Dawn Duggan

Dawn has over 25 years of experience in developing, implementing, and evaluating organisational development, incorporating business strategy and skills development for businesses – ranging from executive level to apprenticeships – in line with national, regional, and local policy.

Skilled in understanding and interpreting the needs of businesses in relation to organisational support, training and development, Dawn has delivered multiple complex projects across numerous geographical areas, including the national Be the Business Mentoring programme. 
Working across 16 English regions, with staff based within Local Enterprise Partnerships and Growth Hubs, Dawn spearheaded the programme which recruited and engaged over 500 mentors, establishing more than 1,200 new mentoring relationships.

Dawn also delivered the Peer Networks programmes, a national peer-to-peer networking programme for SME leaders who wanted to grow and develop their organisation for future success.

She is responsible for the continuous design, delivery and evaluation of the People, Skills & Talent programme at GC Business Growth Hub, which includes initiatives such as the Executive Development Programme and Workforce Development. Over the last five years the programmes have worked with more than 1,800 businesses helping to create over 700 jobs and increasing GVA and turnover by around £33m, while the Mentoring programme has over the past decade grown to having a bank of 180 volunteer mentors who have worked with over 600 mentees. 

In addition, Dawn is also responsible for the design and delivery of the £7million Skills for Growth – SME Support Programme, which aims to work with 3,000 SMEs and 15,000 individual employees between October 2020 and March 2023. 

Dawn has executive level coaching and mentoring expertise, as well as project management experience, financial management and a strong track record of ensuring contracts are delivered against targets and on time. She also manages high performing, diverse teams, and excels at stakeholder and partner management, delivering a high quality of service from project inception to evaluation.