TEENAGER Sam Flowers has shown he means business when it comes to meeting a challenge.

Sam received an Outstanding Individual Award for his creativity and leadership skills in the Siemens Make It Challenge.

Sam is a pupil at County High School, Leftwich, and was presented with the award to recognise his creativity and leadership skills.

He was part of a County High team which competed against more than 100 boys and girls from 12 Cheshire schools to build a business and develop and market new products using Siemens drive technologies.

The Leftwich team of teenage entrepreneurs were challenged to set up a ‘pop up’ business for the day.

They created the Leftman eco-friendly factory, which used renewable energy sources to shrink its carbon footprint and make a profit by selling surplus green energy to the National Grid.

On the day the students completed a series of tasks, each taking on job roles from managing director to operations managers through to finance, sales and marketing managers.

They developed a sales and marketing strategy and pitched their fully-planned ideas in a Dragons Den-style presentation to Siemens employees.

“Congratulations to Sam, who has shown he’s got what it takes to succeed in business,” said Finbarr Dowling, managing director at Siemens Congleton.

“This is the fourth consecutive year we have joined with The Manufacturing Institute to run a Make It event.

“We want to light that flame of enthusiasm for manufacturing and engineering among the highly talented and enthusiastic young people in our locality.”

The free event was a collaboration between educational charity The Manufacturing Institute and global engineering company Siemens Congleton, and was designed to give young people a real taste of modern manufacturing enterprise.

“Manufacturing and engineering are crucial to our economy, and it’s essential we attract the brightest young people to work in the sector,” said Stephanie Boyle, co-ordinator for The Manufacturing Institute’s Make It campaign.

“At this event the teenagers gained a true flavour of what it’s like working for a business like Siemens. The creative ideas and commercial know-how of the Leftwich students, particularly Sam Flowers, was very impressive.”