Lauren Templeton is the founder and director of Select School of Performing Arts, which she launched in 2019 after training as a professional dancer.
The London-based entrepreneur has grown Select from three ballet classes in a single studio into a 50-location organisation reaching more than 1,000 students a week, much of it delivered through partnerships with primary schools, Fast Company reported in August.
Alongside the school she runs LT Coaching, which helps dance school owners grow their businesses and step back from the day-to-day. She tells Business Matters why confidence matters more than trophies, and why she wishes she had let go sooner.
What do you currently do at Select School of Performing Arts?
I am the founder and director of Select School of Performing Arts, the UK’s largest independent performing arts school, and one I am incredibly proud to have built from the ground up. We give children the opportunity to discover performing arts through our own flagship classes and through an ever-growing network of primary school partnerships that bring performing arts education directly into schools across the country.
What we have created is not just a dance school. It is a community, a movement, and a place where children come to find their voice, their confidence, and develop life skills way beyond the stage.
But my role has evolved significantly since the early days. Alongside running Select, I also run LT Coaching, where I work with dance school owners and performing arts entrepreneurs across the UK to help them grow their businesses, build their teams, and step out of the day-to-day so they can lead strategically. I have worked with clients at all stages, from brand new schools just finding their feet to established businesses turning over six figures that have hit a ceiling and need to break through it.
So on any given day, I might be coaching a client through a business challenge in the morning, leading a strategy session with my senior team in the afternoon, and thinking about the next showcase event or school partnership in the evening. I genuinely love what I do. There are not many people who can say they spend their days helping children find their confidence and helping business owners find their potential. I get to do both.
What was the inspiration behind your business?
I always danced growing up and went on to train as a professional dancer. Dance has always been my passion. It was never just a hobby, it was everything. I spent years auditioning while working at other schools, and although I never got my big break in the way I had imagined, I now believe that path led me exactly where I was supposed to be.
I started Select in 2019 because I found there were two extremes in performing arts education. On one side, there were schools that were highly competitive, where a child’s self-worth became tied to a result. On the other, there were schools where children were clearly having fun, but where structure, progression and planning seemed to be an afterthought.
I wanted to build something in the middle: a school where children were genuinely engaged and loved coming through the door, but where they were also being challenged, progressing, and developing skills that went far beyond the steps.
The thing that has driven me from the beginning is watching a child walk into a class unsure of themselves and walk out six months later transformed. Not just as a performer, but as a person. Performing arts is one of the most powerful confidence-building tools available to young people, and everything we do at Select is built around that belief.
Another driver for me is my team: building an incredible group of talented teachers and creatives, and actively supporting and growing their opportunities. The performing arts world is still widely viewed as a hobby rather than a profession, something you do on the side, not something you build a career around.
Select is proof that it does not have to be that way. You can create a thriving, sustainable business in this industry, employ brilliant people, give them real stability, and build something that genuinely changes lives, for the children in the classes and for the teachers at the front of them.
The coaching business came later, but from a similar place. I found myself having conversations with other dance school owners who were working incredibly hard and getting nowhere: burning out, undercharging, unable to delegate, not sure why their business was not growing. I had figured out a lot of what they were struggling with, and I wanted to share it. LT Coaching became the vehicle for that. Helping another business owner have a breakthrough is just as exciting to me as seeing a child take their first bow on stage.
Who do you admire?
I admire all business owners. I think most people have no idea how hard it actually is, and I have a huge amount of respect for anyone who takes that leap and keeps going.
Beyond that, I admire people with big dreams who actually chase them. There is so much that can hold us back: self-doubt, other people’s opinions, fear of getting it wrong. The people who push through all of that and just go after what they want are the ones who inspire me most.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
I would have built the team sooner. For a long time I held on to too much, partly because I cared deeply about quality, and partly because I had not yet learned that letting go is not the same as losing control. You can maintain high standards and delegate. In fact, you can only maintain high standards at scale by delegating. That took me longer to internalise than I would like to admit.
I would also have stopped taking on other people’s opinions so early, particularly from people who had never done what I was trying to do. Advice from someone who has not walked the path you are on is just noise, and I spent too long letting it slow me down.
And I would have got a coach and mentor much earlier and stopped trying to figure everything out alone. That single shift changed everything for me when I eventually made it.
What defines your way of doing business?
Collaboration and ambition in equal measure. I listen to my team and I believe the best ideas often come from the people closest to the work. We build things together, and that matters to me.
But I also have big ideas and I am always pushing what we can do next. I think that combination is one of my strengths as a CEO: we are never standing still, never settling, always looking at what is possible.
And I want it to be fun. What is the point in building something if you are going to be miserable doing it? The ambition must come with enjoyment, with energy, with a team that loves being part of what you are creating. That is what I am always working towards.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Start before you feel ready, and know that the learning happens on the way, not before it. Take on feedback, use it as data, let it show you where to improve. But do not let it knock you personally. Some people will love what you do. Others will not. Both are fine. The quicker you make peace with that, the faster you move.
Do not try to figure it all out alone. Invest in learning, and get a coach or mentor who has done what you want to do and can give you the playbook rather than letting you reinvent the wheel. That support changes everything.
Build your team earlier than you think you need to. Every founder I know wishes they had delegated sooner. The team is not the thing you build when you are big enough. It is the thing that gets you there.
And honestly? Just go for it. We only get one life. Stop waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect plan, the perfect version of yourself. It does not exist. The people who build great things are not the ones who had it all figured out. They are the ones who started anyway.
