Former Bolton School pupil, Caroline Plumb, has returned to the School as one of the UK's most successful young business women.  Caroline has shared platforms with Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Gordon Brown, picked up a clutch of business awards and been hailed as one of the UK's most powerful women under the age of 35.

Caroline left the School in 1996 and went on to study Engineering at Oxford University.  Despite being offered a prestigious recruiting job, she decided to co-found her own business, FreshMinds.  The initial thrust of the business was in offering top class research and business analysis for blue-chip companies such as Cadburys, eBay and Barclays.  Many institutions found that the analysts sent by FreshMinds were so talented that they wanted them on their own books.  As a consequence, FreshMinds moved into recruitment as well.  The company now has over 50 employees and projected turnover for this year is £6 million.

Caroline was back in school to talk to pupils about setting up your own business.  She told students that having your own business is not the uphill struggle that everyone makes it out to be.  It is critically about networking and having good relationships with all your audiences.  Caroline’s own business has been built upon four cornerstones: integrity, freshness, collaboration and excellence.  Four values that could be utilised by many businesses.  She told the audience that it is hard work at first but it should, hopefully, be fun too and the beauty of having your own business is that you are only answerable to yourself.  The message was quite clear for budding entrepreneurs in the audience - go for it!