A decade of relationships, operating as a platform.
Unlocked is the operating platform for The Experience Bank. We exist to put practical, lived business experience in the hands of the people who need it — at the moment they need it.
Most business decisions don't fail because the information was missing.
They fail because a question went unasked, an option went unseen, or a quiet warning went unheard. The person who would have asked the question, offered the option, or sounded the warning is usually somewhere — already busy, often unknown to the founder who needed them.
Unlocked is the route to that person. Built on a curated network with ten years of relationships behind it, the platform makes lived experience discoverable, trusted, bookable and scalable. So that small decisions get small input. Hard decisions get hard-won input. And the businesses that drive the UK economy spend less time guessing.
Four things we hold to.
Relevant experience over generic advice
Pattern recognition from people who have actually done the thing — not frameworks, not platitudes, not certification-led coaching.
Curated, not crowd-sourced
Quality is a function of the gate. Every mentor is verified before joining, and the network is small enough to know.
A platform that respects time
Sessions are short and focused. The infrastructure stays out of the way until you need it. No nudges, no streaks, no growth tricks.
Built for UK businesses and the people who fund them
We pair commercial customers with funded programmes — so the platform serves both the individual founder and the wider economy.
How we got here.
- 2014
The Experience Bank is founded
Peter Neal begins building what becomes a curated network of operators, founders, NEDs and specialists — ten years of relationships before a single line of code is written.
- 2024
Unlocked is built around the network
The platform is designed from the ground up to make the network discoverable, bookable and scalable — without compromising the curation that makes it work.
- 2025
NatWest Accelerator pilot
21 businesses, 14 mentors, 136 hours of expert support delivered across pricing, growth, hiring, fundraising and operations.
- 2026
Scaling with combined authorities and member networks
Conversations underway with combined authorities, growth programmes and trade bodies to deliver mentoring at regional scale.
Real decisions, moved forward by relevant experience.
We Are Marka — a Newcastle-based sustainability ratings platform — needed senior cybersecurity, data protection and policy expertise that is impossible to hire for at their stage. Six hours with a specialist mentor delivered exactly that.
“Access to genuinely expert advice from mentors is a service that is scarce. We genuinely found this mentoring really valuable.”
Built in Newcastle, by Peter Neal and James Fergus.
Peter spent a decade building The Experience Bank network. James built the platform around it. Together they started Unlocked to put that network — and a decade of real business experience — properly within reach of the businesses who need it. Unlocked Expertise Ltd is registered in England and VAT-registered in the UK.
Relevant experience, unlocked at the moment it matters.
Start with a brief. Meet the people who have done this before. Move the decision forward this week.
Or write to hello@unlockedexpertise.com