The person behind the fairy.

My name is Joanne King. I am the Business Fairy, I started in Liverpool as the Liverpool Business Fairy but am now expanding my services to other areas, very exciting times ahead!

In my 25 year career, I managed several complex multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary partnership projects across multiple areas in the North West, within sectors such as domestic abuse, substance misuse, mental health and crime. I managed whole family services, with a strong focus on empowering people to overcome very complex problems, including long term unemployment and poverty.

Through this work I became interested in socio- economics and developed a passion for ensuring that the maximum amount of money per pound reached the families and communities we existed to serve, as well as making sure those families had maximum input to the decisions that were made for them, rather than about them.

Each project I have managed has involved supporting the delivery partner organisations to build their capacity and empower their staff with new skills. I have led complex workforce development training projects across multiple local authority areas, including Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton, Warrington, Stockport, Bradford in several other local authority areas across the UK. I have also managed partnerships with global providers in the UK. Throughout this work I managed high value projects and increased social return on investment across all of the areas I worked in.

Besides my work based training and qualifications in Behaviour Change, Mental Health, Addictions, Domestic Abuse, Parenting, Teaching and emotional wellbeing- I also have two business degrees, one from Edge Hill and a postgraduate certificate in Business from Liverpool John Moores Universities.

The Business Fairy came about because I had supported so many organisations in my employed capacity that I decided to set up my own consultancy, using the skills I had learned in those roles along with my two business degrees.

I started out helping friends untangle their business ideas around a kitchen table. Fifteen years later I have supported founders, family businesses, charities and social enterprises across the North West and beyond, and the pattern is always the same, the thing holding people back is rarely the spreadsheet.

It is fear. Fear of being judged, of getting it wrong, of asking for money, of being seen. So that is where we start. We take the fear out of the room, and then the practical work becomes surprisingly straightforward.

Alongside The Business Fairy I am the founder of Believe Again CIC, where I created The Self-Esteem Approach™ and the Age, Stage and Phase™ Model. That same thinking runs through my consultancy work, because businesses are built by people, and people work best when they believe in themselves.