Tuesday 25th February saw the return of the annual Student Enterprise conference, as our team organised a jam-packed day full of insight and knowledge for our budding entrepreneur audience.
The day opened with a welcome from Student Enterprise Manager, Reece Leggett, who remarked what a fantastic year it had been for Student Enterprise with new funding streams, support programmes and event schedules all having seen positive impact. It was also great to see the University maintain its Top-10 UK University for supporting start-ups result from the HESA data, which is testament not only to the continued hard work of our team, but also to the appetite and creativity for students and graduates in Lincoln.
Our first session of the day was our Lincoln Business Panel chaired by Laurel Kavanagh, Student Enterprise Officer, featuring Catherine Nnamdi of Black Business Lincolnshire, Luke Wiggs of Commuter Films, and Eleanor Bryan of Arcanum Copy. The panel showed an absolute wealth of experience across the practical and creatives sides of running a business, and answered questions from the audience around what success looked like for their business, their “I’ve made it” moment, issues faced along the way and more!
After a short break, we welcomed Steph Hamill, a serial entrepreneur in her own right, as our keynote speaker. Having worked with some of the world’s biggest businesses on both an in-house and consultancy basis, Steph boasts a glut of knowledge and expertise on starting, running and scaling a business. Steph spoke at length about the entrepreneurial mindset, focussing on the idea that innovation is a culture, not an outcome and how early stage entrepreneurs can go about implementing that approach.
A special thank you to our caterer, Betty de Arcos of Castiza, who put on a wonderful spread of tapas and sweet treats that received unanimous acclaim.
Thank you to all attendees, guests and speakers for making it a special day, we are already excitedly planning our 2026 instalment!