Nicola Moss

Nicola Moss is the Founder and Director of The Business Hub Work Experience CIC, a social enterprise that gives young people aged 14 to 24 a genuine week inside a working business.

The model is straightforward. A cohort of around twelve students is hosted at a local business venue for a structured week. Local business volunteers deliver careers panels, workshops and scenario based activities, and the week closes with a professional networking event that the students themselves host. It is free to students, families and schools.

Nicola set the CIC up to tackle a gap she kept seeing. Plenty of young people are motivated and capable, but they have no professional network to draw on. No relative who can make a phone call, no family friend in the industry they are curious about. That gap quietly decides a great deal about where they end up. A week like this gives them real workplace exposure, the confi dence to hold a conversation with an adult they have never met, and a handful of fi rst professional contacts of their own.

To date the programme has supported 181 young people across 13 cohorts, with 327 business volunteer sessions gifted. It runs across Leicestershire, Rutland, Lincolnshire and the wider East Midlands, with funding partners including Market Harborough Building Society, Melton Building Society, Harborough District Council, Rutland County Council and the Greater Lincolnshire Careers Hub.

Nicola is always glad to hear from businesses who would like to get involved, whether that is hosting a cohort, running a workshop, or simply coming along to a networking event to talk to students about what you do. Volunteers regularly say they get as much out of the day as the young people do.