Following another successful year, further employment opportunities have been created which will help two local young people start rewarding careers. Maria Brown and Ben Hibberd-Sweet have started new roles at ecommerce website and on-line marketing specialist Purpose Media. Maria will be an account manager in the client support team and Ben will start as a junior website developer.

The new roles have been created in response to the growing demand from manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers wishing to be more successful on-line. Purpose Media has won a number of awards and has built a reputation for delivering a return on investment based on the ongoing consultative approach which helps website owners continually promote their website on-line.

Maria (23), who lives in Derby, graduated in 2014 with a first degree in Media Production BA (Honours) from The University of Derby, where she studied for 3 years. Her course modules included television production, radio production and web design and development. This is her first full time job since leaving university. She is learning to speak Japanese and, as a year 8 student, she won a national writing competition and had a short story published.

Ben (19), lives in Sutton in Ashfield and has GCSEs in English and Maths. Since leaving school he has gained a level 3 apprenticeship in web development and telecom professionals, a Cisco IT essentials certificate, a Microsoft office specialist certificate and BTECS in ICT for business.

For the year ended March 2015, Purpose Media exceeded its growth target by 66%, and now has a turnover of £850k. The company, which is based in South Normanton now employees 22 staff and will shortly expand into larger offices in order to make room for further expansion in 2015.