The Circle of Young Intrapreneurs: Time to Reflect, Renew and Respond

Kelwyn Looi
Jul 21, 2017 · 5 min read
Circle of Young Intrapreneurs New York Event with Thomson Reuters, run by Kara Dickstein

Just over a month ago, I had the opportunity to join the rest of the Circle of Young Intrapreneurs team for what will now be a yearly retreat. The Circle of Young Intrapreneurs is a movement designed to inspire, guide, develop and deliver purpose-driven business ideas from young social intrapreneurs in large, corporate organisations globally. We’re making business a force for good.

You can find out more about what we are trying to achieve below from our talk at One Young World 2016.

I joined the organisation through meeting its founders Tim Heard and David Spears at the inaugural launch event for the movement at Barclays’ London HQ. At the time, I was part of a team at Pearson, the world’s largest education company that developed and delivered its efficacy strategy; that is, how to orientate the company around delivering outcomes for learners that would benefit learning and the financial performance of the company. I have written more about this experience here (with its links to Jugaad Innovation and here for a World Economic Forum report). Therefore, the notion of being part of an organisation externally that sought to do the same thing I was doing in my day job seemed like a hand-in-glove fit. I wanted to opportunity to learn from other social intrapreneurs from other companies that shared the same vision but who had varied stories of implementation.

We define a social intrapreneur as: a passionate individual, who thinks and acts like an entrepreneur, working inside a major corporation or organisation who develops and delivers innovative, profitable and sustainable solutions to social or environmental challenges.

Like any community-driven organisation brought together by common values, you get a second wind from interacting with like-minded individuals of a similar generation that understand your career and life compass. In front of us, stands a tremendous opportunity to put social intrapreneurship truly on the map. Large corporates are the most significant untapped resource for tackling social issues, especially with cohorts of purpose-driven individuals now filling its ranks. It’s why the Circle Community came together to discuss how we can be at the forefront of that charge.

Reflect

Since all of us work full-time for some of the world’s leading companies and high-growth startups, the retreat was an opportunity to recharge our respective batteries. Taking some time away from the office and day-to-day is necessary for me to remain refreshed and productive for the rest of the year. It gave us all an opportunity to reflect on the Circle’s collective achievements to-date:

Over 2,000 members across 40 countries from over 300 organisations supported by 12 chapters across the world

We discussed three main areas: what we had done well, opportunities for improvement and what we need in place to be able to achieve our goals. We have grown organically from inception — merely through existing networks and have typically been active in generating awareness and advocacy for the value of social intrapreneurship more broadly, and its manifestation in large corporates. We have also primed a leadership group that is in place to take the Circle through the next phase of its development. On reflection, however, we feel as if we need to formalise our offer, to deliver value to members and stakeholders at large, while not forgetting to be advocates. In so doing, we are looking to activate our leads and members to seed and develop sustainable and profitable ideas across the world, where the nuances of doing business locally become more influential in determining the likelihood of success.

Renew

The retreat was also an opportunity to renew our commitment to what brought us all together in the first place. In order to achieve our ambitious plans, it’s vital that we remain more committed than ever before. This means renewing our vision:

To create a world where business collaborate to solve some of humanity’s greatest issues and therefore create a better world for everyone — through creating and delivering sustainable and profitable do-good initiatives around the world.

This means that chapter leads in 12 hubs around the world renewing their commitment to support; to occupy their local social intrapreneurship scene like the below example from Dublin by Mary-Kate Portley!

But also renewing our offer to members, in providing them with the environment, network, tools and resources to successfully be active social intrapreneurs. This means engaging with them pre-membership and supporting them with a concierge aftercare service to cater for what may be particularly specific needs. If this cannot be afforded by the central leadership team, then we are sure that the right support will come from our wider member network. Fostering a community where collaboration of this sort can take place is very much one of our aspirations.

Respond

We are now acting on our post-retreat followups to respond to our retrospective on our development to-date. We have split this into 5 groupings between us to continue working on, asking ourselves the following questions:

  • Housekeeping: How do we operationally evolve over time, and what processes and systems do we need in place to be able to deliver at scale?
  • Onboarding: How do we develop the member progression journey from awareness to advocacy, supported by a toolkit of resources?
  • Engagement: How do we sustain momentum between events, leveraging social media and activating the wider member database?
  • Support: What discrete and specific support can we offer members from idea to implementation, aftercare / concierge and relationships to accelerate progress?
  • Delivery: What is the vision for the Circle and its chapters, and its impact on society, with partnerships with organisations and additional training?s

By responding to these questions across the five themes indicated, we are looking to take the Circle to the next level, with your support. Join us to help make business a force for good.

You can follow us here on Twitter and here on our website to become a member! (soon to be refreshed — watch this space!)

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Kelwyn Looi

Written by

Working on something new…Education, Strategy, Innovation, Startups. Formerly @Pearson (Strategy), @ManUtd (Commercial), Rothschild (M&A). All views are my own.

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