“Northamptonshire is open for business” was the message at a summit attracting more than 200 representatives from county companies.
The annual Northamptonshire Business Summit took place at Kettering Conference Centre yesterday, featuring a keynote speech from 1992 Olympic cycling gold medallist Chris Boardman.
Hosted by Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership (NEP), the event also launch a new round of funding, worth more £260,000, aimed at supporting growth in small and medium-sized enterprises. The INV-ENT initiative will support the creation of 80 jobs and 40 apprenticeships in the county.
Paul Southworth, chairman of NEP, said: “The key message is we are open for business and we are bucking the national trend. There is a lot of energy, optimism and confidence for business here.
“Thanks to the core funding from the county council, we have been able to launch projects which have supported the creation of more than 1,000 jobs, and we have attracted 10 new businesses through inward investment. And we have 1,500 jobs in the pipeline with the people we are talking to.
“We have leveraged £6 million of public funding and £6 million of private money, and add to that the Northampton Alive project and the regeneration project for the town centre.
“The business community really believes in and supports us, and they are grateful for the support NEP is giving them.”
Mr Boardman, winner of Britain’s inaugural gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, took to the stage to explain his own proven methods of achieving personal excellence and building effective teams.
He told the audience about his journey from a non-academic child to an Olympic champion, and said it was “an absolute obsession with being better”.
Mr Boardman also talked extensively about his Boardman Bikes business, and the obsessive attention to detail and hard work of his team.
Mr Boardman said 80 per cent of his life was consumed with supplying the equipment to the Olympic cyclists, who went on to achieve such success at the Olympics in London.
Speaking about his business success, he said: “I think everyone has life lessons and you apply them. I don’t do things until I am interested in them.”
And on the country’s Olympic success, he said: “We’re not quite sure what to do with it! We are used to being the underdog, but we held the games and arguably did it better than anyone else before. I think we can spend a good year enjoying it.”
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