Partners Business advice for Residents

Cool Ventures provides fully funded business support for businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs from South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset. They offer free one to one’s, training and workshops on key business topics such as starting and running a business, social media, digital marketing, marketing strategy, planning for growth, finance, HR and wellbeing.

Richard Spilsbury is the founder of Link Stone Advisory and former corporate development director at Future plc and Play Sports Group. Link Stone Advisory is a national advisory practice based in Bath that provides integrated corporate development advice covering strategy, corporate finance (equity and debt raises, buying and selling businesses), business finance and tax, HR, legal, IT, sales development and research. Richard also provides local support to WECA, SETsquared, TechSPARK, Be The Business and has board advisory and non-executive roles in media and tech scaleups.

Sally Higham is Managing Director of In A Box Services. Sally is a highly experienced business expert and Non Executive Director who helps founders navigate the difficulties of business, governance, finance and investors so they can spend more time on their creative work.

Steve Fuller is Co-Founder of The House in Bath.  Steve helps businesses of all sizes and sectors to unearth, define, implement and communicate a clear “purpose beyond profit”, creating an inspiring story that attracts and activates customers, employees and partners alike.

Yang Ding from New Silk Road helps individuals find Chinese business partners, should they want to expand into this market. Yang also offers guidance on the British Council’s £10k grant that encourages new cultural collaborations between the UK and China.

Louise Kitchener from Zig Zag is an accountant with years of experience helping small and medium sized owner-managed businesses with management accounts, providing Quickbooks, Xero and Sage advice and assistance.

Tessa Cobb is a children’s author, illustrator, and small press publisher based in Bath. Since receiving Arts Council funding in 2020, Tessa has worked with local creatives making applications to Arts Council England’s Develop Your Creative Practice (DYCP) and Project Grants funds. She advises individuals and collectives on finding funding, from ACE and beyond, and making the application process work for them. Tessa also acts as a Support Worker for those with additional needs applying to ACE.

Gill Wildman is the founder of Upstarter. Gill is a creative and social business mentor, strategic designer and facilitator who prototyped Upstarter, and then formalising it as a CIC in 2016, after developing a national design-led programme for early stage technology startups at the Design Council. Gill now designs and delivers Upstarter programmes.

James Wheale is an Innovation and Growth Adviser (Digital and Creative) and works on the Innovate2Succeed programme at Business West, helping creative and digital businesses unlock their growth and development. He is also an award-winning creative technologist and Resident of the Pervasive Media Studio. His expertise lies in strategic planning and funding for creative enterprise.

Rachel Pownall is Bath Spa University’s Innovation Manager for MyWorld, a five year UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Strength in Places (SIPF) funded programme to turn the South West into an international trailblazer in screen-based media. Rachel’s background is in documentary filmmaking. She is currently scripting and developing a variety of creative projects from podcasts to immersive theatre.

Sinclair Brown is Innovation and Growth Specialist at Innovate UK EDGE. Sinclair helps SMEs across the South West to innovate and grow with strategic business analysis, reviewing and developing new business models, innovation processes support, coaching and advice.

The West of England Combined Authority Committee makes decisions and investments that benefit people living and working in Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol and South Gloucestershire. It has approved a number of projects within the £350m Investment Fund allocation up to 2023. Look out for announcements for 2024.

Abel & Imray is a leading firm of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys handling all aspects of intellectual property including patents, trademarks and designs. Based in Bath, across the UK and Europe.

Mogers Drewett is a leading Southwest legal and financial planning firm that takes pride in building long term client relationships. From its offices in Bath, Frome, Sherborne and Wells their people offer comprehensive expert advice across a range of legal services for individuals and businesses.

Vicki Cheadle is a Marketing & PR Consultant and owner of Good Crowd Media. She has over 20 years’ experience in the products and services industries, working on marketing strategy, branding, PR, social media, event management, web design, video production and business development.

techSPARK is a not-for-profit network dedicated to connecting, educating and strengthening the digi-tech cluster in the West.

The Immersive Audio Network offers a networking platform including events, workshops and meet ups to share knowledge and investigate innovative ideas, mentorship and training opportunities to proactively resolve a current and future skills gap in this area and encourage an inclusive and diverse talent pipeline in this field, and to showcase Bristol and Bath as world leaders in immersive audio.

Bath Social Impact Network brings together like-minded groups and individuals to improve and grow the social economy in Bath and North East Somerset. It is run in partnership with Bath Spa University and 3SG.

Charlie Williams has an emerging creative practice called Larkhall which combines music and live algorithmic visuals. Charlie also works as a software developer and CTO of a small tech startup.