Business School welcomes Shadow Business Secretary
Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds visited Leeds University Business School to see Masters students present their ideas to SME business owners.
The Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and David Duffy, CEO of Virgin Money, visited the Business School to see the new Virgin Money Levelling Upstarts programme in action.
Levelling Upstarts is a new programme created by Virgin Money to match SMEs with MBA and Masters students from leading university business schools.
Jonathon and David attended a session where a group of Masters students presented their key recommendations to Andy Jenkins, one of the participating SME owners.
Jonathan Reynolds commented:
Businesses are facing mounting costs and challenges so it was fantastic to come to Leeds today and see the power of investing in supporting small businesses. It was also a pleasure to hear from the businesses and students themselves on their reflections on the commercial challenges they are working with.
The event was chaired by Professor Edgar Meyer, Deputy Dean of the Business School and attended by Professor Sarah Underwood, Director for External Engagement and Dr Richard Tunstall, Director of Enterprise.
Levelling Upstarts provides growing businesses with focused business advice and recommendations from the MBA and Business Masters students while also offering business leaders of the future a unique opportunity to put their training into practice.
Dr Tunstall commented:
“It’s important that we provide opportunities like this for our students to work alongside industry professionals and gain experience and insight from entrepreneurs and people who have been there and done it. At the same time you can see that the participating businesses gained immensely from the opportunity to work with students who gave them different perspectives and bold innovative ideas.”
