Mayor declares first West Midlands Business Festival a huge success

Thousands of businesses and individuals helped to make the first-ever West Midlands Business Festival one of the region's biggest and most influential events of its kind.

Mayor Richard Parker launched the inaugural festival to bring ambitious businesses together so they can get behind his mission to turbocharge economic growth.

The festival - organised by Business Growth West Midlands - engaged with 1,500 businesses and smashed expectations with more than 4,000 tickets booked for the impressive line up of 100 events held across the two weeks.

The packed programme included workshops, networking sessions, discussions, expert insights and industry launches to a range of more ‘out of the ordinary’ events such as a networking and wellbeing event on roller skates by Wheels in Motion; Snooty Pooch’s idea to bring canines and corporates together to explore the power businesses can have on CSR.

Those who attended events highlighted the networking opportunities while two thirds said they would implement changes in their businesses with the knowledge they picked up.

One of the success stories from the festival is a new support group, Eastern European Business Owners from West Midlands.

The group came out of a Business Festival event organised in Walsall by Sylwia Juranek, who moved to the UK from Poland almost 20 years ago.

Sylwia, from Walsall, who runs Reach for a Star C.I.C. and Missing Link Support Ltd, said “20 people from across West Midlands attended our event. One person travelled all the way from Luton to join us. This was the first time I’d met all but two directors of another organisation I previously collaborated on a project with.

“We’re from Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Croatia and Moldova, and decided to start a business here in West Midlands. Everyone agreed, there was nothing like this for our community before and it was needed so much! 

“Attendees requested to organise these types of events on a regular basis. We have already arranged another meeting for in May in Birmingham, to make it more central for everyone. And it looks like we may have a sponsor to cover the cost of the venue. Another attendee agreed to manage a WhatsApp Group, to bring us all together even closer, and another committed to provide a workshop on AI solutions to the rest of the group.”

The Mayor said: “This festival was about bringing businesses together, to learn from one another and celebrate success. And we delivered.

“We helped Sylwia build a new support group, while connecting hundreds of businesses and thousands of individuals to real growth opportunities.

“The feedback has been phenomenal, but the work doesn’t stop here. I’m giving businesses the funding and support they need to grow, create jobs, and drive our economy forward. We’ve already issued £10 million of grants and supported over 10,000 businesses but there is more to do.

“I want next year to be bigger, bolder, and even more ambitious. The future of business in the West Midlands is bright. I can’t wait to build on this success.”

The festival has been organised for the Mayor by Business Growth West Midlands (BGWM), which is part of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).

It was backed by all three of the region’s Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), universities, and many other business organisations.

Find out more about the business support available through Business Growth West Midlands at www.businessgrowthwestmidlands.org.uk.