BUSINESS WEST - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chartered Accountant
- Director
- Member of the Board
Ade Adebayo is a Chartered accountant with many years' experience in audit and assurance roles in practice with the Big 4 and financial services organisations, specialising in strategy and business transformation.
Ade currently works with Nationwide Building Society where he is responsible for providing assurance over the organisations portfolio of strategic and transformational change activities. In addition, Ade serves as an Independent Member of the Audit Committee of the Bristol City Council.
Ade enjoys coaching, mentoring and inspiring individuals to becoming the best version of themselves. He lives in Bristol with his wife and kids.
Andrea's role is to lead & direct the HR strategy to deliver an exceptional service and support to the Company and external clients in order to foster true employee engagement and drive high people performance, ensuring this is in line with the business objectives and aims. Andrea has over 20 years HR experience and has been with Business West for 10 years.
Andrew is a Business Skills Advisor working on the Workforce for the Future Programme. Andrew is passionate about supporting businesses to realise the potential of their staff and breaking down perceived barriers in qualifications and skills. Andrew has worked for multiple training providers for 10 years and now applies his knowledge and insight to ensure that businesses fully understand the positive impacts developing a workforce can have on a business, without the confusing language. Andrew enjoys the challenge of marrying up the needs of a business against the current skills landscape.
Barry is a Business Skills Advisor currently working on the Workforce for the Future programme, which supports businesses in all aspects of workforce development including recruiting and retaining staff, upskilling, working with schools and colleges and building a company brand. He works on the core support programme but leads on a sector specific Workforce for the Future programme supporting resilience in Adult Social Care businesses.
Claire Bedding is a Business Skills Advisor working on the Workforce for the Future programme.
Claire joined the team from UCAS, where she was Apprenticeships lead, having previously managed the UK delivery of Apprenticeships at Screwfix. She works with businesses across the West of England, helping empower their workforce with enhanced skills and capabilities, through tailored advice and workforce development packages. Claire uses her learning and development experience from large commercial organisations to accelerate support for West of England regional businesses, helping them to understand their critical organisational skills gaps, how to organise apprentices, trainees and interns, as well as signposting them to educational courses.
Her passion is supporting young people and accelerating them towards opportunities to improve their futures. Claire is also a Board Director of a 17 school Multi Academy Trust and a lead IQA.
Job Titles:
- Engineer
- Member of the Board
- Scientist
- Chief Executive of the YTL UK Group
- Chief Executive Wessex Water - Director
Colin Skellett is a scientist and engineer by training and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has worked largely in the water industry and was appointed Chief Executive of Wessex Water in 1988.
Colin is currently Chief Executive of the YTL UK Group that includes Brabazon new town and Arena Complex at Filton, Wessex Water, YTL's UK Hotels, GENeco and a number of retail businesses.
He has had non-executive roles in rail, travel and international infrastructure businesses, served on the Board of the South West Regional Development Agency and is involved with a number of charities. Colin was also Chair of the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership from 2011 until the beginning of 2016.
Colin was awarded an OBE for services to business and WaterAid in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours and has Honorary Doctorates in Engineering from the Universities of the West of England and Bristol.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Board
Jack worked for Johnson Matthey for over 20 years, retiring from his role as technology strategy director in 2016. His career has led him to be involved in a variety of business-led and government task forces and advisory groups focusing on business/economic benefits of environmental sustainability.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Chief Executive SS Great Britain Trust - Director
Matthew has worked in the heritage sector for some 25 years. Formerly he worked for the Scottish Fisheries Museum and National Museums Liverpool.
He was appointed as Director & Chief Executive of the ss Great Britain Trust in 2000. The project, completed in 2005, was awarded the Gulbenkian UK Museum of the Year Prize 2006, the England Large Visitor Attraction of the Year 2007, and the European Museum of the Year's Micheletti Award for Best Industrial/Technology Museum.
In 2010 Matthew led the project to create the new Brunel Institute learning and archive centre in Bristol, incorporating the National Brunel Archive. In 2018 the new Being Brunel Museum opened on site and has been awarded best Exhibition in the UK prize. Shortly after the SS Great Britain was awarded the European of the Year Portimao Prize for the most Welcoming Museum in Europe.
He is an Honorary Vice President of the Association of Independent Museums, and in 2019 he was awarded the HMS Victory Medal by the Society of Nautical Research. He is also a member of the Canal & River Trust Museum Advisory Board and has advised on many other museum projects. He is a Trustee for Bristol Old Vic Theatre and is a Non-Executive Director of Visit West and the Bristol Chamber of Commerce and Initiative. He chairs the Bristol Harbourside Forum and is a Vice President of the Underfall Trust.
He was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Bristol in July 2015 in recognition of his work to turn the SS Great Britain into one of the region's finest landmarks.
Emma plays a vital role in shaping and delivering our long-term strategy, putting our current and prospective business members at the heart of everything we do. Ensures the Business West membership team is integrated, working cohesively across all member levels and through the local chambers of the Business West region. All with the aim of achieving our wider company purpose of backing and serving business and making a material positive impact on inclusive and environmentally sustainable business growth for the social and economic success of the region.
Job Titles:
- Marketing Manager
- Marketing Manager - Contracts
Fay is a Marketing Manager at Business West, currently working on Workforce for the Future, as well as other projects. Fay works closely with the skills team, other delivery partners and the West of England Combined Authority, to plan and implement marketing campaigns to promote Workforce for the Future to SMEs in the West of England.
With a range of experience across a variety of industries, Fay has worked in marketing for over 10 years and completes a range of tasks, from promoting our latest events or sending out email campaigns, to writing case studies and creating marketing collateral.
Fiona is a Business Skills Advisor working on the Workforce for the Future Programme. The programme provides fully funded workforce planning for SMEs to help them attract, recruit, and retain their workforce. Fiona has worked in skills and employability for many years, mainly within the private and third sectors. She is passionate about helping businesses navigate the skills landscape to grow their business and upskill their workforce.
Job Titles:
- Programme Coordinator
- Project Manager
Hannah is a Programme Coordinator and Project Manager working on the Workforce for the Future programme. Hannah supports the Business Advisors and oversees the overall strategy, progress and outputs of the programme.
After studying Film Studies and Journalism at University and going travelling, Hannah gained experience in apprenticeship coordination before joining Business West. Hannah is motivated by working on projects that help young people fulfil their aspirations.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Swindon Initiative
The Chamber's Director, Ian Mean is an experienced business writer who has held several editorial positions at a number of the county's local newspapers, and who knows everybody who is anybody and everything there is to know about business in Gloucestershire.
Jacquie is an Events Coordinator, working with the skills team at Business West. She helps the team plan and coordinate events that are held as part of the Workforce for the Future programme, from initial set up and organising speakers, to running the event on the day and sending follow up emails.
Job Titles:
- Director of Commercial Services
James leads on our commercial activities supporting the business community, a Chartered Marketeer with an MBA from the University of Bath combined with 25 years practical business experience in a variety of sectors, within both FTSE 100 and SME companies.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Commercial Lawyer Clark Holt - Director
Jeremy Holt is a commercial lawyer. He co-founded Clark Holt, Commercial Solicitors in Swindon.
He has written three books on IT law and lectures widely on the subject.
He co-founded the first specialist computer museum in the country.
He is a keen runner and swimmer.
Job Titles:
- Director of Responsible Business
Jessica works with the Managing Director and Exec Board to implement the company's vision and strategic direction. She leads on aligning and linking operations to meet Business West's leadership and service goals, acting as a catalyst for continuous improvement measures and projects so that Business West can best deliver outstanding customer experience.
Job Titles:
- Finance Director
- Member of the Board
Jo is responsible for helping to set the financial direction of the company, ensuring strong financial controls and sound financial viability. A key part of her role is to provide quality financial and management information to managers, the Board and contracting agencies. She's also responsible for supporting managers and helping to structure project activity in the best financial way.
Job Titles:
- Skills - Business Skills Adviser
Lizzie has worked at Business West since 2014 and since 2022 has been Head of Skills Delivery. Her background is in skills support, having supported businesses to identify and address their skills and training needs for a number of years.
Lizzie now oversees the delivery of skills support programmes across Business West. Currently this involves the delivery of three projects under Workforce for the Future which focus on workforce development planning, building resilient workforces within the adult social care sector and offering tailored HR support to SMEs.
With a background as a business skills adviser for many years previously, Lizzie has been fortunate enough to have worked across many sectors including tourism and hospitality, retail, food and rural economy, professional and financial services, creative and tech industries and construction.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Board
Martin enjoys family activities with his 2 children, Camping, Running, Surfing, gold and is a Bath Rugby Fan.
Job Titles:
- External Communications Director
Mary brings extensive experience of sales and marketing in businesses of all sizes - from start ups to MSBs - across a variety of sectors in the UK, USA and Ireland. She is responsible for Business West's marketing, PR & communications strategy, ensuring that all businesses in the region are aware of, and take up the services available to help them start up, grow, innovate and trade overseas. Proud of Business West's reputation as the ‘go to' organisation for all business issues, Mary helps to identify members' concerns which are fed into government to be taken on board when key decisions are being made.
Matt is Director of Policy at Business West, responsible for listening to and representing the concerns of the wide range of our business members. He is a specialist in economic policy and has a long history of economic and business research and work in government affairs. He has written reports for the Prime Minister on improving England's economic performance, reports on improving city growth and several high profile housing reports.
Matt also worked for several years as a trade specialist supporting emerging market economies on trade negotiations at the World Trade Organisation and in European Union bilateral negotiations and as an advisor for the G33 and G90 group of countries. He has written and been quoted in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Times and the BBC and has written articles for International Affairs and the Princeton Encyclopaedia of the World Economy.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Board
Nicky joined Swindon-based GWE in July 1991 and was Chief Executive until March 2005, then Chair until April 2008, when GWE Holdings merged with Business West to form GWE Business West Ltd. Outside of work she is a founding member of the Swindon Cares Fund Raising Appeal. She is active in the Rotary Club of Swindon, a Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Wiltshire and in 2018/19 was the High Sheriff of Wiltshire.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Leader
- Member of the Board
With a track record of company and business sector turnarounds, he brings proven strategic, commercial and innovation skills to Business West along with his start up and entrepreneurial flair. He has an interest in customer insights and experience, from implementing customer segmentation and analytics to developing company-wide customer experience improvement programmes.
Peter is an experienced leader with a particular focus on talent development and driving employee engagement.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director
- Member of the Board
From 1983 Phil worked in the North Sea oil & gas fields as an offshore construction engineer for an American oil company. The stagnating North Sea oil industry of the late 80's led Phil to do an MBA at London Business School and University of California Berkeley, which was followed by a role as a mergers and acquisitions specialist at a City of London investment bank. Phil moved to Bristol in the early 90's to become CEO of the West of England Business Link. In 2003 Phil took on his current position as MD of Business West, the largest Chamber of Commerce in the UK, and a public purpose company, which operates the West of England Initiative and the Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire and Swindon & Wiltshire Chambers of Commerce. It also operates various public sector contracts, including Innovate UK services for the SW region. Business West is the co-founder of Destination Bristol and the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership. Phil is Chair of the South West Ventures Fund Advisory committee and sits on the Court of Bristol University.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Board
Poku is an award-winning social entrepreneur with a passion for levelling the playing field for low income and ethnic minority groups.
He is the founder and CEO of Babbasa - the first black-led social enterprise to win the prestigious Queens Award For Enterprise (Social Mobility) in 2020, for transforming the lives of over 2,200 ethnic minority young people in the UK. He is also the co-founder of The Black Professionals Network and Founding Curator of the World Economic Forum initiative - Bristol Global Shapers Hub.
As an African migrant with lived experience of race and class challenges, Poku also advocates and advises on social mobility, equal opportunity and inclusion, through talks, consultancy work and on key strategic boards including Business West (Chambers of Commerce), City Office (Children & Young People Board), WECA (People & Skills Board) and UWE Business School.
In 2018 the Queen honoured Poku with an invitation to Buckingham Palace for his contributions to the Commonwealth diaspora. In 2019 he was awarded the Lord Mayor's Medal for his service to Bristol communities and named 'Person Of The Year' at the Southwest regional MTM Awards event. In 2021, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Poku holds a BSc in Psychology, MSc in Business Management from UWE and an Advanced Project Management Certificate from Oxford University
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Board
- Private Sector Representative to the West of England LEP Investment Award Panel
- UK Cities Director
Richard is currently the UK Cities Director leading the ARCADIS Big Urban Clients strategic initiative, focused on delivering competitive advantage for cities. In the UK their key cities are London, Manchester and Birmingham, focusing on mobility, resiliency and regeneration, their ambition is to improve the quality of life.
Richard is also a nominated private sector representative to the West of England LEP Investment Award Panel.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Board
- Regional Managing Director for Bristol
Sarah is the Regional Managing Director for Bristol, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Somerset for Trinity Mirror plc. Her first managing directorship was at the Bath News & Media group where she spearheaded the revolutionary change that saw the Bath Chronicle newspaper become the first in the country to convert from being a daily title to a weekly in response to market needs. The success of the transformation helped the business to transform into a modern media company with not only a thriving weekly newspaper but also a strong and successful website.
Sarah's role then grew to incorporate a series of successful weekly titles throughout Somerset and Dorset before she added Gloucestershire Media with its two first class daily newspapers to her management portfolio in 2009. More recently in January 2013 Sarah's role expanded to include Bristol News & Media with two further excellent daily titles. Sarah now is in charge of hundreds of staff across three counties, producing dozens of thriving titles and websites to a weekly audience of hundreds of thousands.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Board
Simon worked at Planning and Design Consultancy Barton Willmore and was Partner there for 10 years. Locally, he had overall responsibility for the work of its planning team as well as being directly involved in a wide range of projects. He acts as lead consultant in major housing, mixed use and commercial development proposals. He has appeared as an expert witness at numerous Local Plan Examinations and Appeals.
Locally he is a non-exec Director on the board of the Bristol Chamber of Commerce and Business West. Nationally he Chair's the British Chambers of Commerce Expert's Planning Group. In addition to this Simon has a number of roles; Master of The Guild of Guardians of Bristol, Chair of the UWE Planning Advisory Board, Chair of the West of England Housing Market Reference Group, a Trustee at The Canynges Society, a member of the Anchor Society and is an honorary fellow of the UWE Business and Law School.