Building stronger leaders through Workplace Mentoring
Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance became the first group organisation to complete the ABM Workplace Coaching and Mentoring Accreditation. They have successfully achieved the ABM accreditation as having an Established coaching and mentoring culture and have demonstrated how structured mentoring can strengthen leadership, improve team culture and create measurable business confidence.
Pete Wortley, ABM’s Workplace Coaching and mentoring Advisor, developed the model and the accreditation to support organisations to develop a coaching and mentoring culture and recognise those who have successfully achieved this.
According to Pete: “This is an incredible result from a dynamic, growing Leadership team very few organisations will achieve this standard first time around. The commitment to transforming their culture into one which is based on coaching and mentoring rather than command and control has been amazing and the results demonstrate the impact of this along with a pathway to develop further. Well done Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance Group, you should be really proud of your achievements so far”
The Achievement
Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance are, as a group, two high-performing, fast-paced businesses with ambitious plans, a growing leadership team and a culture that cares deeply about its people.
They have become the first group organisation to complete the ABM Workplace Coaching and Mentoring Accreditation, having successfully achieved the ABM accreditation as having an Established coaching and mentoring culture. Demonstrating how structured mentoring can strengthen leadership, improve team culture and create measurable business confidence.
The Challenge: Building the organisational structure, leadership capability and culture required to support sustainable growth as the business moves beyond its founder-led stage.
Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance were growing quickly. With nearly 60 people across the group, an expanding senior leadership team and the integration of Apollo into the wider structure, the businesses needed leadership capability that could scale with them.
Over the past five years, both businesses have experienced significant growth. Client numbers, employee headcount and funds deployed have all increased substantially, creating additional workload across every area of the organisation. This expansion has taken place during a period of wider economic pressure and rising costs.
Despite those pressures, Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance have consistently delivered average year-on-year growth in profit before tax (PBT) of 20% or more for the last five years.
That performance reflects more than commercial momentum. It shows the group’s ability to scale with discipline, resilience and focus.
For fast-growing businesses, leadership development is not a nice-to-have. It is the difference between growth that stretches people and growth that strengthens them.
The question for Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance was how to turn good intent into something more embedded, more consistent and more visible across the group.
Leadership Journey
For Lizzie Williams, who progressed from Operations Director to Group Managing Director during the mentoring journey, the challenge was both personal and organisational.
As Group Managing Director for Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance, Lizzie needed to lead a growing group while ensuring that leadership responsibility did not sit too heavily with a small number of senior people.
Like many senior leaders, Lizzie began from a place of healthy scepticism. Mentoring had to prove its value. It needed to be practical, relevant and commercially useful – not theoretical.
The shift came through experience. Mentoring became a space for reflection, challenge and confidence-building. It helped Lizzie step further into senior leadership, while also creating capacity around her.
In a fast-paced group, the CEO or MD cannot be the only outlet for reflection, problem-solving or difficult decisions. Sustainable growth requires leadership strength across the team.
Mentoring helped create that strength. Instead of every issue escalating upwards, leaders began to build the confidence to own problems, explore solutions and make better decisions closer to the work.
Starting at the top, then cascading through the businesses
Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance made a deliberate decision to begin mentoring with the senior leaders.
The programme was not positioned as a remedial intervention. It was believed to be an investment in leadership maturity, confidence and shared responsibility across both businesses.
Lizzie’s mentoring relationship with Justine Upton became an important foundation, reinforcing one of the most important principles of effective mentoring: chemistry matters, and trust matters.
From there, mentoring extended across the senior leadership team – including the Sales Director, Commercial Director and other key leaders. Seven senior leaders are now being mentored, creating a ripple effect through both businesses.
This investment has been essential to scaling at pace while maintaining strong profitability. Mentoring has enabled the group to build the next layer of leadership, empowering managers to take greater responsibility for day-to-day operations and decision-making.
That shift allows Directors to focus more of their time on strategic priorities, long-term direction and business-wide challenges, rather than becoming involved in individual client matters.
Confidence, capacity and shared ownership
One of the clearest outcomes has been leadership growth.
Mentoring has helped senior leaders develop greater confidence, clearer communication and stronger decision-making in fast-paced commercial and competitive situations. It has also reduced leadership bottlenecks by giving people a confidential, structured space to think through challenges before escalating them.
For Lizzie, that has created real operational value. More issues are being resolved within the team, allowing her to focus more time on strategic growth rather than absorbing every day-to-day challenge.
This is where workplace mentoring becomes commercially powerful. It does not simply make people feel supported. It helps the business work better.
Reduced bottlenecks: Leaders now have a confidential, structured space to think through challenges before escalating them. More issues are resolved within the team, freeing senior leaders to focus on strategic growth.
Greater accountability: Managers are better equipped to handle individual client matters, lead their teams and resolve challenges without every decision escalating to the Directors.
Modelled vulnerability: When senior leaders show it is acceptable to ask questions, admit uncertainty and explore better answers, others follow. Openness has created stronger leadership behaviours across the group – not through instruction, but through modelling.
One practical mindset has become especially powerful across both businesses: don’t just bring a problem, bring the fix.
Simple idea. Big cultural signal.
Team Impact - Better conversations and faster problem-solving
Perhaps the most visible cultural shift has been in the quality of conversations.
Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance have seen a meaningful move towards more open, curious and honest dialogue. Difficult conversations are no longer avoided or delayed in the same way. They are becoming part of normal business practice.
Difficult conversations are often where culture is really tested. Within six months, the senior leadership team had made significant progress in its ability to have direct, constructive conversations.
The teams are not just talking more. They are talking better.
That matters commercially.
Better conversations reduce delay, improve accountability and allow decisions to move faster. In a growing group, that creates real operational value.
Culture & Accreditation - From supportive intent to accredited proof
Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance already believed they had a positive culture. The accreditation process helped prove it.
For Lizzie, one of the most valuable parts of the ABM Workplace Coaching and Mentoring Accreditation was the impartial evidence it provided. It showed that the culture was not only experienced by the leadership team but also recognised more widely across the group.
Full staff participation in the feedback process gave the accreditation real weight. People made time to contribute despite busy schedules, reinforcing the authenticity of the result.
That external validation has given the group a tangible proof point. Mentoring is not just a leadership belief or internal claim – it is something embedded enough to be assessed, recognised and celebrated.
For Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance, the accreditation has become a visible symbol of the group’s commitment to people development.
Employer Brand - Attracting people who want to grow
The accreditation has also strengthened the external positioning of Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance.
In a sector where structured mentoring is still uncommon, the businesses now have a clear point of difference.
Structured mentoring demonstrates serious investment in people, leadership and culture – not just through words, but through action.
Recruiters have responded positively, describing the mentoring approach as a “breath of fresh air”. This is particularly compelling for senior candidates who are seeking genuine growth environments, not just another role.
It also signals values alignment. Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance are businesses where leaders are expected to grow, reflect and develop others. That attracts people who want to contribute to a culture of development, responsibility and long-term success.
In a competitive employment market, the ability to demonstrate a genuine mentoring culture is a valuable and tangible distinction.
Looking Ahead - A platform for continuous improvement
Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance are clear that accreditation is not the end point. It is a platform.
The feedback gathered through the process has highlighted areas for further improvement, and the leadership team has already started acting on those insights.
The ambition is to keep building. The leadership team aims to achieve ABM’s highest Transformational level of accreditation when reassessment comes round.
There are also plans to share the outcomes more widely with the management team and investors, using the accreditation as both a celebration and a catalyst for continued commitment.
The long-term ambition is to build businesses that can scale sustainably. Making a strategic investment in mentoring and developing future leaders has been a key factor in supporting that growth, strengthening organisational resilience and positioning both businesses to achieve their long-term objectives.
Summary & Key Takeaways
What Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance have shown
The experience of Team Factors and Apollo Business Finance demonstrates the wider value of workplace mentoring when it is embedded properly – as a serious lever for leadership, culture and business growth, not a soft initiative.
For individual leaders: Mentoring helps leaders grow in confidence, develop clearer communication and build stronger decision-making capability.
For stronger teams: Improved communication, reduced bottlenecks and more natural accountability have strengthened performance across both businesses
For commercial performance: Consistent average year-on-year PBT growth of 20% or more over five years has been supported by the leadership capacity that mentoring has helped build.
For credible proof: ABM accreditation provides external, impartial validation of a people-first culture – giving both businesses a benchmark to build from and a point of difference in the market.
