Welcome to the first full episode of the Business Take-Away Podcast featuring Ben Bowles from CEG. Ben talks about his business that provides lighting to the entertainment industry, how it was affected by the pandemic, and how despite all the challenges that it's come out the other side in a better place. It's a frank conversation where he could have lost his whole business if the banks hadn't supported it - but it's a great listen for any business leader!

We're joined today by Ian Mather CEO of Cambridge United Football Club. Now I have to be honest here - I’m a big fan of the football club and a Season ticket holder. Ian talks to us today about his journey as starting as a lawyer before migrating to the role of CEO. The football business is like no other and has been hard hit like a lot of businesses during covid and it’s an interesting listen to hear how he took quick and swift action to protect the club and the challenges around they faced. What impressed me about Ian’s interview was his take aways. In todays world, technology is sometimes getting in the way of being decent person and communicating properly. It’s easy to just send an email, but sometimes an email just isn’t right and you need to actually speak with a human. Fairgame - https://www.fairgameuk.org/ Ian Mather on Twitter @ianmather10

Today’s guest is Daniel Colaianni a tech entrepreneur who’s working in the Extended Reality world. I met him as a young lad who was helping businesses with bits of marketing content. However it was very clear to see that what ever he turned his hand to was quite brilliant and you could sense that he was going to go far. He’s talks to us today about the world of Extended reality. Now to you or I at this moment in time you probably don’t have a clue what that is – but join us on the journey to find out in depth how this is going to potentially change our lives! Daniel is an engaging and fascinating listen. I was blown away by some of the things he talked about and the maturity for someone so young to have a very clear picture on his business, business life and “take-aways” is highly impressive. I hope you can all learn something from him and what he has to say. ----- Daniel Colaianni is the Chief Executive of the Academy of International Extended Reality, a not for profit membership body dedicated to supporting companies grow using virtual and augmented reality and actively accelerating the immersive industry. Daniel built and leads an executive board made up of Facebook, Disney, Microsoft, Google, Boeing and more, to steer and execute global initiatives and strategy aimed at supporting growth within immersive enterprises. Starting from the young age of just 16, organising events sponsored by Amazon, Unity and more, as a college dropout, Daniel later exited from a self built marketing agency after 3 years of strategising and managing complex marketing campaigns for national UK brands. Focusing full time on VR & AR, Daniel has since built the largest internationally recognised award show for the immersive industry, sits on various committees advising companies on “XR” and has amassed a network of over 6,000 individuals and companies working daily with the technology. https://aixr.org/

Today’s guest is Lee Dennison. Lee is Head of Relationships for a business in the entertainment industry as well as being heavily involved in our industries charity. Lee talks to us today about his journey as starting technician working on shows in the west end to today dealing with clients and customers on large scale projects. It’s a great listen!

Today he talks through about stripping a lot of things back to basics. It’s very easy in todays tech world that we use “digital” skills as he calls it rather than the analogue skills. Find out about Lee’s views on those skills and what we he believes we need the next generation to focus on to give them the skills to move forward. Even if you aren’t the next generation I hope that you take something away from todays episode into your life or business or perhaps how you advise the next generation!

Backup Charity - https://www.backuptech.uk/

Creative Technology - https://www.ct-group.com/

Today’s guest is Rich Alderton. Rich runs a business call High Performance Change here in Cambridge. Rich is a change specialist. Now before today you might not know what a change specialist is - but I hope you get a better take on this after today’s podcast and why people are perhaps so reluctant to change. Personally love change - and “keeping the status quo” isn’t something that I believe in, so it was great to talk through and here Rich’s ideas. Rich also talks to us about his life, some major upheavals he’s faced and how that’s reflected in the work he now does. Listening and talking to Rich it’s very easy to forget how fragile life is. We’re all focused on the day to day with work, but sometimes life really takes over and throws you some real personal challenges. Hearing what Rich has gone through really draws that into focus as we will hear. https://www.highperformancechange.com/