Business News
Birmingham tops the list for start-up businesses
Paper prize: Outgoing editor Keith Harrison with the Express & Star’s award
Star shines at media awards
The ‘Express & Star’, ITV Central and BBC ran out the big winners at the annual Midlands Media Awards. Not only did the
Wolverhampton-based ‘Express & Star’ capture the Newspaper of the Year accolade, but journalist Alex Ross won News Reporter of the Year (Daily), while Tim Spiers and Tim Thursfield collected the Sports Reporter of the Year and Photographer of the Year categories, respectively. An investigation into Asian
grooming by ITV’s Balvinder Sidhu took the honours in the Story of the Year category, while colleagues Mark Gough (Business Journalist), Andy Bevan (Features Journalist), Stacey Foster (Television Journalist) and Awo Tarabi (Newcomer of the Year) were also winners. BBC captured four of the
top honours – Online/Digital (Caroline Lowbridge), Campaign (BBC WM), Radio (Adrian Goldberg) and The President’s Award (Jonathan Gibson). The awards, sponsored by
HSBC UK, Birmingham City University and creative agency Bareface, were organised by event management company 7Loco on behalf of Birmingham Press Club. Hosts for the event at
Edgbaston Stadium were ITV Central presenter Bob Warman and BBC WM presenter Llewela Bailey. The President’s Award went
to Jonathan Gibson, of BBC West Midlands, while debut entrant Gabrielle Miller took the Blogger/Columnist category with her “Cool as Leicester” contribution.
22 CHAMBERLINK February 2019
Birmingham has once again been named as the number one city outside of London for start-ups. According to StartUp Britain and Centre for
Entrepreneurships, 18,590 start-up firms formed in the city in 2018 - a rise of 9.68 per cent after accounting for distortions. The city performed well above the national average,
which recorded an increase of 4.65 per cent. It is the sixth year that the city has outperformed
other regional cities for the number of start-ups formed. However, London is still far ahead of the rest of the
UK, with 216,204 start-ups formed in 2018, up 5.8 per cent. Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce
president Saqib Bhatti, who is also the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) director for growing businesses and representing SMEs, said: “Greater Birmingham provides the ideal environment for entrepreneurs to thrive. “Beyond our infrastructure and talent pool, the city
and its surrounding areas also have a deep-rooted culture of innovation, creativity and ambition. “With one of the UK’s youngest and most diverse
populations, we can only fulfil the city’s full economic potential if our support for start-ups is as inclusive as possible.
Start-up success: Saqib Bhatti
‘Greater Birmingham provides the ideal environment for entrepreneurs to thrive’
“The GBSLEP and its Growth Hub recently supported
a scheme to provide entrepreneurs in the most deprived parts of the region with tailored advice, which has helped more than 200 small businesses to date.”
Breakfast show gets new presenters
Two new presenters have taken the reins of BBC WM’s breakfast show. Sam Meah and Daz Hale
(pictured), who already presented weekly and daily shows for the radio station, have succeeded Alex Lester who stepped down last month after presenting the breakfast show for nearly two years. Sam said: “I am so excited to be
waking up the WM listeners. I have to warn you, my laugh is infectious, I love to gossip but my music taste is impeccable! “I’m looking forward to having
the best banter with Daz – this is a dream gig for me.”
Daz said: “I am thrilled to move
over to the weekday breakfast show, this really is an honour for me. “You can expect all my usual
antics and fun, along with some serious news from across the West Midlands and of course lots of local chat with some music thrown in. I can’t wait to get stuck in with Sam.” Sarah Harness, editor of BBC
WM, said: “I’m thrilled with the new show. Sam and Daz are going to be an absolute treat for listeners – they’re a
dream combination together. Sam’s delighted to get back to her roots and alongside Daz it’s going to be a laugh a minute.”
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