Emergent Thinkers™

There is something quietly powerful about standing in a room full of young people at the start of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The atmosphere carries that early sense of possibility, the awareness that futures are still taking shape, and the feeling that anything could become a turning point. Today, I had the privilege of helping open the celebrations at NPTC Group’s Afan Campus, invited by Elliot Aston, whose commitment to creating meaningful opportunities for learners is as warm as it is genuine.

The students I met were 16 to 18 year olds from a rich mixture of pathways from construction and plumbing through to creative subjects from hair and beauty to name a few. Each brought their own strengths, their own uncertainties, and their own emerging sense of direction. The room reflected the reality of modern enterprise more faithfully than any single definition ever could.

This year’s GEW theme feels timely. It reminds us that enterprise is not only about start ups or giant leaps. It is about how we respond to the world as it shifts. It is about problem solving, adaptability, curiosity, and the ability to create value in ways that matter. It is about noticing the skills you already rely on and understanding how they can shape your future path.

As a Big Ideas Wales Role Model, this is the message I return to often. Enterprise grows through lived experience as much as through formal learning. Many of the skills that shaped my own journey developed in places I never expected, including the time I spent working with a rescued elephant called Lao Tong. That experience taught me patience, attentiveness, trust building, and the capacity to stay steady in moments of uncertainty, and those lessons have travelled with me ever since.

I shared parts of this journey in and amongst my wider Enterprise portfolio, not as a map to follow, but as an invitation to notice their own strengths. Careers rarely move in straight lines. They grow through experience, reflection, responsibility, challenge, and the willingness to keep learning. The group brought honesty, humour, careful attention, and a curiosity that stayed with me long after leaving the room.

My pictures from my elephant trainer days sparked plenty of conversation, and one student even spotted a little Winona Ryder resemblance, which still makes me smile, a lot!.

A heartfelt thank you to Elliot Aston, clearly a dedicated enterprise and employability officer with oodles of passion, creativity, and warmth. These students are in very good hands. It was also lovely to engage with the wider NPTC College staff today. The welcome was wonderful and the enthusiasm palpable. I very much hope to return.

Felicity

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