Franchisee of the year 2022: Piyush Gupta of Tutor Doctor

Piyush Gupta left a corporate career to be more in control and to give back to society. He’s achieved all this, and a whole lot more

Name: Piyush Gupta (55)
Organisation: Tutor Doctor Peterborough, Huntingdon and Stamford
Years trading: 6

Piyush Gupta is driven by social action and truly improving the lives of students in need – it lies at the heart of his achievements as a Tutor Doctor franchisee and why, at the time of going to press, he was in Orlando, Florida at the annual franchisor conference being awarded Franchisee of the Year, a recognition that spans the entire international Tutor Doctor network.

With over 20 years’ experience in finance and management, before he began his journey with Tutor Doctor, Piyush has successfully built and scaled an incredibly successful business with heart and soul. However, the greatest satisfaction comes from the impact he has made on the lives of young people in Peterborough and its surrounding area.

“I love to pop into my local youth centre, run by Young People March, to have a chat, share a laugh and a joke. Personally, nothing gives me a kick like when a young person who wouldn’t engage at first, wouldn’t sit at a desk or speak, shows me their artwork,” he enthuses.

COVID effect

Piyush has been working alongside Young People March since the beginning of the first lockdown in 2020 and throughout that time has built a bespoke and supportive learning environment in the charity’s well-equipped facility. With Young People March, Piyush has gone above and beyond for students who are out of the mainstream education system in a bid to reinspire their love of learning, integrating arts and crafts, design and tech and glass engraving into regular education.

“Social action comes through the nature of running a Tutor Doctor business,” explains Piyush. “During COVID, students lost confidence in education, and couldn’t access the resources needed for home education. Schools and local authorities started working with us and through one-to-ones with young people, we breathed life back into education. We bent over backwards to match the right tutor to individual circumstances, working with Young People March and Little Miracles in Peterborough to further engage with young people.”

People business

Piyush’s business revenue has grown over 100 per cent in the last year alone and in the first quarter of 2022, his franchise ranked number two for revenue — not just in the UK but for the whole global Tutor Doctor network. Together, Piyush and his team are helping hundreds of families to recover from the impact of the pandemic on their academic lives and beyond.

Firmly focused on continually developing his offering and strengthening the delivery of the service his business provides, Piyush’s team has built valuable partnerships with local schools and community youth centres. This long-standing drive to support the local community proved instrumental in Piyush’s success in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the team pivoted from tutoring private clients to delivering education to those in need and helping to address the learning loss from the pandemic.

“The impact of COVID on our business was immense,” he says. “When exams were cancelled, 40 to 50 per cent of our clients dropped out in two weeks.

“We used our accreditations to pivot our sales to provide a B2B service. Through partnerships with schools, centres, and the local authority, we were able to access looked-after and SEND children, continuing with their education where there was no provision and acting as a stopgap for schools. We educated where there was no provision.”

Striving for success

Piyush’s successes have been determined by always asking himself ‘what more I can do?’ and he demonstrates, daily, that he always strives for better.

Collaborating and partnering with youth charities and schools has been a huge contributing factor to this success, and also seen his business become the main education provider locally to children in care or not in education.

“This work with SEND and looked-after children has continued since COVID,” he continues. In fact, close to three-quarters of our work comes through schools and the local authority, working with SEND students and addressing needs that schools can’t meet.”

Collaborating closely with Tutor Doctor head office, Piyush delivered over 11,000 hours of education in various capacities in the last academic year and his approach to finding innovative ways to become a trusted pillar of his community is now the blueprint for the entire network.

Family affair

Piyush’s team now consists of around 75 tutors, and his wife has joined as a fellow director after a career in education. Even Piyush’s eldest son worked for Tutor Doctor in his gap year, handling social media and digital marketing among other important tasks.

“We’re united as a family in our common purpose, explains Piyush. “At Tutor Doctor, the mission is changing the trajectory of students’ lives. It’s not always about achieving results in the traditional sense, such as improving grades. When I walk into the youth centre and young people, who didn’t engage or trust me at first, smile and show me their work with pride written on their faces… you just can’t beat that feeling!”

Get to know

Professional strengths
I’m good at the business side of things, but I also have empathy and people skills.

Proudest achievement
Positive reviews on Google, some of which are two pages long – and winning Tutor Doctor’s Franchisee of the Year 2022.

Best piece of life advice?
Consider those less fortunate. My father used to say: “I used to fret I had no shoes until I met someone with no feet.”