Prime Minister applauds graduates from the New Entrepreneurs Foundation
4th July 2012

"Apart from a placement at one of the partner companies, NEF graduates are trained in the 'hard skills' of finance, strategy, accounting and business planning as well as the 'soft skills' of team building, self awareness, presentation, pitching and networking. Skills that help build resilience in tough economic times", said Neeta, "we are delighted with the success of our first batch of graduates; four have started new ventures, some have joined accelerator and incubator companies, a few have joined high-growth start-ups and some have been snapped up to join our enterprise partner companies."

"Applications for the 2012/2013 programme are now closed and we look forward to working with a new batch from September 2012. Graduate Applications for 2013/3014 will open in February 2013, but partner companies are welcome to contact us at any time" she added.

Images courtesy of No 10 Downing Street.

About the New Entrepreneurs Foundation

The New Entrepreneurs Foundation (NEF) has been established to give up to 30 of the UK's brightest entrepreneurially minded young people the opportunity to work for a year with some of the country's leading entrepreneurs. Founded by a group of successful business people who are convinced that if enterprise and business are going to grow and flourish in this country, it needs to develop and build new knowledge-based industries across a range of sectors, the aim of NEF is to create a new generation of outstanding entrepreneurs who will play a role in Britain's future growth and prosperity and create new market leading businesses.

Founded by Oliver Pawle, Lord Davies of Abersoch CBE, Sir Nigel Rudd DL and Dee Stirling, The New Entrepreneurs Foundation is supported a number of Britain's leading entrepreneurs and companies including founder of Lastminute.com Brent Hoberman, founder of Autonomy Sir Mike Lynch and investor Luke Johnson. Companies supporting the foundation include Tesco, Virgin, Deloitte LLP, McKinsey, Diageo, Financial Dynamics, Pearson, Financial Times and McLaren among others.

About Neeta Patel, CEO - New Entrepreneurs Foundation

Neeta is an experienced executive with over 20 years of strategy and operational leadership experience in launching new ventures, business turnarounds and change and has a sharp focus on growth and revenues. She has a successful track record of turning ideas and concepts into tangible businesses. Her experience spans Financial Services, Media & Publishing, Education, Arts and the Creative Industries. She has also led two of her own start-ups.

Prior to joining the New Entrepreneurs Foundation, Neeta worked in Private Equity matching technology entrepreneurs with investors. Neeta has held senior positions at Thomson Financial (Reuters), Legal & General PLC, Financial Times Group and at the British Council. She is an early internet pioneer having launched the first personal finance web site in Europe for L&G in 1996.

Neeta holds an MA in Chemistry from Oxford University, an MBA (Marketing) from Cass Business School, and a Sloan Fellowship in Strategy and Leadership from London Business School, where she was the winner of the PWC prize in 2009 for a consultancy assignment in China.

For further information visit newentrepreneursfoundation.com

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