Eastside Consulting

CuriousLeaders has been working with Eastside Consulting since 2006. The organisation provides strategic planning and business advice for SMEs, charities and social enterprises.

We were intrigued by the concept of a consultancy founded by ex investment bankers wanting to address core social problems such as long-term unemployment, poverty and social exclusion in the U.K. The idea of going beyond traditional CSR tick boxes to measure Social Return on Investment (SROI) was of particular interest.

Initially we were invited in to mentor the boards of small companies involved in Equal-Invest. This was a development project for social enterprises funded under the U.K. government’s Equal Initiative. One of the companies (Inclusive Solutions) was engaged with educating corporates on diversity practises involving people with disabilities. Another was the Community Development Agency (CDA) for Hertfordshire which wanted to promote a community project seeking investment to convert cooking oil from restaurants to biofuel.

Eastside then asked us to work with them on a new initiative called Spark (igniting social enterprise to prevent homelessness). The idea was to engage high potential talent in large corporations in a knowledge exchange with social enterprises as part of their leadership development curriculum. The corporates would get a better understanding of social enterprises and in return, these small companies would receive business consultancy services.

CuriousLeaders acted as workshop facilitator on behalf of Eastside in support of a number of social enterprises such as the Chester & District Housing Trust. We ran workshops between PricewaterhouseCoopers ‘young leaders’ and the Chester & District Housing Trust in Chester to help this enterprise create more operational efficiency in managing housing estates.

As our relationship with Eastside Consulting grew, we were asked to facilitate a number of their own management meetings and offsites. In 2011, the CEO asked CuriousLeaders to join the organisation as non-executive directors of the firm.

"Your experience in being both coaches and business people is an important combination for your 'art'. I say this because I have experienced workshops run by people who are professional facilitators but are not experienced business people. The result is that it is hard for the facilitator to change hats and, for example, to give any advice. Yet objective advice & constructive criticism are important to move a group from ideas to resolution."

R. Litchfield, Managing Director, Eastside Consulting, UK