Stephen Repton is a tech entrepreneur and project management expert.
In 2024, he founded Flowlio, a Manchester-based project-management training and SaaS company, and advisory firm One Consulting.
Here, he shares a recent week in his working life.
Monday
I woke up early and had a black coffee, before jumping in the car and driving a few miles to our office at the Barclays Eagle labs (DiSH) in central Manchester. I stopped en route for another coffee and a croissant, my Monday treat! My first meeting of the day was with a talented student from the Digital Independent College Manchester about how he could help us with data manipulation and app development. This was followed by an information gathering session with our PR partner. I dealt with a few emails, before another meeting, this time with a supplier about how we can use their investment platform for Flowlio to potentially raise funds and investment to grow the business.
In the afternoon, I demonstrated our SaaS platform to an executive director of a social housing provider and it was fantastic to get some very positive feedback. I started to put the finishing touches to a bid that One Consulting is submitting for an IT review at a housing association.
Back home, after dinner I watched an episode of the Netflix drama, El Chapo, about a Mexican drug lord. I’m really into it!
Tuesday
Another coffee and some early morning admin before getting the train to Liverpool to show Flowlio to the director of a well-known global commercial real estate service provider. He really liked the system, which was very pleasing. On the train back to Manchester, I was dealing with emails and WhatsApp messages along the way, before having a fab Teams meeting from home with my Flowio colleagues about what we’re all working on and our progress.
I’d been asked to give a presentation on project management for the launch of a book on organisational change called Why Care? which would be attended by one of its co-authors, Chris Butterworth. So, I spent a couple of hours in the evening working on that before sending it to the hosts, ahead of the event on Friday morning.
By this time, my head was in a spin, so I had an early night!
Wednesday
Back down to Manchester with a pit stop at my favourite coffee bar again. Latte in hand, I headed to DiSH for my meeting with Katie, our product development director, where we talked about how we can shape our training service and bring it online. A productive meeting with some great ideas that we are looking to take forward. My mind was buzzing!
I then had a brilliant meeting with a programme director from Manchester City Council about how Flowlio can be used to drive programmes of work. Then it was on to my fourth demo of the week to three innovative start-ups that are all based at DiSH. They gave me some great new ideas about how we can develop the system using AI.
I actually managed to have a sandwich for lunch, before meeting up with another DiSH-based start-up and talking all things ISO and business process alignment.
After some more admin, I headed home. I went for a few pints in the local pub with one of my mates that I’ve known since school. It was great to catch-up and talk about the past, present and future.
Thursday
A work-from-home morning, because we were having some work done. It was filled with admin work, sales-related stuff, various Teams calls and chats with the Flowlio team about some system demos we had been doing that day.
I then suddenly had a mild panic, because I was attending the Building Innovation Awards that evening and realised that my tuxedo might not fit me… and it didn’t! I had to rush into Manchester to buy and new one and drop some advertising pull-ups at the Hilton Hotel because Flowlio were one of the sponsors of the event.
It was a great night with a VIP reception, black tie and dinner. I met some really nice people and even got to present the Best Asset Management Innovation award to the winners, BAM UK and Ireland. Then it was off home because I needed to be up early the next day.
Friday
I was back in Manchester for 8am, ready to present at the Why Care book launch on floor 28 of City Tower. It was a glorious day and the view over the city was awesome.
I’d been asked talk about my personal experiences of delivering projects and how mental health and resilience is important to delivering successful change. I loved having the opportunity to share my experience with more than 30 like-minded people who were all as passionate as me about supporting others to deliver change and further embed continuous improvement cultures within their organisations. Chris Warner delivered a compelling presentation on how thriving individuals create thriving cultures.
The morning was hosted by Jason Kingston from Cube Thinking, who did an amazing job. I’ve known Jay for over 15 years. He is as passionate about change and people today, as the day I met him. A truly genuine and inspirational guy.
After the launch, I returned home, had a meeting with Michael from my team and a catch-up on progress we are making with some internal business improvement projects.
I then headed back into Manchester for a few drinks and some dinner and took a much-needed opportunity to start the weekend a little earlier than planned. I went to my favourite wine bar and restaurant, replaying the week I’d just had and looking forward to what the weekend had in store.
