User:Mattwingett/Stevie Kidd

Stevie Kidd is a Scottish entrepreneur and motivational speaker. He is notable for his rise to success and his "self made man" credentials.

Now the CEO of a group of companies call the KDS Group, he started his initial business in distribution. Having been declared bankrupt in 2003, Stevie Kidd identified a gap in the distribution market in his home city of Glasgow. After "borrowing £500" from his father, he bought a van and approached major pharmaceutical retailers to deliver prescriptions.

He built this initial business called "Kidd's Distribution Services" from a one man operation in 2003 to a group of companies with over 40 employees and a multi-million pound turnover business renamed "The KDS Group". The KDS Group has interests in distribution, training, social care and personal development.

Having a strong commitment to helping the long-term unemployed into work, Stevie Kidd realised in 2006 that many long term unemployed needed to be both better skilled and motivated to retain long term employment. He therefore set up, via his company KDS Training an academy to train long term unemployed to work in specific sectors. The academy was financed by Government agencies, including the job centre and local councils.

The innovation that KDS Training brought to the project was Stevie Kidd's request to local companies that they ringfence places at their businesses for graduates of his training academy. They would need to prove that they had the necessary skills and aptitude to gain employment, and Stevie Kidd's company would ensure they were both skilled and motivated.

The trainings proved successful and the graduates found employment. After this initial success, KDS Training went on to run further academies to help people to be freed from long term unemployment.

In 2010 it was reported that the success of the KDS Training model had led to a contract with the Department of Work and Pensions to roll out the project across the UK. The contract is reported to be "worth up to £50m".

Stevie Kidd continues to push his group of companies further. A strong advocate of self-help, and especially the work of Dr Richard Bandler and his "technology" known as NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Stevie Kidd employs innovative psychological techniques to motivate his graduates.

Stevie Kidd is also heavily committed to charitable work, especially that of the road charity Brake. He has partnered with Shell UK and FedEx to promote road safety, and KDS Distribution's vans are notable for their livery, which is painted with hard-hitting messages about road safety.