Colin Crooks MBE, Business Coach with 35 years Business Leadership & Queen's Award Winner
You don't have to do this alone
You have a vision for what you want to achieve. But right now, it feels out of reach.
With guidance from Colin Crooks MBE, you’ll prioritise what needs doing. Just as importantly, you’ll work out how you can do it. You will discuss the barriers, work through the options, and plan how to overcome each one. As you progress, you’ll build the thriving business you want and become the leader your team needs.
Colin Crooks MBE
I’ve spent 35 years building businesses, and I’ve learned more from what went wrong than what went right.
As a serial social entrepreneur, I’ve founded five award-winning social enterprises that together employed over 1,000 long-term unemployed people and diverted more than 50,000 tonnes of material from landfills.
One of them, Green-Works, received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development.
But behind those achievements were cash flow crises that kept me awake at night, hiring decisions that backfired spectacularly, clients I misread, and strategies that looked brilliant on paper but collapsed in practice.
Each business taught me something new—about planning that works in the real world, about leading people who are complicated humans, about managing money when it’s genuinely tight.
More importantly, I learned to listen. To customers who told me what they actually needed, not what I thought they wanted. To suppliers who understood things I didn’t. And above all, to staff who could see problems I was blind to.
I’ve been able to understand what happened in those difficult moments and bring those lessons to life in ways that can be applied.
In 2012, I captured what I’d learned about working with people from very different backgrounds in my first book, How to Make a Million Jobs, a charter for social enterprise.
I then founded Tree Shepherd, which supported hundreds of disadvantaged people to start their own businesses, and learned even more about what makes the difference between businesses that survive and those that thrive.
In 2019, I was awarded an MBE for Services to Disadvantaged People and the Environment in London.
Since then, I’ve focused on what I do best: distilling what I’ve learnt in ways that are applicable to you and your business.
I can help you see through the confusion and build a better business.
I was absolutely thrilled and deeply honoured to receive an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Greenwich in July 2025.
The university values Inclusivity, Excellence, Determination, Ambition and Creativity, and these shone through from the moment I started my MSc in Environmental Conservation at Greenwich.
Ready to grow with purpose?
Tell me what you need – book a free chat, and we’ll see if I can help
I’m a qualified business coach in London, I deliver the government’s Help to Grow Management programme, host the Stressing Values podcast, and recently published my second book, Prosper with Purpose — Your Essential Guide to a More Balanced and Successful Business Life, written for business owners who want to grow sustainably but with less stress.
I know what it’s like to feel out of your depth, to question whether you’re doing it right, and to wonder if growth is even possible without sacrificing everything else.
That’s why I work the way I do—pragmatic, honest, and focused on what really matters to you. Just as I learned to truly listen to customers, suppliers, and staff, I start by understanding your specific challenges and concerns before we tackle anything else.
You don’t have to do this alone.
Colin’s podcasts get deep into what matters for business owners
In my podcast Stressing Values, a captivating series of interviews, I engage with entrepreneurs from diverse business sectors across the nation, delving into their values and what drives them.
My Environmental Commitment
We’re committed to minimising our environmental impact through practical, meaningful action. Our electricity comes from 100% renewable sources, with 10% of our gas supply also renewable. We minimise energy consumption through a strict switch-off policy, ensuring devices and equipment are turned off when not in use.
We use only recycled paper and prioritise purchasing second-hand capital equipment wherever possible. When buying new, we choose reputable manufacturers known for quality and longevity.
For business travel, we rely on cycling and public transport, using taxis only when necessary for meetings and conferences. We don’t offset our carbon. We focus on not producing it in the first place. Recycling and reuse are embedded in everything we do, and we maximise renewable energy use at every opportunity.
About Intentionality
Ready to grow with purpose?
Tell me what you need – book a free chat, and we’ll see if I can help