Acara Bradbury, CEO of AvA-V, is a born leader, who has been in managerial positions since she left school at 16. Today, she is leading AvA-V, client focused business of Cheshire dedicated to unlocking the potential of a business and its people to facilitate productive and sustainable growth. Acara tells us more as she celebrates her recent recognition as the Most Influential CEO 2021 for Cheshire.
For Acara Bradbury, life’s greatest lessons began at the age of just sixteen, when she left school with a handful of GCSEs to take up a full-time career for a Transport and Accommodation company, realising that to truly get the most out of life, she needed to start putting the work in. Her unerring ambition and drive meant that Acara was given complete responsibility in only four weeks, charged with managing employees and clients with professionalism and care. At the age of sixteen, therefore, Acara began a lifelong journey of leadership.
Several years later, Acara met her husband David who, with her support, began his own training business. Twelve months after the company’s inception, Acara joined him to invest herself fully in supporting the growing business that was expanding internationally. As years passed and David and Acara’s family grew with the addition of Ava, so too did their business, which has since been named AvA-V, in part after Acara and David’s beloved daughter. In addition to the training side of the business, AvA-V introduced two additional divisions: strategy and recruitment. As David focused on the training division, he handed the reins as CEO over to Acara, who continues to lead AvA-V today.
AvA-V is a Cheshire-based consultancy that believes in the power and potential of people, and therefore seeks to support organisations in creating a culture in which individuals thrive so that teams can flourish in order to generate sustainable and successful business growth. Across its three divisions- Training, Strategy and Recruitment – AvA-V delivers bespoke solutions curated by a global team of experts dedicated to ensuring returns on investments for clients.
Within the Training division, AvA-V offers a range of courses and programmes that can be delivered virtually or in person to enhance the skillset of individuals and teams. The firm’s V Range Solutions offer a choice of programmes that clients are able to choose from and which form the foundations for tailored training sessions within a range of fields, including sales, customer service, and leadership.
In Recruitment, AvA-V is committed to getting to know a business profoundly on every level, so that it can find the right employees to support it in driving forward towards its mission in line with its values. Once it has secured the right individuals, AvA-V is able to offer its extensive training resources to enable a smooth integration for new hires and their employers that will become a launchpad for successful progression.
Finally, AvA-V’s Strategy division focuses on providing experienced leadership – or the ‘V-Team’ – to organisations across the globe to work with CEOs and Senior Management teams to develop and enhance their performance. The V-Team adheres to the AvA-V Formation, a philosophy that exists at the heart of the company and is influenced by the V formation in which geese fly.
The team consists of experts who ‘fly’ behind the client, bringing their unique expertise to the table to support the client in a strategic process that coincides with the work of others in the team to generate comprehensive, bespoke solutions. Having worked with companies like Stanley Black & Decker, Seven Brothers Brewery, Micro Focus, Totally Wicked and Henry Schein, across a myriad of industries, AvA-V knows that one size does not fit all when it comes to business solutions, and its AvA-V Formation has been meticulously designed accordingly.
As a company that operates all around the world, AvA-V has inevitably been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, predominantly owing to the fact its team is no longer able to travel around the world to meet clients. The result, however, is a business that is much more efficient, utilising digital platforms to communicate with clients in a way that is easier and less time-consuming, and has paved the way for other process to be digitised too, such as recruitment fairs and assessment centres. Activity has therefore remained consistent for AvA-V and enabled it to continue moving towards its objectives for growth and development. For Acara, this has predominantly been facilitated by her team.
It has taken many years of development for Acara to be in a position in which she wholly trusts her team to have autonomy and the freedom to make mistakes, recognising that by doing so, they as a united organisation grow to be a stronger entity. This is a skill that has been acquired through years of leadership and one that she continues to develop alongside other capabilities, including juggling motherhood with management.
However, with the support of David and her team and her own unwavering drive and ambition, Acara is triumphing in her many responsibilities, developing as a leader and growing her business simultaneously. In doing so, she aims to nurture and inspire the next generation of young leaders throughout her community, empowering women of all ages as they take on the world of business.
For further information, please contact Acara Bradbury or visit www.ava-v.com
