Fiona Simpson Founder and Managing Director of ARTventurers Limited
I am the founder and Managing Director of ARTventurers. We run colourful art classes, events and parties for babies, toddlers and children across the UK – we’re all about learning and development through art and creative play, and often getting quite messy in the process! The business was actually inspired by my own two ARTventurers Erin and Isaac. Before having the children I did something completely different – I was a solicitor specialising in family law. However like a lot of parents, once I had the children my priorities completely changed! I set up ARTventurers in 2011 – I wanted to create a fun business that would make a difference to the children and families who came along to our classes, and on a personal level to create a flexible business that would allow me to spend more time with my children and take them to school and pick them up every day.
We were thrilled to win two major awards in the Working Mums Top Franchise Awards 2017 – we won the award for Most Supportive Franchisor of the Year to recognise the innovative package of support we provide to all of our franchisees, and also won Overall Top Franchise 2017!
I initially grew the business gradually around the children. However as word spread and demand for ARTventurers classes, events and parties increased I made the decision to expand the business through licensing initially and then developing a franchise model in 2015. Since then ARTventurers has really grown! We now have over 25 branches of ARTventurers running across the UK with a fabulous team of ARTventurers franchisees building their own fun, flexible and family friendly businesses. The past year has been an amazing one for the business. Not only have we opened several new branches and developed some fab new programmes and services, we’ve also won some great awards!
In addition, we won two big awards in the What's on 4 Kids Awards 2017 recognising the best children's activity providers across the UK. We won the awards for Best Baby/Toddler Development Activity and Best Preschool Activity 2017 (under 25 franchisees) which was absolutely amazing and a great testament to the hard work that our entire team put into the ARTventurers classes, events and parties. To add to that I was also shortlisted as Outstanding Entrepreneur in the Northern Power Women Awards 2018 alongside some really inspirational women, so that was a great personal achievement. Page 21