Who We Are
An education enrichment partnership that designs and delivers learn-by-doing courses to open young people's minds to the world of business & enterprise
What We Believe In
Developing an entrepreneurial mindset and giving young people the skills, knowledge and aspirations they need to be successful in our fast-changing world of work.
Who We Reach
Over 5,500 children aged 9 - 18 and growing, we work with schools, charitable organisations and businesses.
The Need
Stride helps to fulfil the call from Ofsted, the DfE and business organisations to incorporate creative enterprise and work-readiness skills into the national curriculum.
Lord Young’s Enterprise for All Report calls for the creation of a lifelong experience of enterprise in education that is captive and meaningful to young people, continuous throughout primary and secondary school.
Our Founders
Stride was founded by Nikki de Bruin and Elena Macia, both MBA graduates with over 30 years of business experience between them.
To put it simply, we are passionate about business, enterprise and employability and the idea of imparting our valuable skills and knowledge with future generations.
Nikki de Bruin
Nikki has worked across a variety of industries at a senior level in training and development, commercial management and human resources roles. She was awarded a gold medal for her post-graduate MBA from the University of Cape Town. Her favourite thing about her diverse job at Stride is getting to grips with clients' needs, both those of young people and of organisations, and designing meaningful programmes to address those needs.
Elena Macia
Elena has worked as a Management Accountant. She speaks Spanish and French and taught English as a foreign language. She facilitated La Josie Ronde French classes and volunteered as an IT skills trainer for Age UK. Elena qualified as a CIMA Accountant and holds an MBA from the London Business School.
Our country’s economic growth relies heavily on growth from small to medium sized businesses which account for 99.9% of the private sector companies and provide 60% of private sector jobs.
Lord Young’s Enterprise for All Report calls for the creation of a lifelong experience of enterprise in education that is captive and meaningful to young people, continuous throughout primary and secondary school.
Research by The British Chambers of Commerce shows that “many businesses think more can be done to better prepare young people for the workplace. Key areas that need addressing are improving ‘soft skills’ such as communication, team working and resilience, as well as better careers advice and engagement with business in schools.”
'Putting entrepreneurship at the heart of UK education is absolutely vital to ensuring that future generations nurture and foster a new wave of bright, creative, determined entrepreneurs who can light up the economy and drive us forward to renewed prosperity and success.' Shalini Khemka, CEO at E2Exchange.
Kent University lists the top 10 skills that employers want as: verbal communication, teamwork, commercial awareness, analysing and investigating, initiative/self motivation, drive, written communication, planning and organising, flexibility and time management.
Follow us on Twitter to keep up to date with our projects and all things enterprising.
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