Adrian Ashton

Feted with various national and international awards in recognition for his support to enterprises in all sectors (private, public, social, charitable, and co-operative), Adrian is often seen as taking ‘unconventional’ approaches in his training, consultancy, and business support.

 

In working across fields of enterprise education, national policy, and various themes, Adrian draws upon a wide range of insights and experiences that clients appreciate and benefit from. These experiences are also reflected in the types of support he offers:

  • Planning and development
  • Financial modelling and feasibility studies
  • Growth, succession, and mergers
  • Impact and csr
  • Training, mentoring, coaching, and consultancy
  • Policy and strategy

 

Adrian is often seen to be ‘punching above his weight’ – although a sole trader, he is regularly invited to support national initiatives, and work with government bodies. He is also recognised as a leading example of developing ‘integrated impact reporting’ (he is the only freelance consultant globally to annually publish an impact report on himself that is aligned to the UN’s global goals and externally benchmarked).

 

As examples of some of his expertise (more details through social media links):

  • Managed and grew a local enterprise investment fund; and subsequently invited to research enterprise investment trends to inform a review of other lenders’ market offers
  • Support the delivery of funded business programmes through local Growth Hubs, and national sector initiatives
  • Modelled new approaches to workspace and incubation for different thematic enterprises; several of which have now been built
  • Developed and piloted a startup programme for delivery inside prisons that gained national recognition
  • Created training programmes for Boards to best engage with governance standards and the national Codes
  • Led the development of several international Colleges and Trusts transformational responses to how they remodeled the delivery of support to their learners and beneficiaries in the initial wake of Covid-19