Award-winning entrepreneur Marian Evans launches membership platform for personal and professional growth

Evans, whose business success led her to buy Llansteffan Castle, has designed the new offering to cultivate wellbeing alongside business skills.

Marian Evans, the business leader, entrepreneur and executive coach who famously bought Llansteffan Castle in West Wales, has launched a new membership platform designed to equip its members with the key ingredients for personal and business success.

A new offering from Marian’s Elevate consultancy business, the membership platform is built on Marian’s belief that success is not just about developing hard business skills in areas such as leadership, negotiation and management. Personal development – working on everything from imposter syndrome to mental and physical wellness – matters just as much.

“My own business journey, and my work as an executive coach, have taught me that you need to balance personal and business development to reach your full potential,” she says. “Success is not just about being hardworking or having a great business idea. You also need self-awareness and resilience. Elevate aims to cultivate the whole package.”

Winner of Inspirational Woman of the Decade (WIB Awards) and Mentor of the Year (WIFA Awards), Marian Evans is a multi-award-winning business owner, Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management and Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, Director, and Non-Executive Director.

With a background in financial services, she climbed the ranks to become one of the industry’s youngest people to be both a Chartered Insurer and Chartered Broker responsible for a book of business of £58million.

She’s also a formidable property investor who has been buying and selling properties since the age of 18. She hit the headlines in 2020 when it was revealed that four years previously she had secretly bought Llansteffan Castle, which she used to explore as a child.

“Elevate isn’t just built on my own business knowledge and experience,” says Marian. “I’m hugely excited by the calibre of the expert team we have assembled to deliver coaching, support and courses for our members.”

Among others, they include:

• TV presenter and journalist Andrea Byrne, who anchors the BAFTA award-winning news programme Wales at Six and the ITV weekend news.

• Stuart Arthur, who has founded, scaled and successfully exited successful technology businesses and won many industry awards – he was included in the CIO 100, BIMA 100, BCS CIO of the Year Finals, and is part of the prestigious Forbes Technology Council.

• Dr Nerys Llewelyn Jones, who founded her own niche legal practice in rural Wales when she was just 30, now employs 30 people across Wales and England, and is a leading UK agricultural lawyer.

• Professor Dylan Jones Evans MBE, the founder of the National Start-Up Awards and the UK Fast Growth Fifty index.

• Dr Amy Schacaluga, a pioneer in the holistic approach to healthcare with expertise as both a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and Lifestyle Medicine physician.

Elevate members get access to a huge range of discounted courses, live masterclass sessions and Q&As, plus an exclusive library of content including articles and podcasts. They can learn from each other in the Elevate private members’ forum and community, and access exclusive monthly Elevate resources.

Depending on their level of membership, they can also access other benefits including a place on the Elevate Transformation Leadership Course, exclusive executive coaching sessions, opportunities to guest on podcasts, and invitations to exclusive private networking events at the Llansteffan Estate.

Elevate offers both individual and corporate membership and is aimed at anyone seeking to achieve and sustain greater personal and business success.

“From CEOs who feel exposed in the role, to people who are navigating their way as business founders, and from employees who want to climb the career ladder to business leaders who are being called on to deliver new strategies, board excellence reviews or public speeches, we offer an extraordinary support network that will provide inspiration, fresh ideas, advice and support every step of the way,” says Marian.