KTP Associate: Andrew Grounds

University: Queen’s University Belfast

Company: Ashton Community Trust

The Project: to build the commercial resilience of Ashton – a large social enterprise (250 staff; turnover of £7.5m) that trades in a range of goods and services, reinvesting its profits in community services in Belfast’s divided and disadvantaged inner city. To do this by diversifying into high value procurement markets, better evidencing return on investment, strengthening operational management and developing a technology business line to grow turnover. 

The KTP Associate: Andrew’s quick analytical abilities, effective writing and ability to use data synthetically have transformed Ashton’s business model. 

• The tender process developed in the KTP is now used in real-time to strong commercial effect with a clear improvement in submission quality and success. 
• Led the preparation of 12 bids that would not previously have been targeted, seven of which have been successful. The effectiveness of the procurement pathway toolkit developed by Andrew has surpassed expectations and under his guidance is being shared with 5 other large-scale social enterprises
• It is anticipated that £1m of new income will be achieved in the next 2 months, directly as a result of Andrew’s work
• Instrumental in developing social value measures, performance management and data capture systems across Ashton’s portfolio, setting out real-time costs and revenue for each service delivery area, and transforming Ashton’s management capability and culture, delivering cutting edge business planning tools on a targeted range of outcomes
• Challenged senior management to shift into new sectors and demonstrated sharp analytical abilities and a capacity to read markets
• Brought a deeper understanding of innovation in social enterprise-private business relationships and the importance of connecting both, showing how complementarities can be built to sustain the social economy and scale its future impact.

Winners of this category will be announced in advance of the KTP Virtual Awards Ceremony which is at 4-5pm on Wednesday 9 September. Join us in our virtual world to celebrate all the winners – register here.

See below for a profile of each of the 18 finalists in the Future Innovator category of this year’s KTP Best of the Best Awards:

Muddasar Anwar  Delivering innovation for Sustainable Drainage System to prevent flooding.

Blessing Mbipom Creating online learning for GPs.

Laurence Foster: Innovations to “print” structures, transforming house building.

Declan Bryans: Creating greener energy with innovations in flow batteries.

Elle Perschke: Applying B2C methodologies to launch a new product within a B2B company.

Mark Gilmore: Development of new class of greener ionic liquid, with multiple potential applications.

Khai Nguyen: Inventing a new silicone composite for consumer fixing brand, Sugru.

Swapnil Khadke: Creating new liposome formulations for application in drug delivery

Leona McGirr: Creating an Antibody Library for fully human antibodies.

Dan Hicks: Developing a new design and testing process for electric trails bikes.

Dmitry Bogachov: Advancing Materials Science for Anilox technology.

Andrew Grounds: Transforming business models for Social Enterprise.

Lyndsey McKirdy: Enhancing data science capability at Aggreko.

Jack Tallant: Transforming reporting and delivery of Charity’s activities.

Xi Liu: Using AI to develop fraud detection and prevention services for law firm.

Alex Komninos: Transforming spreadsheets in to cognitive models at IBM

Harvey Kangley: Delivering exceptional NPD for rail electrification

George Harris: Developing advanced engineering for intruder detection systems.

The Future Innovator category of the KTP Awards is supported by Ashorne Hill – a specialist training company which runs training programmes for all KTP Associates.

Want to find out more about working as a KTP Associate? More information here, and see the latest vacancies here.