At the beginning of February we held our first in-person portfolio forum, centred on the topic of People. The day highlighted the importance of people within our businesses and the crucial role they play in driving growth and maximising value. The event, held at Manchester Hall, was attended by over 50 people with representatives from each of our portfolio companies.
Throughout the day we heard from several of our operating partners and portfolio companies, covering a number of topics including organisational effectiveness with People Hub and Mick Howard from Clearly Drinks – focussing on how to align the People Plan to the Value Creation Plan, mental health and wellbeing with Luke Ambler and why starting with you is key to sustainable success, attracting and spotting talent with Stratton HR and how creating leadership at all levels of an organisation empowers and enables a people powered transformation, which was delivered by Living Leader master trainers Paul Stobart and Sophie Lawler.
We had a mix of CEOs and People leaders from across the portfolio attending the forum, and it was fantastic to see so many people come together to connect, collaborate and share the insights they have learned from their careers so far – it was particularly special to have everybody together in person given interactions have purely been online for the last two years.
Attendees were also given a couple of books to take home – a BeeYou children’s journal donated by Luke Ambler for attendees to take home to their families to continue the important discussion about mental health, and Mental Health at Work written by James Routledge, co-founder of Sanctus, a firm who help businesses pro-actively support their teams to achieve better mental health and fitness. Having previously worked with Sanctus on our podcast to promote mental health at work, the book continues with this theme to discuss how leaders can build a culture that ensures colleagues feel safe to talk about their own mental health.
A big thank you to all of our speakers and to everyone who took time out of their busy diaries to attend. We hope attendees were able to take something away from the session to implement across their own lives and businesses in the coming months. As the event was so well received, we’re already looking forward to the next portfolio forum which will be held later in the year.
All of the materials have been made available on our Nexus platform, which is exclusively available for NorthEdge portfolio company leadership teams.
Watch our highlights below: