Thriving Three Counties

Dan Cooke is an engineer with a passion and skill in business, a combination which exists, but in my experience can be rare.

We've been working with him and the business he manages for a couple of years now and in that time I've watched him help grow the business through hard work, enthusiasm, dedication, a few all-nighters and a commitment to detail that'll leave most of us weeping in the corner!

He grew up on a farm in rural Herefordshire and has held several positions at prestigious engineering companies over the years.

His mother's accounting skills have rubbed off on him and his career has moved more towards the business side of things recently, where he's been able to combine his love of engineering with the running of the business.

https://www.kutavar.com/

https://www.escco.co.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-w-cooke/

With a career spanning over 30 years, Stuart Wilkes is now firmly planted in the complementary worlds of business, technology and marketing.

He's worked in diverse roles such as hardware and software engineering, product design, product management, product marketing technology leadership and content creation.

As a child, he was surrounded by entrepreneurs and sales professionals, with many of his childhood summers spent visiting trade show stands around the country where he developed an ability to have insightful conversations with senior buyers.

Throughout his career, he has been fortunate enough to work in highly complex worlds, such as military radar, cryptographic communications design and microelectronic design and manufacture. This granted him the opportunity to work globally and to interact with a wide variety of different business cultures. He has interviewed many senior business leaders across a diverse range of industries to help drive the creation of compelling content.

He has now set up his own content creation studio – Hourglass : Technology Storytellers - helping technology companies develop strategic marketing content and create new ways to communicate their products and services to their customer base.

He has a deep sense of curiosity and has always been super sharp, both in appearance and the way he conducts conversations.

www.hourglass.ink

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartwilkes/

Simon Veal's past experiences include serving in the Royal Navy on nuclear submarines for over 20 years, trekking mount Kilimanjaro, running the London marathon, skippering a yacht around the Greek Islands and what he describes as 'a number of interesting jobs' - which I'm looking forward to hearing more about!

He now runs a luxury food hamper business with his wife, based in Tewkesbury. And he's learning as much as he can about running a business and all that goes with that - bookkeeping, sales, marketing, social media etc.

Their sister business is a stunning deli in Tewkesbury, Miss Muffets, a great place for food.

www.mmhampers.co.uk

Missmuffetshampers on Instagram 

Miss Muffets hampers on Facebook 

Simon Veal on LinkedIn 

Ant Stevens is the co-founder of Ledbury Real Ales - a local brewery, based just outside of Ledbury. The beer is sold mainly within a 15 mile radius of the brewery, allowing him to meet one of his main aims of creating a local product for a local market.

He's a born and bred a Yorkshire man, who says real ale is in his blood. His passion for beer has taken him around the world sampling ales and led him to the decision to set up a brewery and share his enthusiasm for real ale.

http://www.ledburyrealales.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/www.ledburyrealales.co.uk/

https://www.instagram.com/ledburyrealales/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/ledburyrealales

Chris Wilkins started his retail career and the young age of 15 in sports retail and on leaving school went to college but found it was not for him.

While working Saturdays in the sports shop he made the decision to pursue his passion of sales and customer experience.

Having  worked through the ranks in sports retail he moved to Vodafone in 2006, quickly moving through various roles to become Head of Franchise.

After leaving that role in December 2019, he started his own business, Saoirse Communications, which now runs the Vodafone stores in Hereford, Ross and Gloucester as part of the Vodafone franchise programme.

Website: https://www.saoirsecommunications.com/

Twitter: @SaoirseComms

Instagram: Saoirsecommunications

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chris-wilkins-59319116

Graham Baylis is based in Hereford and is an SEO expert.

Anyone who's been networking in the area recently will recognise him and his props...especially the tickling stick! All will be explained!

https://somltd.co.uk/

https://serendipity-online-marketing.co.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbaylis/

Helena has worked in all aspects of the performance industry from TV commercials and voiceovers to UK tours and choreography.

She loves comedy and enjoys using her natural comedic timing within comedy improvisation shows and stand up comedy routines.

She describes herself as an intuitive, reliable and efficient performer who is easy to direct and work with. Her bubbly, infectious personality provides a fun yet focused environment to work in. 

However, what you don’t see is the 9 auto immune chronic health conditions she lives with. As a result she's an advocate for raising awareness of chronic health conditions, particularly invisible illnesses both mental and physical, in order to eliminate the stigma and help those like her understand they are wanted, seen, heard and most importantly not alone.

This has led her to creating Chronically Creative, a British children’s media company based in the heart of the Cotswolds dedicated to educating, entertaining and creating inspiring content for ALL.

Website: www.chronicallycreative.co.uk 

www.helenamitchell.com 

Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/chronicallycreativemedia/

LinkedIn: 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/chronically-creative/?viewAsMember=true

https://www.linkedin.com/in/helena-mitchell-9a57761b4/

A look back at our chat with Sonja Leason - who was a homeless single mum at 17, Managing Director by 30, #1 best selling author by 36 and property investor at 37.

She’s a #1 best selling author of A Woman's Work, a book that was written to help more women into business. The book knocked Elon Musk off #1 and Simon Sinek off #2! Her podcast, Struggle to Success, interviews inspirational entrepreneurs on how they turned life struggles into successful businesses that give back.

Her company, Love Mondays, is a business growth consultancy for startups and scale ups. She works with people to turn their story into profitable and ethical businesses with her 5 step methodology, SCALE.

 www.wearelovemondays.co.uk

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonjaleason/

 www.instagram.com/lovemondayshq

Pete Sen is a co-founder of Gifford's Circus, a multi- instrumentalist/composer and director of an award winning music Tuition company called The Music Guru.

After spending a year playing the Irish bars in Paris with a thrash trad folk band called 'Fionn', he returned to England where he earned a degree at the London College of Music.

In 2000, he was invited by Nell Gifford who had seen Fionn play in Oxford to direct the music for a show she was starting. That show was to be Giffords Circus. He continued to direct the music until 2007 when he left to get married.

He started to teach music privately and clocked up quite a number of students on different instruments. He soon realised he'd need some help and in 2015, The Music Guru was officially set up. 

As they entered the school circuit, Pete realised that peripatetic teaching was in need of reform and he set about trying to correct this and bring a new modern approach to music teaching that is more accessible and successful for the students.

He is.....Pete Sen

[email protected]

www.musicguru.me

https://www.facebook.com/petemusicguru

https://petesentheanthemsprinters.bandcamp.com/album/the-shipping-forecast-2

Catherine is a B2B copywriter and founder of Pippin Copywriting Ltd. She writes for businesses of all shapes and sizes from one person consultancies to multinational corporations.

She started her career in marketing and was a marketing manager for several publishers, the most famous of which was Oxford University Press. She moved to Herefordshire in 2004 to work part time as a web copywriter in a web design agency and part time as a freelance copywriter. Eight years later, she quit the day job to found Pippin and work for herself full time.

1 June 2022 will mark Pippin’s 10th anniversary and coincidentally, another very special day for our guest today.

hellopippin.co.uk

https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherineevery/