Digital City
Entrepreneurs Forum
Business Link North East
Young Enterprise Northern Ireland
One North East
Enterprise Revolution
Barclays
University Of Ulster
Whitbread PLC
Value the Person
3M
Richmond Events
Pizza Hut
Parkdean Holidays
University of Liverpool Management School
Universtity of Sunderland
University of Teesside
“I have known David for many years. Throughout that time he has shown himself to be one of the most knowledgeable, creative and insightful individuals in the challenges facing entrepreneurs.”
Professor Tom Cannon
CEO Ideopolis International
Our Philosophy
Taking our core premise that human psychology drives enterprising and business behaviour, Venture To Think have identified 3 critical mindsets needed to achieve success. These are winning mindsets.
From years of research, coaching and consultancy working with thousands of school children, younger people, graduates, start-up business owners, growth businesses, entrepreneurs and large corporates, Venture To Think have identified that a small percentage of individuals naturally develop these winning mindsets and as a consequence, achieve success. The majority, have untapped potential that they can achieve by developing these mindsets.
- The Enterprising Mindset
Before anyone can even think about starting up a business, they need to become aware of enterprise and develop an enterprising approach to their life and career. Enterprising people are motivated to achieve, they accept personal responsibility and they are always willing to learn. The Enterprise Catalyst evaluates and develops this mindset amongst younger audiences.
- The Business Mindset
Individuals who choose to run their own business need to be more than enterprising. They need to understand the marketplace, their product, service, customers, money, people and themselves. ABC Diagnostic evaluates and develops this mindset and predicts business success.
- The Entrepreneurial Mindset
Business owners who want their business to thrive rather than just survive, need to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. They need to understand how their personal psychology impacts on their business. 21st Century Entrepreneurs evaluates and develops this mindset.
Our mission is to provide organisations seeking to promote enterprise, business start-ups and business growth with the tools necessary to develop these winning mindsets either for themselves and/or their client groups.
Our products and services are part of an integrated enterprise and business development process.
Our Expertise
Venture to Think's experience and expertise can be captured under three headings.
- Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
Venture To Think was founded by Dr David Johnson who has worked in the field of enterprise and entrepreneurship for over 25 years. He established the Barclays Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Durham and led entrepreneurship projects for both the British Government and the European Commission. He was elected fellow of Royal Society of Arts as a result of his contribution in the field of enterprise and entrepreneurship and was a visiting professor at the University of Liverpool. David has created four businesses in his life time. Stress Link - a stress management consultancy, Virtual Centre - a spin out from the University of Durham, The Research Initiative - a business focused upon profiling the enterprise and franchise sectors and now Venture To Think Ltd, formerly Counsel to Business Ltd.
- Human Psychology
Dr David Johnson began his career studying social psychology, completing his PHD in medical social psychology at the University of Loughborough. He taught social psychology, sports psychology, child psychology and psychometrics in a number of top UK universities and developed experience in the design and development of profiling tools for specific audiences including bankers, franchisees, business owners and young people. David is a Chartered Psychologist, a registered member of the British Psychological Society, fully trained to level B standards and conversant with the majority of traditional and new psychometric and profiling tools. He is fully conversant with the use of Transactional Analysis in organisations having studied this discipline for 7 years. For the past 15 years, David's work has focused upon business and entrepreneurial psychology, most specifically developing and validating psychological models of effective business and entrepreneurial behaviour. David leads a team of highly qualified colleagues and associates which combine the skills of business, counselling, psychology, education, coaching and research.
- Online Profiling and Development
Having originally worked with Threshers, Pizza Hut and Snap on Tools to develop a franchise recruitment and development profiling tool, Dr David Johnson led a number of initiatives developing enterprise profiling tools for organisations such as Scottish Enterprise, One North East, North West Development Agency and numerous Business Links.
David also led the 'spin-out' of Virtual Centre.com from the University of Durham - an online learning platform with clients including the Cabinet Office and a number of Local Education Authorities.





