More than 200 business and organisation leaders from across the West Midlands region gathered in Birmingham city centre for a prestigious Coventry & Warwickshire Champions meeting.
The Coventry & Warwickshire Champions scheme unites businesses, organisations and individuals across the area in a powerful network to help develop and promote Coventry and Warwickshire and raise its profile.
This event celebrated five successful years of Champions by outlining its achievements and highlighting its work to a regional audience, as well as exploring the new opportunities for future collaboration across the West Midlands including working with the WMCA.
Councillors John Clancy and Bob Sleigh welcomed guests to Birmingham before keynote speakers Martin Reeves, Chief Executive of West Midlands Combined Authority, Professor Stuart Croft, Vice-Chancellor and President of University of Warwick, and Nick Blofeld of Merlin Entertainment took the stage.
Attendees also heard from three local entrepreneurs whose businesses came to thrive in Coventry & Warwickshire, whilst Paul Noon from Coventry University expanded on why businesses should be investing in the region.
The meeting was closed by Coventry & Warwickshire Champions Chairman, Les Ratcliffe of Jaguar Land Rover, who was recently awarded an MBE for his work with the NSPCC.
Captions:
Photo 1 – left to right - Nick Abell, Coventry & Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership with Fleur Sexton, PET-Xi
Photo 2 – left to right – Martin Reeves, Councillor Bob Sleigh, Les Ratcliffe MBE, Councillor John Clancy, Jonathan Browning
Photo 3 – guests seated for speeches
Photo 4 – Mikey Baxter (left) and Jason Dickins (right) from The Jade Studio, with Paula Deas (centre) from Coventry & Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership
Photo 5 – left to right – Nic Erskine, Coventry & Warwickshire Champions, Chris Southall, Sega Hardlight, Simon Fitzgerald, PET-Xi
Photo 6 – left to right - Ian Harrabin, Complex Development Projects with Larry Priest, BPN Architects
Photo 7 – left to right - Pete Durnell, West Midlands Mayoral candidate with Gurpal Hayre, Moore Stephens LLP
Photo 8 – left to right – Chris Li, Martin Reeves, Professor Stuart Croft, Les Ratcliffe MBE, Chris Southall, Nick Blofeld, Paul Noon, Duncan Spence
Photo 9 – left to right - Rebecca Waterfield, Bourneville College with Ian O’Donnell, Federation of Small Businesses
Photo 10 – left to right - Andrew Dixon, Coventry 2021, with Paul Miles Rogers, PBC Business Recovery