Sometimes the most useful thing you can do for your business is get out of it for a couple of hours.
Connect Over a Cuppa gives business owners and leaders the space to step away from the day-to-day, hear how someone else has approached a challenge, meet people outside their usual circle and think differently about their own business.
Across the UK, thousands of companies are quietly doing remarkable things – developing innovative products, building exceptional teams, transforming traditional businesses and finding new ways to grow. Yet many of the people behind them rarely appear on conference stages or business podcasts. They’re simply getting on with building good businesses.
Connect Over A Cuppa grew from a belief that their experiences are worth sharing.
Learning from real businesses
The fundamentals are remarkably similar.
Over 30 years of working with organisations across engineering, e-commerce and professional services, we’ve met some fascinating business leaders.
The businesses may be very different, but many of the fundamental challenges behind consistent success are remarkably similar. Every business has its own challenges and opportunities; the key is recognising them, deciding what matters most and knowing where to focus your time and energy.
Successful businesses also stay curious. They keep questioning how they work, learning from others and adapting as their customers, markets and people change. Often, it’s stepping outside the day-to-day and hearing a different perspective that helps you see what to do next. That’s the key to Connect Over A Cuppa.
Good leadership
Clear communication
Engaged people
Understanding customers
Curiosity
A willingness to change
We’re naturally interested in results – sales, profit, productivity and growth, but we’ve always been equally interested in what creates those results in the first place.
– Why does one team outperform another?
– Why do talented people flourish in one organisation but not another?
– Why do some businesses spot opportunities while others struggle to adapt?
These are exactly the kinds of questions Connect Over A Cuppa was created to explore.
People who have actually done it
Connect Over A Cuppa is not about telling people how to run their business.
It’s about learning from people who have actually done it.
Our speakers share what worked, and what didn’t. They talk about decisions they’ve made, opportunities they’ve spotted, mistakes they’ve earned from, and what they might do differently next time.
We’ve welcomed people from major consumer brands alongside entrepreneurs, engineers, psychologists, finance specialists, marketers, adventurers, and leaders of successful smaller businesses.
From brain science to B Corps, engineering to entrepreneurship, the subject changes every month.
The common thread is interesting people, useful experience and a willingness to share it.
Not just networking
Connect Over A Cuppa is deliberately different from traditional networking.
People come primarily to learn, meet interesting people and exchange ideas. And because of that, the networking happens naturally.
Some of the best conversations happen before the speaker begins or over coffee afterwards. Ideas are exchanged, connections are made and collaborations sometimes begin.
Two hours to think differently
Running a business can be relentless.
50
speakers since we began
2h
once a month, in Harrogate
Meetings, emails, customers, people and today’s problems don’t always leave much time to think about tomorrow. Connect Over A Cuppa creates that space.
For two hours each month, you can step away from the day-to-day, hear a different perspective, challenge your thinking and take away ideas you can use in your own organisation.
Since we began, almost 50 speakers have explored leadership, innovation, marketing, finance, psychology, sustainability, culture, resilience, growth and much more. No two events are quite the same. That’s intentional.
Different people. Different perspectives. New ideas.
Our Host
Edward Ryder
Business consultant • Director of Biskit Ltd
Working across very different businesses means Edward quickly recognises many of the challenges that business leaders face – and knows that the answer is rarely to tell you what to do.
With more than 25 years’ experience across engineering, manufacturing, aerospace, e-commerce, healthcare, education and professional services, Edward brings a broad commercial perspective rather than a predetermined solution. He asks questions, spots connections, challenges assumptions and gets people talking – helping you and your team see challenges and opportunities that can be difficult to recognise from inside the business.
That same approach shapes Connect Over a Cuppa. Edward brings together people with very different experiences and draws out the decisions, mistakes and lessons behind their stories, so you can decide what is relevant – and useful – to your own business.
The aim is simple: better conversations, different perspectives and practical ideas that make you think differently about your own business.