True Potential: Pathway to Progress
True Potential unveils Pathway to Progress with Rt Hon Justine Greening
Financial technology firm True Potential has today unveiled a new action plan to increase access to career opportunities in financial services, in partnership with former Secretary of State for Education, Rt Hon Justine Greening.
The plan sets out a series of ambitions that True Potential will work towards in the wake of Covid-19 with the aim of ensuring that more people are able to progress in careers, unhindered by their background or lack of connections.
Last month True Potential, which employs 300 people, announced that it had recruited 60 new starters after months of strong growth, in what is set to be the firm’s best financial year on record.
The launch of Pathway to Progress is the next phase of True Potential’s mission to open up financial services to more people.
True Potential is one of a pioneering group of UK businesses and universities aiming to set a new and higher standard on boosting social mobility in Britain, with boardroom focus on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues.
The firm’s chairman, David Harrison, cofounded the Social Mobility Pledge in 2018 with Justine Greening after she left the Government. He also chairs the Harrison Centre for Social Mobility (HCSM).
HCSM operates across the UK and is based at the Beacon of Light in Sunderland, where young people learn key employability skills.
True Potential’s Opportunity Action Plan, entitled Pathway to Progress, was unveiled today during an online launch event where Justine Greening, David Harrison and True Potential’s chief executive, Daniel Harrison, discussed the steps the business will now take to help the UK to build back better from the effects of Covid-19.
Justine Greening said:
“Levelling up our country is a challenge that needs a national effort and it’s one that businesses and universities rallying around. Social mobility happens in schools, universities and workplaces and True Potential is well versed in harnessing this collaborative approach to improve social mobility.
“Its work with the Harrison Centre at the Beacon of Light in Sunderland, for example, shows what can be achieved when a highly successful business that is an opportunity creator teams up with community stakeholders to identify and nurture talent from traditionally hard-to-reach places.
“The sports and education facility is home to the Harrison Centre for Social Mobility, the charitable arm of True Potential created by its chairman David Harrison and chief executive, Daniel Harrison. Every year it works with hundreds of young people to provide the tuition and training they need to help them grow in confidence and secure a job.
“The UK-wide work David Harrison and I have witnessed since we co-founded the Social Mobility Pledge in 2018 gives me great optimism that Pledge signatories will continue their efforts to close the opportunity gap.”
True Potential’s chairman David Harrison added:
“This report comes amid great economic turbulence, with some employers and employees unable to operate in current conditions.
“It is also imperative, however, that efforts to continue driving up social mobility are not postponed until brighter times. In fact, the pay-offs that come from supporting social mobility are exactly what businesses and indeed the country need right now.
“That’s why I’m proud to be launching our Opportunity Action plan today. It sets out how we intend to develop the pathway we have created between the Harrison Centre and True Potential to give more people a route into working in financial services.”
True Potential was one of the first signatories to the Pledge, which asks businesses and universities to commit to levelling up Britain by partnering with local schools, offering apprenticeships and using open and fair recruitment practices.
More than 550 organisations representing over 7 million people have now signed the Social Mobility Pledge.