Entrepreneurship

Nick Troen – Founder of Start it and Head of Entrepreneurship, St Paul’s School

Under the Start it Entrepreneurship Programme, a St Paul’s initiative created back in 2018, the spirit of enterprise has returned with a vengeance in the Pauline community despite almost two years of various restrictions.

In addition to the HFX business strategy game in February, several Lower Eighths have spent the year taking part in the Young Enterprise company programme, making a successful return to in-person selling.

The top performing companies Nutree (MD Charles Calzia) and Ceintury (MD Sabeer Sahwney) accomplished impressive feats this year, winning the Euronext Blue award and the Richmond and Kingston area final respectively. Nutree are a FoodTech startup which helps people find healthier and more sustainable food products via a chrome extension and app, while Ceintury hand-manufactures sustainable cork belts which are carbon negative due to the CO2 absorbing abilities of re-growing cork trees.

For younger years the Fifth Form Restaurant Design challenge was a huge success with CEO Frank Yeung of the Mr Bao restaurant chain judging Austin’s Kebabs to be the best of an impressively professional field. Sixth Formers were also excited to return to school after GCSEs to embark on the Y11 Summer Entrepreneurship Course, working with partner school students to create sustainable business concepts that solved one or more of the UN Sustainable Development goals. Every morning of the course saw students treated to a variety of inspiring speakers including Peter Higgins, founder of Charles Tyrwhitt, Andy Shovel, founder of THIS, Rob Gardener, Director of Investments at SJP Wealth, Stephen Rockman of Merism Capital, Rahil Patel of Kreos Capital, and

Francesca Tanza Lans, CEO of The Alexander Partnership. A judging panel of Check Warner (Ada Ventures), Paul Traynor (VC investor and author) and Jessie Frahm, CEO of Planet One point five, had to make a tough call but eventually agreed that Mevan Wijayatilake and Fergus Walsh’s Chemetric, a concept that recycles food waste into biofuels, had the best all-round idea, business plan and financial projections.

The year was rounded off by the annual St Paul’s Entrepreneur Forum which saw serial investor Lars Tvede, Anil Stocker, founder of Market Finance, and John Ramsay, founder of Sociability, discuss the innovations and trends of the future in a variety of business sectors. Next year the Start it programme is looking to further expand its offering amongst partner schools as well as developing the Start it PRO incubator to help support and nurture student and alumni business ideas. If you are interested in being involved in any capacity please don’t hesitate to get in touch as we enter an exciting chapter in entrepreneurship education and development. ❚