Welcome To The Ultimate Combination Of Accelerator, Marketing MBA And Wellness Retreat

Businesses around the world are currently in flux, more so than usual. In the era of Trump - The Sequel, the imposition of tariffs is creating further economic uncertainty, making it difficult for builders to know what to expect and how to respond. So thank heaven that out there somewhere, there are still resources to turn to where they can share experiences and test out theories and ideas.

More often, companies attend off-sites to get out of the office and stimulate a different conversation, but rarely do they do anything differently.

Step forward Retreat and Rise Up, a fresh take on networking events and accelerator programmes that proliferate in the advertising industry. Designed by the creative ventures company And Rising, it is an initiative set up to help guide and underpin the ambitions of leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs whilst also offering them the wellness support necessary to build health and resilience. Recently, it has proven vital to many who have attended.

And Rising has been exploring ways to help brand builders find the space for clear-eyed thinking and community-building away from daily professional pressures, refocussing on what really matters. The result was the launch of the first Retreat and Rise Up experience, set in an ancient temperate rainforest in Cornwall and offering a structured programme of support for mind, body and business.

“New brands and innovation will be key to the UK’s success story. We need more great new ideas to scale here and globally. We have amazing talent and backing on this island. What we lack are spaces to think and dream, with the support of a community to scale those ideas,” states And Rising founder Jonathan Trimble.

The ambition for the retreat was originally to replicate the Y Combinator Summer School in Silicon Valley and help nurture British entrepreneurship. But he has since found that both the needs of the UK and the current times in which the world operates are different. It aims to focus on products and tech, corporate innovation and startups to connect people to develop a community for each member to turn to.

“We want to build the future’s favourite brands. You can’t do that unless you provide wider support to founders and marketers,” continues Trimble.

Business on retreat

Set in the middle of a 4,000-year-old rain forest, the experience offers an escape. A place to walk amongst the ancient trees, paddle in the freshwater stream, and enjoy a nourishing and delicious meal. The evenings have the group seated around a campfire in the twilight, listening to the owls.

This is a very nurturing space, but it’s also stimulating and thought-provoking. While the whole experience is certainly very good for the spirit, this place is also about providing attendees with the ammunition – through workshops, coaching sessions and relevant networking - to push ahead professionally. And the people around the campfire are all brand builders, innovators and entrepreneurs looking for similar support and inspiration.

While not being into wellness and attending such experiences in the past, Ruth Fittock, co-founder of Tomorrow Brands, believes that had she not attended the first year of the retreat, it would have taken her longer to launch her business. When she attended, Fittock was feeling burnt out, “sort of frazzled” and “probably a bit fearful” about her next career step.

“For me, it's quite a formative experience and an amazing time out,” she adds, revealing that she returned the following year as well, having gotten over her initial uncertainty. Only this time, she was coming at it from a different perspective, having moved on in her career.

“Myself and my business partner both went, but on different weeks. We set ourselves a challenge while we were there to think a bit differently about the business and take a bit of a step back. We then reconvened about what we had both learned,” she explains.

Meanwhile, head of Channel 4 Ventures, Vinay Solanki, who attended the first Retreat and Rise up, felt that it offered “something very different” and something “needed in an ecosystem that is not entirely transactional” like typical start-up events.

Solanki admits to being surprised by the mixture of people with a strong representation of women brand builders, execs from businesses endorsing sustainable consumption and those trying to improve people’s health and way of life.

“What it allows is space for is another flavor of business community, and that's very necessary if you are going to solve for different problems,” he continues. “We need to fix for the bigger issues in our societies – aging populations; moving towards a carbon neutral future; supporting our children with the commitment to lifelong learning that our societies will need in the future; enabling more people to enter the workforce; finding more ways to bring sustainable farming to consumers to eat healthier, etc.”

The founding principles

Retreat and Rise Up is unique in focusing on brand innovation, not just self-development.

It was founded on three principles:

• Awaken the giant: Retreat & Rise Up was run in a four-thousand-year-old rainforest. The awe of the surrounding nature inspires expansive thinking beyond the bedroom or boardroom.

• Free from limiting beliefs: Who you are and what you’ve achieved is left at the door; everyone is open and safe to be 100 per cent themselves to back what they truly believe in

• Supported for scale: Enable groups to support one another before, during and long after the retreat.

“The human condition of limited time leads us to 'being busy.' In many cases, being busy is a drama rather than a force multiplier—very few brands are growing at the rate they should,” says Trimble. “Success comes with carefully choosing what you pay attention to and what you gift your energy with. At its heart, that’s all a retreat is there to do.”

The most common experience, Trimble explains, allows delegates to focus on one to three ideas they have while realising their importance over other activities and taking the first steps towards making them happen. The resulting support groups from each retreat offer new connections, expertise, friendships and support.

“Startup culture is not one culture, you need different sorts of cultures. I met people at Rise Up who meet this criteria and it absolutely validates the need for this sort of community,” states Solanki.

For more details on Retreat and Rise Up, visit its dedicated website.