Matt Stevenson-Dodd: My Name Is Sam Tyler...

I feel a bit like I’m in “Life on Mars”…

“My name is Matt. I left my social enterprise, and woke up in the North West. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in a charity?”

Well, perhaps its not that dramatic(!) but this year I left Unique Coffee Bar, a multi award winning, hugely successful social enterprise based in the East Midlands which I founded eight years ago to take up a new post as Chief Executive of Young Enterprise North West.

When I announced I would be leaving Unique, some asked if I was mad, others questioned whether moving to a traditional charity was really a good idea, and some wondered whether Unique would continue without it’s founding entrepreneur at the helm.

These are difficult questions to answer, but I do know it felt like the right time to move on. My role had changed significantly from when I started in 2000. I went from youth worker, to manager, to entrepreneur, to CEO. I did an MBA to learn about business management and became quite good at the systems and processes.

However, there was a definite shift away from being entrepreneurial towards focussing on operations and general management. Despite being reasonably good at both, I much prefer a balance in favour of the entrepreneurial! As a result it was becoming clear that I would add less and less value as time went on. It was time to leave – but the question was, what next?

There were several things about  Young Enterprise North West which attracted me to the job. Firstly, there was the opportunity to work with young people in the enterprise field and to use that opportunity to tell more young people about Social Enterprise. Secondly, there was the opportunity to work for an organisation which has a long standing relationship with the Private Sector, and especially to see how that relationship can be developed to create mutual social and environmental benefit. Finally, there was an opportunity to take the organisation through a similar transition from charity to social enterprise as I had done with Unique – something which I really enjoyed.

During the two day interview process, I set out my stall for social enterprise and was very clear about where I was coming from and where I wanted to take the organisation. I remember going home on the second day thinking they’ll either love it or hate it…It was a very liberating experience though, being so open and honest rather than trying to work out what I thought they wanted me to say. Fortunately for me my honesty paid off and they offered me the job!

It seems to me that there are a number of charities out there who are beginning to realise they cannot rely on grant funding and are now ready to make the transition to social enterprise. How many ‘social enterprises in disguise’ are there out there though who have not taken that final step yet? The challenge for them and me is to change long standing cultures in order to become more business like, more efficient and more focussed trading entities. This is exactly what I will be doing at Young Enterprise North West.

I've had a great welcome in the North West. The staff team at Young Enterprise North West are fantastic and incredibly enthusiastic, as are the Board. I've also recieved a really warm welcome from the Social Enterprise movement up here - especially from my fellow SE Ambassador Claire Dove at Blackburne House in Liverpool.

So was I mad to leave Unique and move to the North West? Well, to paraphrase a well known saying, “You can take the social entrepreneur out of the social enterprise, but you can’t take social enterprise out of the social entrepreneur… (or something like that!). Watch this space!