EF News
With 17 years’ experience growing Blu Sky from a £116 North Shields start-up into a national B-Corp accountancy firm, Jon Dudgeon brings practical, founder-friendly scale-up expertise and a passion for helping ambitious North East businesses thrive.
Can you give a quick snapshot of your entrepreneurial journey?
I co-founded Blu Sky over 17 years ago with a simple idea of offering busy ambitious entrepreneurial business owners and founders a modern, friendly, collaborative accounting service focused on supporting their businesses journey. We started in a small office in North Shields with £116 in the bank and grew it into a national, purpose-driven, B-Corp accountancy firm supporting hundreds of scaling tech companies. It’s been a journey of graft, constant learning, a few scars and plenty of fun but always grounded in doing great work for good people.
What key experience or lesson from your scale-up journey do you bring to the Entrepreneurs in Residence programme?
The biggest lesson is that scaling isn’t about the latest technology, spreadsheets, it’s about people, clarity and rhythm. I’ve helped founders navigate funding rounds, fast growth, slow growth, hiring, pricing, cash crunches, restructures, culture building and everything in between. The experience I bring is commercial, practical, founder-friendly and rooted in what actually works in the North East ecosystem. I know where the common traps are, how to avoid over-complicating things and how to build calm confidence into the financial side of a scale-up.
Why are you excited to support founders through the Scale-up Leaders’ Academy?
I love this region and I love working with ambitious founders. They’re the heartbeat of the North East’s economy. Being part of the Scale Up Academy is a chance to give back to share what I’ve learned, open doors and help founders build businesses they’re proud of. But it’s also selfish in the best way… I get energy from being around people who are trying to do new things. If I can help even one founder avoid a painful mistake or make a braver decision, that’s a win win!
