KEYNOTE: Nicola Cook

Nicola Cook from Company Shortcuts specializes in helping scale-up SMEs create accelerated growth and scalability in their sales function. On average Company Shortcuts’ clients record an increase of 140% in Net Profit eighteen months after implementing her award-winning SAM© growth model, and two of her clients have completed successful exits in the year prior to the pandemic.

As well as her Private Consultancy clients and investments, Nicola is an accredited speaker for Vistage, WeConnect, Prelude Group, Smith & Williamson and Scale-up North-East and in September 2019 she was invited to join the Corporate Advisory group of London based Venture Builders, Aspremont.

In March 2019 Nicola was the recipient of two Vistage speaker awards. Best Newcomer and the Vistage Outperformer award, and has been a recipient of the Vistage Outperformer award every year since. She has been a judge of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, since 2020.

Nicola herself is a past winner at the North-East Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in 2012 and in 2017 she was added to the Smith & Williamson Power 100.

She has published two international business bestsellers, which have been translated into 16 languages and has guest lectured at Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle Business School, Durham University Business School and Sunderland University and her firm Company Shortcuts was a finalist in two categories at the BESMA (British Excellence in Sales & Marketing Awards) in 2016.

Nicola’s charitable fund The Aurora Foundation is managed by County Durham Community Foundation, and she also donates a chunk of her time working with the ‘Speakers for Schools’ charity, for which she was humbled to receive the Worshipful Company of Educators’ Mary Lou Carrington Award in April 2020.

In her spare time, she writes women’s book club fiction under the pen name Isabella Wiles.

Paul is an accomplished CEO, MD, marketer and strategist, having worked 35 years in and around Healthcare, including 20 years in CEO roles both in the UK and the USA.

He has led businesses in start up, as well as teams delivering in excess of £200m pa. and has led teams of up to 600 people.

Paul has significant experience of M&A, marketing and international business, and is passionate about helping teams deliver to their full potential.

Paul has been a Vistage Chair for the last six years, and Chairs a CEO Group, a Small Business Group and a Vistage Inside Group. He finds his role as coach to CEOs an exciting challenge, full of rewards as they work together to take businesses to the next level.

Paul's latest Vistage adventure is the launch of an Emerging Leaders Group. With it he fulfils a long held desire to support emerging talent maximise their potential.

“Having been both a recipient of great Mentoring, and a Mentor myself I know first-hand how formal development programmes can accelerate the growth of highly talented leaders, and the spin-off effect on the effectiveness of the teams we work in.”

Paul also has the privilege of being the lead facilitator of the Vistage Chair Academy in the UK and across Europe. He supports all new Vistage Chairs through their introduction to life as a Chair.