Livery Academy Awards

Established in 2013, the Livery Academy Awards are designed to foster entrepreneurial and presentation skills among sixth-form students as well as build links between Livery Company members and the state schools with whom their Company is associated. In our case, those schools are Foyle College in Northern Ireland, the London-based all girls St Saviour’s & St Olave’s School and Wallingford School, which is in Oxfordshire.

Teams from each school develop and present a pitch to investors to raise up to £500,000 to launch a product or service that they think will be not only commercially successful in the UK, but also generate a material social benefit for target customers and/or society as a whole.

In 2020, Merchant Taylors' are entering the competition for the first time. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, changes have been made for this year's competition, where online presentations will be made by the students and the judging will take place 'in-house', with winners selected by a panel of judges formed from the Merchant Taylors' membership itself.

To guide the teams, six Freemen and Liverymen will be working with and offering mentoring to help the sixth-formers build their business, finance, marketing and PR skills as they develop their pitches through October and November.

Colleagues at the Grocers’, Haberdashers’ and Drapers’ will be running their own equivalents and it is hoped that the winning teams from each Company will go through to an inter-Livery Grand Final early next year. 

As the Awards get underway, follow the progress of the competition with us as we update you on our teams, their projects and what the judges are looking for. Watch this space!