Experts
Abigail Hall
Abigail Hall is a design consultant and expert in the residential construction sector - AKA the ‘Queen of Construction’
She’s a woman in a man’s world and has fought hard to get where she is, reinventing herself and her business various times to suit the new markets she is targeting.
This reinvention has been a success, building and international consultancy and excelling in the UK prime property world.
Abi brings humour, a hell of a lot of lessons (because of her many mistakes!) but also method to keep going even when the path seems unclear and all you have is self beliefs to fall back on.
She will teach you to ‘know yourself’ when to save and when to spend. How to spot new opportunities and how you can build a business from turning up, being polite and seeing mutual advantage in every situation.
Jenny Cross
Jenny@vantagemarketinggroup.co.uk
Jenny Cross is a senior marketing strategist, business advisor and exited founder with more than 20 years’ experience working with founders, leadership teams and scaling organisations.
She is best known for building and exiting Cross Productions, a multi-award-winning marketing agency, and for founding Niche Magazine and the Niche Business Awards both of which were successfully sold as part of an international asset sale. That journey gives Jenny first-hand experience of what it really takes to build value in a business, scale sustainably, and prepare for exit.
Jenny has worked with start-ups, scale-ups and established organisations across multiple sectors, designing marketing strategies that align commercial ambition with operational reality. Her work is grounded in clarity, positioning, and execution, not theory, helping leaders make confident decisions at key stages of growth.
Deeply embedded in the regional business ecosystem, Jenny is known for connecting people, ideas and opportunity in ways that unlock progress. She brings a practical, hands-on approach to every programme she delivers, combining strategic thinking with lived experience of leadership, risk, growth and transition.
As an expert contributor to the Crucible Programme, Jenny supports participants to step back from day-to-day noise, sharpen their thinking, and focus on what truly drives long-term business value.
Alison Machin
A strategic leader, working with businesses and entrepreneurs, Alison has more than 17 years’ client-facing experience supporting SMEs, public sector and the voluntary sector. An experienced business coach and trainer, Alison works dynamically to help organisations take advantage of new opportunities as well as championing partnerships. She has experience in supporting high growth technology start-ups to validate ideas for commercialisation and to build strategies for sustainability and growth.
Alison is an experienced facilitator and qualified trainer and can confidently deliver a variety of interventions to different audiences. She has experience of designing and delivering training courses to support business strategy and growth and sharing good practice with diverse audiences. Alison is an experienced business coach and has been providing 1:1 mentoring and coaching interventions to SME owner/managers and senior leaders for over 10 years.
Alison worked with Innovate UK on a national innovation programme to deliver entrepreneurial skills training to high growth SME award winners from the science and technology sectors. She rolled out a train the trainer programme to innovation advisers in the North East, North West and Yorkshire, as well as working directly with SME owners to develop and implement robust business models for growth. She was also an adviser on the National steering group for the Women in Innovation project.
Gemma Ryan
| gemma@littleipco.com
Gemma is a dual qualified solicitor and chartered trademark attorney, and the founder of an Intellectual Property (IP) legal services start-up. Gemma has worked in legal services for 14 years and specialised in brand protection for close to a decade. She provides straightforward advice on trademarks, designs and copyright law. As a start-up herself, Gemma understands first-hand the challenges of starting a business and will guide you through the complex area of IP providing advice on how to protect your ideas and brand in the most cost-effective way.
Ellen O'Hara
Ellen O’Hara is a creative enterprise specialist, strategist, creative business coach and researcher. With 25 years' experience, she has designed and delivered innovation and creative enterprise programmes for a range of organisations and has directly supported hundreds of creative and social entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses.
Ellen provides consultancy in strategy, business development, entrepreneurship and innovation to cultural organisations nationally and internationally.
She is co-founder of Modfin, a business and financial modelling methodology for creative and purpose led businesses. .
Ellen is an avid collector of contemporary craft, loves electronic music and festivals, alongside walks in the Derbyshire Peak District where she lives.