“I want a culture where kids say ‘I can’ rather than doing nonsense on the streets”
– Tim Campbell

Name: Tim Campbell
Age: 30
Business: Bright Ideas Trust
Role: Founder
Where: Started in London

Tim Campbell

Tim Campbell wants to see young people succeed in business. He feels so strongly about this, that in spring 2007 he set up the Bright Ideas Trust, designed to ‘create the next generation of entrepreneurs'.

The winner of the first series of The Apprentice, who worked his way up from station assistant to a middle-manager position at London Underground, is currently raising funds and gathering business mentors to support anyone aged between 16 and 29 with a viable business idea. The Trust’s motto is ‘Empowering Tomorrow's Entrepreneurship'.

“I want to create something that will out last me and improve the aspirations of the generations to come,” says Tim. “There's a lot of pontificating about lost generations, but instead of pointing fingers from up high, let's get down and understand what their issues are.

“Young people want to make money, but they don't know how to create wealth. I want to create an environment  that says ‘I can’ - rather than the current one where kids aredoing nonsense on the street.”

Campbell is adamant that a big percentage of those he supports will have to be cash-generating, viable, scalable businesses. “Eventually they will be the life blood of our charity and for that to happen we need to pick a couple of gems who are the next IT stars or the Web 2.0 dudes, who will make us and themselves an awful lot of money,” he says.

To help ensure the young people’s success, the trust will offer hands-on mentoring from entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and established business people.

Campbell says the mentor-matching process will be aided by special days dedicated to enabling young people supported by the trust to discuss their ideas with ‘wise old heads and not-so-old heads'. Thereafter, interested parties will work together indefinitely.

CIC start

He’s set up the trust as a Community Interest Company (CIC) and is trying to raise £1m for it alongside running a profit-making male grooming company and enjoying family life with his partner and young daughter.

The idea is to get Britain's biggest businesses to commit money to the trust from their corporate social responsibility budgets. “These companies have such deep pockets - they give £1m bonuses to some of their employees - so to give us £50,000 would be nothing in the big scheme of things,” he says.

He of course understands a bit about big business himself now after his spell working for Sugar. And he’s well aware that he will always be inextricably linked to the big man, but he is keen to be seen as his own man.

“I have to show that I can walk the walk,” he says. “People's perception is that I've made it because I was the most successful person on the TV show. The reality is far, far removed. There were two years of hard slog,” he says, emphasising the last two words.

Tim gets passionate about the Bright Ideas Trust

I owe Sir Alan…

“I've built up that experience with Sir Alan and I want to put that into action in the trust and my private business. The biggest gift I can give to him is to make those things successful. I owe it to him for selecting me and giving me the opportunity to develop.”

Campbell says he left Sugar's business, Amstrad, because his task was complete and he wanted to do something independently while it was still viable. Sugar was apparently happy to give his blessing and respected Tim’s dynamism.

“He always knew I'd want to do something like this because he gave me time off to do my charitable work during the show. My goal, in the truest sense of an apprentice, was to learn some of the secrets from him and put them into action for my own endeavours,” adds the ambassador.

The idea for the Trust came in February 2007 when Campbell was invited to speak at an Ask an Expert session at the British Library. He followed Anita Roddick and asked to open up the session to under-16s for the first time.

“I heard lots of people with fantastic ideas who didn't know where to go or how to develop them. They were missing access to finance and real world business information,” he recalls.

Using fame

“I'm still learning the ropes, but I can use my fame to create a vehicle that people will see as a beacon for entrepreneurial ventures with an emphasis on young people. We could have a one-stop shop to help them.”

Campbell is pleased to be a social enterprise ambassador and takes his role seriously, already being involved in a number of social enterprise initiatives with young people. He likes the fact that while social entrepreneurs still need business acumen, the motives that drive them are different.

“Social enterprise opens up different opportunities for people who may not like the aspect of business as a money-creation vehicle,” he says.

“It's more about tapping into where people can turn their passion into business and there's no reason you can't attach a business model to wanting to help and do good. Hopefully we can encourage more people through our ambassador role to see social entrepreneurship as an alternative.”

www.brightideastrust.com