MDE 22: Creating Your Personal Boardroom with Zella King
When Zella King had a meeting cancelled before Christmas she took the opportunity to, in her words, “eat my own dog food”. That is, she spent the time reassessing her own personal boardroom. The author of Who is in your Personal Boardroom? sent four emails to “people I had lost touch with that I considered to be in my personal boardroom." Two of the emails led to incredibly useful conversations and one led to the introduction of someone else who now has their own seat in her boardroom.…
MDE 21: Dee Wood of ItDoesTheJob.com, on a mission to save us energy, money and time
Six years ago Dee Wood was looking for something to do. Her father was semi-retired and, she says, “We thought, ‘Right. What are we good at?’” She jokes that the list was a short one, but in fact they had always been good at something. The house she grew up in had been a burned-out Georgian property. “It would have cost a fortune to run,” Dee says, “but we made it sustainable.” They did this by restoring, reducing, reusing and recycling, using imaginative solutions to sustain a…
MDE 20: Oliver Jones, creating a festival experience for the whole family
The Deershed Festival has gathered a reputation as one of the country’s warmest and most family-friendly festivals. Oliver Jones and his partner Kate Webster founded the festival six years ago. Oliver was a recording engineer and web developer and Kate had worked for record companies, moving from Yorkshire to London at the age of 19. They now live back in the village where she was born. The festival takes place every July at Baldersby Park in Topcliffe, North Yorkshire, on land owned by…
MDE 19: Claire Young, Apprentice star committed to inspiring the next generation
Back in 2008 Claire Young beat 30,000 candidates to reach the final of the fourth series of BBC1’s The Apprentice, impressing Lord Sugar (just plain old "Sir Alan" back then) with her determination and presentation skills. The 33-year-old (who splits her time between London and Yorkshire), was born in Johannesburg and brought up in Yorkshire. She worked for Colgate, L’Oreal and Superdrug and had carved out a successful retail career. Claire says she signed up for The Apprentice because…