The ACCELERATE Story

Nick Goddard

With a shelf full of industry awards, and well over a thousand delegates from all over the world later, we can safely say we were onto something when we created ACCELERATE, our career management programme. But back in 2013, we weren’t sure the world was ready to embrace our new line of thinking…

Without the Financial Times, there would be no ACCELERATE.

The FT wanted to know why there were relatively few female senior executives within UK organisations, so they tasked us with doing the research. It quickly became clear to us, during extensive interviews with business leaders, that most women got to the top in much the same way as the men did: Through being strong and tough.

They were simply doing what leaders had done for centuries. And who could blame them? They looked around, saw what they needed to do to succeed, and then developed the right attributes.

So we asked another question: Why can’t leaders be strong and considerate?

What might your business look like if you opened up the leadership playing field to a whole new set of contenders? To people who might avoid high level positions, not because they couldn’t do the job, but because they didn’t wish to swim in the shark pool?

What if you could create an environment where everyone, no matter their background or sex, could feel they belonged at the top?

Harness those capabilities, we believed, and incredible things could be achieved. For your employees, for your company, and for the wider world.

So ACCELERATE was born.

ACCELERATE is a career management programme, designed to support businesses that are serious about doing more than simply talking about adjusting their gender and inclusivity dials. We provide organisations with a pipeline of future strong and considerate leaders.

Our approach is based on research into what successful business people do that others do not. We help delegates from any gender, background and walk of life adapt these skills, to help them reach the C-suite.

With these traits at the top, you open up the potential for a more resilient, more honest, and more supportive culture within your business.

We’ve also come to see a ripple effect that has benefitted whole organisations. That’s because ACCELERATE delegates often go on to act as role models, sponsors, and mentors for those in junior roles. Over time, they seed the ACCELERATE approach further down as they climb the ladder.

Oh, and one last point about resilience. We’ve found, again and again, that female delegates already have high levels of resilience before they arrive at ACCELERATE. Whether that is a female trait in general, or something that comes from the female experience of climbing the corporate ladder, we can’t say.

So where do you go now?

In the post-pandemic world, organisations have a lot of decisions to make. Do you go back to the old ways, or work at finding something better?

Now is the time to invest in the development of middle and senior team members, to inspire them to successfully manage the next stages of their careers. And that’s where ACCELERATE can make the most difference.

Are you ready to ACCELERATE? Speak to us today.

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