In September, MyBnk team CEO Lily LaPenna, Head of Expansion, Melanie Robinson and COO Manfred Mayer spent the morning touring Ben's Cookies with VPF Contact Point Chris Moffat, Managing Director of Ben's Cookies. Chris shared valuable lessons from his franchising experiences and quality control. Melanie Robinson shared her thoughts on the day.
"Our conversation moved quickly from breakfast habits around the world to the matter at hand - learning how Chris had taken Ben's Cookies from a handful of cookie shops in southern England to a much loved brand with operations in four countries on three continents.
Chris opened up his world to us and we had a fantastic day. We met numerous members of his staff who were also very generous with their time. Insights from the team who have set up their overseas businesses were particularly helpful - from how to sift through the hundreds of franchisee requests they get and how to incentivise your franchisees once they are up and running, to the cultural misunderstanding that occur. Also seeing that Ben's Cookies operating manual runs to no more than 30 pages was a real demonstration on focussing on the essentials.
The afternoon saw us returning from the Oxfordshire cookie factory (no rivers of chocolate I am sad to report) to central London where we'd brought together a panel of supporters, many from the VPF community, to help thrash our our international strategy. This proved to be very insightful and provided much food for thought as we start our work to take MyBnk across the world.
Overall the day helped us to focus on what the key success factors will be in MyBnk's expansion. It has reinforced our commitment to keeping things simple and gave us the reassurance that whilst working across countries won't always be easy, we can get there in the end."
Monday, December 5, 2011 at 02:00PM 
was 'Bond' Rally 007. Thanks to our generous sponsors Barclay's Captial and SVG Capital, VPF shared an exciting evening of fun, entertainment and a tribute to the inspiring social entrepreneurs and ventures backed by VPF and all of their achievements. With the help of our guests we raised a record £260k for the VPF Portfolio!