Second Mile offers experienced executives in coaching, consulting and interim management roles.

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01

What We Do

Our customers are businesses, universities and senior leaders in the science, engineering and technology fields.

02

Our Approach

We help you gain insight into your situation, and equip you to change it.

03

Our Mission

​Second Mile regularly supports organisations bringing new ventures to fruition. We have worked extensively with UK universities in the engineering, space, date science and healthcare fields.

About

Second Mile

Second Mile is a network of highly skilled entrepreneurs, teachers and coaches who work with leading growth businesses to put them on the road to success.
Our backgrounds span a range of technology sectors and we bring to bear MBA calibre strategic insight together with solid operational and financial competence.
We are experienced at operating in the new venture environment and understand the approach required to build value in early stage businesses.

Coaching & Mentoring

We have worked with SMEs and growth businesses in many sectors. Second Mile has supported university small business growth programs, and provided mentoring to international innovation programs.

We have run startup and growth businesses ourselves, and we’ve worked with lots of others, so we can quickly get up to speed to help you.

Out clients have included Aston University Business School (Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program, Programme for Small Business Growth, and The Royal Academy of Engineering Leaders in Innovation Fellowship programme.

Entrepreneurship

Second Mile people are all experienced entrepreneurs. We specialise in bringing commercial leadership to new technology ventures. Between us we have some 30 years of startup and new venture leadership expertise. Our backgrounds span technology sectors from cleantech to engineering to ICT.

We work as operational managers alongside technologists to turn great new technology into viable new businesses. We can help you write your business plan, raise investment, secure your first sales and grow a profitable business.

We are different because we are doers not advisers. We work alongside business owners to develop and grow sales. We specialise in new ventures. And we can work with you before you have investment.

People we’ve coached

Phil Surman

Sales Director, Pulse Power & Measurement, Swindon

“I asked Richard to be enter into a professional mentoring relationship (listen to Manager Tools podcast on Mentors) after working with him indirectly on a start-up. I had recently been promoted to the board and was wondering about what strategy actually was, and what you could do. The business we were running was complex, with a very broad span of markets and customers. Richard helped me identify what the chain of activities were that eventually delivered the business’s results, and what our true strengths were. This allowed specific, manageable projects to be invested in and measured. The business has doubled in size since then through organic growth and firmly has its destiny in its own hands.”

Graham Hill

Managing Director, Angstrom Engineering Ltd, Alcester

“Richard mentored our group during the Goldman Sachs growth program, and I found his input so useful we contracted him to help understand the detailed nature of the business, and the impact of the sector we operate in on our growth prospects and potential profitability. He was provided foundations that we continue to refer to. “

John O’Brien

Founder and MD, LCMB Building Performance Ltd, Banbury

“I met Richard when he mentored me on the Goldman Sachs growth program. His clear insights and clarity of thinking really helped me address the tough issues holding back my businesses performance and growth. His input proved so useful I asked Richard to work in a non-executive director capacity when I finished the programme to continue to coach me and my team. I highly recommend working with Richard if you’re looking to improve or grow your business”

Barry Cooper

Founder & MD, Cooper Solutions Ltd, Warwick

“I’ve got to know Richard very well over the last 5 years or so and have benefitted greatly from both his coaching and mentoring skills. Our company has grown consistently and profitably over the 18 years we have been in business through our culture of continual improvement. We know we don’t have all the best ideas or knowledge, but it isn’t easy to find professionals who can add tangible value to our efforts and insight. Richard succeeded by being an excellent listener and then used the knowledge gleaned to propose alternative ways and means to grow our business faster and stronger. I always found time with him well spent and I am impatient and demanding by nature.”

Diana Holloway

Managing Director, Holloways, Worcester

“Richard greatly helped me with my thinking to expand the business into new fields. Our Business (furniture retailing ) was not an area of his expertise but his intelligent logical thinking was a brilliant sounding board for our new ideas. He is still supporting , but more as a friend now , and I am delighted to say the new areas are successful and forging ahead.“

Kavita Parmar

Chief Commercial Officer, Word 360, Birmingham

“We bought a 20 year old business and external factors meant our business was undergoing rapid changes that were out of our control. Richard helped us through a very critical time when we needed strategic guidance to evaluate and mitigate risks and to set a path for future growth. Richard is an excellent listener and has the ability to break down even the most complex scenarios to create, rational, achievable solution based outcomes. I would highly recommend Richard as a coach and mentor.”

Consulting

Second Mile regularly supports organisations bringing new ventures to fruition. We have worked extensively with UK universities in the engineering, space, date science and healthcare fields.

We can conduct market research, prepare business plans, and achieve early sales. We are specialists in market discovery: If you build it, will they come?

We have worked with the University of Leicester, Aston University, Warwick University, Loughborough University and helped numerous startup and spinout businesses.

 

Teaching

Building on our extensive practical experience, we also run single-day trainging workshops in key areas of business leaders, entrepreneurs and students.

We have run training workshops inthe fields of entrepreneurship, strategy and negotiation, for universities, businesses and leadership programs.

We aim to bring the essential insights gained over many years to students and business owners.

Strategy Literacy

‘Strategy’ has been over-used to the point of meaninglessness. But there is still genuinely a thing called strategy, and it’s as important as it’s always been.

This workshop won’t fix your strategy. What it will do is re-present it, divest it of confusions and clutter, and rehabilitate it as a critical activity.

You’ll understand what is and isn’t strategy, work through some household-name examples of its success and failure, and give you the confidence to do your own strategic thinking.

Staregy Literacy is a half-day workshop we can run with your board, management team, or simply with students of business.

Thinking like an Entrepreneur

How do entrepreneurs do what they do? Are they born or made? How can you think more like an entrepreneur?

We prepared this half-day course for Minerva Business Angels, working in partnership with Warwick University. It’s useful to students, employees and, yes, entrepreneurs themselves.

TLAE for Universities course flyer – Click to download PDF

Who we are

Second Mile is a network of highly skilled entrepreneurs, teachers and coaches who work with leading growth businesses to put them on the road to success.
Our backgrounds span a range of technology sectors and we bring to bear MBA calibre strategic insight together with solid operational and financial competence.
We are experienced at operating in the new venture environment and understand the approach required to build value in early stage businesses.

Richard spent his early career in product development at Ford and has led start-ups in the cleantech, automotive, communications, defence and software sectors. He founded Second Mile and leads the team in the development and growth of new technology ventures.
Richard is a chartered Mechanical Engineer and has an MBA from IESE business school in Barcelona. He is also a Sainsbury’s Management Fellow.

Richard Atkinson

CEO

David has extensive executive and strategic business development experience in various industries. David began a consultancy career with LEK Consulting who recruited him from the prestigious Wharton School in Pennsylvania. David subsequently gained strong entrepreneurial credentials having founded several start up businesses in UK, Italy and USA, raising over £4m from venture capitalists, and achieving trade sales.

David is a chartered engineer, and holds both the Certificate and Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors.

David Falzani

Charles Martin has more than 20 years experience in the IT & Telecoms industries. Charles has worked nationally and internationally with blue chip multinationals such as D&B and Vodafone, high growth companies such as Psion, and a range of technology start-ups. He leads the sales operation with Second Mile.
Charles has been awarded a B.Commerce degree, Chartered Marketer status, the CIM Diploma in Marketing, an MBA from Cranfield and an MSc in Business Computing from Westminster University.

Charles Martin

Sales Director

Claire Aikman has worked in a variety of roles since starting out as a bi-lingual secretary in the City including running a presentation centre for a large US investment bank, working internationally as an IT trainer and for an early-stage sector headhunter in a marketing and business development capacity.
Claire leads the day to day operation of Second Mile and is responsible for the infrastructure that supports our entrepreneurs.

Claire Aikman

Operations Director

Claire Fisher has worked in Finance in the premium cosmetics, marine and telecoms sectors and more recently has worked for a variety of organisations providing event management, recruitment, customer care and other business support services.

Claire Fisher

Contact Us

Mobile: 07979 917635
Email: info@secondmile.co.uk

Our Office

Second Mile Ltd
40 Winfield Street
Rugby
CV21 3SJ

Registered Office

Second Mile Ltd
Fulford House
Newbold Terrace
Leamington Spa
CV32 4EA

Company Reg. No. 6535907

VAT No. 929 8154 84