…Brett Wigdortz of Teach First. Congratulations to Brett and his team for the award….which you can read more about here on the Business In The Community website. Brett had the misfortune to sit next to me on a plane to a conference once, when I got to know him, and we chatted a lot about Teach First, SSE, replication within the UK, and replication internationally. It was interesting to hear which aspects of his management consultancy background were most useful to his new role, and to hear how the organisation came about. It’s now been going for 5 years, and has certainly played a part (alongside various government-backed salary increases, golden handshakes, advertising) in changing the attitude towards teaching as a profession. Framing it as leadership development, rather than teacher training, and encouraging a collective sense of belonging amongst those who work on the programmes are keys to its success (and reasons why it is likely to endure).

You can read about all the Entrepreneurs of the Year on the E&Y website. I love the headline "Lord Harris of Carpetright is UK Overall Entrepreneur of the Year"…giving the impression that Carpetright is a town or region (arise, Lord Harris of Carpetright). He’s actually Lord Harris of Peckham, and congrats to him as well.