North Tyneside veterans armed with business support

North Tyneside Council’s Business Factory has joined forces with an army veteran to launch a scheme offering help and advice for veterans who are looking to start up their own businesses.

The Business Factory has partnered with Jack English, former Commander with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and now a fully-qualified counsellor, to set up The Business Factory Veterans’ Service, providing help and advice to former members of the Armed forces and current Reservists living in North Tyneside who are thinking about starting up their own business.

Jack, 39 who left the army ten years ago, is well aware of the challenges that veterans face when returning to civilian life and will use his own personal experience together with his qualifications and skills as a trained counsellor and adviser to provide help and support to his fellow comrades.

Together with the extensive enterprise support that is available from The Business Factory, Jack will be offering a dedicated service to any veteran thinking about setting up in business; from those with a firm business idea to others who are simply exploring options available to them.

Jack will have access to a wide range of enterprise support available at The Business Factory; from general business start–up advice, to a range of specialist sales, marketing, social media and IT support, as well as intellectual property and patent advice and specialist support for those looking to establish social enterprises – businesses which give back to the community.

Jack said: “This service will prove invaluable to the growing number of people coming out of the armed forces and returning to civilian life. The job market is not as it once was and opportunities can often seem limited, but I hope to help people to see that their skills and experiences are transferable and could lead them into self-employment.

“Due to the large scale redundancies, many of those coming out of the forces are leaving before they might have originally anticipated and as such don’t necessarily have any real plans in terms of jobs and careers and the prospect, or often lack of them, can be really daunting.

“I understand from my own experiences and through the support groups I run, that return to civilian life is far from easy, so my aim is to offer practical help and guidance that could lead to establishing a business.

Whether people have a firm business idea and need help to get it off the ground or are simply unsure what direction to take, this new service will combine the expertise of The Business Factory team with my understanding of the challenges members of the armed forces face and help pave the way to self-employment.“

After a difficult few years of his own, Jack retrained and completed a university degree to qualify as a counsellor and now runs peer to peer support groups for veterans across the north east. He will utilise these skills and his own experience of self-employment to provide the service through The Business Factory.

Chairman of North Tyneside Council, Councillor Tommy Mulvenna added: “Having someone on board like Jack who can fully empathise with veterans across the borough will ensure that this service really meets their needs. Most people leave the armed forces with a host of transferable skills and a steely determination to succeed – some of the most important traits for successfully setting up a business.”