Whoever said that success and experience are linked?

There is a new generation of young entrepreneurs on a mission to create change.

One of the strangest myths to emerge in the last twenty years is that experience is needed to ensure success. Whoever said this was true?

Tony Blair famously noted that his popularity as Prime Minister declined the more competent that he became. Arguably some of the greatest US Presidents were all in their 40s – JFK, Clinton, and Obama.

Yet the average age of a CEO has gone up 15 years in the last 15 years. The average age of someone becoming a board director has gone up twenty years in the last twenty years. Was business so unsuccessful in the 20th Century?

Of course, the answer lies with risk. Investors want to limit risk and therefore are less inclined to invest in young talent. One can debate the rights and wrongs but the pandemic is seeing a new set of young entrepreneurs set to challenge and wanting to create change. Without a doubt, it is far harder today to set up a business than it was twenty years ago. Procurement processes are stricter and almost an extra barrier to every entrepreneur. It is as though business is now afraid of both risk and innovation. There have been no few companies commenting privately just how little their own businesses have innovated in the last 5 years; now that the market is changing, they can see that their senior teams are struggling to accept innovation. Have models become so dominant over thinking about service and the customer?

Young entrepreneurs face a huge challenge but they are taking on the challenge with gusto – and better still they possess a real mission to create change. In the old days, so many entrepreneurs founded businesses to build their own lives, to be independent of corporate structures. Many of today’s young entrepreneurs have a real mission on top.

The 2020’s could be a new golden age. Some compare it to the 1920s but it will very different as there is a whole new world emerging. It is reported that 30% of UK adults do not drink; that 66% wish to reduce their drinking. It is reported that over 33m in the UK want to play a bigger role within their communities and 24m want to see real change in sustainability.

The 2020s will be an era of change for a healthier, more conscious lifestyle. It bears no comparison to the 1920s.

However, maybe the real question to reflect upon is; why are we not trusting in the young so much anymore? Are the experienced so wise? And if so, why were so many disengaged that are wanting to create change themselves?