Last week I was honoured to join our CEO and Founder of P2 Consulting, Pip Peel and Douglas Elliott at the Virgin Sunday Times Fast Track awards night, to celebrate our company being the second fastest growing private British company. The ceremony was a glitzy affair, held at Tobacco Dock in central London and hosted by Sir Richard Branson.
This year was particularly poignant as the focus was on women in business and I was lucky to hear from several incredibly impressive women, who were all really inspirational and had some great business lessons to share.
Karen Jones CBE (serial entrepreneur who founded Café Rouge) shared the secret of creating and running a successful hospitality business – having the right team and a great culture. Claire Gilmartin (Chief Executive of Trainline) shared her insights into how having smaller agile teams helped to get things done quickly and keep things focused. Interestingly both women touched on the need to have the right people at the right time for the business and how this is probably one of the hardest things to accept – that not all of the people you start with will be the ones to help you get your business to the next chapter.
