After winning £5million interest free funding for his company, Matthew was also awarded a high profile mentorship with Arcadia and BHS boss Sir Philip. And that prestigious mentor-protégé relationship has begun.
Since being awarded the accolade, Sir Philip has gone above and beyond expectations, as while he was only expected to provide four mentoring days he has been in regular contact with entrepreneur Matthew, providing business advice and direction for daisy.
And now the first of the official mentoring days has taken place, Matthew has been given the opportunity to see first hand the cogs that drive Britain’s most successful retail businesses.
“I went into the first mentoring day wanting to see how Sir Philip manages such a large corporation on a day-to-day basis,” said Matthew. “Having been able to do just that and see how he operates, getting an insight into his working life and meeting the people that drive his business, has been phenomenal.”
Shadowing Sir Philip from 9-30 am until 6-30 pm, Matthew embarked on the fly-on-the-wall experience, sitting in on meetings involving many of Arcadia’s high street stores including one involving October’s grand opening of Topshop in New York.
Matthew said: “Sir Philip is surrounded by a network of people who get things done. He has a flat level of management, there are no hierarchies in place and he doesn’t suffer fools in any way. He knows what needs doing and he makes sure he gets it done at speed. It was truly inspirational to see that first hand in such a large company.
“I can’t explain how invaluable winning the Bank of Scotland Entrepreneur Challenge has been and I would recommend it to any business to enter this year’s contest.”
daisy is a provider of communications solutions to 30,000 small-medium enterprises across the UK and is seen as BT’s major competitor within the business community. The company’s early growth was driven solely by organic expansion, but in the last two years it has pursued a strategy of consolidating the fragmented telecom reseller market through acquisitions, two of which have been completed as a result of Bank of Scotland’s regional £5million prize.
The Entrepreneur Challenge is in now in its second year, and Matthew Riley has been appointed to adjudicate for this year’s competition, joining the fellow high profile judges, Audrey Baxter, Chairman and Chief Executive of Baxters Food Group, John Madejski, owner of Reading Football Club, Ardeshir Naghshineh from the Targetfollow Group and Bill Muirhead, Executive Director of M&C Saatchi.
Applicants will enter the Challenge in seven regions across the UK and each regional finalist will be given the opportunity to present their plans to the judging panel. A funding pot of up to £5m is available for each region and the judges will be scrutinising applicants to find the UK’s finest entrepreneurial minds. Five finalists from each region will then be invited to a prestigious event in their own region where the successful entrepreneur will be announced.
