The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Fife social enterprise has Zest for success
Lisa Cathro’s café provides a friendly, inclusive workplace
Q. How and why did you start in business?
I was managing Zest in its original form 12 years ago when the owners decided to sell it.
I had no experience owning a business, but just went for it.
Q. How did you get to where you are today?
By making every mistake in the book. The important thing is that we survived those mistakes and learned from them. I didn’t set out for it to be a social enterprise – it happened organically. When we were asked to take people on work experience I found helping others also helped me to address my own experiences of abuse.
We did more and we learned more. I realised this was what I was passionate about, that we should embrace it and make it our core purpose.
Q. Who else has helped you along the way?
I consider myself very lucky to have excellent mentors and a strong family. Ian Hunt from Training Solutions has been integral to developing the team’s coaching skills, allowing us to provide good-quality placement training. Cameron Harrison, associate minister at The Holy Trinity Church, has always supported me both personally and professionally.
He taught me how to navigate those difficult conversations required when experiencing challenging behaviour. Most of all, the current and former Zest team members who have always been there through the hard times as well as the good times.
Q. What was your biggest mistake?
I was very naive when I started.
I didn’t have enough business knowledge or understand my financials enough. Helping people quickly became the most important thing for me and profit second. Now I’m at Dundee University doing a graduate apprenticeship in business management.
If we’re not profitable, we can’t help more people.
Q. What is your greatest achievement to date?
Awards are nice and we’ve won many. But the greatest achievement is knowing that we, as a team, have had a positive impact on a person’s life.
We’ve helped a lot of people out of some very dark times and shown people they can achieve more than they thought possible. Seeing our team and work placements overcome their barriers and excel is the greatest reward for me.
It makes the hard work worthwhile. We couldn’t achieve half as much as we do without the support and understanding of our customers
Q. What do you hope to achieve in the future?
Having made my mistakes, and learned from them, I now want to move into consultancy work – helping other businesses to avoid those pitfalls.
I’d also like to continue promoting the benefits of employing people with additional support needs and educate businesses on how to implement this and support their teams better.
Q. What is the hardest thing about running your own business?
Time, and being able to step away/switch off. I care about my people and want to be there for them.