Interview with Lucy Ferguson, CEO of Mediorite and Ondre Roach, Director of Mediator Training

Transcript

Hello. I'm Chris Reeve, the regional Market Leader for London. And I'm joined today by Lucy Ferguson, CEO of Social Enterprise Mediorite, and Ondre Roach, a former trainee at mediorite and a social entrepreneur. Firstly, perhaps, Lucy, can you tell us a bit about mediorite, what you do and the social impact element of the business? Hi, thanks for having me.

Yeah, Mediorite is a social enterprise film production company and we sell film services to clients and run free training and work experience for young people who want to get into film.

Just to bring you in at this point, Ondre, can you tell us a little about the training that you've had at Mediorite and how that’s helped you now in your subsequent business?

Yeah, I've had a range of training from Medioite, from photography to filmmaking workshops. I've even been paired with a mentor. So much so that I have done work multiple times for PwC as well. And I have gone on my own venture to start my own social enterprise. Fantastic. Now, I know both of you work with PwC and have been supported by some of our programmes along the way. Can you tell us a little bit more about the impact?

We've benefited from an awful lot of support from PwC. I think initially from the social Entrepreneurs Club, which has been brilliant for workshops around impact, workshops around Net Zero and also kind of getting us into the business through the Buy Social Corporate Challenge.

We've also had mentors, so we had a UK Creatives mentor who was amazing. We've had board members who've been incredible. When I, I think this was about about two months ago, I came to PwC for a micro workshop where we addressed a challenge that we are facing as a company. And just being sat at the table around volunteers who specialise in a range of different disciplines, I was able to really benefit from the strategies that they all had, 

So a question for both of you. What does the support look like in the future from PwC and other organisations to help your businesses?

Well, I've been accepted to the Black Leadership programme, something that I'm extremely thrilled about. To be coached by people who have more experience than I do. To be put in a cohort of people who have similar experiences to mine

I think I'm looking forward to continuing to work with PwC as a client and hopefully growing that relationship. And maybe entering a couple more awards in partnership.

So to close, Ondre, if there's one thing you could say to others whether that be individuals or businesses, on the value of sharing skills with social entrepreneurs, what would it be?

I think when you first start out, it is a very lonely space. And from this, Lucy’s had, you know, my questions and queries from left, right and centre. And it would be important to be able to have a range of different people from a range of different disciplines, chiming in to what would benefit my enterprise or enterprises like mine, in the real world.

Lucy, that same question to you, anything to add? Yeah, I mean, I think the value of it is that you can access a range of different people with a range of different skills, that maybe are taken for granted in organisations like this, but mean the world to small organisations like us.

It's been fantastic to hear from you both and to get your insights. Thank you so much.

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