A Bright Future
A Russell Group manifesto for the UK
KCL business students supporting London SMEs and charities
17 January 2025
Since 2017/18, King’s Business School (KBS) has run a project which has provided KBS student consultancy support to over 100 SMEs and charities, primarily based in the London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster.
Each year 15 existing businesses, social enterprises or charities are selected to receive consultancy free of charge from talented, ambitious KBS students.
Across the programme, the student consultants receive support in turn from Dr Catherine Tilly, a member of KBS faculty, who was Director of Operations at McKinsey & Company for 14 years.
Support available for participating SMEs includes guidance and access to expertise on wide-ranging topics which support the resilience of growing businesses. Key areas of assistance include HR planning, financial analysis, marketing and social media, and data analysis.
KBS students have offered consultancy businesses operating in a number of fields, including sectors with high growth potential such Digital Health, HealthTech, Smart Manufacturing, Robotics, Gaming, and Education.
Feedback from participating businesses has been uniformly positive, with 100% of SMEs surveyed agreeing KBS students provided useful ideas that have been useful, and that they would recommend the KBS consulting project to other businesses.
