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Cardiff Business School

Help to Grow: Management Course

This programme supports senior managers of small and medium-sized businesses to boost their businesses’ performance resilience and long-term growth.

Book your place

Business leaders can take part in this 12-module Help to Grow: Management Course around existing work commitments, accessing  learning through practical, fully face-to-face workshops.

The programme is 90% subsidised by the UK Government, costing business owners only £750 (less than £65 per week) for the full programme.

At Cardiff Business School, the world's first public value business school, accredited with the Small Business Charter, we are proud to deliver this practical management training programme.

The Small Business Charter is an award that recognises the high-quality, tailored guidance provided to support small businesses and their local economy.

Book your place: Our next cohort is on 30 September 2026. Book your place on the Small Business Charter portal.

Lead with Purpose and Confidence

Since its launch in July 2021, the Help to Grow: Management Course has delivered incredible national impact in Wales and the wider UK, celebrating over 10,000 course completions from more than 13,300 enrolled business leaders.

Independent evaluations from Ipsos UK confirm the course's transformative effect, with 91% of participants reporting improved leadership and management skills.

The programme is also championing diversity in business, with 39% of participants being female leaders, more than double the national average for SME leadership, and 14% from ethnic minority backgrounds. Due to this overwhelming success, the UK Government has renewed its commitment to funding the course until 2029.

Help to Grow... “helped me to get a greater understanding of aspects of my business I had not explored before. This in turn has helped me develop new products and streamline what we are currently doing.” – Hannah Simpson, HLS Accounting Ltd
Hannah grew her turnover by 20% and developed new digital accounting products following the programme

“I gained more confidence to take the risk of doubling down on export markets. I went back to my team with new ideas and led from a better place.”– Patrick Dodds, CEO Technical Sales Director of Hexigone Inhibitors Limited
Patrick recently secured £2m of equity and saw export sales grow by 500%

Watch Lisa Hicks, founder of SNOAP, explain how Cardiff Business School experts helped her flip her marketing strategy on its head and discover a breadth of knowledge she hadn't even considered.

Watch Lisa Hicks, founder of SNOAP

The programme

Help to Grow: Management is built around a practical curriculum which features:

  • practical face-to-face workshops, including bespoke case study sessions
  • one-to-one support from business mentor, providing you with personalised support to develop your business growth plan
  • peer networking, including peer group calls organised by the Programme Facilitator - the calls will allow you to share experiences with a small group of other small business leaders
  • access to the Alumni Programme featuring events with inspirational speakers, business clinics and networking events.

The programme will cover key areas of leadership, including:

  • Strategy and Innovation
  • Digital Transformation
  • Winning New Markets
  • Vision, Mission and Values
  • Developing a Marketing Strategy
  • Building a Brand
  • Organisational Design
  • Employee Engagement and Leading Change
  • High Performance Workplace
  • Effective Operations
  • Finance and Financial Management
  • Implementing Growth Plans

Eligibility

To join the Help to Grow: Management Course, your business must:

  • be a Small or Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) or a social enterprise with a commercial arm based in the United Kingdom
  • from any business sector, employing between 5 and 249 people
  • have been operational for at least one year
  • not be a charity

To join the Help to Grow: Management Course, the applicant must:

  • be a senior decision maker, such as Chief Executive, Finance Director, Operations Director, etc.
  • have at least one direct report
  • commit to completing all sessions

(If your business employs between 10 and 249 people, you can send up to two participants on the course. For more information, read the FAQs).

Help to Grow: Management is delivered by industry experts at Cardiff University. Join us to learn how to enhance your management and strategic capabilities, develop your value proposition, embed innovation into your business practice, products, and services, improve employee engagement, and, importantly, understand how to build resilience for future economic shocks through improved market, financial and technological support.

Book your place

Our next cohort is launching on 30 September 2026. Book your place now.

Contact us

We look forward to meeting and learning more about how we can support you and your business. Please email us at help2grow@cardiff.ac.uk.

Our Help to Grow: Management team is led by Jane Lynch (Programme Director), and with Danielle James (Programme Manager) and delivered by academic discipline experts from Cardiff Business School.