Confessions of an Entrepreneur – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode Carl Swansbury sits down with entrepreneur Peter Kirkham. A former professional footballer, Peter built a property portfolio before losing it all and being declared bankrupt due to the ‘credit crunch’. He bounced back to build a successful business which he sold for millions of pounds just a few years later.

This is a fascinating insight into the challenges of overcoming adversity in business to become successful for the second time.

In this episode Carl sits down with serial entrepreneur and investor Jeremy Middleton. Co-founder of the multi-billion-pound Homeserve, Jeremy established a private equity business, Middleton Enterprises, supporting founder-led entrepreneurial businesses across a range of sectors including tech, hospitality and leisure. During the podcast Jeremy tells his story and offers insight into business success, and advice to start-ups, growing enterprises and the investment landscape for firms targeting growth.

Charlie Hoult is one of the North of England’s most prolific and successful entrepreneurs.  A specialist in leadership, investment finance, strategy, entrepreneurship, tech and marketing, Charlie speaks to Carl about his fascinating career and his core beliefs to create, challenge and drive, which has helped not only his businesses, but others he supports.

Ian Kinnery is the Scale Up Coach.  Since 2005, he’s been helping business leaders to grow themselves and their businesses with highly personalised coaching solutions that guarantee results.

As a Scaling Up certified coach with over three decades of personal experience starting and scaling businesses, Ian has, in this episode, volumes of advice and experience to share with listeners.

In this episode Carl speaks to Michael Hall, CEO of eQS Group.  Interesting ind 10 years a Barclays before choosing to treain to become a qualified accountant, which enabled him to move into a Finance Director role at a facilities management business before more recently becoming CFO and now CEO of eQS Group, which is a leading national equality, inclusion and diversity consultancy.

It’s not common for CFO’s to make the move to become CEO, so Carl gains an insight into Michael’s journey and how he managed a significant acquisition programme.

Carl chats with Gary Lumby MBE, one of the most prolific Non-Execs in the North of England.  As MD of Focus on Success Ltd he acts as a Non-Executive Chairman or Director  for several SMEs in the North East, Yorkshire and London.

He also runs three other family businesses and mentors on the Goldman Sach 10000 Small Business Programme.

In this episode Carl delves into Gary’s life and career to discover what drives him, how he helps SMEs and what advice he has for small business owners.

Carl sits down with Neil Stephenson, a highly experienced NED who helps tech founders unlock their potential and build great businesses as a coach, investor and advisor. 

Neil helped build and subsequently sell IT Services business Onyx  and has gone on to become a serial investor, NED and board advisor working with a range of businesses. 

He tells the story behind his entrepreneurial career….

In this latest episode, Carl sits down with Lucy Armstrong, one of the North’s most successful chairpersons. She supports CEOs and boards of a range of businesses across the public and private sectors, as well as not-for-profit organisations.

She is also CEO of The Alchemists, a boutique consultancy focused on supporting fast-growing entrepreneurial businesses.

Currently chair of a number of companies and organisations including the Port of Tyne and Everflow, Lucy has a significant amount of experience helping CEOs scale businesses.

Lucy has a high level of interest and knowledge in helping CEOs to become leaders over managers and helping to create more successful sustainable and successful businesses.

In this latest episode, Carl chats with successful businessman and Non-Exec Director Mark Dixon, From the beginnings of his career with Rolls Royce through to starting his own business, which went through two private equity transactions before eventually being sold to Costain.

Having then, unsuccessfully trying to retire, Mark continued his business life working as interim chair, a NED and interim CEO of several enterprises, he gives a detailed and fascinating insight into his career and what inspires him to work with boards, shareholder groups and management teams.

In this episode, Carl chats with Kevin Beales, the founder and CEO of MySalesCoach, the expert sales coach, which is offered as a subscription service.

Kevin gives an insightful look into his entrepreneurial career, providing a very interesting and highly personal view on taking a business from start up to sale and the sometimes emotional stories that come with that process.