Barclays launches new Barclays Scale Up UK Programme, co-designed by Cambridge Judge Business School, to address core growth challenges for businesses.
Barclays is launching for the first time a Barclays Scale Up UK Programme, co-designed by the School, to address the core growth challenges faced by business when scaling up.
The new 36-week course provides company founders and senior executive teams with the frameworks and strategies to accelerate growth. It is open to existing Barclays clients for businesses with scale-up potential (from startup to £20 million annual sales), with positive cashflow and/or backed by a venture capital or angel investor. It builds on the Barclays High-Growth and Entrepreneurs proposition, which is committed to backing the UK’s fast-growing businesses, from startup, to scale-up, through to exit.
The course leads the participating teams through a journey, in which they address six core themes that are key to growth: targeting a clear strategic positioning, understanding customers (marketing), finding an economic mechanism for growth, strengthening processes so they can scale (operational excellence), building talent that allows the organisation to grow (recruitment), and finding the capital to grow (funding).
The programme aims to drive growth while supporting the role of the leadership team and provides exposure to peer CEOs to share best practice and provide a benchmark. Up to 20 leadership teams will be selected for the programme.
“From talking to our clients, we recognise there is a knowledge gap when it comes to leadership skills, especially for ambitious businesses growing at speed and we see this partnership with Cambridge Judge as an opportunity to help bridge this gap for our clients and to further cement our commitment to supporting the eco-system beyond traditional banking,” said Richard Heggie, Head of High-Growth and Entrepreneurs at Barclays.
For Cambridge Judge, the course is led by Professor Stelios Kavadias and Hanadi Jabado of the School’s Entrepreneurship Centre, supported by other industry experts and thought leaders, including a dedicated team of coaches associated with the Entrepreneurship Centre.
Professor Stelios Kavadias is the Margaret Thatcher Professor of Enterprise Studies in Innovation & Growth, and Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School. Hanadi Jabado is Executive Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre, and an angel investor who sits on the advisory boards of many firms at various levels of development.
“Small businesses face many hurdles in successfully scaling up, so Cambridge Judge Business School is offering companies the opportunity to upgrade their managerial skillsets to get access to capital and scale their organisation up,” said Cambridge Judge Dean Christoph Loch. “The new Barclays Scale Up UK Programme will provide a clear framework for addressing these issues, and the business school is delighted to provide its expertise.”