Jackie Jenks from Lloyds Banking Group has been recognised for her contribution to enterprise support for small businesses by winning the Enterprise Ambassador award at the Celebrating Enterprise event at the House of Lords on 23rd October 2014.

Jackie has been a driving force in the implementation of numerous programmes to train and deploy good quality enterprise mentors for new and growing businesses. This support has been a critical success factor amongst the businesses it's reached.

Her energy and enthusiasm has also led to her creating the National Corporate Mentoring Network, which has the potential to enable hundreds, if not thousands, more small businesses to be able to access this invaluable source of support.

Ruth Lowbridge, Executive Chair of SFEDI and IOEE, said:

"Jackie has shown herself to be a true Enterprise Ambassador through her work in ensuring that enterprise mentoring forms a key part of the business support offered to small and micro businesses throughout the UK. She now leads the National Corporate Mentoring Network with energy and enthusiasm, ensuring large public and private sector organisations understand the benefits of enterprise mentoring for both their own staff and the wider small business communities. Jackie has gone above and beyond to support the enterprise mentoring cause always inspiring us with her infectious enthusiasm".

Jackie has been instrumental in implementing the Business Finance Taskforce (BFT) mentoring initiative, a nation-wide programme set up by the five major high street banks and the British Bankers’ Association with the aim of helping the economy return to sustainable growth by training industry professionals to share their skills and experience with entrepreneurs.

Lloyds Banking Group has pledged 20,000 hours of time to the initiative and has more trained Enterprise mentoring volunteers than any other bank, including staff from across the company from senior management to specialist finance departments.

Jackie said of her award win on the day:

"I am delighted to have received this award as it is a very real thank you from an organisation that has an exemplar track record of impact and results in enterprise support.

It means a lot to me as I can share that thank you with all the external and internal teams including our 400 fantastic mentor volunteers that have made the mentoring work the success it is.

I hope it will also mean more people see the value of supporting SMEs with mentoring with the results that this collaborative work achieves.”