Why Vickie DeHart’s Experience Matters in Cities Like London

London is a city constantly rebuilding itself. Old spaces become new housing. Retail districts evolve. Infrastructure expands. Behind every project is the same challenge: coordinating people, ideas, and execution under pressure.

That is why the career of Vickie DeHart, a construction and real estate leader based in Las Vegas, has lessons that resonate far beyond the United States. Cities like London rely on professionals who can move projects from concept to completion while managing complexity.

DeHart has spent decades doing exactly that. Her work has focused on aligning finance, planning, and on-site execution. Those are the same pressures developers and builders face in London today. “Big ideas only work if they’re grounded in execution,” she says. “You can have a great plan, but it only matters if it actually gets built.”

Her perspective is practical. Construction is not theoretical. It is about making decisions that affect people, timelines, and communities.

“There’s no hiding in construction,” DeHart explains. “Either it works or it doesn’t.”

Early Life and the Foundations of Responsibility

Vickie DeHart grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, alongside her two brothers. Her family environment was simple and disciplined. Responsibility was expected, not negotiated.

“If something needed to be done, you stepped in and did it,” she says.

That mindset carried into adulthood. After graduating from Western High School in Las Vegas in 1979, DeHart entered the workforce and gradually found herself drawn to construction and development.

What attracted her was the clarity of the industry. Progress is visible. Problems cannot be ignored.

“I liked that you could see the results of your work,” she explains. “A building either stands the way it should or it doesn’t.”

Becoming One of Nevada’s Early Female General Contractors

One of the defining chapters of DeHart’s career began at Powerhouse Construction, where she served as Principal and Vice President for five years.

The company specialised in framing apartments and condominiums, as well as renovations and tenant improvements for commercial retail spaces.

During this time, DeHart carried the company’s general contractor’s licence. That distinction made her one of the first women in Nevada to hold such responsibility.

She rarely presents this as a personal milestone.

“I didn’t think about being first,” she says. “I thought about the responsibility. When you carry the licence, the outcome sits with you.”

That mindset shaped her leadership approach. Accountability mattered more than recognition.

Lessons from the Job Site

Construction projects are rarely smooth. Delays, miscommunication, and shifting priorities are common.

One early Powerhouse project illustrated this clearly. A project began slipping behind schedule because suppliers and site teams were not aligned.

Instead of assigning blame, DeHart focused on the system.

“We added daily check-ins,” she recalls. “Even for smaller jobs. It was simple, but it fixed the communication gap.”

The experience reinforced a principle she still believes today.

“Most problems aren’t caused by lack of effort,” she says. “They come from unclear expectations.”

Building EHB: Integrating Planning and Execution

Later in her career, DeHart co-founded EHB alongside Yohan Lowie and her husband, Paul DeHart.

The idea behind the company was straightforward: reduce fragmentation in development projects.

Too often, planning, finance, and construction operate separately. EHB aimed to connect those functions more closely.

“At EHB we wanted fewer hand-offs,” she explains. “When everyone understands the same goal, projects move faster.”

Her role covers a wide range of responsibilities. She works closely with the CEO on strategy and operations. Her daily work includes financial oversight, insurance, escrow coordination, and collaboration with engineers, architects, and local building departments.

She also manages leasing and rental properties and works directly with clients during interior selections and home closings.

“One moment I’m reviewing financial details,” she says. “The next I’m walking through a property with a client. That balance keeps decisions realistic.”

Leadership Through Clarity and Presence

DeHart’s leadership style is calm and practical. She does not rely on pressure or hierarchy.

“I don’t believe in pressure-led leadership,” she says. “I believe in clarity.”

That philosophy influences how she works with teams. Rather than issuing constant instructions, she focuses on clear expectations and follow-through.

She also believes strongly in being physically present.

“You learn more by walking a site than reading ten reports,” she says. “Problems look different when you see them up close.”

In industries like construction, where decisions affect large budgets and tight schedules, that presence matters.

Wellness, Focus, and Long-Term Perspective

Outside work, DeHart prioritises wellness and time outdoors. Hiking and walking are regular parts of her routine.

The habit began as a personal choice but became an important leadership tool.

“When I step outside, my thinking becomes clearer,” she says. “Solutions often show up when you stop staring at the problem.”

Construction and development bring constant pressure. Physical activity helps her maintain perspective.

“If you don’t take care of your health,” she adds, “decision-making eventually suffers.”

A Career Built on Practical Ideas

Looking back, DeHart does not measure success through titles or recognition. Instead, she focuses on execution.

Projects delivered on time. Teams that communicate clearly. Processes that work better than before.

Her view of leadership remains simple.

“Buildings last,” she says. “But so do reputations.”

For cities like London — where development shapes neighbourhoods and communities — that principle carries weight. The best ideas are not the loudest ones.

They are the ones that get built.

Read more:
Vickie DeHart: Building Clarity and Leadership in Construction

High-performing campaigns today aren’t just about visibility; they’re about measurable impact, relevance, and adaptability. With global digital ad spend surpassing $700 billion and dominating over 65% of total advertising, competition is intense, and only the smartest strategies cut through.

What separates top-performing brands is how they blend data, creativity, and customer understanding into cohesive campaigns.

Here are the key lessons modern brands are applying to stay ahead.

They Prioritise ROI Over Vanity Metrics

Modern campaigns are built around outcomes, not impressions. While likes and clicks still matter, brands now focus on conversion rates, revenue, and customer lifetime value. In fact, 83% of marketing leaders say demonstrating ROI is their top priority.

High-performing brands track performance across the full funnel, ensuring every campaign contributes to measurable growth rather than surface-level engagement.

They Combine Brand and Performance Marketing

The most effective campaigns no longer treat brand awareness and performance as separate efforts. Instead, they integrate both.

Recent data shows companies are rebalancing investments, with many increasing spend on brand building after over-focusing on short-term performance tactics.

The lesson is clear: campaigns that build recognition while driving conversions outperform those that chase quick wins alone.

They Invest Heavily in Content That Delivers Value

Content remains at the core of high-performing campaigns. Around 84% of organisations now have a content marketing strategy, and it continues to be a major driver of engagement and traffic.

What’s different today is the emphasis on quality and relevance. Successful brands are producing content that educates, entertains, or solves real problems, not just promotes products.

They Embrace AI to Scale Smarter

AI is no longer experimental; it’s foundational. Around 67% of marketers now use AI in content or SEO strategies, with 68% reporting improved ROI as a result.

High-performing campaigns use AI for:

• Audience targeting and segmentation
• Content ideation and optimisation
• Real-time performance adjustments

This allows brands to scale campaigns faster without sacrificing precision.

They Build Campaigns Around Personalisation

Generic messaging no longer works. Today’s audiences expect relevance at every touchpoint.

Leading brands use data to tailor messaging based on behaviour, preferences, and intent. This shift toward personalisation is a major driver of performance, especially in channels like email, where ROI can reach $36 for every $1 spent.

The takeaway is simple: the more tailored the experience, the stronger the results.

They Leverage Multiple Channels, Not Just One

High-performing campaigns don’t rely on a single platform. They operate across a mix of channels, including search, social, email, and video.

Organic search alone drives over 50% of website traffic, while social media and other channels play supporting roles in discovery and engagement.

Modern brands understand that success comes from channel synergy, not isolated tactics.

They Focus on Authenticity and Community

Audiences are becoming more sceptical of traditional advertising. Campaigns that feel overly polished or sales-driven often underperform.

Instead, brands are shifting toward authenticity, user-generated content, and community engagement. Many successful campaigns now rely on real voices and relatable storytelling to build trust and drive conversations.

They Use Video and Interactive Formats to Capture Attention

Attention is harder to earn than ever. That’s why 86% of businesses now use video as a key marketing tool, with most marketers considering it essential to their strategy.

High-performing campaigns go beyond static content by using:

• Short-form video
• Interactive experiences
• Live or real-time content

These formats increase engagement and keep audiences invested.

They Continuously Optimise, Not Set and Forget

The best campaigns are never static. They evolve based on data, testing, and performance insights.

Modern brands run ongoing A/B tests, refine messaging, and adjust targeting in real time. This continuous optimisation ensures campaigns improve over time rather than plateau.

They Work with Specialists to Maximise Performance

Behind many high-performing campaigns is a structured, expert-led approach. Brands are increasingly partnering with agencies and specialists to execute complex strategies effectively.

Working with experienced teams, such as neramarketing.co.uk, allows businesses to combine creative thinking with data-driven execution, ensuring campaigns are both innovative and results-focused.

Wrapping Up

High-performing campaigns aren’t built on a single tactic. They succeed because they combine strategy, creativity, and data into a cohesive approach.

Brands that prioritise ROI, embrace personalisation, leverage multiple channels, and continuously optimise their efforts are the ones seeing consistent results.

The difference today isn’t just what brands are doing, it’s how intentionally and intelligently they’re doing it.

Read more:
Lessons from High-Performing Campaigns You Need to Know

Why Rethinking Sales Helped Shape His Career

Most sales advice focuses on what to say. Abraham Pinchuck built his career by focusing on what not to say.

Instead of pushing products, he built a system around listening. Over time, that idea became the foundation of his work across multiple industries.

“Selling is a recipe for failure in sales,” he says. “If you focus on yourself, you lose. If you focus on the person in front of you, everything changes.”

From Brooklyn Beginnings to Business Foundations

Abraham Pinchuck grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His early years were shaped by sports, especially basketball. That competitive environment taught him discipline and consistency.

He later attended Bernard Baruch College, earning a degree in marketing and sales in 1991. Like many graduates, he entered the workforce with a traditional understanding of how sales worked.

That understanding would evolve quickly.

Real Estate: Early Lessons in Human Behavior

His first major step was in real estate. He worked on renovating properties and reselling them.

This wasn’t just about improving buildings. It was about understanding buyers.

What made someone choose one property over another? What details mattered most?

These questions helped him realize that decisions are driven more by personal priorities than by logic alone.

Manufacturing Experience and a Broader View of Business

Abraham later moved into food manufacturing. This chapter of his career lasted for many years and expanded his view of how businesses operate.

He learned how systems, processes, and efficiency impact results. Over time, he transitioned into consulting, helping manufacturers improve performance.

In that role, he saw a pattern.

Many businesses struggled not because they lacked effort, but because they focused on the wrong things.

A Shift Toward Coaching and Sales Development

Eventually, Abraham moved into the insurance space, where he now works as a self-employed consultant. He trains agents in Medicare Advantage (MAPD) and life insurance.

These are demanding fields. High rejection rates and complex products make success difficult.

But Abraham doesn’t teach traditional selling techniques.

“Learning to listen to people, ask good questions, and identify what is important to them—that’s what actually works,” he says.

His approach focuses on understanding before offering solutions.

The Mindset Change That Made the Difference

One of the most important lessons in Abraham’s career came from his own mistakes.

“Biggest obstacle was not realizing that in order to be successful I needed to focus on the people I’m helping, not me,” he says.

That realization changed how he approached every conversation.

Instead of thinking about outcomes, he focused on the process. Instead of trying to convince, he worked to understand.

This shift made his results more consistent over time.

How He Applies This Approach Today

Abraham’s work today centers on helping others adopt the same mindset.

He trains agents to slow down conversations, ask better questions, and pay attention to what clients actually care about.

“Being a great listener and having a genuine desire to help people,” he says, “that’s the difference.”

He also emphasizes long-term thinking. His personal benchmark is steady improvement, with a goal of increasing results by 20% each year.

This kind of growth, he believes, comes from habits—not shortcuts.

What Drives Results in a Competitive Industry

In a field where many rely on scripts and pressure tactics, Abraham focuses on relationships.

One of his main growth strategies is simple.

“Referrals,” he says.

When clients feel understood, they are more likely to trust—and more likely to recommend.

This creates a more stable and sustainable path for growth, especially in industries like insurance.

Influence, Learning, and Staying Grounded

Abraham credits part of his approach to the influence of Dale Carnegie, known for his work on communication and human connection.

But he also relies on his own experience.

“Look at my past success,” he says. “That helps me stay grounded.”

Reading is another key part of his routine. It helps him continue learning and refining his approach.

Life Outside of Work

Outside of business, Abraham focuses on staying active and balanced.

He enjoys hiking, bodybuilding, pickleball, and traveling. These activities support both physical and mental discipline.

They also reflect the same consistency he applies in his work.

A Practical Idea That Scales Across Industries

Abraham Pinchuck’s career has taken him through real estate, manufacturing, and insurance. Each industry is different, but one idea has remained constant.

Understand people first.

“Have a genuine desire to help people,” he says. “That’s what works.”

It’s a simple concept. But applied consistently, it has shaped his career—and the way he helps others build theirs.

Read more:
Abraham Pinchuck Built Success by Changing How Sales Works

The way homeowners approach their outdoor living areas has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years.

What were once simple backyards with basic patios have evolved into sophisticated extensions of indoor living spaces, complete with climate control, entertainment systems, and designer furnishings. This shift reflects a broader cultural movement toward maximizing usable square footage and creating versatile environments that blur the lines between inside and outside.

The Rise of Outdoor Rooms

Contemporary outdoor design increasingly focuses on creating distinct “rooms” rather than generic patio spaces. Homeowners are dividing their yards into functional zones—outdoor kitchens, dining areas, lounge spaces, and even dedicated work-from-home pods. According to the American Society of Landscape Architects, outdoor living spaces ranked as the number one requested design feature for the fifth consecutive year in their residential landscape architecture survey, with 88% of designers reporting client demand for these areas.

This trend toward compartmentalization allows families to use their outdoor spaces more intentionally throughout the day. A covered breakfast nook might transition to a shaded workspace by afternoon, then serve as an evening cocktail area. The key is creating architectural definition through pergolas, partial walls, outdoor curtains, or strategic plantings that establish boundaries without completely closing off spaces.

Climate Control Solutions Expand Outdoor Season

One of the most significant developments in outdoor living involves extending the usable season through sophisticated climate control. While fire pits and patio heaters have been popular for years, homeowners are now investing in more permanent heating and cooling solutions. Outdoor fireplaces, heated floors, and misting systems allow comfortable use of patios even during temperature extremes.

Interestingly, cooling solutions are gaining particular traction. In regions with hot summers, homeowners are installing ceiling fans specifically designed for outdoor use in covered areas. Some are even adding climate control to transitional spaces like three-season rooms or converted garages, where installing a garage ceiling fan can make the space comfortable year-round for hobbies, exercise, or entertaining.

Sustainable and Native Landscaping

Environmental consciousness has fundamentally reshaped outdoor design philosophy. Rather than water-intensive lawns requiring constant maintenance, homeowners are embracing native plant species that thrive naturally in their local climate. The National Wildlife Federation reports that native plant landscaping has increased by 35% over the past three years, driven by both environmental concerns and the desire for lower-maintenance yards.

This approach creates ecosystems that support local pollinators, birds, and beneficial insects while requiring less water, fertilizer, and pesticide. Xeriscaping—landscaping designed to minimize water use—has moved beyond desert regions into mainstream design across the country. Rain gardens that capture and filter stormwater runoff serve both ecological and aesthetic purposes, creating focal points while managing water sustainably.

Outdoor Kitchens Become Culinary Command Centers

The outdoor kitchen has evolved far beyond a simple grill station. Today’s outdoor cooking spaces rival indoor kitchens in functionality and sophistication. The Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association found that outdoor kitchen sales increased by 40% between 2020 and 2023, with average project costs exceeding fifteen thousand dollars for high-end installations.

These spaces now commonly include built-in refrigeration, pizza ovens, smokers, warming drawers, and ample prep surfaces with weatherproof cabinetry. Some homeowners are installing outdoor dishwashers and even wine refrigerators. The emphasis is on creating self-sufficient cooking environments that eliminate the need to shuttle back and forth to the indoor kitchen during meal preparation and entertaining.

Biophilic Design Principles

Biophilic design—the concept of increasing human connectivity to nature within built environments—has become a guiding principle in outdoor space planning. This approach goes beyond simply adding plants to incorporate natural materials, water features, and designs that encourage interaction with the natural world.

Living walls covered in vertical gardens bring nature to eye level and can serve as privacy screens or artistic focal points. Natural stone pathways, wooden pergolas, and furniture made from sustainable materials reinforce the connection to organic elements. Water features ranging from simple fountains to elaborate ponds with natural filtration systems provide both visual interest and soothing ambient sound.

Multi-Functional Furniture and Storage

Space efficiency drives the popularity of convertible outdoor furniture. Coffee tables that lift to dining height, benches with hidden storage compartments, and modular seating that reconfigures for different gatherings maximize flexibility in outdoor rooms. Weather-resistant storage solutions disguised as decorative elements keep cushions, toys, and entertaining supplies accessible yet protected.

This trend particularly benefits homeowners with smaller yards who need every element to earn its place. A storage ottoman might hold gardening tools while providing extra seating during parties. A dining table could fold down when not in use, freeing up space for children’s play or yoga practice.

Technology Integration

Smart home technology has seamlessly extended outdoors, with app-controlled lighting, irrigation systems, and even outdoor speakers becoming standard features. Weatherproof televisions and projection systems turn patios into open-air theaters, while Wi-Fi extenders ensure connectivity throughout the property.

These technological additions transform outdoor spaces into venues equally suited for productive work, active entertainment, or peaceful relaxation—all controlled from smartphones with the same ease as indoor environments.

Read more:
Trends For Residential Outdoor Spaces That Are Catching On

I am not, in the ordinary run of things, a man given to civic exhortation. Lecture another adult on what to do with their Thursday and you tend to end up wearing their coffee, quite rightly.

But indulge me, just this once, because tomorrow is local election day across great swathes of England, and somebody has to say something about the great British shrug that has come to define our relationship with the ballot box at the parish-and-pothole level.

In the last round of council elections, turnout in some wards crept south of thirty per cent. Thirty per cent. Sit with that for a moment. Seven in ten adults, in possession of a franchise their grandparents fought a war to defend, opted instead to put the kettle on, watch a man on YouTube fitting a gearbox, or sit there in a state of low-grade irritation about Westminster as though the council had nothing whatever to do with their lives.

As though the council did not run their bins, set their parking charges, decide whether the vape shop next door could open at seven in the morning, and quietly determine, through the dark art of the local plan, whether a four-storey block of flats will rise next year on the patch of brownfield where their children currently kick a football.

I run businesses for a living, and I can tell you, as readers of this magazine will already know in their bones, that the people who shape your operating costs are not, in the main, the slick young SpAds and ambitious junior ministers preening on the Today programme.

They are councillors. People with names like Peter, Paul and Jane, even I used to be one for over a decade. People with dreadful lanyards and, mostly, excellent intentions. They set business rates relief schemes. They grant, or refuse, your A-board, your awning, your application for a pavement licence so the punters can drink rosé in the rain.

They decide whether your high street will boast a half-decent bus service or a bewildered taxi rank flanked by three Costas and a Greggs. They sign off road closures that can cost a small retailer a fortnight’s takings in a single botched resurfacing job. They run procurement budgets through which billions are quietly dispensed every year, and from which, incidentally, your own firm could perfectly well be eating, were you ever to bother with the tendering portal.

In short, if you run a business, the council is your landlord, your regulator, your customer and your traffic warden, all rolled into one slightly damp Edwardian building with a malfunctioning lift. Ignore it at your peril.

Now. I am not going to tell you who to vote for. I have my views, strong ones, in fact, ones I will not bore you with here because, frankly, they are not the point, and you have yours. That is the splendid, frustrating, occasionally infuriating glory of the thing. You may be a lifelong Conservative who has finally had enough. You may be Labour through and through, a Lib Dem with a clipboard, a Green who cycles, a Reform man who shouts, or one of those magnificent independents who slipped in last time on a single-issue ticket about the duck pond.

I do not care. I genuinely, profoundly, do not care. What I care about is that you put on a coat tomorrow, walk to the church hall, the primary school or the slightly dispiriting community centre, take the stubby pencil they have thoughtfully provided, and put a cross in a box.

Because here is the awkward truth: democracy is a muscle. Use it badly, use it crossly, use it with a heavy sigh and a glass of red waiting at home, but use it. Leave it in the drawer for too long and it withers, and once it has withered the people who do turn up, and they always turn up, get to decide everything for the rest of us. That is not a left-wing observation or a right-wing one. It is simply how arithmetic works in a polling station.

I am told there is a fashionable line these days, much retweeted by sixth-formers and weary executives alike, that “voting changes nothing”. To which the only sensible reply is: marvellous, then you will not object to my vote counting double. Of course it changes things. Ask any small business owner who has watched a sympathetic council slash parking charges, or an unsympathetic one slap on a workplace levy. Ask the publican facing a three a.m. licence refusal. Ask the parent whose new primary school exists because three hundred neighbours bothered to turn out one wet Thursday in May.

So. Tomorrow. Coat on, pencil up, cross in. I am not telling you who to vote for. I am telling you to vote. There is, I promise, a meaningful difference.

Read more:
Local Elections 2026: Why you must go out and vote tomorrow

Five of the world’s largest publishing houses have launched a class-action lawsuit against Meta Platforms in a Manhattan federal court, accusing the Mark Zuckerberg-led tech giant of pirating millions of copyrighted works to train its Llama artificial intelligence models, a development that throws fresh fuel on one of the defining commercial disputes of the AI era.

Elsevier, Cengage, Hachette, Macmillan and McGraw Hill, joined by the bestselling American author Scott Turow, filed proceedings on Tuesday alleging that Meta knowingly used pirated copies of textbooks, peer-reviewed scientific journals and novels, among them N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season and Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot, to train the systems that now underpin the Silicon Valley group’s generative AI products.

The complaint, which seeks unspecified damages and class-action status on behalf of a far wider pool of rights holders, marks the first time that academic and trade publishers have moved against Meta as a unified front. It also signals a deliberate escalation by an industry that, until now, has largely watched from the sidelines as authors, newspapers and visual artists fought their own corner.

Maria Pallante, president of the Association of American Publishers, did not mince her words. “Meta’s mass-scale infringement isn’t public progress, and AI will never be properly realised if tech companies prioritise pirate sites over scholarship and imagination,” she said.

Meta has signalled it will mount a robust defence. “AI is powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and courts have rightly found that training AI on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use,” a spokesperson said. “We will fight this lawsuit aggressively.”

The case opens yet another front in a war that is rapidly redrawing the commercial map for content owners on both sides of the Atlantic. Dozens of plaintiffs, from The New York Times, which is pursuing OpenAI and Microsoft, to a coalition of authors, news outlets and visual artists, have already filed suit against the leading AI developers. The legal questions hinge on whether ingesting copyrighted material to produce new, “transformative” output qualifies as fair use under American law, and the early rulings have been anything but uniform. Two of the first judges to grapple with the issue reached opposing conclusions last year.

The first major scalp came when Anthropic, the AI company backed by Amazon and Google, agreed in 2025 to pay $1.5 billion (£1.18 billion) to settle a class action brought by a group of authors, a sum that could have ballooned into multiples of that figure had the matter gone to trial.

For UK small and medium-sized enterprises operating in publishing, marketing, education and the creative industries, the implications are far from academic. The absence of a coherent licensing regime has left British rights holders exposed to the same alleged practices, while AI-dependent businesses face mounting uncertainty over which models can be deployed without inheriting legal liability.

Benjamin Woollams, chief executive of TrueRights, argues the sector urgently needs commercial infrastructure capable of matching the speed at which AI models are being built. “Every one of these lawsuits points to the same underlying problem: there’s no standardised way to license creative work and likeness for AI,” he said. “Tech companies aren’t villains for wanting training data, and creators aren’t luddites for wanting to be paid, but the infrastructure to connect them simply hasn’t existed until now. This represents a huge opportunity for those in the industry to build a transparent and trusted licensing framework that allows innovation and creator rights to coexist commercially.”

He points to the influencer marketing economy, worth tens of billions of pounds globally and constructed almost entirely on rights licensing, as evidence that the commercial template already exists. “Brands and talent collaborate every day on an enormous scale. The commercial appetite for licensed content is there, the economic model is proven, and creators are increasingly aware of how their likeness and IP are used. What’s been missing in AI is a transparent, trusted way to license at the speed and scale these models require.”

Without such guardrails, Woollams warns, the drumbeat of litigation will only grow louder. “This sort of friction and litigation will continue to plague the industry, which will have negative knock-on effects on the kind of collaboration that should be powering the next generation of creative work, where AI platforms, advertisers and talent can actually build together.”

For Meta, the stakes extend well beyond the immediate price tag. A successful class certification could expose the group to claims from thousands of rights holders, while an adverse ruling would reverberate across an industry that has built its competitive edge on the unrestricted ingestion of vast corpora of human-authored work. For Britain’s SME publishers and creators, the case is a reminder that the rules of engagement with generative AI remain very much under construction, and that the courts, for now, are doing the drafting.

Read more:
Publishers take Meta to court in landmark AI copyright showdown

A Cotswold soap-maker, a Warwickshire 3D-printing pioneer supplying supercar manufacturers and an Edinburgh tech-refurbishment social enterprise are among 186 organisations honoured this year with The King’s Awards for Enterprise, as Britain’s most prestigious business accolade marks its 60th anniversary.

The 2026 cohort, which includes 76 winners for international trade, 52 for innovation, 36 for sustainability and 22 for promoting opportunity through social mobility, underlines the growing breadth of the awards first presented by Queen Elizabeth II in 1966. Renamed in 2022 following the King’s accession, the honours have now recognised more than 8,000 British businesses across six decades.

A sustainability story written in soap

For Emma Heathcote-James, founder of the Little Soap Company, the recognition vindicates an approach that has prized principles over margins since she began hand-crafting bars from her Cotswold cottage in 2008.

“We don’t make the profit that we perhaps could if we made everything in China, but every single decision that we make is putting the planet and people first,” said Heathcote-James, 49, whose products are now stocked by Waitrose, Tesco and Boots.

The business, which turns over around £2.4 million and employs 13 staff, manufactures exclusively in Scotland and northern England, home to the few soap factories Britain has left, and produces vegan-certified, cruelty-free ranges in recycled packaging.

It has not, however, been insulated from the macroeconomic squeeze. Chief operating officer Sharon Redrobe, who is married to Heathcote-James, said geopolitical tensions had pushed up the cost of raw materials including the essential oils used as fragrances, while greenwashing by some competitors remained a source of frustration. Winning as a small, independently financed business, she said, was the company’s “biggest coup” to date.

Little Soap Company has deliberately avoided external investment, wary of pressure to grow margins by switching to cheaper inputs. “It’s really important that we can demonstrate you can have a successful business and still do things correctly from the start,” Heathcote-James said.

From a mother’s garage to the supercar grid

In Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, RYSE 3D has secured an international trade award after export orders rose by an extraordinary 2,300 per cent to £2.24 million over three years. The company manufactures high-performance 3D-printed parts for more than 20 of the world’s leading supercar marques.

Founder Mitchell Barnes, 29, started developing a 3D printer in his mother’s garage as an undergraduate, using his student loan to build the first prototype and selling the service to coursemates after successfully printing a model for his car-design degree. He is among the youngest ever recipients, and has now collected a second King’s Award in as many years, having won his first at 27.

“It’s a royal honour,” Barnes said. “You don’t believe it when you first get it, but then winning two is even more insane.”

The business, which employs 25 people, exports principally to Latvia, Denmark and the United States, although the tariff regime introduced by Washington last year has eaten into US returns. Healthy margins have allowed RYSE 3D to absorb some of the impact, but Barnes said the team had had to redouble efforts elsewhere to compensate, including launching an automated online ordering tool aimed at everyday customers.

To address a chronic skills shortage, the company has taken to recruiting from outside the sector altogether, training former coffee baristas as 3D printing engineers. Barnes plans to open offices on both the east and west coasts of the United States before the end of 2026.

Refurbishing devices, repairing communities

Edinburgh Remakery, a ten-strong social enterprise honoured in the sustainability category, refurbishes and resells used technology, donating devices to people experiencing digital exclusion and routing unsalvageable components to specialist processors including the Royal Mint, which extracts gold from old motherboards.

Chief executive Elaine Brown said the team had been overwhelmed when the news arrived: “There was much jumping up and down in the remakery that day and a few more cakes were had just to celebrate.”

Demand for the service has surged as businesses retire PCs ahead of the end of support for Windows 10, but Brown argued that many of these machines could be given a second life by being fitted with alternative operating systems. “Being a business for good has been good for business,” she said. “We’ve grown our turnover, we’ve grown our engagement, and the King’s Award is the icing on the cake.”

Winners universally described the application process as exhaustive. Serial entrepreneur Will Fletcher, 46, who oversaw the promoting opportunity category as a judge, said the assessment was deliberately rigorous.

“It’s a really, really thorough process,” he said. “You always get a few that are out-and-out winners, and then there’s a few really tough cases.”

The category, Fletcher noted, rewards profitable companies that channel resources back into their communities, work that is “time-consuming to do properly and not directly linked to how much profit the company makes”. His own former business, Recycling Lives, won the award four times, including in 2019 for supporting ex-offenders into employment, where reoffending rates among participants ran at less than 5 per cent against a national average of around two-thirds. Fletcher now runs Car.co.uk, a Lancashire-based digital car-buying platform, which itself takes home a 2026 award for innovation.

Taken together, this year’s roll call suggests that British SMEs continue to find competitive advantage not in spite of their values, but because of them, a message the King’s Awards have championed, in one form or another, for sixty years.

Read more:
King’s Awards crown Britain’s small business heroes on 60th anniversary

Britain’s small and medium-sized businesses are once again caught in the political crossfire, with long-term Government borrowing costs vaulting to their highest level in nearly three decades as the City braces for what could prove a torrid week for Sir Keir Starmer.

The yield on the 30-year gilt climbed to 5.772 per cent on Tuesday, a level not seen since 1998, while the benchmark ten-year gilt jumped 0.13 percentage points to trade above 5.1 per cent, territory last visited during the 2008 financial crisis. As bond yields and prices move in opposite directions, the sell-off lays bare the depth of unease among investors. For SME owners watching their overdrafts and refinancing windows, it is a deeply unwelcome turn.

The trigger is Thursday’s local elections, in which Labour is widely tipped to shed well over 1,000 council seats to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and the Green Party. Should the results prove as bleak as forecast, Westminster watchers expect Sir Keir to face an internal challenge, most likely from the Labour left, with the Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and the former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner among those whose names are circulating in Whitehall and the Square Mile alike.

For investors, the calculation is brutally simple: any successor drawn from that wing of the party is likely to loosen the purse strings further, piling additional borrowing on to an already stretched balance sheet.

“The prospect of a leadership challenge is yet another source of uncertainty for businesses and households that could prompt them to put off investment and spending,” Thomas Pugh, chief economist at RSM UK, told clients in a note. “Financial markets would likely respond by pushing gilt yields higher, as any successor is likely to be more spendthrift than Starmer and [Rachel] Reeves, raising borrowing costs across the economy.”

Analysts at the Japanese investment bank Nomura warned that “low turnout … and voters more willing to register a protest at local vs national elections make this set of elections particularly risky for Labour and the PM in particular.”

The implications for the UK’s 5.5 million small and medium-sized enterprises are sobering. Britain’s borrowing costs are now the highest in the G7, and have climbed sharply since the Gulf conflict erupted just over two months ago. As a major importer of natural gas, the country is acutely exposed to the war’s inflationary aftershocks, and that pain feeds directly through to the cost base of every owner-managed firm in the land, from manufacturers wrestling with energy bills to high-street retailers facing yet another squeeze on consumer wallets.

The pound nudged higher against the dollar to $1.35 on Tuesday, but the FTSE 100 closed more than 1 per cent down as investors trimmed their exposure to UK assets across the board.

Compounding the gloom, the Bank of England is now widely expected to lift interest rates later this year rather than cut them, a sharp reversal from the consensus that prevailed before hostilities began. Last week, Threadneedle Street warned that rates could climb as high as 5.25 per cent if oil and gas prices remain elevated, with inflation potentially breaching 6 per cent in a worst-case scenario, up from 3.3 per cent today. Bank Rate was held at 3.75 per cent at the latest meeting.

Nomura, BNP Paribas and Pantheon Macroeconomics have all torn up their forecasts, now pencilling in rate rises rather than the two cuts previously expected for 2026. For SMEs servicing variable-rate loans, asset finance arrangements or commercial mortgages, that represents a meaningful step-change in the cost of doing business.

Bond markets, normally preoccupied with the minutiae of interest-rate expectations, have grown unusually fixated on Westminster. The fear is that Sir Keir will either be forced into a more expansive fiscal stance to placate his backbenchers, or replaced outright by a successor with an even bigger spending appetite. Either path leads to heavier borrowing at a moment when the public finances are already perilously thin: the debt-to-GDP ratio is hovering near 100 per cent and debt interest payments are projected to exceed £100 billion a year until at least 2031.

In a separate blow on Tuesday, the Bank of England disclosed that the cumulative loss on its quantitative easing programme had widened to £125 billion, up from £115 billion previously, a tab the taxpayer will pick up under the indemnity agreement struck with the Treasury.

For Britain’s business owners, the message from the gilt market is uncomfortable but unmistakable. Whatever Thursday delivers at the ballot box, the cost of capital is heading in one direction, and prudence, on hiring, on capex, on inventory, is once again the watchword.

Read more:
Gilt yields hit 28-year peak as Starmer’s grip slips and SMEs brace for the bill

British businesses face a summer of soaring travel costs and disrupted supply chains as the United Kingdom emerges as the European economy most vulnerable to a deepening jet fuel crisis triggered by the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, according to a stark new assessment from Goldman Sachs.

The Wall Street investment bank has warned that commercial fuel inventories in Britain could fall to “critically low levels” within weeks, raising the prospect of formal rationing measures that would squeeze airlines, freight operators and the thousands of SMEs that depend on reliable air links to trade with overseas markets.

Goldman’s analysts pulled no punches in their note to clients, identifying the UK as “most exposed” among European nations because of three compounding weaknesses: depleted stockpiles, an unusually high dependence on imported fuel, and a domestic refining base that has been hollowed out over recent years. “The UK is the largest net importer of jet fuel in Europe, and it holds no strategic reserves, leaving commercial inventories as the primary buffer,” the bank concluded.

The numbers paint a sobering picture for owner-managed firms whose order books rely on the speed and reliability of British aviation. Jet fuel prices have doubled since hostilities erupted on 28 February, while carriers worldwide have stripped some two million seats from this month’s schedules in the past fortnight alone. With fuel accounting for up to a quarter of an airline’s operating costs, those increases are now flowing directly into ticket prices and freight rates.

IAG, the FTSE 100 parent of British Airways, has confirmed it will pass higher fuel costs through to passengers, conceding that its hedging programme has left it “not immune” to the volatility. Air France is bracing for a $2.4 billion increase in its annual fuel bill; American Airlines anticipates an additional $4 billion. Both have signalled fare rises and a paring back of passenger perks.

For UK plc, the implications stretch well beyond the holiday season. Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, told reporters on Friday that European rivals were “desperately” hunting for flights to axe and would start doing so within weeks. Fuel providers, meanwhile, have warned airlines that Britain has the “most limited visibility” in Europe on future supply, a direct consequence of its heavy reliance on Middle Eastern imports.

The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, last week conceded that holidaymakers may need to reconsider “where they go on holiday” — an unusually candid admission that has done little to reassure the travel trade or the SME exporters who use passenger flights’ belly-hold capacity to move time-sensitive goods to Europe and beyond.

Government ministers have publicly insisted that Britain can source fuel from alternative markets, but Goldman’s analysis exposes the structural fragility behind that confidence. The closure of Grangemouth, Scotland’s only oil refinery, in April 2025 stripped meaningful domestic capacity from the system. Question marks have also hung over the Prax Lindsey refinery in North Lincolnshire, though its new owner, US energy major Phillips 66, has insisted its acquisition will bolster UK fuel security.

Adding to the structural critique, a report from the Tony Blair Institute published this week argued that Europe’s tendency to frame energy policy primarily through a climate lens has left the continent paying two to three times more for power than its global competitors, while simultaneously deepening its reliance on imports, exactly the dependency now being so painfully exposed.

Brussels is scrambling to respond. The European Commission confirmed on Monday that it will issue formal guidance on jet fuel for airlines later this week. “I don’t think anyone knows how long this situation will last,” commission spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen told reporters, “so the best we can do and the most effective thing that we can do and that we are doing is to prepare for all eventualities.”

The Gulf region accounts for roughly one fifth of jet fuel traded on international markets, and Europe is among its biggest customers. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut, carriers across the continent are now bidding against one another for cargoes from Asia and the United States, and prices are climbing accordingly.

Fuel suppliers have indicated that May should remain manageable but have flagged “mid to late June as the potential start of disruptions” if the strait does not reopen, a timeline that puts the peak summer trading window for hospitality, travel and export-led SMEs squarely in the danger zone.

For the army of British small businesses whose growth plans assume cheap, plentiful air connectivity, from boutique tour operators and food exporters to professional services firms with European clients, the message from the City is uncomfortably clear: prepare for higher costs, longer delays, and the very real possibility that, for the first time in a generation, jet fuel may have to be rationed in Britain.

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UK businesses brace for jet fuel rationing as Goldman Sachs warns of ‘critical’ supply crunch

Britain’s state-backed economic development bank has thrown its weight behind one of the country’s most enduring venture capital problems, committing an initial £1 million to co-invest with Angel Academe in female-led businesses across the United Kingdom.

The British Business Bank’s capital, announced today, will sit alongside private money raised by Angel Academe and its EIS fund, which is managed in partnership with crowdfunding-turned-fund-manager SyndicateRoom. The vehicle invests exclusively in high-growth companies with at least one female founder, writing cheques at seed and Series A. The first deals under the new arrangement are expected before the end of June.

The headline figure may look modest set against the sums sloshing around the wider venture market, but the symbolism is anything but. Female founders in the UK still receive less than two per cent of all venture capital deployed, a stubborn statistic that has barely shifted in a decade despite a procession of well-meaning initiatives, codes and pledges. Angel Academe was a founding signatory of the Investing in Women Code, and today’s commitment marks one of the more concrete moves yet from a state institution to put taxpayer-backed capital where the rhetoric has long been.

For an Angel Academe portfolio that already includes Béa Fertility, the at-home conception platform, supply chain transparency outfit Provenance and consumer data privacy business Data Wøllet, the British Business Bank’s involvement amounts to a meaningful seal of approval. Institutional money tends to follow institutional money, and the bank’s imprimatur could prove more valuable to the funds’ fundraising efforts than the cheque itself.

Graham Schwikkard, chief executive of SyndicateRoom, was unambiguous about the thesis. “It’s not a lack of talent, it’s a lack of access,” he said. “This £1m isn’t just capital, it’s a signal to the market that female-led businesses are some of the most undervalued assets in the UK right now. We’re looking for the next sector-defining companies that others are simply missing.”

Sarah Turner, who founded Angel Academe and serves as its chief executive, struck a similar note. “We don’t have a pipeline problem; we have a funding problem,” she said. “By partnering with the British Business Bank, we’re able to put more capital into the hands of women who are building the future of healthcare, data, and commerce.”

Nancy Liu, senior investment manager at British Business Bank Investments, framed the commitment in growth terms rather than purely as an equity question. “The gender investment gap isn’t just a matter of equality, it’s also a barrier to potential growth and innovation in the UK,” she said. “Female founders remain significantly underfunded and the British Business Bank aims to unlock potential across the UK by ensuring diverse entrepreneurs have access to finance, including female founders.”

The funding gap is particularly pronounced in technology and healthcare, where ticket sizes are larger and capital intensity higher — and where, perhaps not coincidentally, the dearth of female cheque-writers on the other side of the table has been most loudly criticised. Whether £1 million of public money proves the catalyst for a meaningful shift, or simply another data point in a long-running debate, will depend on what the bank chooses to do next.

The Angel Academe EIS Funds form part of SyndicateRoom’s stable of tax-efficient investment vehicles, which also includes the Carbon13 SEIS Fund, the Access EIS Fund and the SR Carry Back EIS Fund. SyndicateRoom has now deployed capital into more than 200 British businesses since its launch.

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British Business Bank pledges £1m to close gender funding gap through Angel Academe partnership

British SMEs operating in one of the country’s fastest-moving aviation frontiers have been handed a significant vote of confidence, after the Government today committed almost £50 million to accelerate the rollout of commercial drones and flying taxis, while bringing in tougher rules to ground the rogue operators clouding the sector’s reputation.

The £46.5 million package, announced by the Department for Transport on 5 May, is designed to dismantle the regulatory bottlenecks that have long frustrated drone start-ups and advanced air mobility firms hoping to scale up their operations across the UK. Ministers believe the wider sector could be worth as much as £103 billion to the economy by 2050, supporting tens of thousands of skilled jobs in engineering, manufacturing, software and operations.

Of the total, £26.5 million will be channelled through the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to streamline approvals for commercial drone use, particularly in emergency response, medical logistics and infrastructure inspection, and to lay the groundwork for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, more commonly known as flying taxis, to enter UK skies from 2028. Operators will also benefit from a digitised application process intended to slash the time spent navigating red tape.

The remaining £20.5 million will fund the UK’s first bespoke drone identification system, effectively a numberplate for the skies. Using Hybrid Remote ID technology, the system will broadcast a drone’s identity and location during flight, enabling police and other authorised bodies to identify operators in real time and pursue those flying illegally or recklessly.

Aviation, Maritime and Decarbonisation Minister Keir Mather said the investment was about backing British innovators while keeping public trust intact. “We’re backing the next generation of British aviation innovators with nearly £50 million to drive drone regulation reforms, and unlock barriers to growth that will create jobs, lower emissions, and further the UK’s world-leading aviation reputation,” he said. “Innovation must go hand in hand with strong security, that’s why over half of our investment will develop a new ID system to track drones in real-time, supporting emergency services and building public confidence in an industry that could be worth up to £103 billion by 2050.”

Security Minister Dan Jarvis was blunter still on the enforcement angle. “This funding will create a numberplate system for the skies,” he said. “Law enforcement will be able to identify and take action against those who break the law, taking drones out of the sky, and protecting the public.”

For SMEs working at the sharp end of the industry, the announcement is being read as a long-overdue acknowledgement that regulation has lagged behind technology. Sophie O’Sullivan, director of future safety and innovation at the CAA, said the funding would help unlock routine drone deliveries, long-range inspections and hospital logistics. “Our work going on right now is laying the foundations for commercial operation in the future,” she said. “This vital funding supports the next generation of aerospace, strengthening safety and bringing economic growth for the UK.”

Industry leaders broadly welcomed the move. Stuart Simpson, chief executive of Bristol-based eVTOL firm Vertical Aerospace, said a regulator able to move at pace was essential if Britain hoped to lead in advanced air mobility. “The UK’s CAA has been a serious and constructive partner,” he said. “This investment is a further step towards positioning the UK at the leading edge of the eVTOL sector as it moves towards commercial operations.”

Stephen Wright, chairman and founder of autonomous cargo drone manufacturer Windracers, said the package combined the two ingredients smaller operators have been calling for. “Targeted investment alongside practical regulatory reform is exactly what is needed to unlock real world operations at scale,” he said. “At Windracers, we see first-hand how autonomous aviation can strengthen supply chains, support critical services and operate reliably in some of the most challenging environments.”

The announcement sits alongside a broader Government push to cement the UK as what ministers describe as an “aviation superpower”, including airspace modernisation, £2.3 billion for the development of greener aircraft and a further £63 million for sustainable aviation fuel. For the country’s drone and AAM SMEs, many of which have spent years burning runway waiting for regulation to catch up, today’s commitment may finally signal that the runway is clearing.

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Government commits £46.5m to fast-track drone industry and tackle rogue operators

Ramil Asadulzada is an experienced executive with more than 20 years of leadership across finance, strategy, and operations. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, he grew up in a humble family shaped by discipline and education.

His father served in the military and his mother was a teacher. From a young age, Ramil showed strong leadership and analytical skills. He captained his school basketball team and regularly competed in mathematics Olympiads, often earning top awards.

He earned his Bachelor of Science from the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy before building an international career across Azerbaijan, Turkey, Switzerland, and Romania. Over the past 15 years, he held senior finance roles, serving as CFO and most recently as CEO of SOCAR Petroleum SA, where he was promoted to Chief Executive in January 2024.

Ramil is known for his expertise in financial analysis, IFRS, risk management, corporate strategy, M&A, supply chain management, and large-scale project leadership. He combines financial discipline with operational clarity. He holds an MBA with Honours from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and is a member of ACCA.

Oil and gas remains his professional passion. He is recognised for leading large teams while maintaining strong relationships across all levels of business. Outside of work, he enjoys basketball, travelling, reading professional literature, and following Real Madrid. A lifelong learner, Ramil approaches leadership with humility, precision, and long-term vision.

Q: You were born in Baku and grew up in a military household. How did your early life shape your leadership style?

I was raised in a very simple and humble family. My father was a military serviceman and my mother was a teacher. Discipline and education were part of daily life. There was structure at home. There was respect for learning. That environment shaped how I approach work today.

As a child, I loved mathematics. I competed in Olympiads and often won gold prizes. Mathematics teaches logic and problem solving. It forces you to think clearly. I also played basketball and served as team captain. Sport taught me leadership. You learn quickly that you win as a team or you lose as a team.

Q: What led you into the oil and gas industry?

I studied Economy and Management of Production and Service Fields at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy. Oil and gas is a key industry in Azerbaijan. It is part of our economic identity. Naturally, I was drawn to it.

Over time, it became more than an industry. It became a passion. The scale of operations, the capital intensity, the global exposure — it is a complex and strategic field. I enjoy that complexity.

Q: You spent more than 11 years at SOCAR and rose from CFO to CEO. How did that journey unfold?

My career has been heavily focused on finance and strategy. For roughly 15 years I held CFO positions, and in January 2024 I was promoted to CEO of SOCAR Petroleum SA.

As CFO, my responsibility was financial discipline. IFRS reporting, risk management, budgeting, forecasting, internal controls, and audit were central to my role. We managed large-scale operations across multiple countries. That required precision.

When I became CEO, the perspective shifted. You still rely on financial rigour, but you must think more broadly. Strategy, people management, commercial positioning, supply chain resilience — all become interconnected.

Q: What was the most challenging transition from CFO to CEO?

As CFO, you evaluate risk and protect the balance sheet. As CEO, you balance risk with growth. You must make decisions that affect thousands of stakeholders.

One challenge is moving from detailed financial analysis to big-picture leadership. I learned to trust the systems and the teams we built. Strong internal controls and governance frameworks allowed me to focus on long-term direction rather than day-to-day issues.

Q: You have worked internationally in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Switzerland and Romania. How has that shaped your executive approach?

International experience teaches adaptability. Regulations differ. Market conditions differ. Cultural expectations differ.

Working in Switzerland strengthened my understanding of governance and financial transparency. Turkey and Romania exposed me to dynamic markets. Azerbaijan grounded me in operational depth.

You learn to listen more. You learn that leadership must adapt without losing consistency.

Q: How did your MBA at Chicago Booth influence your thinking?

The MBA at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business was transformative. The programme is analytical. It challenges assumptions. I graduated with honours, which was important to me personally.

Booth reinforced the importance of data-driven decision making. It sharpened my approach to corporate strategic planning and M&A. It also expanded my global network.

Q: What defines strong leadership in oil and gas today?

Oil and gas remains a highly strategic industry. It requires operational efficiency, strict compliance, and risk awareness.

Strong leadership today means balancing profitability with sustainability. It means maintaining high standards of safety and governance. It means preparing for volatility.

I believe clarity is critical. Teams perform better when objectives are defined. Large-scale projects require strong project management skills. I gained much of that experience managing complex operations and cross-border initiatives.

Q: You led large teams across functions. How do you maintain alignment at scale?

Communication and structure. When you lead large teams, you must create systems that allow transparency and accountability.

I focused on building relationships across all levels of the organisation. Whether with senior management or frontline staff, consistency matters. Respect matters.

Leadership is not only about direction. It is about creating an environment where people can perform at their best.

Q: Outside of work, what keeps you grounded?

Basketball remains important to me. Real Madrid is my favourite football club. Cristiano Ronaldo’s discipline and work ethic inspire me.

I enjoy travelling and reading professional literature. I am a lifelong learner. Oil and gas is my passion, but I believe growth comes from constant education.

I also support charitable initiatives quietly. I believe helping others should not require publicity.

Q: Looking back, what lesson stands out most from your career?

Discipline compounds over time. Whether in mathematics competitions as a child, on the basketball court, or in boardrooms, preparation matters.

Long-term thinking is essential. Short-term decisions can create long-term consequences.

For me, leadership is about responsibility. You must build systems that outlast you. That is the true measure of impact.

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Leading With Discipline: A Conversation with Ramil Asadulzada