with a DABS advisor, we’re starting to tap into some of the expertise available to us – we’ve already had a website review and health check, and are now getting product launch advice for a corporate internal communications programme we’re looking to launch.

When you’re starting out in business, it’s difficult to know which way to turn for help. There are so many wonderfully supportive people and agencies out there, but DABS seems to really get the start up journey and it’s a supportive programme for people who are at the early stages of business ownership.

Gillian Smellie

https://gilliansmellie.com/
I am a magician who hand prints real leaves onto textiles.  I offer unique items of clothing, many of which are upcycled, that are stylish, different and ecologically sound.  This is not fast fashion, this is slow and delicious fashion that you can hand down to the next generation.

I am an accidental business owner.  After starting to train as a medical herbalist and realising I didn’t want to be a clinician I looked around for a way to combine my fascination with plants and textiles.

By the end of lockdown, I had a huge collection of printed textiles and my family, perhaps in exasperation at the sheer volume, suggested I try to sell it and thus my business was born.

DABS has given me the confidence to call myself a business owner and to tuck the imposter syndrome back in the cupboard where it belongs.  It has given me the ability to look at the business as a whole and think beyond the narrow boundaries I set myself at the start.  I haven’t taken up all the support on offer yet but now I have a clearer idea of where I want to go, and I am able to focus on the areas that need most development.

Gillian Smellie

Kimberley Cattin

Kimberley Cattin – West Barn Co

https://www.westbarnco.com/

Since starting the business with mum Donna in 2016, Kimberley has used her stellar business experience to grow an outstanding cosmetics company that now employs 28 people, ships globally, is stocked in prestigious stores like Liberty London and Harrods, and is a favourite with pro makeup artists and celebrities alike.

She is a professional makeup artist with many years of experience, having worked on tv and film sets as well as editorial and fashion shoots AND is also a trained nurse and amazing mum to a two year old!

Amongst her many other talents, Kim is a finalist in this years Entrepreneurs’ Forum Emerging Talent Award.

Her chat will be an inspiring, open and honest account of how to start up a business. And will talk about how to be a female CEO whilst empowering and inspiring those around you.

Headline Sponsor:
Umi

Partner sponsor:
Swinburne Maddison