About

It is our mission to challenge the unhelpful and damaging assumptions about people from the ‘street’ – their talents, aspirations and capabilities.

Clayton Planter developed Street2Boardroom with the Prince’s Trust. It initially started as an 8-week motivational course, and proved a great success, with two members of the initial intake making the leap from the drug trade to a corporate role and two more taking up places at college to develop their paths on the straight and narrow.

“These people just need that initial confidence boost to tell them that they can do it – they too can thrive in a corporate environment. The big message is always that it’s not where you come from, it’s where you’re going that matters.”

Even though Clayton himself wasn’t involved in crime, he felt that he faced a lot of the same challenges as his friends: being a young black man, living in a disadvantaged area, with little opportunities and low expectations from the world around him. “People saw where I was from but they couldn’t see where I could go.”

Clayton will call for community leaders and company directors to sit up and see the talent that is out there – beyond the traditional boardroom walls. His message is already getting results. Bristol law firms have committed to learning from street crews and work with them to writing innovative business plans.

“We’re working against the odds and we’ve achieved something great, creating our own lane. We lived the change that we wanted to see, rather than talking about it. It’s not a course, it’s a lifestyle. It’s changing how people see themselves and how they see each other and creating opportunities that go beyond what people thought were possible.”