We're featured in The Times today!

Sarah Mintey MBE named One To Watch in The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme

Sarah Mintey MBE, CEO of Developing Experts has been named as a One To Watch in The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme for 2022.

The programme, which is supported by The Times and now in its fifth year, celebrates those entrepreneurs that are growing the UK’s most successful and fast-growing medium-sized firms.

A record number of nominations – more than 750 – were received this year, proving that ambition is alive and well despite the challenges faced by increasing economic uncertainty.

The Ones to Watch are the business leaders destined for great things. Those who are making waves in their sectors, having a positive impact on their customers and employees, and who are the driving force behind tomorrow’s most successful medium-sized firms.

Developing Experts offers a stimulating, interactive STEM applied learning- career ‘ed tech’ platform that links the science curriculum with the STEM workplace. The platform integrates specialists from a network of more than 200 industry and University professionals, designed to address the long-term STEM skills challenges. We achieve this by: - 

• Working with over 6500 UK schools
• Engaging young children from the age of 4 to 16 years to broaden their aspirations and horizons in the STEM sector-cultivating a sustaining sense of self-belief in their capabilities and potential. The platform’s insights, experiences, learning, and exposure helps to ignite children’s curiosity and perceptions about the world of STEM to exert continued investment in studies and career options.
• Integrating local employer opportunities into the career platform.
• Increasing confidence amongst the teaching community through a library of self-build curriculum tools
• Fully integrated into a database which features over 1000 career profiles and 100,000 jobs.
• Meeting wider societal objectives including the preparation of a confident, diverse, inclusive and strong resilient workforce for addressing equality of opportunity and critical labour market shortfalls against
• Employer demands.
• Responding to local and central government campaigns.

We inspire and support young people and their families/job seekers to consider STEM education, skills, and career pathways that they would not have been considered before. On the journey, our solutions fulfil and address shortfalls in educational attainment and skill deficits. It also builds teachers’ confidence in teaching the evolving STEM subjects. By exposing the range of opportunities, and offering tailored learning-career pathways, the model effectively breaks down barriers into the labour market to increase diversity, inclusion and human intellectual capital. Developing Experts model is designed to ensure that career choice will not be left to chance, so that diverse communities can be offered greater opportunities to excel. 

To illustrate how Developing Experts works, we take a long-term strategic approach to building future talent pipelines. For example, if we look at the nuclear sector, there are 7 nuclear power plants in the UK, Hinkley Point C is currently under construction. Based on the average age of nuclear power plant managers in the 6 operational plants, we know that the next power station manager for Hinkley is currently aged 7, and is in Year 4 at school, we also know the area where the talent is needed. We can therefore place the career opportunity of the nuclear sector within the curriculum in line with when industry needs it. 

John Garner, Managing Partner, LDC, added: “The volume and quality of submissions this year surpassed all of our expectations. We’ve been struck by the way business leaders have overcome challenges and adversity to run fast-growing and successful companies, proving that difficult circumstances can become the biggest driver of ambition. This year’s Ones to Watch embody just that and they have really grabbed the judges' attention with their success stories. Congratulations to all those featured - we look forward to seeing where they go next!”

You can find out more information on this year’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme here: https://bit.ly/3e2c3gk

About LDC

LDC is the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group. Since 1981, LDC has invested more than £5.5bn in medium-sized firms across the UK; backing the ambitions of more than 650 ambitious management teams.