Panel discussion Archives

We will be joined by Tech WM, the regions cluster body for digital economy, as well as representation from the West Midlands Innovation Board, plus you will have the opportunity to hear all about the outcomes of our trailblazing innovation accelerator projects, DIATOMIC and CLEAN FUTURES from both our delivery lead and business beneficiaries alike.

Yiannis Maos MBE, Founder & CEO, TechWM
Sanjay Daswani, Chief Commercial Officer, Global Nano Network
Sarah Windrum, Head of Cluster Development, Horiba MIRA.
Iain Mansell, Head of Engagement, West Midlands, Connected Places Catapult

0:04 – 0:28

So spotlight on the West Midlands. I would actually rename this, if we named it ourselves, as welcome to Team West Midlands. This is the name we fondly give ourselves as the powerhouse, the trailblazer that is the West Midlands region. So I’m really proud to be from the West Midlands myself one, but also to have these amazing panellists with me today. So my name is Ian Mansell.

0:28 – 0:46

I’m head of West Midlands Regional Engagement at Connected Places Catapult, and I will get my panelists to introduce themselves over to you. Sarah. Hello, everyone. I’m Sarah Windram. I am the Deputy Chair of the West Midlands Innovation Board and also the head of Cluster Development at Myra Tech Park.

0:47 – 1:04

And when Sam was calling out the different people in the room, he kind of neglected my category. I think. I’m a volunteer, not trying to from the private sector, but not trying to supply. So the public sector, I’m actually just really passionate about the innovation ecosystem. I think you’re more than a volunteer.

1:05 – 1:11

You’re a superhero. And you are actually a superhero, aren’t you? You have a book, don’t you? I do have a book, yeah. That’s a separate.

1:11 – 1:16

We’ll come on to that one. Come and talk about it in the networking break. Yanis. Yeah. So, hello, everyone.

1:16 – 1:53

I’m Yanis Maus. I’m the chief exec and founder of Tech West Midlands and Birmingham Tech Week, which is. Is the largest regional tech festival in the uk. Tech West Midlands exists to supercharge the tech ecosystem across the West Midlands and foster an environment of collaboration, but really kind of fundamental to everything we do is to inspire people from all walks of life to get into technology. We’re mandated by the West Midlands Combined Authority to grow the digital economy and we do that in a number of ways, which I’m sure we’ll get onto during this panel discussion.

1:53 – 1:57

Absolutely. Thank you, Yanis. Alex. Yep. Good afternoon, everyone.

1:57 – 2:15

I’m Alex Weed and I’m Executive Director for SME development and Academic engagement at Connected Places Catapult. That’s a very long title, but effectively all you need to worry about is, you know, it’s me and my team that look after the delivery of the West Midlands innovation accelerator programmes. Alex does all of the stuff should be simplified too. Absolutely. I do not.

2:15 – 2:23

The team do all of the stuff. I come up and sit up here and take the credit. And Sanjay. Good afternoon, everyone. It’s great to be here.

2:24 – 2:53

Our company’s based in the West Midlands, but my accent, as you can tell, I’m not from the West Midlands and There’s a reason why we picked that region specifically, which we’ll touch upon later. So I’m the co founder at Global Nano Network. The world’s looking at electrification as a way to solve climate crisis. However, the battery industry has a long way to go to actually make that a reality and actually be sustainable in their own approach. So the way we do this is we have a product that helps to make batteries more efficient but also expand their battery life, which means you lower the total cost of ownership of that device.

2:53 – 3:15

In addition to that, we have a manufacturing process that enables cell manufacturers to actually have a better process when they make the cells, reduce the amount of power that’s used toxic solvents, which overall reduces the cost of the cell, but also reduces the carbon emissions of the cell manufacturer. So that’s what we focused on. Proud to be a company based in the Midlands and look forward to our growth as well. So thank you. Thank you for joining us, Sanjay.

3:15 – 3:40

Appreciate it. And just for anyone with ocd, I apologize for not sitting in the row as advertised there, but I need to be able to see the lollipop lady over there who’s going to tell me off when I’m not keeping to time. Okay, let’s get stuck in. So, Sarah, you are the deputy chair of the West Midlands Innovation Board. You’re also head of cluster development at Hariba Myra, which is a big technology park in the West Midlands.

3:41 – 4:12

When we talk about collaborative coalitions of public and private partners to drive growth, what does the West Midlands do that’s kind of unique or special in terms of industry engagement and governance structures? So I think it comes back to what I talked about with those private sector volunteers. We’ve got a very mature. I like your collaborative coalition. We’ve got a very mature way of working in that respect, I think stemming from the three LEP geography.

4:12 – 4:29

That was where, Ian, you and I first met well over a decade ago. And that kind of can do attitude in terms of forming these coalitions. I remember we formed the West Midlands Digital Partnership. Digital is a golden thread. It is the golden thread through the rest of the economy.

4:30 – 4:57

Coined by creato. Yes. But pre even Andy Street’s first election, we formed the Digital Partnership to really work across that three let geography. I mean, the West Midlands is a big region, three city region, you could argue in terms of Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton. So, yeah, that coalition coming together, but coming together with a very clear purpose.

4:57 – 5:41

And I think the industry part of that has always been really important in terms of what’s the direction of travel what’s the end goal? Usually it’s about growth, it’s about market, it’s about that opportunity. And I think we’ve always been very good at using the right resource in the right way in that respect across the West Midlands. So, as I said, kind of industry and the private sector sort of setting the direction of travel, but then the West Midlands combined Authority and colleagues, if you look at it like a ship, the private sector are kind of saying, right, this is where we’re headed. And I feel like the WMCA help us to kind of navigate the course.

5:41 – 6:15

And then if you’re carrying on with that analogy, I think the universities provide the maps, you know, they provide the kind of evidence and the research that helps us to get to where we want to go. So, yeah, I do think it’s that kind of a same maturity of those relationships. And obviously it was said, I noted it down earlier, but that generous collaboration, like nobody is trying to grab everything. We’re all very aware of kind of what our strengths are and what we can do and what we can contribute. But I think it comes back to what you said about Team West Midlands.

6:15 – 6:48

We’ve all got a passion for the area and a passion for what the area can, can do and can achieve together. So, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a great place to work, isn’t it? Certainly is a great place to work now that we’re biased. So, Sarah, you’ve obviously been party to the development of the Innovation Accelerator and the Innovation Board’s kind of strategic oversight and I guess friendly encouragement along the way to make sure that we’re meeting strategic objectives. But CPC landed us a relative newbie, I guess, in the West Midlands ecosystem.

6:49 – 7:23

So as we’ve been along this kind of two year journey, what are your main observations about how CPCs landed in the ecosystem and what its role it’s played in enabling growth? So I am genuinely not just saying this because I’m in this room, but the two programs that CPC ran are my two favorites. Clean Futures is the first. So Clean Futures is, I guess, personally my favorite because of my day job. So Hariba Mira is a vehicle development, a vehicle research and development technology center of excellence.

7:23 – 8:18

So obviously Clean Futures was all focused around the decarbonisation of transport and that transition. But I think the thing I really liked about Clean Futures, as well as bringing the connected places catapult into the region and working with partners, there was the focus on industry, so the focus on actually this innovation needs a customer at the end of It. So whether it was in automotive, which was obviously more of the world that I’m working in, or whether it was in rail, what CPC did, working through the partnerships we already had with industry is bring the right people into those rooms. So you had Coventry University and the BCIMO delivering the program, but that connection through CPC with the wider industry and the customer base was really important. And I think that was reflected in the private.

8:18 – 8:50

I mean, you’ll know the stats better than I do, but that will be reflected in the private investment. Certainly Clean Futures, of all the innovation accelerator projects, was the highest private investment secured, much investment secured. And I think that was because of that industry engagement. And then Diatomic, my second favorite, because it’s all about kind of digital infrastructure, digital twins. How can we make the region particularly focused on Birmingham?

8:50 – 9:11

How can we make that a kind of hotbed for innovation to come and develop? You need the infrastructure in order to be able to do that. But I think the thing I really liked about Diatomic was that global positioning. We forget sometimes. I think the UK is really quite small and, you know, you hear over and over the different regions saying, oh, we’re doing quantum, we’re doing AI, we’re doing.

9:11 – 9:25

We’re all doing that, right? Like, how can we work better as the UK to position ourselves globally? Because that’s where the competition is. It’s not between Liverpool and Birmingham or Wolverhampton, it’s. It’s, you know, it’s what’s happening in the rest of the world.

9:26 – 9:56

And I think Diatomic got that and they got that point about positioning us globally and actually shifted our perceptions a little bit. And I’m sure Yanis will talk about the work that Tech WM did through that program, but particularly for me, us putting ourselves forward for the European Innovation Capital of the Year Awards. When we first started on this journey, we would have never done that. We weren’t people that sung about the great things that we did. So I think that change in perception to really go, do you know what?

9:56 – 10:11

We’ve got something really powerful here that we can showcase on a global stage. I think that’s made all the difference. And those things are really hard to capture in the evaluations, aren’t they? That’s the challenge. But, yeah, that’s why that’s my second favourite project.

10:11 – 10:24

We’ll pop you the £20 on the way. Thank you. And we’ll come back around to some group discussion in a minute. But moving over to Yanis. So, Yanis, you have been a driving force in growing the West Midlands digital economy.

10:25 – 10:56

When we’re talking about kind of global propositions and the West Midlands is open, how are you selling us to the world? Yeah, so I think kind of there’s a cultural shift happening in the West Midlands right now. We have been self deprecating in the past and very kind of humble and we don’t want to lose that. But I think it’s our time to shine, our time to kind of stick our chest out to the world and say, hey, we’re here, open the business. And we’re collaborating as part of Team UK.

10:57 – 11:29

My background’s the private sector, so I spent 10 years working at a kind of startup come scale up that sold to a US firm back in 2017. And so I’ve kind of taken that kind of private mindset into kind of this kind of public, private, academic kind of partnership. And one of the things I was kind of adamant about is we need a strong narrative to take to the world. So we spent a lot of time developing this kind of narrative, which was a true collaborative project. Over 100 partners across the tech ecosystem contributed to that.

11:29 – 12:00

So all the universities, private sectors, organizations like IBM, Goldman Sachs, Accenture and also the public sector. And we landed on this message of making tech succeed in the most human of places. And that really kind of resonated with both locally, nationally and internationally, with the youngest, most diverse region in the whole of Europe. And we want to use that to our advantage. And so we’ve started to take that message on the road, really.

12:00 – 12:50

And so through Diatomic, I signed an MOU with Allsam in South Korea as part of Birmingham Tech Week, where they brought over tech 10 South Korean businesses to look at market expansion opportunities into the West Midlands and uk. Subsequently, in February, we went over and also took six businesses over with us, looking at opportunities to enter the South Korean market. And lots of things have happened for both businesses from South Korea, but also businesses from the West Midlands as part of that. So new investment opportunities, new corporate partnerships, new opportunities to enter those international markets. And we’ve also been a part of trade missions to Lisbon as part of Web Summit where we’re up for European Capital innovation.

12:50 – 13:21

Sarah’s absolutely right. We would have never dreamt of being shortlisted for that award. But not only did we apply, we did get shortlisted and finished third. And then I’ve just got back from South Africa by Southwest, where again, as part of UK House, we’ve started to send that message to the world that we are the fastest growing tech sector in the uk. We’ve Got a really strong tech and cultural offering and yeah, there’s lots of opportunities on the horizon.

13:21 – 13:55

There sure are, absolutely. So if we’re talking about that making tech succeed in the most human apparent, and we loop that tech together with the kind of strategy of the Innovation Board and the thematic areas that our innovation accelerator represents in terms of clean tech and health tech, and you kind of brew that out to. Everything we do in the West Midlands around innovation is for the people and for the planet. We go to the European Capital of Innovation Awards and we kind of spin that yarn around humanicity in the same vein and come third place. Absolutely.

13:55 – 14:20

So proud of that. But, you know, that’s external facing stuff and we’ve got this amazing narrative, but what impact has that had in the ecosystem, in the community within the West Midlands? I think, you know, we’ve seen it from kind of the startups, so I think there’s a, there’s again a cultural element to this, the startup. So we’re startup capital of the uk. We create more startups in the West Midlands than any other place in the uk.

14:20 – 14:52

Uk. And that’s actually kind of led by Wolverhampton, not Birmingham belief, but Birmingham and Coventry combined with Wolverhampton create some fantastic innovative startups. What we’ve seen, I think, through the last couple of years is a sea change in the ambition of those businesses. There’s almost now kind of an aspiration to become kind of truly fledged scale ups and international businesses. And we’re starting to see that now kind of the number of scale ups in the West Midlands is growing.

14:53 – 15:18

Investment going into startups and scale ups again is on the rise. Could we do better? Absolutely. But again, I think what we’re now seeing is kind of the big corporate tech brands lean in and go. We want to be part of the ecosystem, we want to support, we want to work with great universities and like, I’ve got colleagues from VCU in the room to really kind of support that mission.

15:19 – 15:55

And I think kind of there’s so many new opportunities now emerging, one through kind of the work we did with jlr. So we worked with JLR and Plug and Play, the largest VC in the world, to start to kind of solve some of their innovation sustainability challenges using the startups present in the West Midlands. So it’s about unlocking those opportunities for both startups and scale ups. So talking about opportunities, we’ve got a new strategy. So if anyone’s been kind of sitting outside having coffee, they’re plunked strategically around for you to have a look at.

15:56 – 16:25

One thing I’m really, really excited about is digital and data has been brought more to the front and centre in terms of that new strategy. So, in terms of CPC enabling the West Midlands along that kind of mission and journey, where do you see us kind of injecting some of our love, caring attention in the future? So for me, it’s facilitating those strategic partnerships. So, you know, we talked about collaboration. Sarah, you mentioned it.

16:25 – 17:02

I think we coined a phrase last year which was ruthless collaboration. It’s going kind of above and below, beyond, and it’s turning it from kind of collaboration to strategic partnerships. And I think kind of connected places, catapult have really helped us kind of form those strategic partnerships both in the UK and across the world. And that’s really important because that convening power unlocks opportunities for the institutions and the businesses present in the ecosystem. So it’s been very welcome and I know there’s lots of new projects on the horizon where we can kind of do more and almost supercharge the work that we’ve started on.

17:03 – 17:13

Brilliant. Thank you. I’m very excited to be part of that journey with you as we move forward. I don’t know if that sounds a bit sinister. Are we kind of an innovation mafia, this ruthless collaboration?

17:13 – 17:22

We are friendly. Do please come and network with us. The generous, generous collaboration. Generous collaboration, yeah, we’ll go with that one. So thank you, Yanis.

17:22 – 17:39

Moving over to Alex. So, Alex, you have been party to the inception all the way through to the successful delivery of these huge, bold, ambitious innovation accelerator projects. CPC leads. What has been your proudest moment? Proudest moment, I think.

17:39 – 18:50

Well, I mean, I could spend the whole session talking about all of the different moments that have made me proud through the process and the delivery of the program. But actually, I think the thing that I’ve been proudest of and I think CPC are proudest of, actually, is the opportunity that we’ve had to really embed ourselves in what is frankly a really vibrant and exciting innovation ecosystem in the West Midlands. You know, the university, if you think about innovation as a supply chain, all the way from the universities to the entrepreneurs, the one man bands, the one person bands out there creating wealth and growth, some of them don’t think of themselves as innovators in the traditional sense, that we might think of innovation, but those sorts of, that sort of groundswell, if you like, of innovation and then all of the different component parts of the ecosystem that are available, the support, all the way up to the support that the combined authority have provided. I think that to Me is the proudest thing. It’s really enabled us to be able to be part of that ecosystem.

18:50 – 19:11

And I wouldn’t say it’s always been easy, right. But being part of that ecosystem and being able to actually add value into that ecosystem as well. And it’s really lovely to hear what you’ve said so far, Sarah and Yanis, about your experiences of working with us. And that’s exactly what we want to get to. We want that good, you know, good feeling vibe.

19:11 – 19:34

But also, you know, we have ways of making you collaborate, ruthless collaboration approach, talking about kind of positive impact. Can you give us a bit of a flavor about the kind of impact from. From Clean Futures? Sure. Now, as Sarah said, you know, these are two very different programs.

19:34 – 20:22

The ones that we’ve been working on, Clean Futures and Diatomic Clean Futures is very much focused around sectors in the area, in the region, obviously, really sectors where there are real strengths in the region. And we’ve been focused on delivering to as many really innovative quality SMEs a bespoke program of activity that enables them to scale and grow in the region and beyond. And so if you look at Clean Futures, that’s what the results have shown. You know, we talked about, I think it’s £115 million worth of CO investment, the SMEs. We’ve had 39 SMEs on that program, really intensive program.

20:22 – 21:01

Almost each One of those SMEs has had their own bespoke journey through the program, working with BCIMO and with Coventry University to support the development of their technology, their ideas. But actually fundamentally what we’ve seen from that is that they’ve been able to raise about 17.5 million pounds worth of investment at the last count collectively. But more importantly, actually over £50 million worth of opportunity, business opportunities, pumpkin pipeline if you like. Because that’s really the trick of this is that the investment comes when you can show that there’s commercial traction. And that’s what this program has really done.

21:01 – 21:13

I think that’s the big impact. I can’t Remember. It’s about 100 odd jobs created as well over that period of time as well. So that’s nothing to absolutely fantastic. And I think that’s really where kind of CPC can come in.

21:13 – 21:47

We talk about connecting places. You know, we didn’t do this just to cpc, we’ve done it as a kind of collaboration and a coalition with regional partners. But we’ve been able to bring in CPC’s expertise to be able to win those types of Opportunities and ultimately, you know, the front end enabled over £16 million worth of new innovation funding to come into the West Midlands to be able to deliver in a way that the West Midlands chooses that’s right for them. And, you know, I’m really proud that CPC have been able to do that. So you talk about Clean Futures impact, but diatomic, let’s get on to that.

21:47 – 22:59

So diatomic, very different program, much more about the breadth of the, of the innovation ecosystem trying to develop. And we had a number of. I mean, now I’m thinking about it, I can’t believe what we attempted to achieve with the diatomic program and what we have been able to actually see out of the diatomic program. So, you know, all the way from creating a digital platform to enable digital twins and the sharing of data, creating use cases around that, through to supporting the creation of an inclusive innovation network to drive participation and diversity in our innovation ecosystem. The international work which we’ve touched on, which had so many different streams to it, I mean, the connections with, creating and supporting the development of the international strategy for the West Midlands, combined authority with the global growth company, working with partners like Yanis to take delegations out to Korea and build strong relationships with the Ulsan innovation ecosystem that really then drives that kind of platform to deliver activity.

23:00 – 23:34

And off the back of that, I think £500,000 worth of R and D opportunities have been realized out of that through the academic connections alone. That’s a really strong part of the sustainability of the program as well. That’s going to continue regardless of what happens next in terms of diatomic, and that will continue to build strength. What else have we got in there? So obviously we ran our own UK accelerator program, which was a really powerful process program designed to help SMEs get into local government, in particular Birmingham City Council.

23:35 – 24:12

And within that, we helped a smaller number of SMEs than we did with Clean Futures. But we help them get contracts with local authorities, we help them find ways of raising funding, both R and D and investment, and we’ve also helped them to create jobs. And then of course, there was the program where we took seven SMEs out to India to do a really kind of focused mission and give those organizations in the West Midlands an opportunity to export and to grow beyond the West Midlands borders. So if I missed anything there, Ian, I can’t think. I think I’ve got everything there.

24:13 – 25:06

We could be here all day, basically blown away by all of that. We had one additional actually, which was kind of unexpected, I guess, which was from the relationship we built with Ulsani in South Korea. One of their big venture capitalist firms is really interesting in setting up in the West Midlands because they see the potential of the emerging sectors and businesses present. And one of our objectives as a organization outside of Diatomic is to kind of stimulate the ecosystem with better opportunities around inclusive investment. So I think kind of there’s serendipity in all of this and above and beyond kind of diatomic or the work of connected places catapult, actually it’s that integration into everything else that’s going on across the ecosystem that’s really, I think where kind of CPC play such a fundamental and important role across that it’s good.

25:06 – 25:44

Somebody write that down. Absolutely. Thank you, Alex. So, you know, we can talk this talk till we’re blue in the face, but the ultimate ambition and the reason why funding streams and catapults and you know, cluster bodies, etc, all exist is ultimately to grow businesses, for businesses to have some kind of growth trajectory, some, you know, be able to start a business, being able to grow a business, being able to, able to kind of exploit our activities and bring in new businesses, etc. So, you know, let’s not step away from the fact that that is the aim of the game.

25:44 – 26:26

So to bring this to life a bit, I’m really pleased that Sanjay from Global Nano Networks joined us because, you know, ultimately if there’s no business benefit, then we’re just talking in an echo chamber to ourselves really, and wasting time. So bring it to life a bit for us, tell us a bit about your innovation and give us a bit of a flavor for how your business has kind of developed over the last 12 months with support. So I was going to spend a few minutes talking about all the various activities that we have managed to have access to. But I think my fellow panelists here have actually shared a lot of detail exactly what has been delivered. And I think the other thing is, as I mentioned at the start, I’m not from the West Midlands, a lot of the team are not from the West Midlands.

26:26 – 27:06

But strategically we did position ourselves there because there’s that ecosystem and everything we’ve heard so far is exactly the reasons why we actually set up our organization there. And we continue to get that level of support. So if I look at what’s happened over the last 12 months, we’ve been part of the Clean Futures program as well as the Indian kind of joint accelerator program that we had with Diatomic and to Sarah’s point, what we got from Clean Futures is exactly as she mentioned. And I think it’s all about how do you bring the various players and collaborate? And I think one of the things that I think is not only unique about the West Midlands, but about the UK in general.

27:06 – 28:05

I’m talking from a business point of view, is that having done a lot of activity around the world and being part of a number of trade missions, every time I come back to the UK and come to the West Midlands, what I see clearly is that there’s great collaboration between government and government agencies, academia and industry. And actually it takes those three things together to actually really drive innovation and push it forward. In other parts of the world, you might get two of those, or you might get just everybody working in silos. And it’s amazing how where, when things don’t, you know, when things are not coordinated, it’s hard to then actually make funding that’s available to businesses, actually deliver the results you’re looking for. And I think, you know, if I look at the diatomic program specifically, you know, I’ve been on a number of trade missions, and not because I’m sitting on this panel and we’re talking about the West Midlands, but after having kind of looked at a number of these different initiatives, I understand that there’s a lot of work done by the organizers of these programs.

28:05 – 28:48

You know, whether it’s cpc, whether it’s other parts of the UK government and other agencies, the only way for a business like ours to extract value from that is putting as much effort into it. Right. And I think, you know, if there are other businesses out there looking at growth and looking at where they’re looking to actually expand their business, whether it is within the UK or go global, it’s very important to figure out and do your own due diligence to see what these programs deliver and are they fit for your business. And the reason I say that is, you know, certain programs have got, you know, maybe 39, 40, 50 companies, whereas we were seven companies went out to India. Despite being such a small group or such a small cohort, you can’t expect as a business that the organizations like CPC to be able to deliver something for everybody.

28:49 – 29:06

So it’s a very big ask. And I think what we see and the way we see CPC doing a great job for this is actually, number one, trying to make sure that there’s some tailored aspect. Right. I think Alex mentioned about having a lot of companies, but then you tailor the activities for each of the companies. So that actually output is what you’re looking for.

29:06 – 30:06

And I think the other thing is, and I’m again being very candid with the diatomic program, it’s the only one I’ve actually been part of, where there were two stages. We went out to India once and then we actually went back again a few months ago, a few weeks ago, actually. What it allowed us to do was, number one, land, understand the market, develop some contacts, take advantage of, you know, the UK flag, take advantage of the West Midlands to actually open some of those doors, but then come back to base, spend a few weeks, a couple of months, actually part of that program, working with the CPC team to actually develop those conversations further, to then go back again to open up new conversations and actually exploit the previous conversation we had to take us forward. So, you know, one of the things I wanted to say is that if I look at 12 months being part of these programs and what it is from our perspective, actually, just visiting these markets is great, just being part of these programs is great. But actually the reality is what has it delivered and what it has delivered for us is we’re now talking to new partners that we wouldn’t have had access to if it wasn’t for these programs.

30:06 – 30:26

And we continue to have further conversations which we hope will slowly show that there is, you know, more light at the end of the tunnel. Excellent. Thank you. And I’m so pleased that you’ve been able to get some benefits out of the hard work of the team. So just to kind of summarise that before we go out to questions from you lovely lot in the audience.

30:27 – 30:42

So the West Midlands is. It stands for. It’s a city of a thousand trades. It kind of comes from a dirty industry heritage of manufacturing. And if you were kind of.

30:42 – 31:01

To look back in history, you might think that we’re probably 99% responsible for half of the carbon emissions going on across the world. We’re a new generation of people working in this now. There’s a new narrative. You don’t want to grow up in the. The West Midlands thinking your only option is to work in a car factory, in those kind of industries.

31:01 – 31:50

But the future of a car factory is digital. It’s innovative, you know, so that transferring that. That kind of narrative from, you know, very rich manufacturing kind of heritage into, you know, changing that into clean tech and the health and life sciences expertise that we’ve got in the region, and being able to change that narrative from dirty industries to everything we do is for the people and for the Planet and to win accolades for that and to be proud to be part of that is such an exciting place and time to be in at the moment, isn’t it? So, yeah, I think what, what the kind of culmination of that is, is, you know, the West Midlands is really proud, but the West Midlands is open. The West Midlands wants to work with other regions like Liverpool, like Belfast, like Manchester, like wherever.

31:50 – 32:05

We are super friendly. And if you came in here, not Team West Midlands, we hope that you leave Team West Midlands. That’s the kind of key takeaway. So anyway, enough of me. I want to pass over to any questions from the audience.

32:05 – 32:14

We’ve got what we got five minutes, I think, exactly. Anyone for anyone? Patrick? And someone’s coming around with a microphone.

32:17 – 32:33

Thanks, everyone. I’m Patrick from Birmingham City University. I just wanted to ask a question to one of Yannis’s points around how we as an ecosystem can better support startups to turn into scale ups. Yeah, so it’s a very good question and one. Patrick.

32:34 – 32:54

Well, I think, you know, I obsess about all the time. There’s a lot of challenges. Right. So kind of if you look at, you know, the investment going into West Midlands tech businesses, even though we create more startups than anywhere else in the uk, we’re pretty low. We’re one of the worst regions for getting investment into those startups.

32:55 – 33:38

I think that what we now need, and I think the previous panel talked about this, is we need that North Star. We need almost this kind of aspirational position for a kind of startup come scale up to want to be a part of. And I think that’s a really kind of high quality business support investment vehicle and possibly a physical space. So it’s what I like to describe as a semi closed ecosystem in the vast, you know, ecosystem that occurs around it, which is messy, it is organic and it is beautiful because of that. So I think kind of we need to inject that quality.

33:39 – 34:02

It comes back to what was said earlier about we can talk about kind of getting investment into these businesses and a lot of businesses turn around to us and say there’s not investment available. And I’m like, well, that’s. And I won’t swear, but not right. We live in a global economy. You can get investment from anywhere around the world if you’ve got a commercially viable product and service.

34:03 – 34:20

And I think that’s the kind of mindset we need to now kind of instill within our businesses to ensure that we can unlock that true potential. Ian, you mentioned like a City of a Thousand Trades. I’d like to kind of flip that and say the West Midlands is now a city of a thousand opportunities.

34:22 – 34:40

Can I just follow. I mean, I think you agree with everything that Yannis said. I think the money is out there. If you’re talking about my world in terms of vehicle development or vehicle technologies, that takes a lot of cash to get a product to market. That can’t be done by public money.

34:40 – 35:07

That’s got to be private money. Our tenants we looked at. Since 2012, our tenants have raised $22 billion in VC investment, but most of that has come from overseas and we haven’t shown the region that, if you see what I mean. So we’ve got a role as Myra Technology park to say, okay, big VC fund. You’ve come and invested in a couple of companies on our tech park.

35:07 – 35:26

Look at what else we’ve got in this space across the region. And I think once we do more of that, we’ll get exactly, as Denis said, that kind of critical mass of investment and companies and funds realizing that there is lots of opportunity in the West Midlands. Who’s the next one?

35:33 – 35:54

Andrew Ross from Global Garden about the money. Is anyone in the West Midlands putting any pressure on HM treasury to allow, under English treasure, devolution, fiscal devolution that enables you to raise a green bond for the region?

35:56 – 36:08

That’s a difficult question. So I know we look at putting lots of pressure on HM treasury, certainly from an innovation perspective yet. So for. For the money. So, you know, if you’re talking about.

36:08 – 36:35

We’ve been in an innovation accelerator, pilots that the whole point of a pilot is you. You try some stuff, you take some risks, you learn from it, you. You move that to the next phase. So certainly from an Innovation Board perspective, we are working very closely with D.C. to put pressure on HM treasury to say, well, what does that look like? We’ve proven to you that we can do this successfully and we can form the consortia and the projects and we can move the dial.

36:36 – 37:07

We want, you know, a greater pot of money to do that with, and we want a greater pot of money for a longer period of time, you know, two years to get all these projects, all the paperwork done, everything, you know, and all the outputs that Alex has said, that was really, really difficult for everybody. But we have done it. We played by the rules that they set, that government set. Now we want to do move that to the next phase. I don’t know if that’s specifically about green bonds, though, so I’ll have to take that away.

37:11 – 37:16

Is that specifically money going from government into startups and scale ups, private capital.

37:19 – 37:37

Oh, pension. Yeah. So we have. So we have got the West Midlands Co Investment Fund, which is the West Midlands Pension Fund with combined authority money, which is directly making investments, investments into some exciting startups in health, tech and sustainability.

37:40 – 37:59

So that is the kind of pension funds. But I think with the Mansion House reforms, there is an opportunity here to lobby government and HM treasury to say we want more of that. 100%. I agree. We haven’t had an answer of yet, but kind of alongside Sarah and other colleagues, we are lobbying government hard on that issue.

38:00 – 38:16

Thank you. Just for the sake of time. We’re standing between the audience and their lunch break at the moment, so I appreciate there are some other hands held up. I absolutely love to answer some more questions. So we are at the diatomic stand this afternoon.

38:16 – 38:25

A few of us will be around, which is out in the networking space, so do please come and grab us and we’d love to have a chat with you, so. But can I have a big round of applause for my panelists? We.

Connected Places Catapult at UKREiiF 2025

The Connected Places Catapult pavilion at UKREiiF 2025 brought together key thinkers from across industry, local authorities, government and more to explore how we can unlock more sustainable and investable places.

Watch

Speakers

Claire Dorrian

Head of Sustainable Finance, Capital Markets and Post Trade, London Stock Exchange Group

Lorna Pimlott

Managing Director, Local Authority Advisory u0026amp; Lending, National Wealth Fund

Mete Coban MBE

Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy

Catherine McGuinness CBE

Non-Executive Director u0026amp; IUK Nominated Director, Connected Places Catapult

Transcript

0:04 – 0:43

Well, thank you very much for that introduction, Greg, and it’s good to see everybody staying for this session because I’m sure it’s going to be a really fascinating one. And I want you to get active with your slidos, because I’m determined to follow Greg’s instruction that we should have some questions from the audience at each session. However, We’ve only got 25 minutes to talk about the critical question of how to boost investment in net zero and green growth. I must say, if one thing came out clearly to me from the session on how cities and regions can drive growth, it was the vital need. Several things came out of that, but one was the vital need to leverage in private finance.

0:43 – 1:10

And that is just as true of the net zero imperative as it is for any other form of investment. And whether we aim for and achieve net zero for 2050 or whether we take longer, we still need to unlock significant sums to get there. So I’m delighted to have in 25 minutes the opportunity to talk to the three of you. Is my MIC working properly at the back? Can you all hear me?

1:12 – 1:13

Okay, thank you.

1:17 – 1:20

Right, our trusty assistant is coming back.

1:28 – 1:51

Okay. Is that better? Excellent. Well, what I’m going to do is I’m going to ask each of my panelists to start by introducing themselves very briefly and telling us as a starting question, what they each see as the single most critical investment priority for towns and cities if the UK is to stay on track for net zero growth. And I’m going to start with you, Lorna, if I may.

1:52 – 2:27

Thank you, and it’s great to be with you all today. So, National Wealth Fund, I hope you’ve all heard of it. It was established in October last year. I hope my MIC is working, by the way, by the Chancellor, sharing that the UK Infrastructure bank was going to transition into the National Wealth Fund, so it wasn’t going to start a new organization again to become the fund. Our organization had been established over three years and we had done sort of over 40 deals already and deployed quite a lot of capital.

2:27 – 2:44

So what has made us different as a National Wealth Fund? We have obviously no longer got infrastructure in our title. That means we can invest both from the private and the public sector in sectors outside of infrastructure. So. So quite different for our organization.

2:45 – 3:35

And we are also deliberately going to align with the growth industries in the industrial strategy, which we’ve heard quite a lot about this morning. Not all of them, I hasten to add, because we are a relatively small organization. But we will be confirming shortly with treasury, which of the sectors within the industrial strategy, we can deploy our additional capital. So we now have 27.8 billion to deploy instead of 22, which we had as the UK Infrastructure Bank. To your question, which I hadn’t forgotten, I’m not sure there’s one single thing I would stress because working with all the MCAs in particular across England and Glasgow city region, there are different priorities, quite rightly, for different cities and different regions.

3:36 – 4:35

But I think two things that we certainly see, firstly, the investment pipelines needs, by and large quite a lot of work to get projects to be in an investable position. So we will be leaning in to be able to support them to develop those. But I think the other thing that we see is that there are definitely areas of consistency across the UK transport we’ve heard of already this morning. I think the decarbonisation of transport is huge for our cities, whether that’s through mass transit schemes, whether that’s through new zero buses, whether that’s through EV charging, all really key right across the UK in our cities. I think heat networks, decarbonising our heat is also a real focus area for cities and there are some real commercial challenges in actually understanding, understanding how we can do the deals on those sort of new nascent type technologies.

4:35 – 5:20

And then finally, I couldn’t fail to mention retrofit because not least there is a huge amount of housing stock that needs retrofitted across the country, but also the supply chain for the retrofit market in particular just isn’t that established yet. And we’ve certainly been leaning in over the last year with guarantee schemes to commercial banks to do more to push forward that market. And I’ll stop there, thank you very much, Lorna. I’m going to turn now to Claire, Claire Dorian from the Stock Exchange, both to introduce yourself and answer that question about the single most critical investment priority. Thank you, Katherine, and delighted to be here and it was great because we hosted a market open just over the road at the Stock Exchange to kick off this.

5:20 – 6:02

So really pleased that we can also be part of the conversation today. So. So I head Sustainable Finance in our markets division at the London Stock Exchange Group. So that is the division that is home to the London Stock Exchange PLC and FX business and post trade and clearing. But we are as a group, much bigger footprint, a bigger carbon footprint, but also a bigger footprint that we have as an organization supporting across the data spectrum and understanding ESG data, carbons emissions data, right the way through to Russell and index design.

6:02 – 7:11

That is done around, say, for example, Climate tilted indices. But my part of the business that I’m responsible for is very much focused on how are we supporting those early stage businesses that are looking to raise capital to be able to list on the London Stock Exchange markets, whether that’s raising green finance or whether it’s actually some of the businesses that we do have on our markets that are in heavy emitting sectors that are transitioning to the low carbon economy. How do we support them in terms of raising finance to transition to the low carbon economy? But also another bit important piece around the work that we do is that engagement with policymakers and regulators and governments around what are some of those reporting requirements and regulations that increasingly companies are being required to follow for their investors and stakeholders. And as sort of, as a, as a wider group, a lot of our work is also engagement with asset, asset owners and asset managers.

7:11 – 7:54

So we have a really important role in being able to sort of sit at the heart of that market and how we can convene all those different customer groups around this. From answering the question, I try not to say exactly what Lorna said, to be honest, because I think, you know, you can answer this and think about it from a couple of points of view. Actually, you know, a single critical is really hard to land on a single critical investment piece. I think some of that starting point, and I think, Catherine, you were alluding to it in your opening remarks, is actually how are we bringing different sources of capital together united around this? It isn’t about public capital over here on one side, private capital over on another.

7:54 – 8:17

Actually I think the priority piece is the sources of capital coming together to solve some of the real world problems that we’re facing today. And then that can be applied into energy efficiency in transportation. Absolutely. Renewable energy, greening supply chains. I think there are so many different components of this to look at.

8:18 – 9:04

I think absolutely. If we were to think of an industry through it, through the lens of an industry sector, then transportation is really important for all of the many reasons, Lorna, that you said in terms of electric vehicles and sort of the opportunity piece there. But I think we need to not lose sight of the bigger world problems and sort of the different dynamics that different cities will in turn face. And really it’s about how can we support innovation, how can we support growing the businesses that are trying to get us to net zero and making sure that they have the infrastructure to be able to scale and grow and to stay here in the UK as well. Great, thank you.

9:04 – 9:25

And some of those themes we will want to explore in A minute and thank you for the market opening this morning, which was great, great way to start the day. Mete, over to you now. Yeah, firstly, thank you, Catherine and thank you to connect to Place Summit for inviting me. My name is Mete Coban, I’m the Deputy Mayor of London for Environment and Energy. It’s great to see so many friends in the room.

9:25 – 10:30

I think, firstly, it’s really important from a London perspective. The Green transition for us is an opportunity to think about how we fundamentally redistribute wealth to working class communities and actually how we redistribute wealth across our city to make sure that the benefits of the green transition and of net zero is really tangible and means real things to people and it uplifts every single Londoner and it’s a matter of social, racial and economic justice for lots of us in Londoners. So for me, the biggest challenge, you know, when we look at some of the, I guess the global context of, you know, the conversation around net zero and I know, you know, there was an intervention yesterday too, you know, this isn’t just a something that we have to do. This is something that fundamentally is a huge opportunity for so many of our communities and this whole agenda of growth we green, you know, it shouldn’t be growth v green actually you can get growth green and it’s about how do you make it really tangible to communities. So, you know, for example, Lorna was talking about what we’re doing around retrofit and what we need to do around retrofit.

10:30 – 11:14

You know, that is fundamental to our mission in London because right at the heart of it, that’s really helping support Londoners around their energy bills during a time of cost of living, helping create more jobs, but at the same time helping us also reach our environmental ambitions. And it’s the question about, you know, not to repeat a lot of what’s really being said, but the key, what we need to see in London and I guess in the UK is how do you really drive and accelerate the scale question. Right. You know, we’ve got really good examples of things that are happening in transport decarbonisation and what we’re doing around, you know, the rollout of zero emission buses. We’ve got more zero emission buses in London than you have buses in Manchester, for example, and it’s the largest fleet in Western world.

11:14 – 11:55

You know, the rollout of EV chargers across the city to on retrofit. We just announced warmer homes London, which can really increase 22,000 homes across the city, which is really bringing Together all of the boroughs on collective action to really end the sort of the bidding wars that previously existed with the way the money was allocated from central government. So there’s lots of things we can do. I guess the challenge for us is, is we’ve got really good pockets of examples of things happening. The question is now is how do we get that pilots and examples into scale in a way that really sends the right signals to the market and really drives the investment that both Claire and Lorna has been talking about.

11:56 – 12:20

Thank you. And I’d like to stay with you for a second, Matte, and ask you what the biggest barriers London faces when trying to attract investment into net zero projects and how public finance could help unlock more private capital. Yeah, that’s a great question. I think, you know, again, just to really build on what I was saying, I think it’s the scale question. I think partly the biggest barrier that we face in London is.

12:20 – 12:57

And what we’ve seen, unfortunately, and not to make this a sort of a political sort of point, but, you know, I think partly the problem has been over the last 10, 15 years is that we haven’t had the right framework to give the confidence to the private sector to invest or people knowing that, you know, when they do invest, it’s actually feeling as part of a wider mission. And that’s why, you know, in London we have a 2030 target for net zero. We think that’s important. Of course, it’s a challenge, but it’s important to make sure that we actually, you know, provide the right signals to all of the different industries to be able to sort of make their investments steadily around that. The key challenge for us is, as I say, is the scale question.

12:57 – 13:33

It’s something that I’m working at City hall right now, which is around really thinking around, you know, we’ve got really good pipeline of projects that we’re developing. So, for example, we have something called the Zero Carbon Accelerator from the City Hall. The purpose of the Zero Carbon Accelerator is to develop a pipeline of projects where it was around heat networks, whether it’s around, you know, like energy, wider energy, decarbonisation, all of these interesting projects that we’re developing. The key thing is how do you get away from investments around, you know, like maybe a couple of million there or a couple of million here, and actually make it, you know, much more larger attractable propositions for. For it to be worthwhile for some of our larger players in the.

13:33 – 13:46

In the private sector, really. And looking at how do you. How do you use public Sector finance to unlock investment in the private sector too. So that’s something that we’re currently looking at now. And of course, you know, like goes without saying, we need your support.

13:47 – 14:19

You know, this isn’t something that I think government can solve by itself. I think we need the support around that. And hopefully in the summer of this year for London Climate Action Week, we’ll be setting up a Green Investment Summit in London with the aim of really answering that question around how we can really accelerate and drive the £75 billion of investment that we need in London’s green economy to reach net zero by 2030. Yeah, great, thank you very much. And Lorna, let me turn to you because I’m sure you will have views on how public finance could be used more strategically to crowd in private capital for these agendas.

14:19 – 14:51

Yeah, of course. And to be honest, in a nutshell, that is why the Fund has been established by government to be a catalyst, or dare I use their phrase, turbocharged the private investment market. But I would also say in very specific sectors, we are a very small organization and therefore we can’t be all things to all people, which we’ve already heard from the floor this morning. But I think it’s really important to reflect that. So the purpose of our organization is, is twofold.

14:51 – 15:46

It’s to transition to net zero, and it’s also to support and drive growth. And through that, we partner with local government and the private sector already to deploy our capital. And to date, we’ve only been able to do that in infrastructure sectors such as water and waste and digital transport and clean energy. Going forward, as a National Wealth Fund, we will be able to do that more broadly with, for example, the growth industries in the industrial strategy and also government promoted quite strongly before the formation of the Fund, that carbon capture, for example, and ports and green hydrogen and green steel and gigafactories needed more investment. So the additional 5.8 billion we’ve been given as becoming the National Wealth Fund will specifically be going to sectors such as those.

15:46 – 16:21

And I think that’s quite key because what we also must do is crowd it, crowd in on our journey. So we might not always have the private sector with us at the start of our deals. And that’s largely because we are expected to lean in and take more risk. And the point on the risk I couldn’t fail to mention, but it has been said that perhaps as an organization we don’t take enough risk. But actually, compared to a commercial bank, the Fund takes four times the the level of risk of A commercial bank, twice the level of risk of the eib.

16:22 – 16:55

And therefore we actually already are taking quite a lot of risk. But what we would observe is the UK is not very good at taking risk. And actually collectively, to get the level of growth that we’re looking for, we all have to take more risk collectively. And generally we see in deals that it’s a case of, well, who’ll go in first and who will take the most risk and we’ll follow you that old number. Now, we are prepared to do that, we are prepared to go in early, but we must ensure that the private sector comes in behind us.

16:55 – 17:34

So my earlier point around, we’ve done over 45 deals now. We may have deployed 4.5 billion, we’ve brought in over 12 and a half billion of the private sector capital. And that is the key. So that’s three, three times the level of private sector investment that we have made initially. And I think the other point I would raise as well, we’ve heard a bit about grants and I think increasingly government and treasury, our shareholder, are aware that grants are really not necessarily the right answer, because there is no return on a grant, it is spent anyway, whether the project ever happens or not.

17:35 – 18:14

So as a National Wealth Fund, we are working far more closely with government departments to ensure we get a greater return for what money the government does have. So there’ll always be a place for some level of grants, but not necessarily to the level that we’ve seen previously. And actually deploying capital into projects that we’ve commercially kicked the tires on at the start, and we can see there will be revenue generating and there will be affordable and sustainable is undoubtedly going to be the way we have to look at our projects and investments going forward. I’ll stop there, thank you. And your point about risk and we all need to take a bit more risk.

18:14 – 19:15

I think there may also be a question of looking at risk in a different way and it might tie in with Andrew from the last panel, his comment about the need to take a long term outlook. But this is perhaps the subject for another panel because we’ve only got six minutes left and I want to turn to Claire and ask her for a little more on this stock exchange exchange’s role and place here. I mean, how, how does the London Stock Exchange provide listed companies with the opportunity to boost their sustainability credentials? For example, I think, you know, what you were saying about, you know, needing to have that access to capital, that appetite for risk is really, really important. And we see that, you know, in, in the work that we’re doing at the London Stock Exchange because we’re working with companies at potentially quite an early stage and they’re navigating through the different rounds of finance but actually want to sort of set themselves up for that journey of potentially being a listed company in the future.

19:15 – 20:28

But more and more, you know, what we’re doing at the London Stock Exchange is actually being slightly indifferent as to whether a company is public or private. So we’ve been working to create a, the sort of funding continuum as we’ve been calling it is going to be a platform called Pisces that’s will be launched that is about how do we support auctions and activities in the private company space. Because it’s really important that we enable businesses to be able to tap into the right sorts of capital that support them at the right stages, that their development of their evolution and for them to be able to have a voice with investors and for those investors to understand what they might be doing as a business and you know, b, are they sustainable in, in their approach? And I think that sort of sustainability label over, over the years, you know, is, can get slightly confusing, misleading with the whole sort of, you know, greenwashing, green hushing piece always comes out as well. And I think we need to be clear about how we recognize businesses that are on our market.

20:28 – 21:07

So for example, on a business that’s listed on the London Stock Exchange, we could view that through the lens of what does the business actually do. So just as a bit of an example, we have a green economy mark that we provide to companies that are funds or equity issuers that are listed on the London Stock exchange that generate 50% or more of their revenues from green environmental products and services. So that’s not about whether they’re good at esg. That’s very different. There’s different data, there’s different scores, there’s different metrics that are looking at that, you know, heavy emitting sectors on our markets are not necessarily going to get the green economy mark, which I think is absolutely right.

21:07 – 21:34

But I think investors don’t forget. Why do we come up with all of these definitions and labels? In the first instance, it’s often because investors wanted to know this information. You know, when you’ve got 80% of investors looking at ESG credentials in their investment portfolios and their asset allocation, this thing, this matters. And so that’s why we know companies want to be able to articulate, showcase what they’re doing.

21:35 – 22:05

And then there’s, there’s other ways. Obviously I Said looking at lens through ESG and data. But also there’s a lot of ways in which the London Stock Exchange supports raising of debt capital on our markets as well. So there’s a lot of social bonds, sustainability linked bonds, transition bonds that you now see on our markets. And then also, you know, as sustainability has evolved over time, so does the sources of capital need to evolve as well.

22:05 – 22:49

So we now also support companies and funds that are investing in climate change mitigation projects that could generate carbon credits. So that’s another important part of the market and obviously what might come from that, you know, in terms of nature and biodiversity as well. So I think there’s, I think the message is, you know, there needs to be the right sources of capital recognition for issuers so that they can use that in discussions with investors because it is really about how do you articulate your story to get the best sources of capital that are aligned to your business objectives. Thank you. We’ve only got two minutes left.

22:49 – 23:12

I promised I’d get in an audience question. The only question I’ve got on slido is where we have transport projects that offer no financial return but reduced CO2 emissions. Where do we get the funding from when treasury funding always demands a 5 case, 5.0 business case. Now, I think there’s two parts to that. There’s the hoops people have to go through to make the business case.

23:12 – 23:34

But there’s also, how do you finance a project that apparently produces no financial return? And 1 of 30 seconds each. Any answer to that, Lola? So I think that’s not a new program, not a new problem, sorry for transport. I think it’s quite an old problem for transportation.

23:35 – 24:24

So I think DFT have been grappling with it for a long time and I think the private sector for a long time have been quite keen to be more involved actually with transport projects than they have been to date. So from our perspective, we’re working very closely with public sector local government organizations to make sure that actually their transport projects are structured in a way that they are more attractive to the private sector, that they are optimized and therefore, for example, the balance of risk is, is clear. And it’s not just all sitting with the private sector that will get the private sector to the table more quickly than anything else today. And I think also working closely with DFT in particular to ensure that collectively as a market we can push and get these forwards progressing projects. Progressing is key.

24:24 – 24:25

Thank you. Anything, Claire?

24:28 – 25:02

No, I think the reality is that it comes back to risk. I think, doesn’t it? There has got to be that recognition that in order to grow to scale, there has got to be an element of risk that is taken and perhaps we need to follow other countries examples of being able to allow us to fail and because ultimately will succeed. Yeah. And there may also be something linking in with what you just mentioned about carbon credits and looking at what a financial return is and what is an alternative sort of return if fund structures mete.

25:02 – 25:29

I’m sorry, what would you like to add? I mean, I’ll just be 10 seconds. I think with all of this conversation that we’re having, I think fundamentally the one thing that we mustn’t forget is that everything we do ultimately is about people’s livelihoods and the impact it has on people. We’ve got this huge ambition and the climate emergence that we know we need to really accelerate pace on. But at the same time, what we need to be very cognizant of is that what we don’t want to do is end up doing two communities and leaving communities behind.

25:29 – 25:55

So I think there needs to be a conversation in all of this wider conversation around how we drive investment around how do we actually make sure that communities are at the real heart of shaping off their neighborhoods and how do we actually take them along and really co produce, co design and create that sense of shared ownership of what we’re trying to create in terms of a much more prosperous and thriving economy that really works for everyone. Great, thank you. I said we didn’t have long enough with this panel. I think we’ve proved it. They’ve been a great panel.

25:55 – 25:57

Can we give them a round of applause?

Spotlight on the West Midlands

Join us for this insightful spotlight panel session focussing on trailblazing in the West Midlands as we unearth the benefits of partnering with a place, and illustrate how collaborative coalitions of public and private sector partners can drive high impact at a regional, national and international level.

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