Yesterday we had the pleasure of welcoming back to school alumna Becky Baker (OG, 2000). She delivered a GEM lecture to Year 10 students on the rewards and challenges of becoming an entrepreneur. 

She detailed her path from university, working her way up the legal and tech ladder, before taking a leap of faith and launching her own business, K9 Nation. Becky gave students invaluable insight into the process of launching a business, such as the different methods of gaining investment, launching a minimum viable product, producing pitches to Angel investors, balancing risk versus reward.

Throughout the lecture Becky delivered some great advice to students. One message was that students shouldn’t be scared to make mistakes as this is inevitable. Instead, students should ‘fail fast and learn quickly’. Recognise your mistakes, and learn from them and change your tack.

Another piece of advice Becky gave was ‘to always conduct yourself as a Wakefield Girls’ girl’, as it is a small world and you never know who you might meet again in the future. She gave a hilarious anecdote of how she competed in a ‘Miss Leeds’ pageant whilst she was a student in university, and someone who was a judge in that competition is now in the Leeds Tech industry and she sees them often at networking events and meetings – so it is great that she conducted herself well all those years ago! 

To conclude her lecture, Becky encouraged students to always strive for their goals, stating ‘you might be disappointed if you fail, but you’ll be doomed if you don’t try’; an extremely valuable message that we hope our students keep in mind. 

Thank you once again to Becky for returning to school to speak with students.

Mr D Eggleston

Deputy Head, Teaching and Learning