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Start-up Technology

Business Leaders Programme

Fully-funded business support for leaders of early-stage technology businesses

Grow your company by joining our development programme and take your business to new levels.

This is a comprehensive  programme consisting of 18 hours of online action learning and masterclasses, with a session taking place every 2 weeks.


Each online session will comprise an hour-long masterclass on a core business theme, followed by a 2-hour action-learning session.


The programme is developed and facilitated by an expert business mentor, with a proven technology business background.

Together with experts from the UK Space Agency and NatWest Business Bank, your facilitator will support you and a small cohort of fellow business leaders in a non-competitive environment to overcome any challenges you face.


In addition, those who are new to the EM3 Growth Hub are eligible for a further 12 hours of one-to-one support from dedicated, local business growth specialists. 


Who is it for?

The programme is for leaders of start-up technology businesses who are looking to develop and grow and can commit to the programme.

Am I eligible?

Eligible businesses must meet the following criteria:

  • trading for less than 2 years
  • annual turnover over £100k
  • UK limited company
  • based in the M3 area (see map below)

What does it cost?

There is no cost to your business.

The programme is fully funded.

You just need to invest your time. 

What will I learn?

The programme is client-led, focussing on areas in which you want to improve.


The outline group session plan is shown below.


A secure, online participant portal is provided to participants, hosting all material, tools, templates and best-practice guides.

Programme Outline

  • The role of a disruptive leader

    Learn how to develop a mindset for growth and build resilience.

  • Business model innovation

    Learn the key skills to develop and refine your business model.

  • Customer discovery and validation

    How to correctly develop the route to customer discovery and validation.

  • Building a trusted, high-performing team

    Build a trusted, high-performing team at scale. Grow and develop your network.

  • Vision, strategy, values for growth

    Develop your vision, strategy and values to scale and grow, and link these to team and individual goals.

  • Accountability and action planning to succeed

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Meet your facilitator

Mark Bayley-Smyth

The programme is developed and facilitated by an expert business mentor, with a proven technology business background. Mark Bayley-Smyth is founder and managing director of CIRCLE Leadership, a leadership development and business innovation consultancy.


Mark has decades of international experience in the industrial technology sector, latterly as Managing Director at Siemens UK.


He is a business mentor for the NatWest Entrepreneur Accelerator programme, developed the SME innovation programme for Manchester Metropolitan University and non-executive director on the boards of regional SME businesses.


Mark is passionate about helping leaders, teams and their businesses succeed and grow. Having spent many years running diverse businesses, he is only too familiar with the difficulties, challenges, frustrations and at times the sheer loneliness and isolation it can bring as a leader.

Previous Participant Feedback

"As a business owner, I get plenty of advice but what’s great about this Programme is that the participants are in a similar position to you, have no axe to grind or no vested interest, and are keen to share their thoughts just for the reciprocal benefit of hearing your thoughts about their business. And the Action Learning ethos means that you follow up with real actions.”

Highly recommended

"At first I thought, “Three hours every other week? - I just don’t have that much time!”. Half-way through I found myself actually looking forward to the meetings and excited about the new tools I might come away with. By the end of the programme, we were all so pleased with the effectiveness that the group has developed its own ongoing programme so as to continue the invaluable learning environment. As an aside, I also experience increased confidence in communicating with peers who I now appreciate share lots of the problems I thought were unique to our business."

Great investment of time

“I immediately knew it was for me, although I had absolutely no idea what to expect I did have hopes of what I was anticipating it would offer.  The knowledge that I received from the individuals on the group will be with me forever. It was such as wonderful opportunity, that came at perfectly the right time for our business, to connect significantly with other like-minded business leaders"

The value of knowledge

"Absolutely funnels your vision into a practical solution to move your business forward.


The format of each participant presenting a dilemma or issue for their business in their designated session was thought provoking and we all learned things about our circumstances from considering business issues raised by others in our group. It was also really beneficial to develop new relationships and opportunities with other local business owners in a collaborative framework which helped us to learn that we are not alone in facing challenges”

Funnels your vision

The cohort is now ready to launch on 17th November 2022.  Places are strictly on a first-come, first-served basis

Register Now

Register your interest for the programme by completing the short online registration form.  Our team will get back to you within 24 hours to complete the onboarding and provide you with full programme session dates and details.

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