News Year 7 In-house Internship: Urban Pantry 20.05.2022

On Friday 20 May Year 7 students took part in the second session of their In-house Internship, recently launched as part of the G&L Futures programme which aims to develop the business and ‘soft’ skills needed in the workplace.

Year 7s are developing ideas to increase the mid-week revenue streams for the small business, Urban Pantry – a cafe in Chiswick that prides itself on delivering 5 star food and 5 star service.  Students started with a recap and retrieval session which was followed by an interactive presentation by the owner of Urban Pantry, Crystal Eisinger (Class of 2008). Crystal talked passionately about her journey to becoming a small business owner, market positioning and brand values, and provided details of the weekly revenue stream and costs and outlined the ‘Headwind’ challenges and the ‘Tailwind’ opportunities. The girls took the opportunity to ask Crystal some probing questions about her business but also about her own career journey from the corporate world of consultancy and Google, to local Chiswick business owner. In answer to the question about how she knew how to run a business, Crystal’s advice was, “You can do it too! You need to have the self-belief and confidence to know what you don’t know and to ask for help. Take the leap and be confident! Taking the risk can reap great rewards and if it doesn’t, you’ll still have a great learning experience.”

After the talk, the Year 7s went back into their groups to discuss what further research they will want to action over the half-term break to help develop their ideas for their final presentations.