Small Business, Big Network

In 2011, Rachel MacLynn took a leap of faith. Following a series of serendipitous events, she founded matchmaking agency Vida (now known as Maclynn) in London and never looked back. Rachel is a Chartered Member and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and holds a Master’s degree in Occupational Psychology. Her own values around integrity, delivering the highest standards, inclusio...

Joe Gallant is a creative guy living in Kent, England with his lovely wife, Naomi, their daughter and a little dog called Kobe. He’s a keen musician and a big sports fan following various sports both English and American. His passion is helping people and organisations to find their voice online, through effective branding and custom website design. In addition to co-founding Christian Businesses...

Phil Tyreman is the most controversial personal trainer on the internet. Incisive and irreverent, his material makes some apoplectic with rage. However, it’s beloved by hardworking and underappreciated family men who are brave enough to engage with challenging ideas, and bold enough to put those ideas into action. He publishes a free  daily  email newsletter containing information to hel...

Ella started out in the mortgage industry in the USA, but after the financial crash of 2008, began building a career focused on helping people. As a specialist advisor for a charity, she worked with many employers facing tribunal claims, most of whom had a poor awareness of their legal duties, or how to tackle HR issues effectively. Ella wanted to find a better way - where companies could identify...

Hi – I’m Becky Ray, CEO and High Performing Cultures Consultant at Culture Kick!  I’m an engineer, turned H&S Professional turned Culture Change expert and I love nothing more than bringing my experience and expertise into businesses to help enlighten them on how they can improve their culture where their people feel excited to show up to work and performance can skyrocket as a result. At...

What do you need when you move cities, countries or start a new business? You need a network.  After a corporate career in 2 of the 5 largest UK banks Julie Taylor moved to The Netherlands in 2018 as a trailing spouse. Now on her second business, Buzz Business Networking a B2B network of English-speaking businesses that have monthly in person meet ups in Leiden and Rotterdam and online. ...

With over 29,000 hours of practical marketing experience, Lenny has worked in the marketing and design industry for over 18 years for several European corporate companies. The Covid pandemic presented an opportunity to move away from employed work and into the arena of self-employment. Three years later, Lenny is the founder and director of Marketing Outsource Limited, an on-demand marketing servi...

Alison Carter is a life coach who helps people who are dealing with change in their lives - often a career change in midlife. Her background is in retail as a buyer for Selfridges and later John Lewis. When she used to network for her employer she found it something of a chore, but now she's doing it for herself she finds it inspiring and energising! https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisoncartercoachin...

Elizabeth Pearson  is the founder of  Simple Successful Stocks .  As a financial educator she helps women who want to understand money and get it working for them by investing, yet struggle to know where to start and who to trust.  She gives them the knowledge and confidence to invest in the stock market themselves and take charge of their financial future. ...

John has spent 3 decades in the digital trade credit space beginning when it was analogue ! He has experience with household brands like Coco-cola, MLC Life, Lend Lease and Microsoft but feels most at home in the SME [ small to medium sized ] business sector. He has led sales teams and built and sold 2 eight figure businesses including a trade sale and IPO. He has been an industry leader with the...

Justin Nelson started in Real Estate at 16 years old as an Inside Sales Agent and Marketing Director for a Real Estate company based in Denver, CO. At 19 he pursued his Real Estate License and within 3 years had taken over the team which led him to launching his own Real Estate coaching company. 3 years ago Justin launched Sphere Rocket VA to help both Real Estate agents and businesses in all sect...

Liz Villani is founder of  #BeYourselfAtWork , an organisation which partners with workplaces to create a new narrative around the role that work plays in our lives to boost energy, performance and results. Her company allows and encourages people to be their authentic selves and see work as an opportunity to make a unique difference. Liz is the creative mind behind iAM, the world’s...

Tim Noetzel is the founder of Allora Design & Marketing and he also coaches tech start-ups. Networking has been really important to Tim, and is the main way he grew his business. https://freelancegps.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/timnoetzel/ https://twitter.com/timnoetzel/

Karen Campbell is the founder of Karen Campbell Marketing and Hotsy Totsy - a networking club for women in London. She also works with Small Business Britain, heading up the f:entrepreneur campaign. Her first experience of networking wasn't a good one, involving a woman with a large bosom and a business card, but now she loves getting wonderful business women together.

The independent coffee company, CafePod was founded by entrepreneur Peter Grainger, 12 years ago. Peter had been frustrated by how difficult and expensive it was to buy Nespresso pods and felt that consumers deserved more choice and access to quality coffee at home. He became aware that it was possible to produce Nespresso-compatible pods but that it had not yet been done in Europe.  Hav...

Tim Calise is an advisor to start businesses in service industries and the founder of the Product to Profit Framework. Tim has founded and grown a number of businesses, and now helps other entrepreneurs to reach their full potential. Networking has been the bedrock of Tim's success and he believes that surrounding yourself with others who have complementary skillsets to you, will help you grow. Jo...

Estelle Cartlidge is the founder of two businesses - Making the Grade which matches students to tutors, and My Biz Solution which is an all in one package that helps small business owners with the day to day running of their business. Estelle wasn't a fan of networking at first but she's a real advocate for it now. She says everyone feels daunted at first but you have to be brave and stick with it...

Dave Castro, entrepreneur and creator of the IceBrekr app, seeks to empower people to meet key new connections on their own terms wherever their ideal kind of people gather. Dave has also co-founded a healthcare software company acquired by Dr Oz's ShareCare corporation and has worked in the software industry for over 20 years. Dave has always been fascinated by technology and has always wanted to...

Betsy Benn is the founder of Betsy Benn personalised gifts and luxury stationery. She has been running an accountability group for other small makers, and helping people prepare for the inevitable Christmas rush. This has proved to be an excellent place to network. https://betsybenn.com

Marie Paterson is a wellbeing trainer and coach providing both online and in-person services. She started her working life as a secondary school teacher, teaching Biology and Science. Following the arrival of her two daughters and a move to the east coast of Scotland she joined the Health Service and worked in Organisational and Staff Development. She has also worked as a staff developer for resea...

Amy Atkinson is a social media and digital marketing coach specialising in working with small to medium-sized service based businesses. Having worked for over 12 years in this field growing FTSE 100 companies customer bases and sales, she wanted to work with those smaller companies to help them see huge growth too. Amy reached a full client roster, and 6 figures in her business all in a year after...

Ellie McBride is the founder of Calibrated Concepts - a website and business systems design company. Ellie has the coolest business cards in any networking room - a magnetic bottle opener with her details on!

Karen Webber is a marketing coach and strategist. As the owner of Goodness Marketing, Karen helps small businesses with big hearts do marketing that feels good, does good and gets good results. Before starting Goodness Marketing in 2017, Karen worked as a marketing director for a marketing agency. Previously she worked in various editorial and comms roles in London, Manchester and her native South...

Mark Drager, AKA the Badass Brand Architect, is a 5th generation entrepreneur who helps other entrepreneurs with B2B businesses sell more, faster, and easier. The Founder & CEO of SalesLoop, Mark didn't take the usual route to become an authority in the world of marketing. Starting his entrepreneurial journey in 2006 with zero experience, he launched Phanta Media, the corporate video productio...

Emma Briggs is the owner of the digital marketing agency EDB Digital, With over 17 years of experience in the marketing industry she has worked with start-ups to multi-national companies to build their brand and push their services and products in front of the right audience. She specialises in social media management and lead generation where she can obtain GDPR-compliant data and her award-...