Meet the team: Benna McCartney (Director)

Over the next few months, we're going to be interview all our team members so that our clients and colleagues get to know us better.

First up is one of our Directors, Benna McCartney.

​Could you give us a quick overview of your role at Enterprise Exchange?

Director - overseeing the back end of the business, managing freelance staff, business development and participant one to one support.

What experience do you have which led you to set up/work with Enterprise Exchange?

I am a qualified life and business coach and met my business partner Phil through different work we were doing with the same client group. We were both invited into Lewes Prison and asked to support the guys to set up their own businesses, since this is very often the only option for offenders and ex-offenders. We were not able to help at the time as we had such high workloads, but were randomly made redundant at the same time, so I had the idea of setting up the business together to initially support the men in prison. We managed to gain funding through Serco and the rest, as they say, is history!

Which aspect of your work do you enjoy most?

All of it! Sometimes I struggle with the admin side when there is too much to do and I feel my time would be much better spent supporting staff, participants and having more time to grow the business effectively, but I have lots of tools in place through my training, that enables me to organise myself effectively.
What do you do when you're not supporting EE?

I don’t seem to have time for much else at the moment, but when I do, I love spending time with family and friends, travelling, exercising, watching films and singing.

Tea or coffee and how do you take it?

Both but I prefer a good coffee – non dairy cappuccino (with one shot) is my ‘signature’ drink and tea with non dairy milk. I am also really into non dairy matcha lattes at the moment, which I am very happy to say seem to be more widely available in the last few weeks.

Thanks so much. How can people best contact you?

You are so welcome and please feel free to email me at benna@enterpriseexchange.org.uk.