Diane approaches problems and solutions in an efficient and intelligent manner. She is a driven contributor always striving to exceed the business’ stated goals. Her proactive approach to clients and their customers is always professional, courteous, and solution-focused. Diane’s knowledge, experience and insight ensures successful mandates and compelling strategies that produce measurable results for any business. I highly recommend Diane.

Diane has just completed working on Women in Business NI first ever Grow It programme, working with 37 business women to support them in their growth, through delivering two excellent workshops on strategic analysis and planning and 1-1 mentoring. The feedback from our participants has been amazing and Diane has been key to the success of the programme. She has such a broad range of…More →

XPinnovates have a very unique insight into what it takes to help you grow your business with both innovation and ambition.

I was fortunate enough to have Diane as my Business Advisor on the International Selling Programme. Her knowledge, guidance and support throughout the course was brilliant and she was able to offer a lot to each of us in our cohort group through her in-depth knowledge of business and market intelligence and we were constantly challenged to think outside the box yet she guided…More →

Working with XPinnovates on our pitch was a game changer. They guided us from the initial formulation of our idea through to developing our storyline, core value proposition, and key messages. The use of GrowthSprint was instrumental in keeping the process focused, structured, and highly effective.

I've known Mark for over four years and have been involved in his lean start-up weekends and XPinnovates incubator/accelerator activities. In these, I've witnessed how great he is at motivating, inspiring, and educating entrepreneurs about the difficulties of starting and growing a new business venture. Mark's enthusiasm for such people and their ideas, combined with a good dose of realism from his own experience…More →

Diane and her team were of great assistance in our founding days, to today, where we face challenges of growth. We are grateful for this continued support to our business.

I’ve worked with Diane on several projects over the years, and believe that she is one of the most organized and well-connected people around. She’s been helping other entrepreneurs develop customers, contacts, and funding — and she’s got the brains and judgement to help them win.

Not only did Diane provide excellent advice and direction during our initial US market analysis but she gave us outstanding strategic support and network reach as we developed our Americas business. The result was a multi-million dollar US presence within 18 months.

Diane Roberts, we were delighted to have you as our first speaker of the year. Your knowledge is unquestionable, and your ease of delivery brings a much-needed calm to the sometimes chaos of business.

Feedback from an online webinar on pitching for investment. 'Excellent webinar' 'Loved this I am nervous as this is my 1st pitch so this has been great for my confidence' 'Not over doing it/keep it short & simple' 'Very insightful. Mark is so knowledgeable and easy to listen to' 'Great information and take aways to help me with my pitch' 'Know your audience, keep…More →

Growthsprint helped us to map out the strengths and weaknesses of our business in an ordered manner. This allowed us to look at our business from a larger perspective. Growthsprint makes you notice the places of improvement and this helped us revise our plans to achieve better outcomes.

Diane has been a trusted advisor to Openet and helped us establish some key relationships. She is very commercially focused.

Diane helped me see business planning as design in both structure and purpose; Mark showed me that pitching is performance in clarity and courage. Together, they transformed how I think, plan, and present.

XPinnovates are an expert team with extensive business knowledge. Their practical advice helped The Present Tree define and focus on a strong, clear business strategy. Their advice enabled The Present Tree to focus on its ambitious vision and achieve high sales growth since launching 5 years ago. I would highly recommend their services. Thank you Mark, Diane and the team!

Diane changed my life and my business. She has been a consultant to me and my company, The Alignment Collective, for the past year with incredible results. She has guided me through contract negotiations, creating the business architecture, putting fee structures and incentive bonuses in place, and she has helped me define the kind of business leader I am and how to leverage my…More →

Mark at XPinnovates was a great mentor and advisor to our business. He has helped us with both strategic planning advice and digital marketing projects.

XPinnovates did a great job. As a result of Diane's teams work in one area we re thought our overall strategies and changed some previous decisions – very thought-provoking. Direct, non-political, and to the point. Will be using their services again.

Diane and her team provide us with great guidance and drive.  They genuinely share the passion for our success. From understanding the broadest set of tasks in running a business to setting clear strategies and planning. Excellent.

Diane and her team at XPinnovates were a perfect partner at the start of our journey.

Diane and Mark were our first business mentors as an early-stage university spin-out. We were accepted onto their excellent start-up program which gave us invaluable insights into company foundation, legals, IP, fundraising, business planning and so much more. They challenged us every week to go out and talk to our customers and helped synthesise the data to form our USP. The startup program culminated…More →

Diane was instrumental in setting up some key meetings for us during a business trip to San Francisco and it is clear to us that she is well respected in both the local and international business community. As a mentor, Diane has a rare blend of IT, business, and social skills that have definitely impressed both of us and hopefully rubbed off on us!…More →

The XPinnovates team gave us a lot of time and support, but the key thing they helped us with was nailing our core messaging when we pitched for funding. If it wasn't for Diane and Mark's effort, we wouldn't have had the success we achieved.

What a fantastic day working on the GrowthSprint framework. Highly recommend this framework – a real game changer, motivational and inspiring. It challenged me and my business. A definite for any business.

The team at XPinnovates were instrumental in helping us get our idea off the ground and turning it into a viable business.

XPinnovates session on how to best pitch your business for funding was brilliant. It was simply the best session on how to pitch I have seen, and I have seen a lot!

We built Gatsot’s full GrowthSprint Blueprint from the ground up, defining our purpose, goals, actions, and risks in one clear roadmap. It gave real structure to how we plan, grow, and execute.

I have had the great pleasure of working with Mark on a number of startup programmes in Belfast. Mark is a super guy and it is always good fun to work with. He is an excellent mentor and is very considerate and always comes up with some fantastic insights to help entrepreneurs move their business forward. He does an excellent job and I have…More →

XPinnovates were key to the pivotal early stages of our company strategy. Their help with developing and articulating our central value proposition remains a foundation to our success.

Mark has long been a sound business growth advisor and has assisted us to build focussed and practical plans, to help us with our continued growth plans.

The XPinnovates team was great to work with. They helped us nail our core business pitch which is so important when you’re looking for funding.

The GrowthSprint canvas has become my favourite framework for understanding your startup, users, and market as well as potential threats.

For anyone in my network who is in a startup, considering one, or has a friend or family member considering a startup, I recommend this book. Diane Roberts has a wealth of experience and when this is combined with her communication skills you have the recipe for accelerated learning.

Mark was a great mentor and advisor during my time on Northern Ireland's premier business start up programme - Propel. He is knowledgeable, supportive and challenging and a fully appreciates the time and effort one has to put in, to both start and build a business. Even now, as our company enters the growth phase, I will occasionally lift the phone for a piece…More →

XPinnovates were pivotal in our early commercial stage of development and planning for international growth.

Mark was fantastic from start to finish and even after the programme he was more than willing to mentor and assist whenever I asked. His knowledge of start-up business and pitching is second to none and I hope I get the chance to work with him again soon. An asset to any organisation, I would recommend Mark in a heartbeat.

We used XP Innovates through the Intertrade E-Merge scheme and can’t praise them enough for their fantastic work. Instead of writing just another plan or strategy they worked with us through each challenge. Their vast commercial experience mean’t they had seen and addressed many of our challenges before. So instead of ‘You could try this….’ we got ‘no problem this is what to do…More →

When we were facing a very challenging time, XPinnovates were there for us, and provided amazing support and guidance.

Without their help, it is very unlikely our business would have grown as quickly as it did. The XPinnovates team was absolutely fundamental to me developing our core business proposition, and in particular, understanding how to approach fundraising.

As advisors XPinnovates helped us drive our business to a different level. Their strategic advice and support were fundamental to our success.