With many of us looking to the future as the country re-opens post lockdown, NatWest remains committed to supporting local businesses succeed and grow.
Andy Gray is a Local Enterprise Manager at NatWest and is responsible for supporting businesses across the East of England through a range of programmes, services and partnerships all aimed at enabling local enterprises to flourish. This activity includes work with the local LEP, one to one mentoring and attendance at local events.
Amongst the programmes Andy will be supporting is NatWest’s Business Builder. Business Builder has been developed and tailored to support businesses and entrepreneurs at all stages in their development whether they are just starting out or already established. The programme is free, and participants don’t have to be a NatWest customer to join. Business Builder includes a portal which hosts modular content of bitesize, self-lead modules which cover the three main pillars of business support: growth, mindset and financial support. It also includes access to a Facebook group with more than 5,000 members to share skills and experiences with.
Andy said: “We want to empower businesses to succeed which is why we developed tools like Business Builder which allows for business owners to take the steps they need to support their businesses. In the weeks and months ahead, I am looking forward to collaborating with businesses, business support organisations and others on activities that will support growth across the region.”
Over the Covid-19 pandemic, NatWest continued to support customers with their lending needs through traditional lending as well as through Government schemes and mortgage holidays.
Recently NatWest has announced an additional £1 billion in funding to help female-led businesses in the UK recover. This builds on the £1bn NatWest committed to last January – the largest intervention by a UK lender focused specifically on female entrepreneurs.
Andy said: “We know the last year has been incredibly challenging for all of us, and we will continue to support the local businesses in their growth aspirations. Enterprise is central to our purpose-led strategy and remains part of our commitment to helping the economy build back better.
“We are also wanting to play a leading role in tackling climate change and aim to enable businesses and communities to do the same through future partnerships and programmes.”