Keanna’s winding route to entrepreneurship (via a Dual Accredited degree)

Few things are more inspiring than a young parent challenging themselves to further their education. 

In September 2023, Keanna Lawrence was ready to quit her business management degree at Solent University. She’d had a young daughter midway through the course. Now her budget was stretched by nursery bills and she was tired of having to ask people to help with childcare. 

But a single coffee with the head of the university’s mentorship programme completely changed her thinking.

“He asked what I wanted to do,” Keanna recalls. “I said I was interested in procurement and project management, but that I’d like to run my own recruitment agency eventually. He said: ‘Why don’t you start one now?’ I just looked at him blankly. I was thinking: ‘I can’t do that.’”

But she could.