Co-Managing Director and Co-Owner, People Puzzles

Helen Stenhouse is Co-MD and Co-Owner of People Puzzles, the UK’s largest and most experienced team of fractional, strategic People Directors. She’s deeply focused on driving brilliant outcomes for growing businesses, with a firm belief that when you get the people in a business right, it sets the whole business up for success.

In its 16-year history, People Puzzles has helped over 1,000 business leaders accelerate their growth, embedding experienced, board-level People Directors part-time into ambitious organisations across the UK. The model gives owner-managed, scaling and established businesses access to senior HR expertise in a flexible, convenient way, enabling excellence across culture, leadership, structure and performance, without the cost or risk of a full-time hire. From its inception in 2010, the 80+ strong People Puzzles team works across the UK covering all sectors and spanning start-ups to PE-backed, family-owned to global enterprise businesses.

Helen is known across the business for her energy, creativity and drive. She’s spent her career convinced that the health of the UK’s SMEs matters far beyond their own four walls: when businesses grow well, they create jobs, build careers and strengthen local economies. That belief sits behind everything People Puzzles does, and behind why she’s so glad to support The Entrepreneurs Network’s members and their work.

Why do you support the work of The Entrepreneurs Network?

Entrepreneurs need people in their corner, not just cheering them on but actually getting into the room with the people who make the rules. That’s what The Entrepreneurs Network does so well — they make sure the voice of business owners actually reaches Parliament, not just the press release. Entrepreneurs create businesses which are the backbone of the British economy, but I’ve spent my career watching brilliant business owners get so consumed by building their business that they never get a seat at that table to create more opportunity for all. The Entrepreneurs Network gives them that voice, and that really matters to me.

Why is the UK an attractive place to grow a business?

The UK has an extraordinary depth of entrepreneurial ambition: people who are willing to back themselves and build something from nothing. What’s often underestimated is how much of that ambition succeeds or stalls on the people side of the business: the leadership, the culture, the team you build around you. The businesses that get that right are the ones that turn UK ambition into UK growth. That’s the gap we exist to close and I never tire of that feeling of excitement watching a business scale successfully because it really put its people front and centre.