Nick always knew that he wanted to work in the business/corporate world.
As a first step, he initially took ‘business studies’ at A-level. He got to the end of the first year of the course, but unfortunately didn’t see it through to the end. He knew that he wasn't going to go to university, so he needed to find a different route in.
Nick’s plan was to work his way up in roles that would give him enough experience and background to get him where he wanted to be in his career.
His first role within the local business community was at Manchester Central as a Sales Co-ordinator. He was there for just under two years and left due to redundancy. He then came across GC for the first time… He’d already done a little bit of work at Manchester Central with ‘Marketing Manchester’, so he knew that GC existed and who they were.
He took on a role as a Project Co-ordinator in the Business Growth Hub in 2016 and supported the Leadership & Workforce Development programmes. The role involved lots of paperwork which wasn't where Nick’s passions lay, but he wanted to get the most out of the experience and get in front of people. Nick’s manager at the time was really great at giving him responsibilities that were sometimes a little outside of his role – to help him get more experience and develop.
After 18 months in that role, at the age of 23 Nick moved into another role within our GC family at Marketing Manchester as International Sales & Research Executive, in this role he was bidding to bring international conferences into Manchester. He absolutely loved that job. In his own words he said: “It was the best job that I've ever had. I got to travel internationally. I got to work on some really cool events, like things with the Clinton Foundation, Alzheimer's UK and the Rugby League World Cup”. Nick thought that he would never leave because he didn’t think he’d find a job that he liked as much as that.
During the pandemic, Nick was once again made redundant. He never thought he’d come back to the Business Growth Hub, but he applied for and got the Business Development Executive role. By doing most of it remotely, he found he had a passion for ‘cold outreach’ – trying to contact people and piecing together a story.
And after a year, he was promoted to Business Development Manager, where he focused on leading on a lot more business development activity, instead of focusing on stepping into what's already there. He developed ‘BGH Match’ in 2022. This is the development which Nick is most proud of because it saved the Growth Hub a lot of time and managed to bring over 2000 people directly to the company, capturing their data right from the beginning.
In August 2022, Nick was promoted to Business Development and Partnership Manager and has a team supporting him. He’s leading on business development, looking at where we can be at the forefront – which involves taking on partnerships and looking at who we can collaborate with. Nick has also been developing our new BGH Alumni offering, which is a package of aftercare which is delivered in collaboration with our partners.
Reflecting on his career at GC, Nick told us:
“I genuinely love working for GC because we let creativity fly. That allows me to innovate business development and ways of doing things, rather than sticking to the set norm. I get the trust and autonomy to basically just get on with things and know that I’m ultimately doing the right thing.
“I couldn't work for an organisation where I was put in a box, equally I'm not totally driven by money. For me, doing a job with value means a lot more. When you actually see the impact from the on the support that you can give, and you can see businesses genuinely growing and doing amazing things when you met them – I then reflect and know that I really enjoy doing what I do.”