Local experts to help you on your impact journey.

Here to help you improve your impact

Technology is a great thing. We have at our fingertips almost all the information we could possibly need. However, when it comes to making your business more sustainable and purpose driven, it seems that information isn’t the problem. It’s what to do with that information that’s seems to be the issue.

That’s why we were very keen to support this web-based, information-rich portal with some good old fashioned, personal advice. So please meet our Impact Advisors.

Pam, Jayne and Simon all live here in Edinburgh. They are business consultants with a mix of specialisms. But crucially they are passionate about helping business become a force for good. And they have all been through the Impact Journey Advisor Training programme.

Our clinics are free. Our Masterclasses are free. But, unfortunately, our Impact Advisors aren’t (yet). So, if you want help in implementing any part of your impact journey, you’ll have to agree a fee with them to do that. However, we have negotiated a special day rate with them for any business looking for support through this portal. And the first hour of their consultation is free.

GET IN TOUCH

Meet the Impact Advisors

Jayne Saywell, Business for Good Impact Advisor

Jayne Saywell is the co-founder of a Scottish-based sustainability consultancy, Black Skies Blue. Jayne is passionate about helping organisations understand, embrace and ‘find the joy’ in the transition to a low carbon, wellbeing economy.

Black Skies Blue work to help companies visualise their place in a wellbeing economy; make the change and stay on course. Clients span industries from property development to manufacturing to professional services. What they have in common is a drive to use business as a force for good.

Jayne is an accredited B Leader, trained Scotland Can B Impact Advisor, Chartered Management Accountant and IEMA affiliate member with a Masters in Environmental Economics. Before founding Black Skies Blue Jayne worked for over 16 years in corporate analysis and risk, including climate risk.

Jayne lives in Edinburgh with her husband, three sons, a puppy and chickens.

Pamela Herries, Business for Good Impact Advisor

Pam Herries is a small business director based in Edinburgh. As co-founder of Consultancy; Today The Arena, Pam’s work focuses on helping businesses grow with purpose, focus on their impact and create great places to work.

A people-centric change expert, she is passionate about creating a great people experience in order to create an excellent customer experience. With 30 years experience in small, medium and large organisations in the public and private sectors, Pam is driven by purpose. Her work across many industries is all about connecting people and businesses to purpose to provide fulfilling work and creating businesses our children will be proud of and want to work for.

Pam is an executive coach, former management consultant, Scotland Can B Impact Advisor, and Scottish Edge judge. Following her participation in the Scottish Universities Scale-up Consortium programme she is now a business mentor working with Heriot Watt University on the Government-backed Help to Grow initiative, mentoring businesses in Scotland. With an MSc in Communications and PR from Stirling University and BA (hons) in Education with Psychology, Pam brings the worlds of communications and learning together as a facilitator and trainer working online and in person.

Simon Farrell, Business for Good Impact Advisor and Programme Lead

For most of his career Simon has worked in brand, marketing and strategy agencies. Most recently he co-owned and led one of the UK’s most successful brand agencies. Over a 12-year period they won more creative and effectiveness awards than any other design agency in the UK. This helped them achieve their own purpose of becoming the only agency in the world to be in the top 10 of both the creative and effectiveness league tables at the same time.

Over the years he’s helped purpose-led brands such as The Co-operative Bank, Unilever, The Commonwealth Games, British Council, People Make Glasgow, University of the Highlands and Islands and Scottish Water articulate and communicate their purpose. Always with one goal in mind; delivering ideas that make a real difference to everyday lives.

In 2020 he co-founded Today The Arena; an Edinburgh based consultancy created to help leaders explore more purposeful and conscious ways of doing business. As a B Leader (someone trained to take business through the B Corps certification process) and a Scotland Can B Ambassador, he’s committed to the idea of using business as a force for good and helping Scotland move closer to its intended goal of becoming a wellbeing economy. So he was immediately drawn to the Everyone’s Edinburgh movement and the Business for Good programme as a way of contributing even more to this vision.

Mentors

Offering peer-to-peer support

We are delighted to be offer the Business for Good Mentoring Scheme as part of our support to business leaders looking to grow their business for good.

This scheme will match ambitious local businesses and their leaders with volunteer business mentors who are already on the path to making their own businesses fairer and more sustainable. The aim is to support personal growth and business development aspirations.

There are no strict eligibility criteria to joining the scheme in terms of business size, turnover figures, growth targets or industry sector. It is open to all Business for Good Network members who have a desire to be mentored. All we ask of mentees is a genuine ambition to develop themselves and grow their business in a more purposeful and sustainable way – it’s as simple as that.

JOIN THE BUSINESS FOR GOOD MENTORING SCHEME
About the scheme For mentees For mentors

About the scheme

The Business for Good Network will match prospective mentees with mentors based on several factors including the industry they operate within and their current level of confidence in planning and implementing sustainable strategies and policies.

Mentors and mentees will manage their own relationship, agreeing how often to meet in line with their own needs and the demands of their business. Mentoring can be done virtually, via email or telephone, or in person. Although we definitely recommend meeting face to face wherever possible to help develop rapport and encourage both parties to engage fully in these conversations, away from the competing priorities of the office or workplace.

Throughout the mentoring process, the wider Business for Good Network will be on hand to support you with access to events, training and resources that will all form part of your businesses journey towards a more sustainable future.

For mentees

Are you an ambitious leader looking to grow or develop your business in a more sustainable way? A business mentor can give you an independent view of your organisation and provide invaluable knowledge and insights to help you succeed. Engaging with a mentor can help guide your sustainable strategy and share their experiences and ideas to support you in meeting objectives, addressing key issues, and maximising your opportunities to grow your business for good.

Benefits of joining the programme as a mentee include:

· Getting to work with business professionals with knowledge and experience of becoming a more sustainable business

· Learning from their successes and failures

· Having that impartial sounding board and critical business friend to bounce ideas off

· Opportunity to enhance existing and develop new skills and knowledge

· Expanding your business network and fostering new professional contacts

Some of the areas we can provide support include:

· Purpose: How to better understand and articulate the aspirations of your business in delivering a positive impact in the environment around you.

· People: How your business can deliver Fair Work for those who work for you and have a positive impact on the surrounding community.

· Planet: How you can reduce waste, reduce carbon, or consider circular approaches in your operations.

For mentors

Business mentors have the opportunity to share their skills and expertise with Mentees, helping to shape successful businesses of the future. Not only is this an opportunity to give back; mentoring offers you the chance to develop leadership and coaching skills, be inspired by new ideas and make new connections.

Benefits of joining the programme as a mentor include:

· Assist someone and give something back to your community

· Opportunity to reflect on personal goals and practices

· Exposure to fresh perspectives and ideas

We very much welcome applications and enquiries from potential mentors. If you have a genuine desire to help and support a business be more purposeful and sustainable, and the passion to develop the skills of future business leaders, then we want to hear from you.

All we would ask is that you have around an hour a month to commit to the mentoring programme. However, once you complete your first meeting with your mentee, the level of commitment can be agreed in your follow up plans to best suit both parties.

To discuss becoming a Business for Good mentor or mentee, please contact Simon Farrell at simon@everyonesedinburgh.org