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Budding entrepreneur gets a slice of the action with Pizza Rossa

12 September 2014

Pizza Rossa

Neil Chacham, BSc Project Management for Construction student, has been awarded funding by UCL Advances and Santander to spend 12 weeks at Pizza Rossa, a London-based start-up restaurant, putting his project management skills and business guile to the test.

The funding scheme run by UCL Advances gives students and graduates all-important work experience in a small-to-medium enterprise (SME), where they are able to gain in-depth entrepreneurial know-how directly from business owners. In turn, the SME gets to work with some of the brightest young minds to help them solve their business challenges.

During his time at Pizza Rossa, an award winning artisan pizza company, Neil is putting all the skills he has developed during his studies to good use – from supervising the construction process of several of its new outlets, through to contributing to the business operations, which include marketing, business development, sales and administration.

On gaining this opportunity, Neil said: “My experience at Pizza Rossa is invaluable. I was able to get involved in the business even before the opening of the first venue, so I’m able to see how an idea turns into a reality and, moreover, how something small can turn into a large operation with multiple outlets, franchising opportunities and flourishing business partnerships.”

Moving forward, Neil is excited to use both his undergraduate studies, and this work experience, as a focus for an MA in Management, with a specialism in food and beverage.

Pizza Rossa, the brainchild of Corrado Accardi, has been making waves in the start-up industry. The business model – to develop a chain of premium-quality takeaway restaurants in London offering pizza by the square-slice, as well as Italian coffee and desserts – helped Corrado win the London Business School student business plan competition. Since then Corrado has won Best Start-up of the Year in the Crowdcube Awards, the Deloitte Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Founders’ Award and broke the European record for equity-based crowdfunding by a start-up by raising £440,000 in 17 days.

To find out more about the Pizza Rossa venture visit: http://pizzarossa.com/