Britain’s Duke of York encouraged entrepreneurship as he visited Aberdeen.
The 56-year-old royal toured the home of social enterprise Elevator, where he met with local business owners and learned about how Elevator is working to help new companies start up and keep older businesses running.
Graham Morgan, who is deputy chief executive of the company, said: "This is a challenging time for the north-east, but it it also a time of opportunities. The entrepreneurial agenda has become even more important to the local economy, even to Scotland, and Elevator is very well placed to make a real difference at this time.
"Aberdeen has always had a strong reputation for innovation and has always been strongly entrepreneurial but at this time, perhaps more than ever, the need for diversification, new thinking and creativity is self-evident. The opportunity to share thoughts on all this and to show the positives that underlie the challenges is fantastic."
Whilst Karen Clark, a project manager at Elevator, added: "It was great having The Duke here, we had a group of pupils from Bridge of Don Academy, and they were really excited to meet him, it’s been a really special day for everyone here."
Meanwhile, the Duke of York previously revealed he has launched a scheme to help young entrepreneurs, called Pitch@Palace.
Speaking of the scheme, he said: "It’s dead simple. I felt that venture capital was not investing in early stage activity. It comes out of mitigating risk rather than looking at the individual and the idea, and accepting that the idea may change.
"I called in a few people from the venture capital world – yes, quite a few from Cambridge – the idea was for a member of the Royal Family to be an accelerant. Pitch@Palace is an enabling device to bring small businesses and entrepreneurs in contact with these people. I take no cut."
Britain’s Duke of York encourages entrepreneurship
