Mind Your Business is a spin-out from award-winning research by Durham University professor Pablo Muñoz… and it’s going global.
For Professor Muñoz, impact has always mattered more than academic applause.
An applied social scientist and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Durham University Business School, Pablo’s work sits at the intersection of enterprise, social justice and environmental sustainability.
He also serves as Co-Director of the Durham Enterprise Centre and the Social Science Enterprise Lab, and holds visiting research positions in Spain and Mexico. But his focus is consistent wherever he works: translating research into real-world change.
“If research doesn’t improve how people live and work,” he says, “then we have to question what it’s really for.”
Mind Your Business was created to answer that question.
Co-founded with Kat Sykes and Jase Smith, the venture builds on Pablo’s internationally recognised research into founder psychology. Together, they have combined academic rigour with practical delivery experience to create a human-centred business development model.
At its heart is a clear finding: deterioration in self-worth directly impacts founder wellbeing, decision-making and business performance.
“We’ve spent decades measuring financial capital,” Pablo explains. “But we haven’t paid enough attention to human capital in its deepest sense. When founders struggle internally, their businesses feel it externally.”
The methodology was first piloted in the North East. Early participants reported measurable shifts in confidence, clarity and leadership capability. What began as a regional initiative soon attracted international interest.
Denmark was first to scale the model nationally. Through Sund Kapital, a cross-sector initiative led by Danish Entrepreneurs and funded by the Velliv Foundation, Mind Your Business is being delivered via a structured train-the-trainer programme, six-week courses and practical bootcamps. Fourteen certified trainers will take the approach across the country.
“Denmark saw that this wasn’t just a wellbeing programme,” Pablo says. “It’s an economic strategy.”
The ambition is to make conversations about mental fitness as normal and strategic as conversations about growth plans.
India is next. In partnership with NSRCEL and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Mind Your Business is exploring how to support incubators and accelerators in addressing founder burnout before it undermines promising ventures.
The team is also working with university partners in Mexico and business support frameworks across Latin America, adapting the methodology to suit diverse cultural and economic contexts.
Each expansion requires nuance, but the principle remains constant: healthy businesses depend on healthy humans.
Back in the UK, a domestic equivalent of Denmark’s national model is now being planned, supported by a growing team of certified trainers. Alongside programme delivery, the team is drafting a manifesto for a broader coalition of organisations committed to embedding mental fitness into economic thinking and policy.
“The ambition is bigger than one organisation,” he says. “It’s about shaping policy and shifting how we define business success.”
For Pablo and his co-founders, global growth is not about commercial expansion alone. It is about building a movement.
A movement where enterprise is measured not only by profit and scale, but by the strength and resilience of the people behind it.