College launches Future Leaders programme with Tesla supercar challenge

Newcastle College, part of Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, today launched its new ‘Future Leaders’ programme to a specially selected cohort of 25 Level 3 Business students.

Future Leaders is a brand new initiative, designed to support high achieving vocational Business students in achieving their career ambitions and helping them prepare for a place at a prestigious university or a higher apprenticeship in the workplace. The programme launched with an intense one-day event designed to challenge the students’ finance, marketing and creative thinking skills as they work on a live business brief based on a new generation Tesla supercar, which has recently been purchased by the Group's motor vehicle department.

Setting the challenges were a number of businesses leaders including; Siemens, Creative Castle Ltd. and Winland and Wilson Design along with representatives from Staffordshire University.

Angela Lawrence, a senior lecturer in marketing at Staffordshire University said: “We’ve been getting the students to identify the challenges they think they would have in marketing the car. People can have range anxiety, for instance, where they are concerned about running out of power.”

Nathan Mountford, from Siemens Industry Software, believes it will equip them with vital skills. He said: “You’ve got a piece of software that has got more processing power than the human brain.”

Business student, Elena Presti was also excited to work with the Tesla, she said: “It’s not every day that you get to experience something like this. It gives you a real insight into the business world.”

The winners of the first Future Leaders challenge were students, Elena Presti, Eden Blanch, Ariana Izmana and Lauren Beeston.