Creative Entrepreneurs

In addition to my business career I have had a parallel life in the performing arts.

I’ve been performing on and off stage since, as they say in the classics, I was “knee-high to a grasshopper”. I’m a singer and actor (but unfortunately not a dancer!). I have been involved with numerous musicals, plays, cabaret, TV commercials, short films and am currently working on a feature film. And I write.

It was when I looked for ways to blend my “business life” and my “artistic life” that I really tapped into my creativity. I realised that all businesses are a type of performance – operating on a “business stage” - and things went from there. I started working more and more with creative entrepreneurs and realised that I was in a unique position to facilitate outcomes for them.

(See “What is an Upstart?” and “Breakthrough – Music Business for Young Entrepreneurs” below for more info)

I still do things in on stage or front of the camera, behind the scenes and in production. I have a love of learning and discovering new ways of doing old things, as well as new things to do.

I absolutely love working with truly innovative and creative business people. Of course, creativity comes in many shapes and sizes.

What is an Upstart?

Management works in the system. Leadership works on the system.

- Steven R. Covey

Upstarts create new systems.

- David Solomon

An Upstart is that remarkable man or woman who sees the world differently from the rest of us. They are mavericks that can sense opportunities that others miss. They change and break the rules. They make us uncomfortable - and they make things happen.

An Upstart is an individual who challenges the status quo, is looking for new answers, has ideas that need to be nurtured to reveal their potential and benefit everyone. An Upstart is a person who does not fit into traditional roles, categorisation, answers etc., and who is compelled to find a new answer for themselves. This includes elements of entrepreneurship but an entrepreneur isn’t necessarily an Upstart.

The value of Upstart DNA is woven into the world - from cars, to computers, to E=mc². They have the ideas that change the world.

If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted.

- Francis Bacon

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.

- George Bernard Shaw

Breakthrough – Music Business for Young Entrepreneurs

Breakthrough was the first project run by Business DNA - created as a not-for-profit entity that carries out and invests in projects that assist young people to refine, nurture and realise each individual’s answers, facilitate the creation and unlocking of new skills, knowledge and attitudes, and help all youth to reach their potential.

Over a 2 year period Breakthrough provided a broad programme of skills development for existing small business owners / managers in and around the music industry that fostered entrepreneurship and maximised their growth potential and sustainability.