Meet our mentors

Andrew Hulbert

Started Pareto FM in his bedroom in 2014 and sold it in 2023. Facilities management, built and exited.

“I tell a nice story but you make mistakes every day. The biggest mistake I made I took too long to hire good people in senior roles.”

Frankie James

Co-founded The Ideas Community, Ideas Fest and The Great British Entrepreneur Awards.

“If you look at everybody that you meet at a networking event, you think, ‘How can I help them, not how can they help me?’”

Rachel Murphy

Zero to a £13.3m exit in 1,000 days. Twice-exited founder and FTSE 100 advisor.

“It shouldn't be this hard for entrepreneurs to grow, scale, maximize the value and sell their business.”

Jo Dalton

Serial founder, investor and board advisor. Owner of JD & Co and JD Ventures, helping founders build, scale, acquire and exit.

“Even if you're not going to hire a single person for another 6 to 12 months, start unlocking your network.”

Emma Sayle

Founder and CEO of KK Group, behind Killing Kittens, Safedate, the WAX app and The Sisterhood.

“I don't own it. I might have founded it and the leader, but I don't make the calls.”

Sophie Milliken MBE

Founder and CEO of Moja, turning entrepreneurs from unknown to unforgettable. Chair of Smart Works North East, author, NED and investor.

“Even if you just posted once a week, you're already in the top 1% of people on LinkedIn.”

Kim Antoniou

Founder of Auris Tech, using speech recognition to build confident readers. BESA Awards 2026 Inspirational Leader.

“The day I'm the smartest person in the business is the day I give up, I promise you.”

James Ashford

Investor, author and speaker. Helps founders build scalable, exit-ready businesses.

“It's not the thing that you want. It's the feeling that you think the thing will bring.”

Amelia Sordell

Founder of Klowt and personal brand strategist. Speaker and bestselling author, helping founders tell their stories.

“Confidence is something you get by doing the thing you have no confidence in.”

Gillian Ashcroft

Runs Exceptional Care's children's residential homes: Ofsted registration, council placements and leading a staff-first care team.

“I'm very focused in terms of business growth, but in a way where change comes before money. So, I like to make an impact.”

Niraj Shah

Five times founder, investor and M&A advisor. Guides entrepreneurs through selling their businesses without regrets.

“Because if you've got a good business that you're representing, it's not hard to get in front of buyers.”

Matt Hall

Founder of Rich In Success and Success School. Helps service businesses build recurring income through group programmes, memberships and courses.

“Sometimes you have to have these perceptions of what you think success is. Really bloody go for it to then know what it isn't.”

Juliet Barratt

Founder of Grenade. Chair, non-executive director, public speaker and honorary professor.

“You start your own business for the journey and the learning and the highs and the lows and everything.”

Simon Woodroffe

Founder of YO! Sushi and YOTEL. An original Dragon from the Den.

“I never met the person who went out to do what they really dreamed of doing and regretted it regardless whether they succeeded or failed.”

John B Stapleton

Co-founded New Covent Garden Soup Company, creating the fresh soup category, and sold it in 1998. Co-founded Little Dish and sold it to private equity.

“So you need to have customer insight but you then have to allow your insight to be confronted by reality. If you don't you're living in your own little bubble of illusion or delusion.”

Jacob Lockwood

Founder of Lockwood Smocks and inventor of the patented Lock Harness. Serving senior NCO in the Coldstream Guards.

“I think once you lose your integrity of your word, then what really do you have left?”

Ellie McKay

Property entrepreneur and host of the On a Mission podcast.

“We can't always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we react. And I just felt that I'd lost enough without giving away my energy, my happiness, and my soul.”

James Martin

Built a national tree business to almost 70 staff by 24, sold it and bought it back. Now grows companies by acquisition and owns a luxury wedding venue.

“If you're framing it as poor me, it will be poor me. If you're having a day, you're going to get one.”

Rachael Grimaldi

Co-founder and CEO of CardMedic. NHS anaesthetist, NHS Clinical Entrepreneur and Great British Entrepreneur Award winner.

“As a clinician, I would much rather speak to a human interpreter with my patient than an AI chatbot essentially.”

Sally Wynter

£1k to a seven-figure exit in six months, aged 26. Now building Hunch, a platform helping young people find and land careers.

“So basically the people that make it in life aren't necessarily the smartest or the ideas people you don't have to be a genius.”

Mirela Sula

Founder and CEO of Global Woman Magazine and Global Woman Club. Investor, TEDx speaker and UN IOM National Goodwill Ambassador.

“If you want to empower a woman, give her a microphone.”

Tim Gray

Founder of the Health Optimisation Summit. Twelve years testing what actually works in health, with a free weekly newsletter read by 50,000+.

“Sleep should be the number one investment for anyone. If you're not investing in your health, you're not investing in anything.”

Adam Stott

Founder of Big Business Events, with over £186m in business revenue and more than 100,000 entrepreneurs served.

“You can take any business, bar none, and make it grow by doing two simple things. Get them to speak to more people. Get them to make more offers.”

James Sinclair

Entrepreneur behind the Fabadousa Group, writing and documenting his learnings for other entrepreneurs.

“You should invest in love, want, and need businesses where people love what you do, want what you do, and absolutely need what you do.”

Sammie Ellard-King

Founder of Up the Gains, building Gains App in public. Over a billion views in 2025.

“Willpower is useless and it runs out by Tuesday after Friday payday.”