Our Business, Leadership and Enterprise Sector cuts across all other sectors.   We recognise that in all sectors, training gap analyses reveal a substantial need for higher level skills in leadership and enterprise to keep London competitive in increasingly global markets.

Our work in this area has focused on three areas in particular: generic business and management programmes, financial services and tourism. The financial services industry is concentrated in the south east, and in London in particular. Degree-level qualifications are increasingly an entry route into employment in financial services. As a major international destination, London has a very large travel and tourism industry. The Olympics in 2012 and the heritage sites within the capital will lead to labour shortages if the demand for an appropriately qualified workforce is not met.

Our work in progressing learners in generic business and management programmes, as well as our specific focus on the needs of the financial and tourism industries, will contribute to resolving these issues.

Sue Short is based at the University of Greenwich and is the lead for the Business, Leadership and Enterprise Sector. Sue has been in post since May 2008. Sue organises the SELLLN Business, Leadership and Enterprise Sector Working Group. This group sets the overall strategy for SELLLN’s engagement with the sector.

As well as membership drawn from our partner colleges and universities, the group’s membership includes representatives from the Financial Service Skills Council, People First, the Chartered Insurance Institute, the South East London Chamber of Commerce, Southwark Chamber of Commerce, Greenwich Local Labour and Business and City Growth, South London Business.

SELLLN is already funding several initiatives in the Business, Leadership and Enterprise Sector. These include the ‘Entrepreneur in Action – Building Skills for Business’ project, which provided programmes for budding entrepreneurs at Greenwich Community College, Southwark College and Lewisham College, and a flexible business summer school.  

Several progression agreements are in development in the business, management and tourism fields of study.