Teach First founder - Brett Wigortz - Creating the Largest Public Graduate Recruiter in the UK -

Jimmy's Jobs of the Future

Boxlight Creative Studio

Careers, Business, Technology

5.0 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do you define an entrepreneur? I think this is one of the most interesting questions and one that has serious effects for public policy.Are you an entrepreneur when you start hiring people? Is a freelancer an entrepreneur? Or, in fact, is anyone who starts any organisation an entrepreneur?Brett Wigdortz, today's guest, is a great example of blurring the boundaries of these definitions. He founded Teach First nearly 20 years ago to solve the public policy issue of getting more ambitious graduates to start their careers in teaching. It has been a tremendous success and is still the largest public sector graduate recruiter in the UK. We talk to Brett about the journey of founding Teach First and why now he is aiming to solve the childcare sector with his new venture, Tiney. This is our penultimate episode in our 5th series, with it all culminating next week in our interviews with the candidates to be the next British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. In this episode with Brett we talk about: How being a football referee taught him to ignore others when they’re rude to you. Creating the largest graduate recruiter in the UK- and where did the name Teach First come from? The cultural change that was achieved by Teach First. How he worked with the government to get the project started. The challenge of creating Tiney - and stepping back from such a huge project of Teach First. The latent sexism in addressing early years care. The Airbnb of childcare. Choosing to create a venture-backed company, not a charity- why did he do it differently? Structuring his year off and how to decide what to do next. If Brett was 22 in 2022 where he would choose to work? What does he think his kids will do? The quote he lives by. Subscribe so you don't miss any new episodes, releasing every Wednesday.You can sign up to Jimmy's Substack here for weekly content on the future of work, technology, and politicsFor more information on partnering with us please visit our partnerships page here.Also make sure you subscribe to The Shift, you can find it here on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It seems like everyone is either starting a side hustle or becoming their own boss.
0:06.7	And you know what they're hearing a lot.
0:09.0	It's the sound of another sale on Shopify.
0:11.9	They're all in one commerce platform to start, run and grow your business.
0:16.6	Sign up for a £1 per month trial period at shopify.co.uk, slash sell23, all lower case.
0:24.7	Whether you're selling low-fus or peace lilies, Shopify simplifies selling online and
0:29.2	as in person, covering all sales channels from a shopfront, POS system to its all-in-one
0:35.4	e-commerce platform.
0:37.2	Shopify even gets you selling across social media marketplaces with their 24-7 help and
0:42.5	extensive business course library.
0:44.6	Shopify is ready to support your success every step of the way.
0:48.7	Go to shopify.co.uk slash sell23 to take your business to the next level today.
0:54.9	How do you define an entrepreneur?
1:09.8	I think is one of the most interesting public policy questions out there.
1:13.8	Is it when you start to employ somebody or could you define a freelancer as an entrepreneur?
1:19.9	In fact, anybody who starts any organization could they be defined as entrepreneur or
1:26.4	entrepreneur real?
1:27.7	That's why I think Brett Wigdorff is one of the most fascinating entrepreneurs in the
1:32.0	United Kingdom because he originally started Teach First, which is a company that we have
1:38.3	all heard of.
1:39.6	It was set up to specifically tackle a public policy problem of trying to get more ambitious
1:45.7	people to begin their career in teaching.
	...

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