THE CELEBRATE DIFFERENCE TEAM

Before self-employment, Nicola’s career was centered in training, as a primary school lead for nursery and reception children, and as a SENDCo. Following the launch of her first business in 2008, Nicola has worked extensively across the North East offering mentoring, training, and business support to 1000s of micro-business owners. She launched MINT Business Club in November 2017 and bought the HUB Consett, to house all the businesses in October 2022! Her passion is equity and making a difference for someone every day.

With a background in project management, and a varied career including working for the NHS, Newcastle and Durham universities, Laura is our Operations Director and has worked across many sectors, including publishing, leisure and tourism, retail, and hospitality. Her passion is for helping people, and she’s a time management and productivity expert, a process management queen, and has run her own consultancy business since 2017. Her superpower is really listening to people and understanding what they need, especially when they may not even know themselves. According to her neurodiverse son, her other superpowers are atomic breath (think Godzilla)  and love – which is pretty awesome too.

Donna has a wealth of experience managing retail environments and as such manages the operational aspects of our HQ, The HUB Consett, as well as offering support to our clients.

Joanne’s love of numbers and data means she is perfect at tracking everything that happens in our organisation as well as keeping the team on track! She is currently studying for her accountancy qualifications and is determined to have them completed very quickly!

Holly has a natural gift talking of people and making them feel included and accepted. Currently, you can find her on Instagram Reeling away and in The HUB Consett shop.

From engineering, to teaching, to silversmithing: it’s fair to say Clare Edwin has had a varied career. It was only when she found silversmithing in 2016 that she really felt she found the right fit. Having been a part of Nicola’s MINT community since the beginning, her business, Handmade by LollaMac, has flourished. Knowing the challenges of working with an undiagnosed condition gives Clare an understanding of the issues and concerns that clients of Celebrate Difference, and the wider community face. Clare is an amazing addition to the team, and is determined to help others access support, seek diagnosis, and understand their perceived limitations.

You can find Emily based in the HUB working in the shop and cafe and supporting the events for Celebrate Difference, MINT Business Club and our external clients.