Enabling the Next Generation of Early Years Educators with Brett Wigdort‪z‬ – 40 Minute Mentor Podcast

Brett @Wigdortz on 40 Minute Mentor Podcast, said:

“To me, education is like a building block for a fair society. It goes hand in hand with healthcare, food, and ensuring people have shelter. Yet, in so many societies education is segregated by wealth, and many children don’t have the education they need to be successful.”

In this week’s episode of 40 Minute Mentor, James talks to Brett Wigdortz, founder of Teach First, and co-founder and CEO of Tiney:

Driven by a sense of fairness, and the belief that all children should have access to the best education possible, Brett says:

“In a society where we all live together as a community, you want to make it as fair as possible. If everyone doesn’t have the same access to a great education, then you’re just cutting out a whole swath of humanity at the knees, you’re not allowing for any sort of opportunities in life. To me, education is like a building block for a fair society, that goes hand in hand with healthcare, food, and ensuring people have shelter. Yet in so many societies education is segregated by wealth, and many children don’t have the education they need to be successful.”

Brett spent 15 hugely successful years building Teach First, convinced that it would ultimately become one of the biggest graduate recruiters and charities in the UK. Sharing his scale-up journey and some of the early challenges he overcame as a CEO, Brett says:

“My business plan for Teach First came from working on a project for McKinsey, which looked at how businesses could help the education system in London, as many businesses were concerned with the state of schools at the time. When we started back in 2002, most people didn’t think it would work.

“People told me that we wouldn’t be able to attract top talent to these types of schools, and that kids wouldn’t want to be taught by top graduates, which to me is complete nonsense. At one point it felt like all of the support we’d be able to get from the business community just evaporated away quite quickly. I had a few mentors who really helped me at that moment, and finally we managed to work through our problems and push forward – I would say that resilience and grit really got me through the hard times.”

40 Minute Mentor podcast celebrates the career advice from some of the most influential leaders.

Hosted by James Mitra, CEO of JBM, 40 Minute Mentor returns with the mission of making business mentorship accessible to everyone.

Whether you’re just beginning your career or you’re looking for advice in taking the leap and starting a new venture, this show is designed to cover everything from the ground up in 40 minutes.

Guests in this season include:

James Mitra is the CEO of JBM. Founded in 2012, JBM is a values driven search firm that places executive talent and future leaders into Strategy, Operations and Growth roles in Tech Scale Ups, FinTechs and boutique Consultancies. As the host of 40 Mentor Mentor, James is passionate about making business mentorship accessible to everyone.