Our Founder and CEO - Jayne Allman
Jayne, our CEO, is a multi skilled, experienced Chief Executive, Business Advisor and Social Entrepreneur! She is a visionary and likes to help make things happen for people, by collaborating with others, using their strengths to complement her own and work together to achieve joint goals. She is passionate about her work and is very versatile having worked in various roles over the past 30 years. She has run her own business, worked as a Legal Executive, Business Advisor for over 20 years, managed teams including volunteers, project managed a £1m lottery funded contract and now is leading the social enterprise/registered charity she started in 2014.
Jayne writes the bids for the charity and has so far brought in £390k since 2015 (as at September 2020). She is Prince 2 project management qualified, has a business degree and qualified in Leadership and management skills too. Jayne enjoys empowering people to achieve success beyond their initial expectations. Her "Business Advisor" career started in 1996 when she supported victims of the Manchester IRA Bomb disaster and since then she has worked for various organisations including business support providers such as Business Link for example. She has also worked as Business Development Manager for Colleges, managing teams of work based learning colleagues (the biggest team being 30 staff).
According to Jayne's mum, she was an entrepreneur from an early age at 6yrs old, when she set up a stall outside her house to sell items to people passing by. Since then she has run three other businesses (including her charity Banana Enterprise Network) and is very much aware of the barriers people face when starting a business (or social enterprise/charity). Through her experience working in business training, advice and support, she spotted a gap in the market for a much needed support service for a specific client group and hence, her "Banana Enterprise" vision was created. Through very kind and generous people/organisations, she received donations allowing her to launch Banana Enterprise Network in Salford in January 2015 and start the first pilot scheme! Due to its success within the first 6 months, Jayne secured Lottery funding and the charity has grown from strength to strength since then.
Jayne started Banana with just £200 of personal funds and grew the charity to a turnover of £90k within 3 years. Natwest Bank listed Banana Enterprise Network in the top 10 of the fastest growing social enterprises in the UK in 2016. As at September 2020, Banana Enterprise has supported over 1500 unemployed people.
Jayne, our CEO, is a multi skilled, experienced Chief Executive, Business Advisor and Social Entrepreneur! She is a visionary and likes to help make things happen for people, by collaborating with others, using their strengths to complement her own and work together to achieve joint goals. She is passionate about her work and is very versatile having worked in various roles over the past 30 years. She has run her own business, worked as a Legal Executive, Business Advisor for over 20 years, managed teams including volunteers, project managed a £1m lottery funded contract and now is leading the social enterprise/registered charity she started in 2014.
Jayne writes the bids for the charity and has so far brought in £390k since 2015 (as at September 2020). She is Prince 2 project management qualified, has a business degree and qualified in Leadership and management skills too. Jayne enjoys empowering people to achieve success beyond their initial expectations. Her "Business Advisor" career started in 1996 when she supported victims of the Manchester IRA Bomb disaster and since then she has worked for various organisations including business support providers such as Business Link for example. She has also worked as Business Development Manager for Colleges, managing teams of work based learning colleagues (the biggest team being 30 staff).
According to Jayne's mum, she was an entrepreneur from an early age at 6yrs old, when she set up a stall outside her house to sell items to people passing by. Since then she has run three other businesses (including her charity Banana Enterprise Network) and is very much aware of the barriers people face when starting a business (or social enterprise/charity). Through her experience working in business training, advice and support, she spotted a gap in the market for a much needed support service for a specific client group and hence, her "Banana Enterprise" vision was created. Through very kind and generous people/organisations, she received donations allowing her to launch Banana Enterprise Network in Salford in January 2015 and start the first pilot scheme! Due to its success within the first 6 months, Jayne secured Lottery funding and the charity has grown from strength to strength since then.
Jayne started Banana with just £200 of personal funds and grew the charity to a turnover of £90k within 3 years. Natwest Bank listed Banana Enterprise Network in the top 10 of the fastest growing social enterprises in the UK in 2016. As at September 2020, Banana Enterprise has supported over 1500 unemployed people.
Sam Addison - Trustee
Sam spent 25 years working in Civil Engineering around the world for contractors and consultants culminating in bringing in a £4m project in the UAE on time, under budget and to a high quality. For the past 20 years he has been working with his wife in her Opticians practice dealing with the financial side of the business. He has also built his own detached house and runs a portfolio of rental properties. Sam was a governor at Birchwood Community High School for 12 years and has been a member of Rotary for 9 years (as at 2020).
Sam brings a wealth of knowledge and experience of business management and development, project management and building/property management experience to our Board of Trustees/Directors.
He is passionate about our work with unemployed and low income families and is also passionate about preserving our heritage buildings
Sam spent 25 years working in Civil Engineering around the world for contractors and consultants culminating in bringing in a £4m project in the UAE on time, under budget and to a high quality. For the past 20 years he has been working with his wife in her Opticians practice dealing with the financial side of the business. He has also built his own detached house and runs a portfolio of rental properties. Sam was a governor at Birchwood Community High School for 12 years and has been a member of Rotary for 9 years (as at 2020).
Sam brings a wealth of knowledge and experience of business management and development, project management and building/property management experience to our Board of Trustees/Directors.
He is passionate about our work with unemployed and low income families and is also passionate about preserving our heritage buildings
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Trustee - Norma Lee
Norma lives in Bolton. She has a great deal of experience of supporting our particular client group, including working with offenders in prisons and working as a panel member on the Youth Offending team in Bolton. She has also run her own business and appreciates the ups and downs of self-employment. Norma is Clerk of Bolton Quakers and a highly regarded member of the community. She has worked as an Office Manager and is highly competent at administrative and managerial tasks including the HR function and managing staff. Norma enjoys researching into local history. She is also an avid Salford Reds rugby fan too and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to our charity. |
Trustee - Nick Tyldesley
Nick’s background is in education and curriculum management as well as school improvement. He has worked as an educational consultant for many years and has also worked with OFSTED. He has wide experience in managing educational change, networking, leading workshops on innovation. He also has a substantial record of educational publications on curriculum development too. Nick is an excellent communicator and an inspirational speaker. He is highly experienced with regards to team management, project management, quality assurance and performance management. His management and leadership skills are an asset to our charitable organisation.
Nick’s background is in education and curriculum management as well as school improvement. He has worked as an educational consultant for many years and has also worked with OFSTED. He has wide experience in managing educational change, networking, leading workshops on innovation. He also has a substantial record of educational publications on curriculum development too. Nick is an excellent communicator and an inspirational speaker. He is highly experienced with regards to team management, project management, quality assurance and performance management. His management and leadership skills are an asset to our charitable organisation.
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Trustee- Christopher Allman Christopher is a Chartered Accountant with over 30 years experience. Throughout his career, he has supported both large and small businesses with business planning, accountancy, audit work and bookkeeping and has also provided free lance support to other Accountants. Like Jayne, he is on a mission to "make a difference" and bring communities together. Chris says "I am an Accountant who has a sense of humour. I found myself qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1976, 12 years after completing a Degree in Electrical Engineering! I discovered that I had a flair for figures and so my number crunching journey began! My accountancy work has taken me to various exotic places such as Sierra leone, Turkey, Blackburn, Stockport, Manchester and Salford! (sorry attempt at joke here!) and I am proud to be involved in the Banana Enterprise Network! |
Ken Morton - Trustee
Ken has worked on large scale community projects for Housing Associations. He is an experienced Project Manager, Community manager and volunteer manager. He is also a qualified health and wellbeing management consultant. He supports people through education and training, improves communities and enjoys making a difference!. He is also a tutor of health and well being topics such as mindfulness techniques, anxiety busting, confidence boosting and has great empathy with people. He has managed community teams and successfully delivered outcomes/projects. |
Malcolm Hewitt - Senior Trainer
Malcolm has an extensive career as a trainer delivering business planning and start up courses and workshops as well as personal development and impact training. He is a member of the CIPD, runs his own business and has great empathy with our clients. He makes our courses fun and informative, bringing personal "self-employment" experiences into our "real world" training!
Malcolm has an extensive career as a trainer delivering business planning and start up courses and workshops as well as personal development and impact training. He is a member of the CIPD, runs his own business and has great empathy with our clients. He makes our courses fun and informative, bringing personal "self-employment" experiences into our "real world" training!
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Robin Graham Sessional Trainer - Robin has an MA in Health and Happiness Awareness. He is the Co-founder of the Laughter Network and the World Laughter Pledge, Laughter Ambassador for Laughter For All Ethiopia and Laughter Yoga International, and Art Of Living teacher.
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Business Advisor Team. All our Business Advisors are trained by ourselves and have run their own businesses. We recruit from within our own client network. This is because they are the best people to support others who are starting self employment and share the same empathy with each other. Our Business Advisor Training programme creates the Business Advisors of the future - ones who help us to build sustainable businesses in the community!
© 2014-2020 Banana Enterprise Network – the charity “helping to remove barriers to self-employment ’ is registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 9133991 and a registered charity, no. 1161408
© 2014-2020 Banana Enterprise Network – the charity “helping to remove barriers to self-employment ’ is registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 9133991 and a registered charity, no. 1161408