Sarah Skelton is the co-founder and managing director of Flourish, a recruitment firm for the sales industry.
She started her first business in 2024 aged 46, and is concerned that founders in their 20s may miss out on valuable leadership and management skills that may be best learned in a traditional work environment.
“It’s great that in this day and age you can set up a business quite quickly. But I think you have to have lived experiences to be really strong at that leadership piece, which is the quite critical bit here,” says London-based Ms Skelton.
She’s the co-founder and managing director of Flourish, a recruitment firm for the sales industry.
“Also when you’re growing a business, leaning on people in a network is really important. But of course, if you’re super young and you’re going straight into this, where’s your network?
She adds: “My network is 25 years of placing candidates, selling to different businesses, working across different countries. It’s really tough when you’re that young. How do you know who to lean on and where to find those people?”