ABOUT INSPIRE
It works because
it is personal.
No generic advice. We listen, understand what's really happening and work alongside established businesses and the people leading them.
Experienced people. Impartial perspective. Practical support for whatever comes next.
CLIENT VOICE
PEOPLE BEHIND INSPIRE
Experienced people in your corner.
Rob Perks and Mandy Paterson lead many of Inspire's client relationships. Their backgrounds are different, but their approach is shared - understand before advising, respect what's already been built, challenge thinking when useful and stay involved in what happens next.
Together with Inspire's wider network, they give business leaders access to experienced people who can see the bigger picture and help get things moving.
ROB PERKS
Drive. Determination. Discipline.
Entrepreneurial from an early age, Rob has spent his career understanding what makes businesses succeed - and what can get in their way.
Experience from both sides of the table
Rob began his career in investment banking in the City of London, advising and managing assets for wealthy individuals, entrepreneurs and companies.
He later moved into major lending businesses, leading teams of up to 500 people and eventually serving as Business Development Director on the board of a PLC.
Along the way he learned about risk, leadership, recruitment, efficiency and what it takes to compete in demanding markets.
Boardroom perspective
Rob has also served as a Non-Executive Director of fast-growing businesses.
That taught him another important skill - how to challenge, question and influence senior leaders without trying to run their business for them.
Learning from building businesses himself
Some succeeded. One didn't.
That experience matters.
It reinforced his belief that useful business wisdom comes from understanding mistakes as well as successes - and that smaller businesses often need access to expertise that larger organisations simply have in-house.
Why Inspire?
That insight helped shape Inspire.
The ambition was to create a support network giving established SMEs access to experienced people across strategy, finance, HR, leadership, sales, marketing, technology and more - without needing to employ all of that expertise themselves.
Today, Inspire has a network of more than 40 professionals who can be brought into a business when their expertise is genuinely useful.
And because Inspire is not-for-profit, the focus remains firmly on delivering value for clients.
Rob's philosophy
Experience should create wisdom, not arrogance.
Every business is different. There are no magic formulas and nobody knows everything.
The important thing is to understand the objective, know when another perspective is needed and then have the discipline to make things happen.
MANDY PATERSON
Make it happen.
Mandy recognised early in life that if she wanted something to happen, she needed to help make it happen. That philosophy has followed her throughout an unusually varied career.
A career built around people and business
Mandy began in travel and tourism before establishing her own tour operating business in South Africa.
After returning to the UK, she moved into recruitment, eventually building and running her own 17-person agency.
Following its sale, she moved into the corporate technology world, building business teams for O2 before eventually finding what she describes as the perfect destination for her experience - Inspire.
Practical experience that crosses sectors
Mandy's career has exposed her to entrepreneurs, SMEs, large corporates, recruitment, sales, technology and property investment.
That breadth gives her an unusual ability to understand people quickly, identify what matters and adapt to very different business situations.
What she brings to Inspire
Mandy's approach is built around listening, impartiality and confidentiality.
She looks for the problem behind the problem, the bear trap that hasn't yet been spotted and the practical action that can make a genuine difference.
Sometimes that's strategic. Sometimes it's operational. Sometimes it's simply being the experienced person somebody needs to talk to.
Whatever the situation, the objective remains the same:
"Make it happen."
PEOPLE DEVELOP TOO
Developing businesses means developing people.
As businesses grow, the roles of the people leading them change too. Inspire supports owners, MDs, directors and senior managers as they take on greater responsibility, navigate unfamiliar decisions and develop the confidence to lead the next stage.
It isn't about teaching experienced people how to do their jobs. It's about having another experienced perspective when the role asks something new of them.
CLIENT VOICE
Philip Cavalier-White
MD, Modular Cubed
“For close to ten years, Inspire has consistently understood where the business is at each stage and connected me to exactly the right people, including an excellent non-exec who’s worked with me for the best part of six years. That’s what keeps me coming back: it’s not one-off advice, it’s an ongoing relationship and a network they open up, quarter after quarter, based on what the business actually needs.”
Philip Cavalier-White
MD, Modular Cubed
FROM THEIR SIDE
Want to hear it from somebody who already knows?
A website can only tell you so much. Where appropriate, we're happy to introduce serious prospective clients to an existing Inspire client who can tell you what the relationship is really like from their side.
LET'S TALK
The first conversation might change the question.
A decision. An opportunity. A change in direction. A leadership challenge.
Or simply the feeling that the business could work better.
You don't need a perfect brief.
Start a conversationOr simply the feeling that the business could work better.
You don't need a perfect brief.