Young Enterprise at Hurstpierpoint College
Young Enterprise is the largest business and enterprise education charity in the UK and helps some 250,000 young people from 4-25. It teaches budding entrepreneurs many skills including product development, marketing communication, objective setting, planning, team work, problem solving and administration.
Hurst has a long and illustrious track record with a new company formed each year from the Lower Sixth Form. Back in 2009, Baran Ceylan (who became Head Boy of Hurst the following year as an Upper Sixth former) was the Managing Director of the Hurst company, Zaken, which won the Best Company award in the Mid-Sussex section of the competition. Baran is currently a final year student at the University of Bath studying for a BSc in Business Administration and has accrued over a year’s work experience in the UK, Dubai, Dubai and Turkey, with two-month placements at Unilever and L’Oreal, as well as summer internships at PwC and AkBank.
Baran has just been presented with the Future Business Leader of the Year Award, sponsored by Mars, in the Target Jobs Undergraduate of the Year competition. It’s not his first taste of success whilst at university; in 2011 he was named PwC and Bright-Futures’ UK National Business Champion, having co-founded Recollar, an award winning start-up company.
His business flair has led him to creating another new internet venture, Wordme, a universal greetings card company (www.wordme.co.uk). Baran has already obtained financial backing from several investors, currently employs four staff and has secured retailers across the UK.
Looking back on his experience of leading the Hurst Young Enterprise company, Baran says, “I feel that the Young Enterprise scheme is a fantastic opportunity for students to get a real taste of business. “Having to work in a team and develop a business from scratch, really develops the fundamental skills needed to succeed both in setting up a company, and working in a corporation.”
