Rachel Jones

National child gymnast to multi-national award winning business woman!

Rachel Jones is one of Cornwall & Isles of Scilly’s high profile serial entrepreneurs having successfully owned successful businesses in childcare, retail, catering, business development and enterprise.

Rachel is the Founder and CEO of the award winning childcare company Fit N Fun Kids, providing high quality childcare throughout the South West, employing over fifty women at its peak, supporting working families and is integral to the Young Mums Will Achieve Initiative. As an organisation, Fit N Fun Kids has achieved multiple national awards and recognition in a county that is known as one of the most deprived counties in Europe and prides much of the organisational success on the commitment of extensive training from Apprenticeships to bespoke Leadership & Management programmes and graduate recruitment. Fit N Fun Kids as the only childcare provider in the UK with the Gold accreditation of Investors in People.

Rachel launched this company over 16 years ago. Faced with a lack of funding, she sold her family home to invest in the start-up in a challenging sector that often struggles across the UK. From a rocky start, Fit N Fun Kids is now one of Cornwall’s biggest success stories.

From this successful company, Rachel became known as a key driver for change in Cornwall & Isles of Scilly and so created Leading Women UK and the Enterprise Foundation South West - both not for profit CIC’s. Giving her time voluntarily and encouraging others to follow and support, she brought in over £0.5 million of private sector funding through benefit in kind.

Rachel strives to find solutions that support the female agenda, inspiration agenda - aimed at young people; and vulnerable families (focusing on well-being, enterprise and employment).

In 2011, Rachel was invited by Vince Cable as one of fifty employers to attend an Apprenticeship Consultation in London. In 2014, Rachel was asked to feed into the Burt Report – Inclusive Support for Women in Enterprise, published in 2015.

In 2015, Rachel successfully delivered the Government led Enterprise Advisor Pilot on behalf of the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership. This stemmed from consulting directly with BIS and Lord Young’s Enterprise For All, which led to Rachel and her team successfully receiving a grant of £100k as one of 5 pilot areas. This team was the only private sector led team in the country. They over-reached on all targets and were asked to feedback directly to the DfE Careers & Enterprise Company, now responsible for the national programme roll out.

Being aware of the key challenges, together with data and potential solutions for the female agenda, inspiration agenda and raising aspiration of the most vulnerable, Rachel has provided consultancy and mentoring, encouraging women, young people, the hard to engage and the most vulnerable to become more enterprising, thrive and achieve in life as well as those at the start up stages of their business.

Rachel has overcome personal challenges such as juggling childcare, supporting a parent with dementia and a husband with a permanent mental health disability (PTSD); a child through severe bullying, and overcoming personal barriers, such as lack of skill, investment and many more whilst setting up several successful businesses in one of Europe’s poorest counties. Rachel can speak first hand on how drive, determination and a can-do attitude ensures that, no matter what background you come from and barriers you face along the way, you can achieve great things.