Graham Clarke

The start-up, headed by Graham Clarke, a licensed business coach with 10 years’ experience working with Blue-Chip global brands and 10 years’ experience in the Scottish SME community, received a significant flexible business loan and an additional overdraft facility from HSBC UK to support with initial costs and working capital.

The funding will enable Mr Clarke to hold complimentary coaching sessions online for the Edinburgh business community – a project that is very important to him – whilst growing a regular client base.

ActionCoach provides business education and strategic coaching to SMEs. The training model aims to break down complex business principles and put them into easy bitesize chunks.

Graham Clarke, managing director at ActionCoach, said: “I am excited to build Edinburgh’s largest coaching organisation over the next five years with multiple coaches employed to look after the growing needs of the SME community. This is more important than ever as we navigate the current climate and post-pandemic era. I greatly appreciate the attentive support from HSBC UK which has made this possible.”

Kasim Jaffer, relationship manager at HSBC UK, added: “This investment is with the future at front of mind. Graham is eager to help business owners to work fewer hours, get better results from their teams and increase profits, irrespective of sector.

“We are delighted to support ActionCoach with its expansion in Scotland and look forward to seeing the business flourish in Edinburgh.”

ActionCoach, which was first established in Australia in 1993, is now in 80 countries and has 1000 coaches worldwide.