On Thursday 3 December, BusinessMentoring held it's 5 anniversary celebration at the Chambre de Commerce in Luxembourg-Kirchberg.
The BusinessMentoring programme aims at matchmaking "young" business leaders, mentees, with experienced entrepreneurs, mentors. Launched and created by the Chamber of Commerce in 2010, BusinessMentoring is now part of the nyuko association, as entrepreneurial platform for entrepreneurial support. nyuko now offers a complete support cycle from the business idea to post-creation.
At the event, 4 success stories that have participated in the programme since 2010 were honoured and mentees promotion in 2015 were presented to a packed attendance.
The idea of ??BusinessMentoring was born from a simple observation. Rachel Gaessler, programme manager, recalled "At the time, I was in charge of 1,2,3 GO, which aims to help innovative projects in the development of their business plan by connecting with coaches. Among the project owners who created their business by the end, I realised that most of them were experts in their fields but not corporate managers and they suffered from isolation. Create and manage a company that was facing challenges and questions which these future entrepreneurs were unprepared: how to market my product, how to find my first customers, how to raise funds with a banker or investor..."
She undertook some market research and discovered the foundation of business mentoring entepreneurship of Quebec which posted extraordinary figures: "They have shown that mentees companies had doubled their chances of survival! It was the beginning of an adventure. A methodology has been developed as soon adapted to the Luxembourg market and a pilot project was launched". With encouraging results - to date, 123 company executives have participated in the programme, 53 mentors and 72 mentees, allowing them to grow their business with a 92% survival rate and an average increase in turnover of 43%."
The 5th anniversary of BusinessMentoring was an opportunity to bring together all stakeholders and take stock of five years of support. The official part of the evening was introduced by a welcome from Carlo Thelen, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, followed by an opening speech by Laurent Solazzi, Executive Councillor in charge of entrepreneurship and business policy of the Ministry of Economy.
Following these, several success stories of mentees projects, representing sectors as diverse as IT, optics, food hygiene and construction, shared their experience at a round table: Maurice Leonard of Wood Optic Diffusion SA (Season 1), Christophe Baehr of Flexcom S.à rl (Season 2), Cedric Jacques of Haccp-Consult S.à rl (Season 3) and Brigitte Brouwers of CLK S.à rl - Luxembourg Constructions K-Home, (Season 5). All agreed on one point: the mentors helped them to ask the right questions to better manage their businesses and avoid errors.
The promotion BusinessMentoring 2015 was introduced by Tatiana Fabeck of Fabeck Architects. 17 mentees are currently benefiting from support over 12 to 18 months: Alain’s Bicher Center Librairie ABC, Alex & Calli Trading (ACT), B&D Concept, Continuous PHP, de Buedemleër, Elga (Alzanga), Intorel, Lady Fitness, MarketConnect, MonaArt Consulting, Museal, Patent42, SANSA – FOODTRUCK, Spaanywhere, TheMarketsTrust, VdV Concept (Medihoo), WIGO (Hubin).
Nicolas Buck, President of nyuko a.s.b.l. and entrepreneur, delivered the closing remarks by stressing the importance of development of entrepreneurship in Luxembourg which can be promoted by adequate support, sharing experiences and strengthening collaboration between all actors involved. According to Nicolas Buck, "Supporting entrepreneurs to become seasoned by their peers is fundamental. nyuko therefore appeals to entrepreneurs to commit to solidify Luxembourg's entrepreneurial ecosystem."
The evening was orchestrated by Pedro Castilho, founder of Verbalius S.à rl, and was closed by a cocktail networking in the presence of mentors, mentees and key personalities from politics and business in the country.
Photo with Carlo Thelen, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, Rachel Gaessler, Manager of BusinessMentoring and Tatiana Fabeck, "godmother" of the 2015 promotion, in the presence of mentees.
