Graham Shapiro, who is also Chester Business School’s Entrepreneur in Residence, recently took time out of his busy schedule to offer inspiring insights on ‘Building and Sustaining a New Venture’.
Speaking to final year undergraduate students from the University of Chester Business School, he discussed his own journey in establishing Graham Shapiro Design, which has been creating online and offline visual communications for some of the world’s most respected companies, for almost a quarter of a century.
He also explained what influenced him and how he succeeded in developing such inventions as the interloopmailer® - which transforms ordinary publicity material - and Reggie® - a pioneering school registration app.
Mr Shapiro said: “As Entrepreneur in Residence, I was pleased to address the students at the University of Chester on ‘Building and Sustaining a New Venture’. It was great to share my business journey of 25 years.
“The feedback I received was inspiring and as a result, I remain encouraged by their resilience and tenacity at a time of great adversity. Specifically, I sense these future business leaders see that adversity is itself a source of inspiration, correctly harnessed, and that above all is the real benefit of keeping a positive mindset.”
Dr Connie Hancock, Associate Professor and Head of Department for Enterprise, Leadership and Management at the University of Chester said: “Graham offered inspirational insight into his, very personal, entrepreneurial journey.
“His wonderful talk allowed our entrepreneurship students to be immersed in the life world of a true entrepreneur, allowing them to understand that success in business isn’t necessarily correlated with how well you did in school, where you grew up, cultural background or financial status, it emanates from a place of passion and personal mindset.
“My students and I felt extremely privileged that Graham offered us some of his time to come and deliver what was a very powerful session.”
Student Conor Dangerfield added: “I really found it enlightening. It got me thinking that entrepreneurship is more than just a desire to one day run a business, as Graham started with a desire to add value to the world and entrepreneurship was a result of that.
“Coming out of the session, I was excited again about being an entrepreneur and the belief that, among uncertainty, one can adapt, take every opportunity, add value and have the confidence to make it work.”
The talk this term was part of ongoing presentations by Mr Shapiro as Entrepreneur in Residence. He is involved in delivering a series of talks to students tasked with initiating a new venture as part of their degree studies. His workshops allow students to understand the life journey of an entrepreneur and be immersed in the world of entrepreneurial endeavour.
Mr Shapiro’s list of awards includes winning the title of Inspirational Male Leader at the 2019 International Business Excellence Awards in Dubai.
He is also the founder of The Graham Shapiro Foundation, a charity which aims to establish a real way to support mental health, wellbeing and to inspire innovation and young entrepreneurialism in the UK.
For further information about the University of Chester’s Business School, please visit: www.chester.ac.uk/chester-business-school. For more about Mr Shapiro and his award-winning design agency please go to: www.gsd.net.
