I love my work, don’t get me wrong, but my passion is adventure. From solo hitchhiking around Australia at the tender age of 19, teaching windsurfing in the south of France to sailing the Atlantic in a 53’ sailboat on my honeymoon; I like a challenge. Mental challenges as much as physical ones, which is why problem-solving as a consultant led me to found Enable Business Consulting.
My biggest adventure to date, and a never ending one, is being the best husband and dad I can be. Guiding my two children to be independent, engaged and happy is the best adventure today. It helps that they love travel and exploring new cultures too.
I grew up in England, on the Cornish coast spending as much time in, on or under the ocean as possible. My dad was a mining engineer frequently working in southern Africa, so travel was a regular and addictive part of my childhood. Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa are all dear to my heart.
I went to university in London and graduated from Imperial College as an engineer before heading to France to teach windsurfing. Not your traditional career path.
Returning to London (UK) I joined PricewaterhouseCoopers to get a solid business education first as a Chartered Accountant, then as a consultant specialising in strategic planning and business development. That was nearly 30 years ago and since then I focused on helping entrepreneurs grow and add value to their businesses.
Now I work with creative firms and their owners to grow and develop but also find balance, a challenge I love and accept with relish.
When not working I can be found cooking, reading, playing with my kids or outdoors enjoying the amazing geography of Vancouver Island which I now call home.
Enable Business Consulting focuses on creative clients in need of business advice. Like many of our clients we didn’t start out in a niche market. We started life as a consulting firm working with high growth rate businesses struggling with managing controlled expansion, an area where we have extensive experience.
Within 3 years working with design firms, graphic, web design and branding agencies formed the majority of our business. We repositioned ourselves to specialize in helping design firms that wanted to grow quickly while building sustainable business models that gave owners and staff a respectable work/life balance.
We are based on Vancouver Island, in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, a short float plane hop from Vancouver, one of the bastions of design on the West Coast.
Enable Business Consulting was founded by entrepreneur Nick West in 2009.