Remember your first day at a new job? GDPR, contracts, health and safety policies...

For Mark Preston, starting at a large international development agency looked a little different. Within hours of beginning his new role, through a series of unexpected and amusing events, Mark found himself in Lomé, the capital of Togo, West Africa.

The image opposite was captured during that trip. It’s a story Mark has shared many times, and perhaps one day he’ll share it with your team too.

But the most important takeaway from that journey is this: Injustice and inequality are often hidden, yet ever-present.
For businesses and non-profits alike, there is immense potential to counter these forces—doing good work, making a meaningful impact, while also achieving profitability and caring for customers and teams.

That conviction led Mark to co-found the Freedom and Justice Partnership, a charity tackling child labour in supply chains, which works with a partner in the DRC to move children out of mining and into school. The work made one thing plain: the companies at the end of a supply chain rarely see what happens at its start, and new European due diligence law will soon require them to look.

So Start Bay joined Edge Digital Manufacturing to develop SIFT, a supply chain intelligence platform that helps businesses trace their supply chains back to the source, where harm is most often hidden. In 2026 the project was awarded an Innovate UK feasibility grant. Only 40 of 460 applications were funded, and ours was ranked in the top 10%.

At Start Bay Enterprises, we believe in empowering organisations to meet this challenge. Whether it’s:

• Working with CEOs and executive teams to shape purpose-driven leadership,

• Helping fundraisers and sales teams craft stories that resonate deeply, or

• Developing sustainable strategies for long-term growth and resilience,

We are here to support you in serving your customers, supporters, and communities.