Meet the Team

Simon has been involved in starting and testing about 30 business ideas over the last 25 years.

Business was not on his radar at all until he realised he needed to leave his (successful) career because he wasn’t happy. At 29, he realised there was a big world to explore, he had LOADS of ideas, and he wanted to have a go at starting something.

His first business was a “dotcom” selling share certificates online (which mostly failed). The second was a web design company (it made some money, that business became successful later, but with very little to do with him). He then freelanced as a consultant before seeing an opportunity. He loved helping people NOT make the same mistakes he made when starting a business, so he started coaching start-ups.

In 2008, the Government hired him to coach people who were starting from a place of disadvantage. He realised it needed a different approach, which became the precursor to Rebel. He then met Alan Donegan, and together they created the Rebel Business School in 2012. It has since grown to support thousands of people in 11 countries, create jobs, and win awards from the Queen and King of the UK.

He still runs his own coaching practice as a side hustle.

Alan grew up around business.

He left formal education at 18 to go and work with his dad, who was his hero. From there, he had a mixture of brilliant experiences, difficult experiences in corporate jobs, and failed business attempts of his own. Each one taught him something about what to do, and what definitely not to do, when starting a business.

Alan eventually launched his own business at 28 after being fired by his last employer.

Since then, he has built businesses through trial, error and experimentation, always without going into debt. After watching his dad go bankrupt for £3.6 million, Alan knew there had to be another way to start and grow a business.

In 2012, he co-founded the Rebel Business School with Simon Paine after they realised there must be a better way to help people start businesses, without loans, debt or formal business plans.

Rebel went on to become an international movement, helping thousands of people build businesses in a different way. After discovering financial independence, Alan and his wife, Katie, made it their mission to sort out their money so they never had to work again unless they wanted to. They reached financial independence in 2019 and now run Rebel Finance School to help other people take control of their finances too.

At the heart of everything he does is one belief: you do not need to wait for permission, go into debt, or follow the traditional path to build something extraordinary.

Henry had never run a business before he encountered Rebel…

Through school and college, he never quite got along with the traditional way of doing things. In his early career, he found himself butting heads with managers and the rules of traditional employment, especially in his web design career. He started experimenting with his own projects, helping the people around him, doing everything from design work to building projects.

He found Alan, Simon, and the Rebel Business School. They showed him how to look at the world differently and where his value could be. So, as he joined Rebel, he went self-employed too.

Over the years, he tried a multitude of things. He launched a clothing brand, One Planet Apparel, opened his own web design agency supporting medium-sized businesses, launched a community, and even a brewery. Some failed, some he still does, and some he just didn’t like as much as he thought he would.

Fast-forward to the present, he took over as CEO of Rebel in 2023; this became his full-time business project. Sales, finance, people, delivery, you name it.

He always knew he didn’t fit into traditional employment. Now he is leading one of the best challenger education companies in the UK.

He still makes beer… more of that coming up.

Jack has always considered himself a creative.

From a young age, if he wasn’t watching films, he was out making them. He even convinced teachers to let him make short videos instead of essays, which ultimately led him to take a Creative Media degree at college. From this, he started his own small business, freelancing in creative consultancy and video production, working with small businesses to find their identity through engaging video content.

Around this time, he met Alan and Simon, who asked if he wanted to come and create content for their business school.

A decade later, Jack leads the creative direction and brand at The Rebel School. He works with public and private partners and has helped lead a rebrand that supported the company’s growth from an energetic start-up into a leading alternative education provider.

When he is not at Rebel, you will probably find him at the cinema with Escape Film Club, a passion project turned side hustle.
Escape Film Club is an independent media outlet writing about the latest cinema releases, film festivals, community, and the joy of escaping into an immersive story.

Julia spent years working for other people.

She worked as an English teacher in a kindergarten, then as a caregiver, before moving into cosmetology and massage therapy. For a long time, her work was built around helping people in person. Then COVID happened, and Julia realised she wanted to move online. That was where her freedom started.

She learned social media marketing, worked for an agency, gained experience and quickly figured out what worked with clients, and what definitely did not. From there, she learned Facebook and Google advertising and began taking on clients of her own. Soon, she had more projects waiting for her than she could handle alone. She was running her own business, helping other businesses grow through social media and Google ads.

Then she met The Rebel School, and the rest is history.

Today, Julia runs Rebel’s online presence, helping shape how the organisation shows up across digital platforms and reaches the people who need it most. She still consults friends on growing their projects, and in her free time, she is building an AI marketing tool to help experts and product owners avoid spending crazy money on marketing.

James believes you can teach someone to become an entrepreneur, but he was definitely born one.
Even before he went to secondary school, he could remember running a fantasy football league for family and friends.

Despite a fairly comfortable upbringing, he was always exploring ways to make money and working as many jobs as he could. At university, he founded his university’s first entrepreneurial society and convinced high-profile entrepreneurs to come and speak for free. After university, his entrepreneurial journey continued when he set up his own social media marketing business. That gave him first-hand experience of finding clients, selling services and building something from scratch.

That eventually led him to Rebel.

Today, James leads the sales function at The Rebel School, building partnerships that create real opportunities for people to start businesses and change their lives.
For James, sales is not just about selling. It is about opening doors, creating opportunities and helping Rebel reach the people who need it most.

Euan started his working life in music.

After finishing a Master’s degree in music, he began working as a guitar teacher on the Isle of Wight, offering both in-person and online lessons for adults who had always wanted to learn an instrument. Alongside teaching, he performed jazz guitar in cafés around the island, building a working life around music, creativity and helping people learn something they had always wanted to do.

He continued this for a few years before joining Rebel full-time in 2022.

Since then, his focus has mainly been on Rebel, supporting the team, the programmes and systems that help more people start testing their ideas. He still occasionally returns to music when it interests him, does a small amount of work as a virtual assistant, and has plenty of ideas for future mini experiments.

Like many Rebels, Euan’s path has never been about one fixed career. It has been about following skills, testing ideas and staying open to what might come next.