Curzon partners pro-bono with military social enterprise X-Forces
Strategy and transformation consulting firm Curzon & Company has struck a partnership with the award-winning X-Forces group. Curzon will provide pro-bono advice and support to the social enterprise, established to support entrepreneurial ambition among former military personnel.
Despite global spending on military and defence continuing to sky-rocket, surpassing $1.8 trillion collectively, former combatants often fall victim to social exclusion and poverty. In 2013, it was reported in the UK press that as many as 9,000 ex-service personnel were homeless, while a King's Centre for Military Health Research study found last year that mental health issues among the group had risen by 78%. Earlier in 2017, it was also made public that over 2,500 former soldiers had been jailed over the previous 12 month period, as the British Government came under increasing pressure to do more to help veterans adjust to civilian life. While that debate is set to continue, however, social enterprises are moving to do what they can to help the extended military community.
Registered social enterprise and community interest company X-Forces is one such group, its chief aim being that of promoting and supporting entrepreneurial ambition in the UK military community. The organisation provides business planning support, Government-backed funding, training and mentoring for hundreds of service leavers, veterans, reservists, veterans, cadets, and their spouses/partners and family members. The organisation, which won the Soldiering On Business Enterprise Award in 2017, is recognised as one of the most successful business start-up facilitator groups in the UK, having helped to launch over 1,100 new entrepreneurs since its inception in July 2013, and providing £10.2 million in seed funding to support business enterprises within the ex-forces community.
As of October 2017, Curzon & Company has announced a new partnership with the London-based group. The alliance was officially announced by X-Forces founder, Ren Kapur MBE, at X-Forces’ fourth anniversary celebration on 10th October. The event was supported by a number of high profile guests, including Sir Michael Fallon and Lord Young, as well as representatives from key X-Forces supporters such as NatWest, Tesco, Rolls Royce, Balfour Beatty, Cisco and Interserve.
Established in 2002, Curzon helps organisations to achieve sustainable performance advances in business areas where there’s a big need for change. The partnership will see the London-headquartered consultancy take on an advisory role on a pro bono basis. Curzon Partners Douglas Badham and Andrew Morgan will be providing ongoing consultancy support to the X-Forces leadership team across a number of key areas such as growth strategy and execution plans, as well as helping steer and optimise organisational and operational development. Consultants within the Curzon team will also have the opportunity to support X-Forces.
Consulting allies
Speaking of the partnership, founder and CEO of X-Forces, Ren Kapur – also Director of the education and environment organisation, World Sustainability Alliance – commented, “Following an introduction at the recent MCA Awards we have found that Curzon are the ideal fit for helping to support our X-Forces strategy. As an organisation we have grown quite considerably in the four years since we launched so having a trusted partner in Curzon is vital to help us to navigate the next stages of our X-Forces growth. We look forward to working with Andrew, Doug and the Curzon team and seeing where this exciting collaboration will take us.”
Curzon Partner Douglas Badham added, “The principles X-Forces stands for are close to our hearts here at Curzon, and it is a great honour to be able to support their invaluable work. We are delighted to develop our relationship with X-Forces and to offer a commitment to help grow their reach as they enter their fifth year in operation. We are very much looking forward to collaborating with Ren and her team to enable them to help more ex-military personnel on the journey to self-employment success.”
The UK consulting industry has a history of supporting former forces personnel. Last year, eight consulting firms were recognised by ratings entity Victory Media as military friendly employers. Booz Allen Hamilton, CSC, Deloitte, CBRE, PwC, Accenture, KPMG and Cognizant were each commended for their efforts to recruit and retain military personnel. In 2014, Deloitte earned further plaudits for its Military Transition and Talent Programme, being awarded a Veterans Council Centre of Excellence Award as well as a Silver Award handed out by the Ministry of Defence.