Mentor spotlight - Phil Hornby

In an interview with Georgina Burton our Business Development Administrator, Phil Hornby , Founder and Director of Scale Business Performance, tells us how he's been delivering workshops to the participants on the AWRC Wellbeing Accelerator up skill and help them make progress in their start-ups.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your areas of expertise

I'm a product person. I'm an innovation and product management leader. I work with businesses across the world from major multi-nationals and brands that everyone will all be familiar with to very early-stage start-ups and scale-ups.

My expertise in delivering technology-based products. I help organisations build teams that deliver. I emphasise an entrepreneurial approach whether I am working with an establish company or a start-up. I have a technology background, but I do not focus on how to build things, what you might phrase as "building it right". Instead, I focus on "building the right thing". Through understanding customers, users and the market.

I've work for several businesses over the years, big and small, as part of the leadership team as well as building a number high-performing teams that raised the bar within those organisations.

Three years ago, I decide it was time to leave my comfortable life as a leader working for a large company to help other people and organisations more directly. Since then, I have mostly provided training, facilitation and consultancy to organisations to help them take their products to the next level.

What made you decide to become a mentor for the AWRC Wellbeing Accelerator?

Simply I love supporting the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. I support the Y-Accelerator programme as well and I am the local lead organiser of TechStars Startup Weekend. Working with start-ups, or even just people with an idea, is so much fun as they are always pushing the boundaries and eager to learn.

How are you supporting the start-ups/founders?

So far, I have focused on providing learning for the start-ups. I have delivered a number of workshops and I'm likely to do more in the future. The goal on these workshops is upskilling and helping them make progress. During the sessions they work on their business and leave with new insights and options. The sessions I have run so far include; "Running experiments" and "Talking to customers". This is all anchored in that entrepreneurial mindset to make sure they deliver the right thing.

How can we find out more about what you do?

People can find out more about me by checking out my profile and following me on LinkedIn. They grab a virtual coffee with me here or they could sign-up for my mailing list here.