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A unique, fully funded programme providing Birmingham based small to medium sized businesses with the opportunity to access expert professional coaching and mentoring to help grow their business.
The programme was managed by Birmingham City Council and delivered by Deloitte in partnership with the Academy for Chief Executives. The programme was developed in light of the successful pilot programme, Enterprise City. The Enterprise City High Growth Programme has now ended with the final evaluation report finding the programme "in very good health".

Over the past 12 months, participants from 56 Birmingham based businesses attended monthly seminars with professional speakers followed by small group networking/peer coaching sessions. Extra seminars were also delivered as a result of participant's requests to smaller special interest groups.

The monthly group seminars included topics such as Marketing Strategy, Employment Law, Customer Relationship Marketing, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Marketing Tactics, Business Plans, Teams and Leadership, Improvision Skills and Celebrating Success, and Maintaining Peak Performance.

As part of the programme, participants benefited from high-level 1:1 mentoring and coaching from members of the Academy for Chief Executives. As the report says: "It is clear that the mentor-focused approach of the ECHGP has proven to be a strong success factor, both from the perspective of improved business capability, and the development of participant entrepreneurs."

Although some participants were sceptical at first about enrolling onto the programme, feedback from them has been extremely positive and knowledge gained through the programme has been effectively implemented into business practices. One participant, for example, reported a 15% increase in their December turnover from the previous year, which they claimed to be as a direct result of implementing strategies learned on ECHGP

Other comments about the programme include:

“Birmingham City Council, Deloitte and the Academy for Chief Executives seemed to be a fantastic combination. This together with the diversity of participants from a range of ethnic cultures and businesses . . . had a terrific appeal.”
“It has definitely impacted on my business. Profit is up and we are looking to take on more staff.”
“ECHGP provides a really good opportunity. The partnerships are working for the business community. They are putting something back with no strings attached, Nobody is trying to sell you anything, it is all for the good of the City. How refreshing that is!
“The ECHGP is a very good programme which has been a long time coming. It offers highly effective support for people in their own businesses. The one-to-one coaching is invaluable as it provides bespoke support. The networking opportunities are great, and the Academy for Chief Executive’s mentors really impressive too.”
“ECHGP is really so well organised, but there is also a real friendliness there. All of the people are personable and approachable and they give you so much time. Even though they are busy people, they always have time for you which means so much. I really don’t want this programme to end.”
“The Board you can’t afford is a great strap line. They have become the Board my business can’t afford... NOT to have!”

The last ECHGP seminar took place on 23 March 2009 after which the final evaluation report was completed. This was then disseminated at the University of Birmingham Business School to an invited audience on 24 April 2009. Copies of the report are available upon request. Now that the programme has closed, other funding streams are being investigated into how it can be extended in order to facilitate effective knowledge transfer, enable further Birmingham based businesses to gain new skills and help them to grow in the current economic climate. Once this is successful, details on how to enrol on to the new programme will be announced on this web page. For further information and/or a copy of the evaluation report, please contact: Ian Lupton, Programme Manager By telephone 0121 303 3731 or e-mail ian.lupton@birmingham.gov.uk