Former City finance high flier explains how the Nottingham MBA inspired her to start an award winning social enterprise

15 December 2014

Speaking to UK digital magazine 'Woman-On-Top', former Merrill Lynch executive Kirstie MacDonald explained why she quit a high-flying career in finance to start an Executive MBA at Nottingham University Business School and how it inspired her to co-found the award winning social enterprise 'Laughing Matters', harnessing the power of comedy to help people learn and relearn life skills, confidence and self-esteem in the local community.

Kirstie described how she came up with the idea for Laughing Matters: “I read about a course at Nottingham University Business School where they have an international centre for corporate social responsibility – they are one of the leaders in responsible business and sustainable management globally.

“Part of the course work was to come up with a business plan for a social enterprise. My husband does a lot of work at the Edinburgh Festival and has a comedy club, and I thought how could a small business [like his] do something positive to impact the community. I was so surprised to find that Nottingham is considered to be quite socially deprived. There are big issues around youth unemployment, addiction and addiction recovery.”

Article first published in Woman-On-Top on 3rd December 2014.